Apple Focuses on Enhancing Gaming Experience on Mac with Apple Silicon and Game Porting Toolkit

Apple is actively focused on enhancing the gaming experience on Mac devices, according to statements made by Apple officials in an interview with Inverse. The company's emphasis on gaming extends to both Mac computers and iPhones. Gordon Keppel, Mac product marketing manager at Apple, highlighted the transformative impact of Apple silicon on mainstream systems, providing significant graphics boosts with the M1, M2, and M3 chips. The current lineup of Macs powered by Apple silicon is capable of smoothly running AAA title video games.

Leland Martin, a software marketing manager at Apple, discussed how Apple silicon has simplified the game development process for companies. In the past, Macs had a mix of integrated and discrete GPUs, causing challenges for developers. With Apple silicon, the company has created a unified gaming platform across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Once a game is designed for one platform, it can be easily brought to the others. Martin cited examples such as Resident Evil Village, which initially launched on Mac before being introduced to iPhone and iPad.

Apple's MacOS Sonoma introduced the Game Porting Toolkit, allowing developers to bring games from other platforms, such as Windows, to Mac. Martin explained that the toolkit enables developers to assess how well an existing Windows game could run on Mac. The Metal shader converter is another component, assisting developers in converting shader code into Metal. Game publishers like Kojima Productions, known for the Death Stranding series, have expressed interest in leveraging the toolkit. 

Overall, Apple's commitment to improving gaming on Mac includes both hardware advancements and software tools to facilitate game development and porting.