Game Porting Toolkit isn't good enough, as it seems to be only for testing, still have to rewrite a bunch of shit in Apples proprietary nonsense and deal with heavy handed code signing crap.
Proprietary rendering APIs are extremely common (like… Direct3D) and completely not an issue. The ones on game consoles are /way/ more proprietary and unportable than Metal.
Game consoles have huge userbases that purchase games, thus the incentive to port is higher. You can also develop them from a Windows machine because all the tools are designed for that..
Mac userbase that purchases games is small, they need to make it easier if they want more games. And Apple also doesn't want you developing on Windows-- you need to use this bloody Mac.
Hi, Metal isn't my favorite graphics API either but for what it's worth
Metal was released before Vulkan, hence why they didn't use it (Apple should still adopt it though imo)
> Game consoles have huge userbases
They may not purchase as many $70 games but there are 1.5 billion iPhone users worldwide
> they need to make it easier if they want more games
Game Porting Toolkit is Apples initiative to give developers an easily accesible shim to make the porting process easier
I understand that in the past it's been difficult to develop for Mac on windows, but GPT seems to be a genuine attempt by Apple to help companies port their games over to Apple devices
FP32 performance of a M2 Max silicon that start at more than 2K is less than the 500$ Xbox.
Developers see that if someone has that much money to spend on a machine so uncompetitive performance wise, they should have money for a console. They wouldn't be able to give a better experience on the Mac anyway, because of hardware limitation.
PC's on the other hand can buy GPUs that crush anything even at the low/mid range (300$) ; and they can expect the system to be supported for years. It's a no brainer really.
Unless mac users go out in numbers saying they want to pay triple price for games I don't see anything happening.
> The ones on game consoles are /way/ more proprietary and unportable than Metal.
Right, but the console proprietary graphics frameworks have clear market demand. Macs are not a platform with which people buy to game, and metal is not a graphics framework with clear market demand. Apple will need to subsidize porting if they want to get a critical mass of games on Metal rather than OpenGL, i.e. the easy API to target. (Yes, I'm aware many game engines bring this for "free", but that doesn't mean these ports are competitive with their equivalent on windows on the same hardware.)
EDIT: I forgot iOS; that's probably what might make a difference this time. Unlike the Mac there is a clear market demand for gaming on that platform.
