Despite the power of Apple Silicon, the Mac still remains (or at least is perceived as) a lackluster gaming PC. In a February article at Macworld, Dan Moren said that Apple needs a “game czar.” He’s right.
From Dan’s article: Over the years since, Apple’s interest in gaming on the Mac has gone up and down with the times: sometimes the company seems bullish, such as when it announced its Metal framework to replace the Open GL system it had previously relied upon. Other times, keynotes have passed with little fanfare for gaming.
With Apple’s latest Macs, the pendulum has swung back towards the company touting just how good the hardware it offers can be—if only developers embrace the tools Apple offers.
As Dan points out, that’s part of the problem. The tech giant has to enable game developers to use tools beyond those Apple offers.
Again, from Dan’s article: If Apple really wants to change how gaming on the Mac is perceived, what it needs is a game czar: someone who understands and is enthusiastic about gaming, not just pretending to be, and who can back up that enthusiasm with action. To push through these obstacles, Apple needs to actively work with the community of game developers not only to show what the platform has to offer but also, more importantly, listen to what developers need to make Mac gaming a real companion–and competitor–to console and PC gaming.
I’m dubious that Apple will name an exec to promote Mac gaming, but it could happen. In a Feb. 6 TechCrunch interview, Apple Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Bob Borchers that Apple is feeling like the Apple silicon gaming story is getting more solid release by release.
“With Capcom bringing Resident Evil across, and other titles starting to come along, I think the AAA community is starting to wake up and understand the opportunity,” he said. “Because what we have now, with our portfolio of M-series Macs, is a set of incredibly performant machines and a growing audience of people who have these incredibly performant systems that can all be addressed with a single code base that is developing over time.
“And we’re adding new APIs in and expanding Metal in Metal 3, etc. And then if you think about the ability to extend that down into iPad, and iPhone as well, I think there’s tremendous opportunity.”
Borchers acknowledged to TechCrunch that Apple needs to do work to bring game developers along the road to adoption, but he said the company is happy that they’ve shipped the core ingredients in very performant systems. He sayidthat the team has been and will continue to look at a variety of chip configurations and components through that gaming lens as well.
Anyone who games on the Mac should find room for encouragement in the way Apple’s vice president of Platform Architecture and Hardware Technologies Tim Millet, told TechCrunch that the team is focusing here. He said that Apple’s work on cracking the gaming market started with the early days of the Apple silicon transition.
“The story starts many years ago, when we were imagining this transition. Gamers are a serious bunch,” Millet said. “And I don’t think we’re going to fool anybody by saying that overnight we’re going to make Mac a great gaming platform. We’re going to take a long view on this.”
