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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

> I expect Apple to role out its own gaming console by 2nd or 3rd gen. There’s so much potential here. One of the most underrated Apple announcements in a very long time. I haven’t been this excited for Mac since they announced OS X!

I would be shocked if this happened, since Apple has no ecosystem of game developers whatsoever.

Both the newest xbox and the PS5 are for the most part backwards compatible with the massive base of xbox one and PS4 games, since they're a shared x86_64 architecture.

Microsoft has the huge advantage that games can be developed for both windows and the xbox at the same time, with the same libraries. This goes all the way back to the origins of the first xbox which was nearly named the DirectX box.

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There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform. Many of which are offering the full game. Examples that come to mind off the top of my head are Final Fantasy, and the GTA games.

> There are a ridiculous amount of games on the iOS platform

not comparable at all, 95% of them are simplistic games that can be built by a team of 5-10 people, max. they're things in the same general category as candy crush.

there is nothing analogous to horizon zero dawn, or destiny 2, or death stranding, or cyberpunk 2077 on the ios platform. I define that as AAA size games that require significant GPU horsepower, 70GB+ disk space, and a dedicated handheld game controller.

Things are that are not compatible in any user-interface way with fingers on a touchscreen don't really exist for ios.

> I define that as AAA size games that require significant GPU horsepower, 70GB+ disk space, and a dedicated handheld game controller.

Nintendo seems to do just fine with iPad-like (or lower) specs on the Switch. Breath of the Wild is one of the bulkier games, weighing in at ~14GB, Super Mario Odyssey is ~6GB; these are widely acclaimed as some of the best games on any platform.

The majority of money that is made on games in the industry is with "simplistic games"

Most of those are ports; I know FF has some 'native' mobile games, but those are Gacha games optimized for mobile devices - microtransactions, repetitive gameplay, addictiveness abound.

The closest thing Apple has to a games console is Apple TV, and the offerings on there have been... tentative? They have pushed for developers to pick up Apple TV development, but to date, most of the games on there are ports from the other Apple devices.

> I would be shocked if this happened, since Apple has no ecosystem of game developers whatsoever.

Apple is one of the biggest publishers in the market, with over $8bn revenue from games

Games on iOS sold very well but I don't think Apple's game platform/strategy works well.

iPhone as a gaming platform: device sold well, SoC is excellent, RAM is fine, API is fine, users are relatively rich, IAP is easy.

Apple Arcade?

Most Arcade games run on the Apple TV already. Many even require a controller (PS/Xbox/bluetooth).

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