I was just watching Apple WWDC. During the Mac games section, they were talking about how Assassin’s Creed Shadows is coming not just to Mac but iPad this November. The whole point of this part of WWDC was talking about an API that takes Mac games and turns them to iPad game apps. Then, they showcased a bunch of other games talking about more games coming and on that list was a picture of The War Within. Why hasn’t this been discussed by Blizzard yet? I totally understand why it wouldn’t have been mentioned at the Xbox Summer Fest, but this is a wild thing to find casually mentioned by Apple. And no, I don’t think it was just an advertisement insert because not only did they not mention it, but every other game on the list were games not currently available on mac. World of Warcraft is not only on Mac, but it runs natively on Mac.
Anyways, that is wild. WoW on iPad before consoles! lol
Edit: Can’t believe I beat both Wowhead and Icyveins on this news! (Icyveins Staff just posted)
Since the iPad and Mac share the same architecture, any game can actually exist on both platforms. The newest iPads run on the M2 and M4 SOCs. The Mac doesn’t even use the M4 yet.
Doesn’t mean it is the best platform for a game. Though, I am still a little salty that Diablo Immortal was made available for PC and that the developers haven’t flipped a bit in the App Store to make it available on Mac.
They don’t need an emulator… They are using the exact same type of processing cores and programming instructions. The only difference between an iPad with an M2 processor and a Macbook with an M2 processor, is how much RAM is soldered onto the SOC. The Mac will have more. Yes, there are processors available with more CPU and GPU cores for the Mac but the underlying system is the same.
Since Diablo Immortal already exists on the iPad and iPhone, all Blizzard has to do is tell the App Store it is available to the Mac as well. Instead of touch, the UI will use the trackpad or mouse.
Or the opposite to make WOW available on iPads with the M series processors. iPads already support keyboards, trackpads, mice and external 4K monitors so…
Though, Apple does have a “Game Kit” that allows you to run most PC Games on your Mac currently. I tried it last year and it was lackluster in performance. Version 2 is coming out this year.
They won’t advertise the use of using an API to play a game on hardware it isn’t meant to be played on, similar to how Nintendo wouldn’t advertise that you can play Switch games on the PC via an emulator. If you have technical issues, Blizzard won’t help you since it’s not a supported system.
I should have known this thread would just become a Mac vs Windows debate….
Can’t we all agree that we all have different work flows/needs and either Mac OR Windows could satisfy an individual’s expectations of their computer. Its silly to pick some “side” when in reality both are multi-billion corporations that really don’t care about their users other than the money in their pocket and the data they create?
Blizzard didn’t announce it because Blizzard probably isn’t involved. Why would Blizzard want to get shipped in the App store and have Steve Jobs monopolizing 30% of every sub and mtx sold?
Further, Daddy Microsoft didn’t just purchase Activision to “make money.” They purchased them because they intend to break Apples insane app store monopoly in the courts and when they do they want to drop an XBox store full of Blizzard games on every iOS device.
Apple has a big problem: very few developers support ARM. No matter how good your chips are, if people aren’t willing to write drivers or recompile their projects for ARM, you are in deep ----.
Blizzard likely has no plans to release any future titles on MacOS and probably only mobile games on iOS (eventually in a separate store). Apple knows that lack of gaming support is a real deal breaker when it comes to their products and today’s announcement just means “Apple is doing some of the work themselves to keep these games functioning on their platform.”
See Microsoft doing all the work to make 3rd party apps function in Windows Phone for example.
This all may change in the future, Windows is pushing ARM hard this summer and they have excellent emulation that generally avoids the need to recompile, and this creates a financial incentive for Microsoft gaming studios to support ARM also. Let’s be honest, whether you like MacOS or not, alll MacOS gamers combined are likely not a big enough audience for it to be financially interesting for Microsoft studios to do this work without their own horse to care about.
Defensively, Apple doing the port themselves may also dissuade someone from downloading a competing store ala Fortnite / Epic.
They did port to ARM but there has been nothing to suggest Blizzard is 100% committed to Mac support, and the lack of their recent games supporting MacOS should be a clear sign that they definitely aren’t looking to make a firm commitment to the future of any particular game on that platform.
Many of the iPad models are using the exact same chips they offer in their laptops and desktops, and they have been working to make it fairly easy for developers to have their software run on whatever device.
It really wouldn’t be much of a stretch to see wow run on an iPad pro.