To say that this year is a great year for gaming would be an understatement. Putting aside the rave reviews of "HIFIRUSH" and "Street Fighter 6" at the beginning of the year, even the recently released masterpiece "Starry Sky" with "mixed reviews" has a favorable rating of nearly 85% on MetaCritic, which was unimaginable in previous years.
access:
Apple Online Store (China)
(Source: MetaCritic)
Because of this, in the past six months, every noon, the company has almost turned into an arcade.
Some are PKing "Street Fighter" locally, some are playing "Baldur's Gate 3" for two weeks, and there are also people like me who have pre-ordered "Starry Sky". While looking at the endless reading messages on the computer, they are reflecting on their own lives and how they got to this point.
And every time like this, there is always one person silently watching the live broadcast of the game anchor, as if he is completely isolated from the world, but he is very conspicuous in a company where almost everyone plays games.
Yes, that person is my colleague Xiao Li, a die-hard Apple fan who uses a MacBook Air.
If you want to ask Apple users what dissatisfaction they have, games must be one of them.
As we all know, the number of "serious games" on Apple devices is so rare that it even makes the industry think that "you can choose MAC when going out for work or video editing, but you must choose Windows devices for playing games."
(Image source: Apple)
What's interesting is that every time we talk about this in front of Xiao Li, he always opens "Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Shadow" to try to prove something.
"Mother Tsomu, who said there are no games to play? This is Tomb Raider. Do you understand Tomb Raider? Soft Maggot is starting to be embarrassing again, right?"
We can only smile a little at this stressful situation.
Look, someone broke through the defense again.
What’s interesting is that even though Apple’s reputation in the gaming circle has dropped to such a low level, they have never stopped thinking about developing the gaming business.
Especially the release of iPhone15Pro seems to make Apple feel like it is doing well again!
In the past two days, the iPhone 15 Pro development team accepted an interview with IGN Southeast Asia. This interview delved into Apple’s gaming ambitions for the iPhone 15 Pro. During the interview, members of the Apple development team even made it clear that they “believe it (the iPhone 15 Pro series) will become the best gaming console.”
(Image source: Apple)
So what was the reaction to this news on social media?
What other reaction could there be? That is of course consistent with what you and I imagined - Apple is almost there.
Domestic netizens left a message saying, "If someone from Apple's development team can say something like this, they must have something dirty in their mind."
(Source: Weibo)
An external netizen said, "I think I can use the money to buy iPhone 15 pro to buy PS5, Xbox S, Switch and gaming computers."
(Source: X)
If nothing else, Apple really wins when it comes to getting global users to reach a consensus.
But, believe it or not, in the long history of history, there was a time when Apple was really close to being the “best mobile portable gaming device”.
And this story has to start from 2011.
(Source: Nokia)
Before 2011, mobile games were a very niche category.
Although non-smartphones at the time were generally capable of running Java games, and Nokia was constantly promoting the development of the N-Gage gaming platform, the weak processor performance and limitations of the T9 keyboard design prevented mobile games from achieving the desired sales volume and could only exist as super-castrated versions of console games.
(Source: N-Gage The Elder Scrolls: Shadow Key, a work that can only run at less than 20 frames)
The birth of iPhone 4S can be said to have completely changed the situation of the mobile game market at that time. The powerful A5 dual-core processor and iOS5 operating system fully unleashed the creative capabilities of many manufacturers and provided players with a rich gaming experience.
"Fruit Ninja", "Angry Birds", "Infinity Blade"...
It seemed at the time that these games with touch-screen intuitive operations as the core completely subverted the traditional button-based console ecosystem, which also made the iPhone the darling of the game market at that time.
(Image source: Infinity Sword)
In addition to these small games, there were even many masterpieces that were comparable to console games.
The leader among them is Gameloft Zhile, which is now known as "cheating music".
As a mobile game manufacturer that has been famous since the Java era, Gameloft has developed a series of works on the iPhone including "The Thorn in the Back", "Modern Warfare 2/3/4/5", "Nova 2/3", and "Gangstar: Maimi". The content is fully aligned with a series of 3A console games such as the mainstream "Call of Duty" and "Grand Theft Auto" at the time.
(Image source: Gameloft)
Even today, these works are still classic masterpieces on mobile platforms.
In junior high school at that time, if you had an iPhone, you would definitely become the star of the entire grade.
During the lunch break, there are always students from their own class or other classes who will use various methods to write homework for you or buy food for you in exchange for the opportunity to play a game of "Fruit Ninja" or "Angry Birds" on their iPhones. There are countless students watching.
I still remember such memories to this day.
(Image source: Apple)
So the question is, since it can have such a wonderful start, why has the reputation of iPhone in the gaming circle plummeted like it does today?
The fundamental reason lies in the popularity of the F2P model.
Since 2013, stand-alone games with buyout models have gradually disappeared on mobile platforms, and have been replaced by F2P (Free to Play) model games that are highly praised by companies such as EA/Tencent. Mobile games have officially entered a development stage that is completely different from console games.
(Picture source: "Plants vs. Zombies 2" released in 2013, a representative work that switched from a buyout system to an F2P system)
The F2P model simply means that manufacturers provide games to players for free, and then charge for them through other methods in the game.
This model first emerged in online games and is now popular in the field of mobile games. The fundamental reason is that it not only lowers the threshold for players to get started, but also solves the problem of piracy to a large extent, and can bring doubled revenue and profits.
Excessive profit orientation has also made mobile devices like the iPhone farther and farther away from serious gaming devices, and closer and closer to "handheld slot machines".
Of course, Apple has not thought about this problem.
In September 2019, Apple launched the Apple Arcade game subscription service, claiming that players can play dozens of stand-alone games customized for iPhone/iPad as long as they support a monthly subscription fee.
Now, four years later, Apple Arcade, the game subscription service that Apple focuses on promoting, is still in a tepid state. The overall level of these exclusive games obtained by Apple through cooperative customization, buyout and exclusivity lacks a stable foundation, which has become the fundamental reason why this service is difficult to promote.
("Sea Horn 2", known as the mobile version of Zelda)
Since the subscription system doesn’t work, we have to take the last option.
Apple chose to "transplant" this time as the latest step in its impact on the gaming market.
At the Apple press conference a few days ago, Apple announced that the console version of "Assassin's Creed" will be launched on the mobile platform for the first time, along with a series of works such as "Resident Evil 8" and "Death Stranding", with the intention of turning the iPhone into an emerging native 3A game platform to compete with Steam and PS5/Xbox/NS.
(Image source: Apple, "Assassin's Creed: Visions")
Let me tell you, it is normal for Apple to have such thoughts.
After all, Apple's self-developed A17Pro chip is currently the most powerful processor on small-size mobile devices. Its graphics processor performance is theoretically up to 70% faster than that in the iPhone 12 Pro, at least the performance is guaranteed.
But in my opinion, the Apple development team is indeed a bit wishful thinking that the iPhone 15 Pro is the "best game console" because of its certain performance advantages.
Why am I not optimistic about the future of Apple iPhone in gaming?
The first is operation.
Apple's current strategy is to move Mac-adapted games, including operating modes, to the iPhone intact.
This also leads to the fact that players who want to play "Resident Evil 8" on iPhone must either choose to carry an adaptable PS5/XBOX controller with them, or endure the virtual button hell as shown in the picture below - believe me, no one can play the game well in this situation.
(Image source: Capcom)
Second is storage.
I think everyone has seen how expensive Apple's storage is at present. The price of 256GB is 1,000 yuan, and the price of 512GB is 2,000 yuan. In this year when the price of memory chips has plummeted, it really seems like a big joke, which is hard to understand.
For reference, "Death Stranding", which Apple heavily promotes, requires 80GB of storage space.
"Resident Evil 8"? 35GB storage space.
"Resident Evil 4 Remastered Edition"? That's 70GB of storage space.
(Source: Epic Mall)
Who is willing to use such expensive storage to store games?
Only Apple knows the answer.
Nowadays, "mobile games" and "console games" are constantly getting closer. While mobile games continue to be "high-production", console games are also in the process of becoming "mobile."
The success of Nintendo Switch proves that the market space for handheld games is still very broad; and the success of SteAMDeck has attracted traditional PC manufacturers such as ASUS and Lenovo to enter the game one after another, making playing console games anytime and anywhere = a market demand that cannot be ignored.
In this time of dispute, Apple very much hopes that its iPhone will become the next popular handheld device.
In my opinion, maybe there will be such a day for "Genshin Impact" players.