by Joe Rossignol
Yesterday, Apple announced that it will host an online event on Monday, October 30, starting at 5:00 pm ET. PT, and there are several reasons to believe that Mac gaming will be a major theme at the event.
Below we've summarized Apple's recent gaming efforts on the Mac, as well as other details about next week's event.
Hardware-accelerated ray tracing
Apple silicon chips often have a similar architecture. Like the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple's upcoming M3 series of chips for Mac will likely feature hardware-accelerated ray tracing for significantly improved graphics rendering over software ray tracing. The M3 series chips are expected to be manufactured using TSMC's 3nm process, which offers higher performance and improved power efficiency compared to the M2 series chips. These advances pave the way for more AAA games to come to Mac.
Apple hints at more AAA games coming to Mac
In a recent interview with gaming publication IGN, Apple hinted at releasing new AAA games on Mac. When asked whether the new games Apple announced for the iPhone 15 Pro last month would eventually be compatible with Apple Silicon Macs, Apple Vice President Tim Millett responded that “developers will work with us to make that happen.” These games include Resident Evil 4 Remake, Death Stranding Director's Cut and Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Capcom and Sony Hints
Japanese game developer Capcom recently announced that Resident Evil Village will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPad models with the M1 chip and later starting October 30, the same day as Apple's event next week.
Perhaps the release date will coincide with the release date. This event is just a coincidence, but it could hint at more Mac-related gaming news coming from Apple and Capcom, and possibly other game developers. A source told us that Apple is holding the online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. PT as it falls during business hours in Japan, and it is claimed that the event will include a major collaboration with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information.
As of now, the App Store is reporting , that the Resident Evil 4 remake will be released on Mac computers with the M1 chip and newer on December 31st. This date is temporary, and it is possible that the release will be pushed back after the Apple event. The game has already been released for Windows PC, PS4/PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in March.
As for Sony, it plans to launch cloud-based game streaming for PS5 in North America on October 30th. Could there be a connection to Apple?
Game Mode
macOS Sonoma has a new Game Mode that temporarily prioritizes CPU and GPU performance for games. Game Mode also reduces audio latency on AirPods and reduces input lag when using popular third-party game controllers by doubling the Bluetooth sampling rate.
Game Porting Toolkit
At WWDC 2023 In June, Apple released a new set of tools that makes it easier for game developers to bring Windows games to Mac. The toolkit provides an emulation environment that allows developers to run an existing, unmodified Windows game on a Mac and quickly evaluate how well the game can run on macOS before writing any code.
Tag: Apple Event October 2023 [240 comments]
