The Apple console: a pipe dream or a real possibility?

The Apple console

For years now there has been speculation on the possible arrival of Apple in the world of gaming consoles. Many see the Cupertino company, together with other giants such as Amazon and Google, as potential competitors of the major players in the gaming world. Also for this reason, in recent months we have seen how Microsoft and Sony have already taken shelter, going to finalize some important acquisitions, which could guarantee greater security to their position on the market. For example, the Redmond giant has completed the acquisition of Zenimax and announced that it is also close to completing the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, two giants that seemed far from easy to absorb within a more great.

Sony has responded with recent signings from Bungie and Haven Studio, the team of Jade Raymond. But what is it that really scares these companies?

Today we are going to investigate the case of Apple, trying to analyze the position it currently holds in the video game market and how it could expand in the future. In particular, we will study the hardware and software evolution it is carrying out and how these changes could lead Apple to move further into the gaming sector. In short, we have prepared a lot of meat on the fire and we can't wait to read your comments on the subject as well.

Ready? Let's go!

Gaming according to Apple

Apple Arcade on all compatible Apple devices Apple does not have a real game console and does not develop or produce video games. So how does it manage to be one of the protagonists in this market? While not having a device dedicated exclusively to the use of video games, the Cupertino company produces many that can be used as game consoles. Apple has approximately 1.8 billion active devices in the world, most of which are iPhones, iPads and Macs. A truly impressive number, because each of them can have access to the video game library on the App Store. Apple then offers its customers the video games created by other developers, taking part in the profit. The installed base is huge and cannot be compared to any other manufacturer in the world. Apple can therefore define itself as a pillar of mobile gaming and although it is still far from the "classic" video games such as the most famous triple A, in fact it competes in the same market: the videogame one.

In addition, Apple has been launching its Apple Arcade service for some years now. With a monthly cost, this subscription gives you access to a catalog of carefully selected (and in some cases even created) video games for this distribution method. The offering represents further revenue from Apple, which is only set to increase in the future.

So Apple consoles already exist, only they don't function exclusively as gaming machines. But for all intents and purposes, they can be used as such. What is actually the difference between a Nintendo Switch and an iPhone or iPad Mini, properly equipped with a controller to make the gaming experience better?

Apple is superior to Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and Xbox logos Reading the title of this paragraph, many may be amazed. That Apple is a bigger company than Sony and Nintendo I don't think anyone has ever doubted. Though slightly and on and off, the Cupertino-based firm manages to beat even Microsoft in terms of market capitalization, so its supremacy over these competitors is evident. What may not be expected is that Apple's gaming earnings will outstrip the revenue of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. And beware: not only Apple individually exceeds the earnings of the three companies, but even putting together the revenues of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, they fail to reach Apple's revenue in the gaming market. Wanting to give some numbers, in 2019 Apple with video games grossed 8.5 billion dollars, 2 billion more than the total revenues of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Gaming market revenue graph, where you can see the importance of mobile This figure in itself is pretty impressive. As if that were not enough and as we have already said, the installed base of devices is infinitely greater than the consoles sold by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. But let's see where Apple's gaming revenue is generated from. There isn't much to analyze here, as the main source of revenue has a single name: App Store. Apple's digital store records impressive video game revenue year after year. Several lawsuits have been opened on Apple's "monopoly" regarding digital stores, the most important being the one with Epic Games. Given the results that the Cupertino company is grinding towards its main competitors, it is reasonable to expect a reaction of this type from competitors. Wanting to go into detail, there are three types of revenues: those deriving from the purchase of games in the App Store, those relating to in-game microtransactions and subscriptions to Apple Arcade. This latest service from Apple is enjoying considerable success and according to the latest research, it could soon reach an annual profit of about 4.6 billion dollars.

Apple Silicon, a new era

Steve Jobs on stage to present the first iPhone in 2007 Back in 2007 when Steve Jobs took the stage to present the first, revolutionary iPhone, he quoted an important phrase said by Alan Kay:

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. "

Anyone who is really interested in software should make their own hardware.

Apple has shown over the years to be particularly attached to this philosophy of research and development. Thanks to in-house designed chips, the iPhone and iPad are undoubtedly the best performing smartphone and tablet in the world. The Mac line has recently been added to this group of products made entirely in-house, with the transition to Apple Silicon. By abandoning the classic Intel processors and AMD or NVIDIA graphics cards, Apple has shown that it can exceed the performance offered by other manufacturers (market leaders), creating a dedicated SoC for its computers from scratch. Certainly not an easy task, but given the results obtained with the M1 chips (especially in the Pro, Max and Ultra versions), Apple can only be satisfied.

Apple's M1 Ultra processor technical specifications But why is Apple Silicon so important for video games? Well, these chips are the leaders in the global market in terms of performance per single watt of power consumed. This means that there is no better hardware on which to run a video game on the go. Attention, we have deliberately only mentioned the hardware, because we will talk about the software later. The part of the chip dedicated to the graphics cores, the one that mainly interests us gamers, is truly monstrous when compared with the competition. We remind you that we are talking about integrated graphics cards, not discrete chips. There is currently no ultrabook or laptop running Windows that can rival this power when it comes to integrated graphics cards. Furthermore, the best performing versions of these chips, even in the desktop version, are able to compete even with the best discrete graphics cards available on the market. For example, the new M1 Ultra SoC has comparable performance with NVIDIA's RTX 3090 GPU, according to the analysis shared by AnandTech.

This means that Apple actually has all the necessary hardware to be able to play any type of video game on its platforms, both mobile and fixed. All this Apple produces directly in house and has excellent potential to grow in the future. We are in fact only the first generation of Apple Silicon chips, so who knows what the future might still hold. In fact, on the graphics front, upscaling technologies such as NVIDIA's DLSS (or AMD's counterpart) and Ray Tracing are still missing, which now represent a standard for modern triple A video games. Who knows if Apple will also invest in these aspects to make its hardware more attractive.

The software problem

Tomb Raider on Apple's new MacBook Pro It is not enough to have powerful hardware to be capable of playing video games. You also need properly optimized software to take advantage of this hardware. History has already shown us how fundamental this is. Just take a few steps back and return to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era, where the Sony console undoubtedly had superior hardware, but which the developers struggled to take full advantage of. We know that very few video games are optimized and consequently released natively on macOS (therefore in general on the App Store). The ones that are there, however, run really well on the new Apple Silicon and most of them haven't even been optimized for this hardware. But we can tell you more: the new Apple Silicon is so powerful that it is able to emulate a Windows system (or use the native Rosetta 2 emulator) and at the same time guarantee excellent performance in video games. Below we want to leave you some benchmarks, just to give you a more detailed idea of ​​the performance of an M1 Max chip.

Cyberpunk 2077 on Apple's MacBook Pro

Baldur's Gate 3: Apple native game Silicon runs at 120 FPS in 1440p (High Settings) Metro Exodus: emulated game with Rosetta 2 runs at 80 FPS in 1440p (High Settings) Shadow of the Tomb Raider: emulated game with Rosetta 2 runs at 76 FPS in 1440p (High Settings) Resident Evil 3 Remake: started on Windows emulated by macOS it runs at 42 FPS in 2160p (High Settings) Dark Souls 3: started on Windows emulated by macOS it runs at 60 FPS at 1080p (High Settings)

Leaving out the first title, these are truly impressive results, if you consider that the game has not been optimized in the least to take advantage of the hardware on which it is played. And we haven't even bothered with the most powerful chip, the M1 Ultra. Given the already excellent starting result, perhaps some manufacturers will push to bring more triple A video games to Apple platforms, now that the hardware has become powerful enough to support the software.

What could come in the future ?

Apple Arcade Subscription Having made this necessary analysis of the "as-is" situation, as corporate managers like to call it so much, let's see what could expect in the future on the Apple gaming front. We have seen how the hardware with Apple Silicon has all the credentials to support even the heaviest video games. So is it reasonable to expect a home or portable console from Apple? Probably not.

But how, all these words, to then come to this simple conclusion ?! Stop! Now let's try to explain ourselves better.

As mentioned above, Apple's portable consoles already exist and are called iPhone, iPad and Mac. They are not used exclusively for gaming, but this allows Apple to monetize on other fronts, such as the sale of apps, iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV +, Fitness + and so on and so forth. There is also a home "console" made in Cupertino and it is called Apple TV. Also in this case the device has been designed for the use of streaming multimedia content, but it can be used as a game console, thanks to the support for the various controllers.

Xbox Game Pass available via cloud on Apple Allo devices at the same time we are totally convinced that triple A video games can be enjoyed on all Apple devices. In part, they already are, thanks to cloud gaming services such as Game Pass or Google Stadia. However, producers could decide to create optimized versions for Apple devices, and then sell them through the App Store (just as happens now for example with Shadow of the Tomb Raider). When, in a few years, the M1 processors will land on devices like the Apple TV, it will transform itself into a home console, with the same power as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The same power can be found on the iPad and in reduced form also on the iPhone.

We are in fact only at the beginning of the Apple Silicon era and who knows what other improvements await us in the future. Surely the big producers, unless specific agreements with the competition, will not want to miss 1.8 billion potential customers who adopt Apple devices to which they can sell their triple A video games.

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