[Frank777]

What, no PS5 thread? I'm not even a gamer and I watched the webcast.

What did you guys think of the console reveal and the game lineup?

[Bryson]

It's frackin' ENORMOUS.

[Frank777]

Yes, it is. I guess both consoles are really big this generation, for cooling purposes.

The new Xbox Series X lacks any style, and the PS5 looks like it's overdesigned. I think neither looks good in a living room.

I didn't post this thread with this idea in mind, but I'm now wondering if Apple could match the graphic performance of these consoles with a specially designed Ax chip for a new generation of Apple TV. They have all the other pieces. Is there room in the market for FOUR consoles?

[drewprops]

It looks really cool!

I'm not a gamer, so I can't see myself getting one.

But it would be cool to have one.



...

[Luca]

No chance of Apple entering the console market. They have a big chunk of mobile gaming. Their new ARM chips may be efficient, but they can't compete with Sony and MS on power, and they don't have Nintendo's game design prowess either.

They have already tried bringing mobile games to the living room with the Apple TV and it hasn't worked that well. Apple Arcade is neat but they don't seem to promote it much. Apple simply doesn't care about gaming, never have, and doesn't have the patience and desire to support a robust gaming platform on any of their hardware.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Luca Their new ARM chips may be efficient, but they can't compete with Sony and MS on power, and they don't have Nintendo's game design prowess either.

I've heard that before, most recently from people who said the Mac Pro could never abandon Xeon chips. Until they did today.

Originally Posted by Luca They have already tried bringing mobile games to the living room with the Apple TV and it hasn't worked that well. Apple Arcade is neat but they don't seem to promote it much. Apple simply doesn't care about gaming, never has, and doesn't have the patience and desire to support a robust gaming platform on any of their hardware.

If they're not promoting it, they're waiting on something to fall into place.
This isn't like the 90's where Apple was afraid of the Mac being called a gaming toy.

An Apple TV is US$199, and a PS5 is will be at least twice that. The Apple I know doesn't leave money on the table. They seem to have their hands full with the Mac transition, and I think for that reason they won't enter the market right away. But they can likely compete - both with power and game design - with Nintendo already, and with Sony and Microsoft in due time.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by Frank777 I've heard that before, most recently from people who said the Mac Pro could never abandon Xeon chips. Until they did today.

This!

Apple just told us that they want to have their transition complete in 2 years. That means the 28-core Xeon Mac Pro is going to be bested by Apple's immediate future plans—by which they mean 2022. That also means that the designs for that chip are already running in the lab because, well, they have to be!

Also, we cannot discount Apple's ability to leverage the custom cores outside of the CPU and GPU, such as their neural engine, the secure enclave, the T2, etc. All of those individual bits will give them a tremendous advantage in SOC real estate that they cannot take advantage of with Intel stuff. I'm no IC designer, but the demo they did demonstrates to me that Apple has their collective heads together on this.

Intel is not "in trouble" without Apple (there are still plenty of PC's and servers), but I suspect they are about to be left behind wondering what the hell just happened. And the PC nerds are about to go !

[Luca]

I'm not saying that an ARM-powered Mac Pro would be underpowered compared to a $500 or $600 PS5. Apple would not ditch x86 if they didn't have something good lined up to replace it.

What I am saying, though, is that if Apple releases a new game console (or an updated Apple TV with a greater focus on gaming, which is probably more likely), the hardware inside that won't be able to compete with a PS5 or Xbox Series X. It runs on a different architecture so porting games won't be as easy. Then again, the Nintendo Switch is ARM-based and gets a decent number of cross platform games (albeit with greatly reduced detail and resolution compared with the "big" consoles).

I could see something like that filling a niche for people who want a less expensive console for playing mostly indie games and a few big AAA games that get ported.

But it requires lots of work to make the deals and bring games to the platform - lots of games, at a steady rate. Apple has tried a few times to talk up gaming and they have always seemingly lost interest quickly. If someone is going to buy a $200 device plus $60 for a controller, plus the cost of games, they're going to want to know that the platform isn't going to die in a year. This is the reason Google Stadia has struggled; Google just can't convince people that they won't abandon the service after a year or two.