Apple has all the pieces to make the Apple TV a killer games console. Why hasn’t it happened yet?
It wouldn't take much for Apple to make a huge splash in the home gaming console market.
When I was about 11 years old, I remember going to a friend’s house and getting to play Shufflepuck Café on his family’s Macintosh. It was the first time I’d really used a mouse for gaming, controlling the paddle to play a 3D version of Pong, and I distinctly remember having so much fun I did not want to go home.
While my first encounter with gaming on an Apple device happened around 1990, Apple’s own history with gaming goes back to the company’s very beginnings. One of Steve Jobs’ earliest jobs was working at Atari before founding the company with Steve Wozniak.
Apple’s history is, in fact, peppered with gaming stories:
Myst was originally developed for the Mac back in 1993, a year before it was ported to Windows.
Bungie was originally making the first Halo exclusively for the Mac before it was acquired by Microsoft.
With the arrival of the iPhone, Apple almost accidentally created a huge new gaming industry. Games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja managed to capture the imagination of millions, and because it was available (for free) on a device they already owned, gaming became much more accessible.
But for all that history, Apple has never been a gaming company.
It’s pushed hard over the years, though. There have been guest appearances from gaming companies in keynote presentations since 2011, when Mike Capps from Epic Games showed off Infinity Blade II for the iPhone 4s.
It rolled out its Metal API for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics back in 2014, and more recently launched its Apple Arcade gaming subscription in 2019.
With the arrival of the iPhone 15 Pro in 2023, the phone’s A17 Pro processor was powerful enough to play AAA titles, thanks to the processor’s hardware-accelerated ray tracing, MetalFX upscaling, and support for variable refresh rates. Games like Assassin’s Creed: Mirage and Death Stranding: Director’s Cut launched on the iOS App Store, ready to let gamers enjoy a high-end gaming experience on their smartphone.
But from all indications, performance of those titles on the App Store has been underwhelming.
Apple has spent decades teasing its gaming ambitions, only to never truly follow through.
But with the new Games App announced at WWDC this year for iOS, iPadOS and macOS, Apple now has all the pieces it needs to become a true gaming company. It just needs to put those pieces together.
It has to update the Apple TV.
