This article shows why - actual performance in games isn't great. Yes, its partially held back by x86->ARM translation, but if you are a gamer, this isnt a particularly compelling system.

This part of the article was particularly cringe. People don't seem to realize how much of a tech prowess it is that x86 builds of those two games are even running at an acceptable framerate.

That said, it's been a year since the M1 release, and Apple could have paid a few hundreds/millions for a few AAA game ports. They didn't, and that says how much they care about gaming on these devices.

> that says how much they care about gaming on these devices

Apple's bread and butter is iOS gaming (where it takes in more game profit than Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Activision combined) rather than Windows PC game ports to macOS.

> Apple's bread and butter is iOS gaming (where it takes in more game profit than Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Activision combined) rather than

Any source on this "game profit" metric ? It seems plausible, but I was looking for the details of this calculation/estimation. For example, what percentage of App Store revenue is game related ?

> Windows PC game ports to macOS.

I specifically said AAA games, not Windows PC games.

>This part of the article was particularly cringe. People don't seem to realize how much of a tech prowess it is that x86 builds of those two games are even running at an acceptable framerate.

Spoken like someone who has never seen how poorly Microsoft's x86 to ARM emulation works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhESSZIXvCA

They had difficulty getting programs to work at all, much less have acceptable performance under emulation.

> Spoken like someone who has never seen how poorly Microsoft's x86 to ARM emulation works.

Sometimes I wonder why they are still a software company. I really like their keyboards and mice. Their software, not so much.

It's not good like as M1, partially because of they aren't chip designer. Apple does the trick on M1 to emulate x86.

Reason for it not being a compelling system aren't inherently obvious to most people:

Games are developed currently to run on x86 Windows machines. Predominantly Windows machines. If the game is designed to run on MacOS, then more likely you'll see a performant experience. The issue isn't inherently architecture or Apple's chips, it's the lack of software choices available on the platform. Though you can now argue that Apple's platform has increased significantly due to the compatibility with the App Store bringing games from mobile to the desktop.

Gamers would like to play the games they've bought (or free to play that they've dedicated time to) on platforms those games support, and most of those games do not support MacOS, or Linux. However, with Proton emulation, and EasyAC & BattlEye now working with Valve to improve Anti-Cheat on Linux, we may see a greater compatibility with the aforementioned systems enabling cross-platform play.

> free to play

If only you could run iOS games on the M1 Mac, you'd be all set...