WWDC 2025 might be a big deal for Apple, but it won't have the one thing I really want to see

Date:
Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:12:47 +0000

Description:
Apple will no doubt have some goodies in store for us at WWDC, but probably not the one thing I'd actually love to see: a real commitment to gaming on Mac.

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WWDC 2025 is almost here, and you can follow all of the last-minute rumors
on our WWDC liveblog . But Ive also got a last-minute prediction to slide under the wire or, more accurately, an anti-prediction, because theres one thing Im practically convinced were not getting at Apples big event.

Wheres the gaming content, Apple? It feels like every few years, you take a big swing at the gaming arena with stuff like Apple Arcade, the new Metal 3 developer kit, or, uh Death Stranding coming to macOS four years late? but frankly, its starting to feel like an afterthought.

Let me be clear about this: the games industry is worth more than the music and film industries combined . You like money, right, Apple? Theres a deep well of untapped potential here, but Im afraid its going to take more than simply bringing a handful of triple-A titles to Mac. Oh, and you probably shouldnt have tried to stop one of the worlds most popular games from being played on your hardware . Apple and gaming: oil and water?

Its a strange thing; Apple products are everywhere, from the seemingly omnipresent iPhone to the best MacBooks and Macs . Hell, Apple makes a pretty big deal about the MacBook Air being the worlds best-selling laptop (this claim requires a little fudging of the data to ring true, but Ill give it to Apple just this once).

But despite the no-doubt massive Venn diagram overlap between Apple users and gamers, the company seems largely disinterested in pushing gaming as a major feature of its products.

And those products are perfectly capable of gaming . The new M4 chips which can be found in the latest 2025 MacBook Air , amongst other products are actually pretty beastly. Even the older M2 chip offered some admirable performance in our own Roland Moore-Colyers recent gaming tests. The hardware is not the problem here. At WWDC 2022, Apple made a pretty big deal about gaming on Mac. But has it gone anywhere? Nope. (Image credit: Apple)

So, perhaps the software is the issue? Its a fair claim: macOS is not the operating system of choice for most non-console gamers, with Windows holding
a mammoth 95.45% of the user share in the most recent Steam Hardware Survey , split mostly between Windows 10 and 11. For comparison, all the combined
macOS versions totaled up to a measly 1.85%.

Its hard to deny that gamers simply dont see macOS as a viable platform for gaming, and by extension, developers dont see macOS as a viable platform for developing games. But heres the thing: thats Apples fault. Making a
commitment

See, for all its faults, Microsoft has never shied away from the gaming
space. The Xbox 360 was arguably one of the most iconic consoles of recent decades, the increasingly popular Game Pass is now available across console and PC, and Microsoft has long included gaming-related features in Windows. Hell, the company even has its fingers in the game development pie, with Xbox Game Studios hoovering up multiple smaller dev teams over the years.

This is what Apple needs to do, if it has any designs whatsoever on making itself relevant within the gaming market. My lovely colleague Isaiah Williams posited that Apple should make a gaming handheld earlier this year and while I agree, I dont think thatll solve the problem here. No amount of new
hardware will make people want to game on Apple products; the excellent
gaming performance of the M4 chip proves that, frankly. Yes, Cyberpunk is going to be on Mac. At some point. Don't ask when. (Image credit: CD PROJEKT RED / Apple)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: what Apple needs to do is
actually make games. Youre running one of the worlds richest companies here, Tim Cook; time to put some of those iPhone billions behind an established dev studio, create a macOS game publishing division, and deliver the killer app that makes gamers want to buy a Mac. If Apple wants people to believe that
its serious about gaming, we need to see big titles coming to Mac on day one or better yet, completely exclusive.

Were not going to get this commitment at WWDC 2025, of that I have zero
doubt. Perhaps Cyberpunk 2077 will finally get its long-awaited Mac release (after it came to the Nintendo Switch 2 ), but thats just about all Im expecting here. Im not losing hope, though. Its never too late to put your money where your mouth is, Tim. Im sure we can afford to lose a few Apple TV originals. You might also like... The 7 biggest things to expect at WWDC 2025
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/macs/wwdc-2025-might-be-a-big-deal-for-app le-but-it-wont-have-the-one-thing-i-really-want-to-see


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