Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

Apple yesterday announced that it will be holding an online event on Monday, October 30 starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, and there are several reasons to believe that gaming on the Mac will be one of the major focuses of the event.

Below, we have recapped Apple's recent gaming-related efforts on the Mac and other clues heading into the event next week.

Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing

Apple silicon chips often have architecture similarities. Like the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple's upcoming M3 series of chips for Macs will likely feature hardware-accelerated ray tracing for significantly improved graphics rendering compared to software-based ray tracing. M3 series chips are also expected to be manufactured with TSMC's 3nm process for faster performance and improved power efficiency compared to M2 series chips. These advancements pave the way for more AAA games to launch on the Mac.

Apple Hints at More AAA Games on Mac

Apple hinted at more AAA games launching on the Mac in a recent interview with gaming publication IGN. When asked if the new games that Apple announced for the iPhone 15 Pro last month would eventually be compatible with Apple silicon Macs, Apple VP Tim Millet said "the developers are going to work with us to do it." These games include a Resident Evil 4 remake, Death Stranding Director's Cut, and Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Capcom and Sony Hints

Japanese game developer Capcom recently announced that Resident Evil Village will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and on iPad models with the M1 chip and newer starting October 30, which is the same day as Apple's event next week.

It's possible that the release date lining up with the event is merely a coincidence, but it could hint at additional Mac-related gaming news to come from Apple and Capcom, and perhaps other game developers. A source informed us that Apple is holding its online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. Pacific Time because it will fall during business hours in Japan, and claimed that the event will include a major tie-in with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information.

While the App Store says the Resident Evil 4 remake is set to launch on Macs with the M1 chip and newer on December 31, this date is a placeholder, and it is possible the release will be pushed up following Apple's event. The game was already released for Windows PCs, the PS4/PS5, and the Xbox Series X/S in March.

As for Sony, it plans to launch cloud streaming for PS5 games in North America on October 30. Could there be a tie-in with Apple?

Game Mode

macOS Sonoma features a new Game Mode that temporarily prioritizes CPU and GPU performance for gaming. Game Mode also lowers AirPods audio latency, and reduces input latency with popular third-party game controllers by doubling the Bluetooth sampling rate.

Game Porting Toolkit

At WWDC 2023 in June, Apple released a new toolkit that makes it easier for game developers to port Windows games to the Mac. The toolkit provides an emulation environment that allows developers to run their existing, unmodified Windows game on the Mac and quickly evaluate how well the game could run on macOS before writing any code.