Is This Really Apple's Big Plan to Make Gaming Stick?

Gizmodo

2 days ago

I've been writing about Apple's newfound gaming ambitions for years now, but I'm still waiting for the company to come to grips with what today's gamer actually wants. My halting enthusiasm is often tempered by what the company regularly shows off at both its private and public events. As if to put a pin on that point, Apple shared the first look at its all-new Games app at WWDC25. It's a games launcher, achievement tracker, and game chat for contacts in one. The tech giant's flaccid attempt to mark Apple as a go-to arena for gaming will be pre-installed on most Apple devices when the iOS 26 and macOS 26 updates arrive later this year, but I don't need to wait until then to say this isn't what Apple needs to stake a claim on either console or PC mainstays.
The Apple Games app combines the company's previous Game Center and Apple Arcade subscription into one place. The app should offer news tidbits about upcoming and current titles on iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Vision Pro. If that isn't exciting enough, the app will offer achievement-like badges for completing certain in-game tasks or challenges. Users will also be able to communicate with friends who play the same games or check out leaderboards for score-based titles.
The iPhone remains one of the most popular devices for playing games the world over, though few would call it a device built for the rigors of today's gaming environment beyond running Honkai: Star Rail, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, and—after a five-year absence—Fortnite. A good mobile controller helps ease a few pain points, but nothing beats a device dedicated exclusively to gaming. Apple has promoted cross-platform games on iPhone, including recent hits in the Resident Evil series, but the Mac is the one platform where you expect the iPhone maker to try and pin down gaming. Instead, WWDC25 was a showcase for just how little Apple understands the gaming scene.
The Apple Games app on Mac includes everything it does on iPhone, though with more access to games like Civilization VII and Assassin's Creed Shadows. The update is also supposed to include a Game Overlay, accessible without needing to leave your session. Compared to most overlays, including the Xbox Game Bar on Windows, the Mac's version appears barebones. It grants access to the sound, brightness, and Bluetooth settings for adjusting or changing out a controller. There's no option for recording gameplay at native resolution. Apple's overlay doesn't even grant an option to see frame rates or latency.
Apple introduced Game Mode in 2023 to limit background tasks and potentially increase in-game performance, but the Mac still lacks what players have come to expect from a gaming platform. The dearth of gaming-specific features would look slim on a gaming console, let alone a device that's most often compared to PC. Without a frame rate counter that players can easily access, they won't know if they're getting the optimal experience from the game they're playing. Apple could have looked at Nintendo and offered easy ways to talk to and stream game content to each other over a Discord-like interface. You can see your friends on your contacts and chat with them over FaceTime, though Apple failed to showcase if this feature creates an on-screen window where you can watch your friends' mugs and still pay attention to what's happening on-screen.
Despite the new overlay, this first iteration of Apple's gaming app seems mostly geared to smartphones. The Mac version may be able to incorporate games purchased outside of Apple's first-party work suite, such as Steam, though we haven't. We don't yet know if Apple will help it work with various emulator apps that were made available on iPhones last year, though we doubt Apple wants to step a single inch into the legal minefield of game emulation.
Macs are far better for gaming than they have been previously. Thanks to updates to Apple's Metal graphics API and improving graphics capabilities on the M-series chips, I'm regularly surprised by performance on Mac. The most recent M4 MacBook Air was capable of playing Baldur's Gate III and Resident Evil 4 on medium settings with stable frame rates—something that's rare to see with lightweight laptops. The Mac mini with M4 Pro chip was a surprise powerhouse that could handle some more-demanding titles. Apple has also shown Gizmodo how its M3 Ultra chip on the latest Mac Studio could run the demanding Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings with ray tracing—all with a system that lacked a discrete GPU for high-end, though we have yet to try it in person.
Apple has been working behind the scenes to engender more support for its own ARM-based chips, but Windows still has it beat in terms of software support by many, many miles. Apple said more games other than Cyberpunk, including EVE Frontier, Architect: Land of Exiles, and Cronos: The New Dawn are making their way to Mac, eventually. It's a drop in the bucket. Promising I'll be able to play InZOI, a game that could best be described as The Sims without a personality, isn't enough to make me pick up a MacBook next time I'm ready to find some game that will help me relax after a full day of covering Apple's latest software updates.