When speaking to The Independent, Tim Cook said “There’s significant excitement about our role in gaming, and we’re very serious about it…This is not a hobby for us. We’re putting all of ourselves out there.”
Due to the powerful specs of the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Apple’s support for its developers through major games like Resident Evil Village and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, it seems like Cook and Apple are putting their mouths where their money is.
This is paired with his vision for the Apple Vision Pro. Though it is a mixed reality device with productivity features at its core, the ‘aha moment’ you get when putting the headset on can be enhanced with a brand new suite of games to get the most out of its spatial computing capabilities. Apple is setting itself up to have a surprisingly big year for gaming in 2024.
It is hard to overstate just how big an achievement Resident Evil 4, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Death Stranding on the go really could be. One look at the app store sees a decade's worth of games designed to cater to as many users as possible. If you pick up an iPhone 11 now, you can still run the majority of games without a problem.
Though this is a wonderful thing, it also holds back some developers from wanting to port their games to new devices. The iPhone 15 Pro Max getting what are essentially exclusive games to a mobile device is something that will make other phone companies pay attention. Though many mobile games are fun, it’s exciting to know we are capable of getting console-level titles, without extra transactions and gacha mechanics. We’ve just got to hope these major ports are worth the commitment.