Gaming on the Mac? Haha

Of the three new M4 Macs, the Mac Mini steals the show. Understandable, because it is the only Mac with a new design and it is the cheapest Mac. The gem inspires nerds worldwide to discoveries such as this housing in the shape of a Mac Pro turret. The new Mac Mini also appears to be a great starter oude iMac G4 to fit.

And on Reddit, someone discovered why Apple placed the power button on the bottom of the Mac Mini. It’s the ideal desk-under computer! Apple has responded to the remarkable design choice.

Mini Pippin

The M4 chip is so powerful that I want to give gaming on a Mac a new chance. And I don’t mean via CrossOvernee, native Mac games. Now, Macs aren’t exactly known as gaming machines, but last year Apple released the first one Game Porting Toolkit out. Who knows, maybe that might have persuaded developers to release titles for the Mac sooner or more often?

The harvest of native Mac games appears to be woefully small. With pain and effort I managed to collect 25 top titles in the Mac App StoreApple Arcade, Steam and as separate downloads. With a few exceptions such as Diablo III, Civilization VI and last year’s Baldur’s Gate 3, most top titles only appear on the Mac years after their initial release for other platforms. The low point may well be The Sims 2: Super Collection, which was released for the Mac in 2014, the same year in which publisher Electronic Arts announced that it would permanently discontinue support for the game.

What is striking is that Mac gamers seem to especially like simulation games. Five titles in the Top 10 Paid Games in the Mac App Store are sims, most of them by age. That probably also applies to the players.

At the same time, it is striking that the arrival of the Game Porting Toolkit last year (and version 2 of the kit this year) does have an effect. A modest effect, but still. A gem like Stray, the adventure game in which you play as a stray cat, was released in 2022 for the PlayStation 4 and 5 and for Windows and in 2023 also for the Mac. The remake of Resident Evil 4, Lies of P and Football Manager 2024 – unfortunately not my favorite genres – were even released for the Mac last year.

Game on

This year I enjoyed Death Stranding Director’s Cut on an M3 MacBook Air, with pretty decent frame rates for a Mac. The original game dates from 2019, the Director’s Cut from 2021. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for the Mac was also released in 2024, seven years later. Frostpunk 2, on the other hand, was immediately released for the Mac this year. And at the beginning of December – within the year – Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will follow.

I’m currently especially looking forward to the release of Controlwhich I expect this month. The action-adventure game dates from 2019 and has already been released for every conceivable platform, even for the late Google Stadia. Especially since I currently have a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro to borrow. An initial test with Stray shows a clear improvement in graphics, frame rate and ray tracing.

Exactly two top titles are planned for next year. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows will be released in February for PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, MacOS and even iPadOS. And after that, Cyberpunk 2077 will be released for the Mac. Yes, that game was released four years ago, but initially suffered from many bugs. That’s a rare advantage of gaming on the Mac: games have long been fully developed and are usually bug-free.

Playbook

So it’s scraping, gaming on the Mac, but with titles like Stray, Death Stranding, Control, Assassin’s Creed and Cyberpunk 2077, I see a new niche for the Mac: not sims but cinematic action-adventure and action-roleplaying games. I have no illusions that the Mac will ever be able to compete with a PlayStation or Windows, but with Apple TV+, Apple has also developed a stubborn strategy in which it opts for quality over quantity with its own productions. Wouldn’t that also be possible with games?

One more thing ⌘

Samsung has announced a new version of its cheapest Galaxy smartphone. The A16 costs 199 euros. And yet that device has a nice feature that even the new iPhone 16 (from 969 euros) does not have: a 90 Hz screen. The iPhone Pro models can handle 120 Hz, but the non-Pro models are stuck at 60 Hz. My suggestion: give the fourth iPhone SE a 60 Hz screen in the spring, finally put a 90 Hz screen in the iPhone 17 and keep the iPhone 17 Pro at 120 Hz. Beautiful staff.

Have a nice weekend!