I use my iPhone with a Bluetooth controller all the time for Moonlight game streaming when my wife or son are using the TV or we’re out of the house. That works just fine. Playing games on a phone isn’t that terrible at all - with the right input method. I’m admittedly considering going for a Pro on my next upgrade, just for the additional screen size for text legibility in some games. And it’s also not my first choice.
However, I’m not about to buy AAA titles on the App Store where I’ll only be able to play the game on my phone…
I jumped over to the App Store the second Hades was announced, fully willing to pay full price, even though I could easily get the game for 30% cheaper on Steam.
Subscription required.
Fuck. That.
You know what would get people to play them on their phones? If we could use our Phones as our desktop when docked, DEX like. I mean the processing power is there (maybe not cooling).
I think there’s a middle ground there, though it depends on the kind of game. Something like a first person shooter is a non-starter on iPhone to me due to the smaller display and touchscreen controls. Something like a turn based strategy I like better on mobile because being able to tap through commands and menus is nicer than a controller to me. Maybe also a stronger push for some of the games to have cross platform saves, like being able to play on my Apple TV at home, but also do some grinding a few minutes at a time while I’m out.
Really, I think Apple TV is where the real gaming potential is. It might not match consoles in power, but it’s also in a lot of households that might not have bought a console but will buy a couple good games on Apple TV.
Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you have to constantly update iOS Apps or Games for new iOS Releases for them to keep working properly?
It’s really not that different than a PC just with a slightly tighter cycle. When you upgraded from Windows 7 to 10, some games lost support too. It’s just that PCs have a much longer compatibility window than phones do.
Eh, that’s not really true. Games from decades ago still have a good chance to play fine on modern Windows because Microsoft cares about backwards compatibility. That’s like one of the main appeals of Win32.
I don’t think there’s a problem with deprecating and removing APIs like Apple does in principle but if you combine non-free/proprietary focused ecosystem with that, like they also do, it’s a software preservation disaster.
We have apple and the app store to thank for that. The normalization of sub $5 games did it. Mobile users won’t pay AAA prices for their games.
Mobile users won’t pay AAA prices for their games.
And we’re all mobile users now. I know a lot of people who play mobile games on their couch within arm’s reach of their console controller.
It scratches a different itch, but it does have real substitution effects in the real world, even at home.