Apple could dominate gaming—if only they cared. Thing is... they kinda... do? Try Mammouth AI now at http://mammouth.ai *Buy FANTASTIC merch at Copland Supply* - https://copland.supply Follow Snazzy Labs on Twitter - https://twitter.com/snazzylabs Follow me on Bluesky - https://snazzy.fm/UW Follow me on Threads - https://snazzy.fm/XV Follow me on Mastodon - https://snazzy.fm/NN Follow me on Instagram - https://instagram.com/snazzyq Apple didn't mention gaming once at WWDC 2026, yet it quietly shipped the biggest Game Porting Toolkit upgrade in years—GPTK4, built on Metal 4 with MetalFX frame generation, temporal upscaling, and denoising—and on a base M5 MacBook Pro with just 16GB of RAM it turns previously unplayable Windows games into smooth ones. Benchmarks across Red Dead Redemption, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us, and 007 First Light show macOS 27 "Golden Gate" plus Crossover and CodeWeavers' translation layer—basically Proton for the Mac—leaping Red Dead from 14fps to 38fps at 1080p Ultra, with an iPad-class M5 chip lapping a Steam Deck running FSR. Every excuse for why Apple gaming never happened—that the Mac can't do it, that the competition is cheaper, that the CEO only cares about services revenue—has collapsed at once, leaving only Apple standing in Apple's way. So here's the pitch: a dedicated Apple gaming handheld or Apple TV-sized console running a plain M-series chip, playing your existing Steam library through the translation layer, with a real cross-platform game store that undercuts Steam and Epic and finally fixes the broken Mac App Store. With DRAM prices exploding, the Switch 2 selling at a loss, premium PC handhelds north of $1,000, and hardware engineer John Ternus replacing Tim Cook as CEO on September 1st, the case for an Apple console—not another Vision Pro or HomePod—has never been stronger. 0:00 - Apple said nothing about gaming 0:56 - What Apple quietly shipped 3:32 - The benchmarks are kind of wild 5:13 - Where it falls apart 6:03 - An iPad chip laps the Steam Deck 7:30 - The AI angle that matters most 8:24 - So here's my crazy plan 10:42 - A cheap M5 box is doable 14:03 - The store is the real problem 16:41 - Cook built half, Ternus the rest
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Step aside Gabecube it’s time for the Timbook to rise
Honey, it's time for Snazzy Labs' annual video about Apple/Mac gaming.
Apple needs to copy the Steam Machine and give us the Apple TV Ultra: very simply a capable gaming console wrapped in everything you love about Apple TV
Apple is so close to already having a living room gaming console (Mac Mini) Cheap (relatively), sleek, quiet, and pretty powerful for what it is. And with the price adjustments, it's price competitive. Even after the price rise on the 16GB M4. It's competing with the now, 599 PS5 and a 649 X1X A good launcher, Bluetooth wake from sleep support, more compatibility, and some other minor tweaks, and you have the first Apple gaming console. It'll never happen but a man can dream
I think Apple needs to release 'METAL GEAR' after Metal 4. Then see developers flood in.
It shall be called..... The Pippin
Some bro said ‘good video’ lil bro it hasn’t even been two minutes 🥀
I know this is a far-fetched possibility, but I’m hoping an announcement from Apple that they partner with Rockstar to bring Grand Theft Auto VI to the Mac 😅
Apple gaming beyond the App Store is just never gonna be a thing tbh. People have made this exact video for years and it just hasn't materialized, even through the peak of the home console era with Xbox 360, PS4, and Switch. They have way higher market cap than Sony and Nintendo and could easily do all the things you described. They just don't care about AAA gaming.
This video made me realize i desperately need a steam deck vent scented candle
4:52 playing a FPS game with a trackpad, even just for capturing performance numbers, is very on-brand for Mac users 😂
Mac gaming is the saddest thing to me. The hardware is more than capeable. Is it going to be better than a custom tower build running Windows for gaming? No. But I'd wager a HUGE amount of people would be perfectly happy with 30-60fps on the games they want to play with no hoops to jump through (e.g., Crossover, etc.) on the computers they dropped $1k-$2k+ on. Gaming on Mac doesn't have to be better than gaming on Windows, it just needs to not suck so bad that people feel like buying a Mac means that they have to have TWO expensive machines if they want to work & play. Also: gib Studio Display XDR video pls :)
One obstacle is that my Mac holds all of my most sensitive personal data and credentials. I am not about to allow anti-cheat extensions to snoop on that machine, so I will always need a second "disposable" gaming computer.
Quinn, bless your heart for throwing spaghetti at the Apple wall. Someday.
If Apple wants to get in segment seriously, they will to put all the required resources long term to build the platform. My guess they didn't see themselves seriously competing with established players, or the returns for such endeavors would not be worthwhile.
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Clippy No Simpy
Hey man so if you're gonna shill an AI superbot I never want to see you complain about tech pricing ever on this channel moving forward
The next Steamdeck competitor is going to have to be on ARM. ARM is literally the solution for gaming handhelds...but if Apple doesn't hop on the ship, Valve absolutely will. They're already testing the ARM market with their vision related computer.
is the TV console niche not entirely taken care off by the mac mini? they only need to work on the software at this point, and the mac mini can and will become the defacto cheap gaming console/PC as for the handheld, yes, completely agreed, they can release a very affordable handheld into the market which will sell really well at the right price