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Comment by jsheard | Hacker News Reader

> Companies keep pouring into ar/vr billions and no single killer use case to show.

Beat Saber did pretty well but then Apple made a headset that can't even play Beat Saber.

Apple has, somewhere deep in its DNA, an almost pathological aversion to become the Amiga -- a ridiculously capable computer for its time that is mostly known today for games. They've always low-prioritized games and its really shaped the company.

The problem with video games is that publishers want to get on as many platforms as they can, so they have no loyalty to any specific hardware platform, which goes against Apple’s entire modus operandi - Apple wants its 3rd party developers making things only for Apple platforms, so that it’ll be really hard for customers to switch.

The only way to get around that in gaming is to have 1st/2nd party developers (like Nintendo/Sony tend to do), but making games has never been in Apple’s culture. Movies/TV shows are a bit closer to their DNA, and they’ve started producing those with mixed results - games would be a much taller order.

Really should have done with Meta did and grab one talented group to help them do this. And just work on a portfolio of decently fun, professionally made games. Not like Amazon that tried to just jump headfirst into MMOs and pretend you can buy yourself a fun game.

It's much too late in this stage of the industry to just look attractive for exclusives; the industry standardized (compared to a PS1 disc vs a N64 cartridge) and no one's throwing enough money to carry that plan long enough to pay off Like Microsoft kind of did. Not even FAANGs. But it's never too late to just make good games and foster series your platform is known for, like Nintendo.

But then again, Meta just shuttered that studio despite a hit game series from them, so who knows what's going on anymore?

That isn't a problem, exclusives are a common thing in the game industry as old as it exists.

It is always a symbiotic relationship, what is missing, is that Apple doesn't play their part of exclusives like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft do (and SEGA in the past).

it's almost clockwork how they will use games for 1 year to showcase something for their hardware... and then proceed for 3-4 years to de-prioritize it until they need to yet again, show off their hardware.

that cycle came back last year when they used AAA games to showcase the power of the iPhone 15 and for devs, talk more about their porting toolkit. The last cycle was showcasing the M1 chip and Apple Arcade.

Yet these came after they actively fought against Vulkan support (and now they are using some form of MoltenVK to help with their porting tech) and hard blocked several cloud gaming platforms. Things that could have made their job a lot easier (and maybe cheaper).

so I suppose in 2-3 years we'll see Beat Saber working when they get serious with VR.

To be fair I am still waiting for a WebGL 2.0 game that can match the Infinity Blade they used to show off OpenGL ES 3 capabilities.

I think it relates to how both Steves worked for Atari during their early career, and probably imposed they point of view on the culture.

Other than that their only attempt was the failed Pippin, so yet another reason to hate games, other than those on iDevices, bringing money home.

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