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Last year's WWDC saw the release of Apple's Game Porting Tools, which delighted Mac fans. Gamers applauded the company's efforts to help developers bring their games on Windows over to Mac. Apple is more focused on gaming than before, and its newfound efforts were first seen during the iPhone 15 Pro's launch. This year at WWDC 2024, the company launched Game Porting Tools 2.0, and game developers have promised to bring their games to Mac this time.
Hotly anticipated games like Assassin's Creed Shadows and Palworld have been announced for Apple Silicon-powered Macs. This article speculates how these changes will affect Windows' PC gaming dominance.
Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and solely reflect the writer's opinions.
Apple's first attempt at bringing AAA Windows games to Mac
At the WWDC 2023 event, Apple showed just how serious it is about gaming by releasing the first Game Porting Toolkit. This tool was meant to be used by developers to work on porting their games from Windows to Mac. It also included an emulator, which they could use to verify how their port runs and test various aspects of the game.
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However, it's not as easy as it sounds. Most games on Windows use the DirectX 12 API to make draw calls and access the computer's hardware. Since DirectX 12 is not available on Mac, a direct port is out of the question. MacOS uses Metal API, and for a Windows port to work on Macs, the DirectX API calls must be translated to Metal calls, and that's the only way of making it happen.
Furthermore, some games on Windows run on x86 hardware and employ its instructions, such as AVX2. This component was not available on previous ARM chips, and there's no support for emulating it in the Game Porting Tools. So, almost a year went by since the release of the first Game Porting Tool, but not much happened until the launch of the Game Porting Tool 2.0
Apple's latest attempt to bring more Windows games to Mac
At the WWDC 2024 event, Apple launched the new Game Porting Tools 2.0 and fixed some of the shortcomings of the first version. Here are some of the new capabilities and improvements of the new tool:
- Supports a larger set of game technologies.
- It has support for improved graphics and compute compatibility.
- It supports ray tracing features.
- Full support for AVX2 instruction set.
- Game performance has also been increased.
All these improvements sound nice but won't mean much if developers can't utilize them. The support for the AVX2 instruction set was particularly interesting, and that's because this instruction set is found inside the chipset. Therefore, simply enabling it on the Game Porting Tools won't do anything if it is missing from the chipset.
In fact, Reddit user @andreelijah tried this Game Porting Tool on a MacOS Sequoia beta, which didn’t work. He attempted to run Starfield, which requires the AVX2 instruction set, and this game failed to launch, indicating the lack of an AVX2 instruction set in the M1, M2, or M3-based chipset. The missing instruction set is probably the culprit behind the issues.
This suggests that future Macs with M4 chipsets may have this AVX2, but there’s no official confirmation yet, and Apple has not explained how it will use this instruction set.
However, not every game requires that instruction set, and developers can circumvent that in other ways. Simply delivering another Game Porting Tool wasn't enough. Apple needed a commitment from game developers, and the company has managed to achieve that.
Ubisoft has pledged to bring its latest game, Assassin's Creed Shadows, onto the Mac platform. The same goes for Capcom, who has already committed to bringing its games onto Mac and delivered many of its games on Mac. Other game developers have also pledged their support. Here's a list of games coming to Macs:
- Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
- Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
- World of Warcraft: The War Within
- Control Ultimate Edition
- Wuthering Waves
This is just an initial list, and many more games will arrive soon.
Where does this leave Windows? Should Microsoft be worried?
Windows operating system has dominated the PC gaming industry for years, and the majority of console games are also released on Windows. In recent years, even PlayStation-exclusive games, such as The Last of Us: Part 1, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima, have been released on Windows. However, none of these games are available on either macOS or Linux officially.
Apple's newfound interest in gaming and its new Game Porting Tools could change that, especially now that developers are committing to bringing their games to Mac. Does this mean Microsoft should be worried? Yes, they should. After all, the Apple iPhone's success and popularity did cause the downfall of Windows Mobile, and Microsoft doesn't want a repeat of that for its Windows OS.
However, Windows is fine for now and continue to be fine until there's a dramatic shift that brings the entire game library of Windows, and the chances of that happening are slim.
