Steve Job was on record saying how he loved Sony. Now Apple has the power for gaming.
Today Sony is trying to get into the PC space.
crazy what if
The reverence that Jobs had for Sony came mostly from the walkman, which he saw as an early, well crafted example of human-machine interaction. Sony's job in the PC space is half-handed at best, with Sony apparently staying far away from simultaneous, cross platform day one releases. Apple silicon has enough power for gaming now, yes, but that solves only one of many problems. Apple's biggest problem is their proprietary Metal API, that no one in the industry knows how to use. They recently announced the Game Porting Toolkit, but that was often misunderstood as a porting tool. It isn't really, it's a tool supposed to show to developers that the Metal porting effort can be somewhat automized - but then you still have to port by hand the API code that the tool did not port well. In that sense, the game porting toolkit doesn't help developers. That a game running on Metal on macOS can run well, is not exactly news. Pretty sure that developers will not use that thing, beyond the two titles Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding that Apple showcased during the announcement.
And what would Apple gain from Sony entering their space? Apple is already the most important, most money making player in the games industry, due to their mobile devices. You could argue that Apple is the only player in the gaming industry that has cracked the formula of making money with GaaS - it's just that it is happening in the mobile space, with Apple bullying any competitor on their platform and demanding ludicrous profit shares from developers. Devs hate it, but have to budge since Android versions don't make money and is often only seen as a marketing effort.
Historically, while Apple was still on Intel, it might have made sense to collaborate with Sony or Microsoft to develop a on the fly emulator for their games. Kinda in historical reference to Connectix' Virtual Game Station, where you would PS1 CDs into your Mac and it would just work. With more complex hardware however I don't think such a concept would have worked.
Apple is well known for half-assed effort in the gaming space, with flashy announcements not being followed up by substantial, long year commitment. And with games available via streaming, this is probably where Apple should put more effort in, since it is the low hanging fruit with the biggest impact for Mac owners interested in gaming. The second low hanging fruit is probably expanding the Apple TV into a more fully features gaming/streaming platform with controller support. Alternatively, try to build an ecosystem + marketing around iOS devices plugged to the TV as a gaming console.
Interestingly, the hope that people had, that with unifying the gaming APIs on iOS and macOS more games would be ported from Apple's mobile platforms to the Mac, has not really come to fruition. I think one of the Asphalt games was the only real example I saw. Metal is available on both, and with Apple silicion you can run mobile apps more easily on macOS. With Metal available on both platforms the effort of a "real" port becomes easier, sure, but problems remain. iOS/iPadOS games are often made for specific display aspect rations, which can't be translated to the Mac. Other problems are post release support on the Mac app store (vs. the mobile store), controller support, cross platform multiplayer (case study: No Mans Sky for Mac, which is actually a solid, native port), monetization, Steam vs. Mac app store etc.
Victor Omega
, don't create pointless threads. If you're going to create a new thread/discussion, put some actual effort into it. This was a waste of everyone's time.
