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Is gaming officially dead on Macs?

S

seek3r

macrumors 68020
Aug 16, 2010
2,276
3,239
Yamcha said:
Is it fair to say gaming is officially dead on Macs? Apple has transitioned to the new silicon on all their products. Does this mean there's no hope for Bootcamp? I really want to buy a MacBook, but not being able to play some of my favourite games from Blizzard is looking like a deal-breaker. Diablo 4 releases soon, but it requires DirectX 12. =/

Would Crossover for Mac work or am I out of luck?
Click to expand...
FWIW I'm actually rather impressed with how well Civ6 runs on my base model M1 Mini. The capability in the AS machines is there. It'd be nice if they supported eGPUs, that would help a lot (along with prices on eGPUs coming down), my 2020 Intel MBA can game pretty nicely with an eGPU over TB3, including in windows, TB4 gives a *lot* more bandwidth for newer cards, but Apple seems determined not to support third party graphics anymore.

I do think we'll see bootcamp for ARM macs eventually though, the main thing holding it back seems to be whatever deal MS has with Qualcom, so hopefully that eventually expires.
 
diamond.g

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
11,126
2,450
OBX
Realityck said:
I am sure a lot of people from the 1994 to 1996 days remember Marathon the original, it would be interesting if for once Apple did invest in a port to help sell AS Macs. As it is now its PC's and consoles supported.
  • Marathon (1994)
  • Marathon II: Durandal (1995)
  • Marathon Infinity (1996)
Click to expand...
Listed as for everything, but macOS. 😢 May launch in 2025, so there is still a chance...
 
H

Homy

macrumors 68020
Jan 14, 2006
2,112
1,961
Sweden
Realityck said:
I am sure a lot of people from the 1994 to 1996 days remember Marathon the original, it would be interesting if for once Apple did invest in a port to help sell AS Macs. As it is now its PC's and consoles supported.
  • Marathon (1994)
  • Marathon II: Durandal (1995)
  • Marathon Infinity (1996)
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean. Marathon trilogy and its engine Aleph One works natively on Apple Silicon. As for Apple investing in ports they did invest in Resident Evil Village, No Man's Sky, Grid Legends and apparently in The Medium and the new Layers of Fear, if not Fort Solis. Furthur I'm sure we'll see some new titles at WWDC.
 
Starfia

Starfia

macrumors 6502a
Apr 11, 2011
945
658
The Nintendo Switch, the third-best-selling console of all time, runs practically no traditional PC games.

Is gaming officially dead on the Switch?
 
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E

Ethosik

Contributor
Oct 21, 2009
7,813
6,715
Starfia said:
The Nintendo Switch, the third-best-selling console of all time, runs practically no traditional PC games.

Is gaming officially dead on the Switch?
Click to expand...
Exactly this. And the Switch doesn't do 4K 1000 FPS like people seem to demand for Macs. Just take a look at Tears of the Kingdom! It dips to 540p at times and dips to 20FPS! Yet the game is simply amazing. Better than any other AAA game out there in my opinion. And it got 10 million sales in three days.

Because if it isn't "4090 or better" quality, Mac is doomed. Yet Switch does just well with severely outdated hardware.

And I bet you, some of the new Sony games announced today (Spider-Man) did not list PC in the platform so I bet it will be a few years before we see them on PC. If the almighty and popular PC platform takes YEARS to get stuff, why do people continue to be so shocked about how Macs get treated? This is not surprising.

Plus the fact that it might take a couple of years to get Final Fantasy XVI out on PC.
www.ign.com

Final Fantasy 16 Is Probably Getting a PC Version, But Not for a Long Time - IGN

Despite lots of back and forth messaging, it looks like Final Fantasy 16 is probably getting a PC version after all — though likely not for a long time.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
 
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dmccloud

dmccloud

macrumors 68030
Sep 7, 2009
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Ethosik said:
Exactly this. And the Switch doesn't do 4K 1000 FPS like people seem to demand for Macs. Just take a look at Tears of the Kingdom! It dips to 540p at times and dips to 20FPS! Yet the game is simply amazing. Better than any other AAA game out there in my opinion. And it got 10 million sales in three days.

Because if it isn't "4090 or better" quality, Mac is doomed. Yet Switch does just well with severely outdated hardware.

And I bet you, some of the new Sony games announced today (Spider-Man) did not list PC in the platform so I bet it will be a few years before we see them on PC. If the almighty and popular PC platform takes YEARS to get stuff, why do people continue to be so shocked about how Macs get treated? This is not surprising.

Plus the fact that it might take a couple of years to get Final Fantasy XVI out on PC.
www.ign.com

Final Fantasy 16 Is Probably Getting a PC Version, But Not for a Long Time - IGN

Despite lots of back and forth messaging, it looks like Final Fantasy 16 is probably getting a PC version after all — though likely not for a long time.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
Click to expand...

SquareEnix also dragged its feet on PC versions of both FF 14 and 15, so that's not exactly a new trend from them. They have been a console-first company going all the way back to FF7 as well.
 
G

GrumpyCoder

macrumors 68020
Nov 15, 2016
2,072
2,650
diamond.g said:
Kids these days don't like single player first person shooters.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say that, it's just that they socialise more via multiplayer games. And don't forget the addiction of drops/chests/skins and whatever, which seems to be very important to some people. They even pay money for some skins. 🤷‍♂️

Starfia said:
The Nintendo Switch, the third-best-selling console of all time, runs practically no traditional PC games.

Is gaming officially dead on the Switch?
Click to expand...
People don't buy the Switch for the performance/quality or traditional PC games. The Switch hardware was outdated when they released it. It is more than outdated now. People buy the Switch for the Nintendo IP, which isn't available anywhere else. Also, the Nintendo IP creates so many sales.. Apple could only dream of for the Mac.

Compare the Switch to the iPhone for which the (mobile) game market is massive. The Switch probably has better (and more expensive) games though.
 
Realityck

Realityck

macrumors G4
Nov 9, 2015
10,222
15,328
Silicon Valley, CA
mi7chy said:
Another reason why Mac gaming is dead since you have to pay for whatever old games that do get released.

On PC it's often free so over the long run cost of ownership is lower.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/fallout-new-vegas--ultimate-edition
Click to expand...
I see some older Mac games free on the Blizzard site as an example. But this is very lopsided since there are so many more PC online examples like the link. Would say this senario would have played out better if Apple hadn't changed platforms periodically. Moto -> PowerPC -> Intel -> ARM. Hoping the stay put for some years now.

Also should add that if Apple wants to market Macs for games they need to raise the baseline storage/memory from 8/256 to 16/512.
 
Realityck

Realityck

macrumors G4
Nov 9, 2015
10,222
15,328
Silicon Valley, CA
diamond.g said:
Kids these days don't like single player first person shooters.
Click to expand...
While there are lots of people that like playing multiplayer because they also socialize when playing there is a fair percentage that like just playing game either in solo campaign or drop in games where many solo player are fending for themselves. I know you are trying to equate this to younger generations like to operate in groups, but it really is a personal preference. Todays games are far removed from the first person shooters that we had decade ago.
 
Realityck

Realityck

macrumors G4
Nov 9, 2015
10,222
15,328
Silicon Valley, CA
maflynn said:
Do they actually work on today's hardware? I mean Apple doesn't let you run 32bit apps any more and many games, especially older games are 32 bit
Click to expand...
Starcraft 2 is an example, never paid for that, but they made it free and it plays on AS Macs fine. It's updated regularly.

Let me add anything currently listed for Mac plays on a AS Mac even if it using Rosetta2.
 
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mi7chy

mi7chy

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2014
10,495
11,155
Aren't those Blizzard games like Overwatch and Starcraft 2 free to play universally and not just Mac?
 
Realityck

Realityck

macrumors G4
Nov 9, 2015
10,222
15,328
Silicon Valley, CA
mi7chy said:
Aren't those Blizzard games like Overwatch and Starcraft 2 free to play universally and not just Mac?
Click to expand...
The start for free games are
  • World of Warcraft - PC/Mac
  • CoD WarZone 2 - PC
  • OverWatch - PC
  • Hearthstone - PC/Mac
  • Diablo Immortal - PC beta/IPadOS
  • Diablo III - PC/Mac
  • StarCraft II - PC/Mac
  • StarCraft Remastered - PC/Mac
  • Hero's of the Storm - PC/Mac
 
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diamond.g

diamond.g

macrumors G4
Mar 20, 2007
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Realityck said:
While there are lots of people that like playing multiplayer because they also socialize when playing there is a fair percentage that like just playing game either in solo campaign or drop in games where many solo player are fending for themselves. I know you are trying to equate this to younger generations like to operate in groups, but it really is a personal preference. Todays games are far removed from the first person shooters that we had decade ago.
Click to expand...
It was more tongue in cheek. Live service games is what Sony (“the market”) is looking to capitalize on (from a recurring revenue perspective). I don’t like the trend, personally, but I can understand why they are doing what they are doing.
 
dmccloud

dmccloud

macrumors 68030
Sep 7, 2009
2,978
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Anchorage, AK
Realityck said:
The start for free games are
  • World of Warcraft - PC/Mac
  • CoD WarZone 2 - PC
  • OverWatch - PC
  • Hearthstone - PC/Mac
  • Diablo Immortal - PC beta/IPadOS
  • Diablo III - PC/Mac
  • StarCraft II - PC/Mac
  • StarCraft Remastered - PC/Mac
  • Hero's of the Storm - PC/Mac
Click to expand...

You left off Warcraft III Remastered from that list. At the same time, of those games, only Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo Immortal, and Overwatch did not require purchase up front. Starcraft II only became F2P in the last few years. Also while the original Starcraft had gone F2P as well, Starcraft Remastered is not. WoW has always required purchasing the base game (at the time of purchase) and subsequent expansions, in addition to paying for game time once the game itself has been purchased.

Realityck said:
While there are lots of people that like playing multiplayer because they also socialize when playing there is a fair percentage that like just playing game either in solo campaign or drop in games where many solo player are fending for themselves. I know you are trying to equate this to younger generations like to operate in groups, but it really is a personal preference. Todays games are far removed from the first person shooters that we had decade ago.
Click to expand...

The reason the studios push games such as Fortnite, PUBG, COD, Overwatch, etc., so much is because they know people will shell out ridiculous sums of money to buy the latest and greatest skin for their character, the best gun in the game, etc. For that segment of the gaming market, the number of people playing is secondary to how much money each person is spending on little collections of 1s and 0s to make their characters look and/or play better.
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre

Spaceboi Scaphandre

macrumors 68040
Jun 8, 2022
3,414
8,095
Ethosik said:
Factorio is on Mac too. I play it all the time.
Click to expand...

Hell the Apple Silicon update is the reason the Switch port exists to begin with, since they already updated the game for ARM it made sense to bring it to Switch since the work was already done.

factorio.com

Friday Facts #371 - Apple Silicon | Factorio

Hello, engineers! I'm a newer face at Wube and have been mainly working on expansion content for about one year now. Today, I'm here to share some exciting non-expansion news for our Mac players.
factorio.com factorio.com
 
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