iPhone 15 Pro Max AAA Gaming

[Peter Abs]

Is/was anybody else excited about AAA games on the iPhone 15 pro max?

As a busy dad of young kids who wouldn’t really get away with having a console (not that I’m a huge gamer) I absolutely loved the idea of playing AAA games on the 15 pro max, have a wireless charging stand and a PS5 controller and it’s been great to sneak a bit of gaming when time allows. It’s been great with HDMI out to TV too but the iPhone screen is fine once you’re using a controller.

I got RE Village and RE4 immediately once available and looking forward to Assassins creed but it seems to be taking forever and things have generally cooled off with 0 news of AAA games on iPhone anymore. Any thoughts?

Really hope this takes off, but gut feeling is it might be dead in the water….

 

[decafjava]

Well as I have a Netflix account I got Rainbow 6 Smol which is actually very intense for being a cartoony version of a Rainbow 6 and quite fun. I also have Genshin Impact (don't laugh) and it runs a lot better than on my 7 plus and even then my 13 PM, was thinking of Honkai Star Rail as well. The issue is all the garbage F2P (pay to win) titles out there and the difficulties in porting or designing AA games for touchscreen.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple's competitors put up enormous money to subsidize AAA game development and that market is well trained to pay more than a dollar or two for them, accept in-app advertising/purchases vs. our Apple crowd who wants everything for a buck or two max... the whole game. With Apple not willing to throw money at developers, buy studios, etc- like the established AAA game competitors and with most Apple customers not willing to pay much for the few games that do arrive, why should developers feel much motivation to develop AAA for Apple? There's simply far more sure money and lucrative revenue building them for the established platforms.

However, there is a way to get what you want:

1. Get yourself a good Nvidia-based gaming PC to unlock a very big (and immediately available) world of AAA games,
2. install the Moonlight app on that iPhone (or iPad or AppleTV), then
3. stream the AAA games to your Apple devices.

I didn't think this would work nearly as good as it does. And it works NOW... and delivers them games NOW.

Else, what we need to see is Apple allocating sizable cash and talent like they have in pursuit of being Netflix Jr. Jr. or maybe Netflix Boutique. When they set aside AppleTV+ budget and dedicated talent on gaming instead of seemingly using a "build it [the hardware] and they will come" strategy, AAA games especially for Mac will come... like new exclusive movies & tv shows keep flowing for AppleTV+.

Most simply: "talk/spin is cheap" but money talks.

 

[OceanWraith]

I think mobile phones aren't suitable for playing games. Of course, I'm not talking about simple mobile games. AAA games should be played on the computer.

 

[Pakaku]

I'd honestly rather see high-end gaming focus on the Mac. I don't really see the limits of the iOS ecosystem being appealing to me for games, or the whole "controller attachment" setup with phones.

As for portable gaming, I prefer my Steam Deck. It's big and heavy, but at least it's still a proper "laptop" with a hands-off OS, and can even run non-Steam games.