BACK TO THE MAC
Perhaps one of the biggest success stories in
the gaming world in recent years is Among
Us, and the title launched on macOS last year
with 60 million users - but only on M1 devices.
The developer, InnerSloth, announced that it
would port its iOS game over to the Mac, and as
more and more developers follow suit thanks
to Project Catalyst, the Mac is inally being seen
as something of a genuine player in the gaming
world. Indeed, modern games that can run well
on iOS can be ofered to players on the Mac
with just a couple of clicks, and we’ll likely see
new games in the same vein in the years ahead.
Apple has also been working hard to grow its
Apple Arcade subscription service, which ofers
consumers the chance to play a number of
premium games without in-app purchases or
advertisements for just $4.99/month, or as part
of an Apple One plan.
Another thing to bear in mind is how quickly
the M series of chipsets can equal the current
consoles in GPU power. Right now, the Xbox
Series S can hit around 4 teralops, whereas
the entry-level M1 MacBook is 2.6 teralops.
The new M1 Pro and Max chips bring the
Mac back up to the same sort of standard as
consoles, which could change their approach.
Developers should, in time, see M1 Macs as a
potential market. Granted, very few people buy
a Mac for gaming, but that doesn’t mean it’s
not capable of becoming a player. Andrew Tsai
has published an interesting guide to running
Crysis on the Mac, for example, and conirmed
that the game performs well on the chip, despite
running through the compatibility layer ofered
by Apple. What’s perhaps even more interesting