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Journalism of Courage
While many were busy looking at the camera, design and other iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max upgrades, one of the major highlights of Apple’s Wonderlust’ event was how the latest Pro iPhone could natively run AAA console titles like Resident Evil, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Apple also clarified that these games aren’t toned-down ports or running on the cloud but full-blown versions running on the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max, powered by the A17 Pro chip. In a recent interview with IGN, an Apple executive said he believes that the iPhone 15 Pro series is “going to be the best game console.”
According to Jeremy Sandmel, Apple’s Senior Director of GPU software, upscaling techniques like MetalFX can help separate the display resolution and gaming resolution, similar to what AMD has done with Super Resolution.
Upscaling techniques like these can help AAA titles run at high frame rates and upscale the resolution accordingly. And with the USB Type-C port making its way on the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, Apple has confirmed that gamers will be able to connect their smartphones to 4K displays. However, the company executives were quick to clarify that this was only possible if the developers used tools like MetalFX provided by the tech giant to its full extent.
On asking if the company plans to bring the games to other Apple silicon-powered devices like Mac and iPad, the executive said that all building blocks are still there but they will need to work with gaming studios to make it a reality. He added that certain titles like Capcom’s Resident Evil are already available on both iPhone and Mac, featuring the same graphics as PC and console.
When asked whether Apple plans to compete in the console market, an executive said they are currently focusing on working with developers and trying to bring more AAA titles instead of trying to take on gaming behemoths like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.
Giving example of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, a game that is designed to play with a controller, Apple said developers can either opt for controller support or use the company’s software programming APIs and support to offer touch support.
When answering a question about whether the iPhone 15 Pro will heat up when running graphic-intensive titles like Death Stranding, Apple Vice President of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing, Kaiann Drance commented that the tech giant has a fairly big advantage since games will have to be optimised for a single hardware configuration instead of making it compatible with several devices, something which has been the case with games on Android.
Since Apple has to optimize its games for a single device instead similar to how studios do for consoles like Xbox and PlayStation, this might enable Apple to make full use of the hardware and strike a balance between framerates and visual fidelity. An example of this is the recently showcased Resident Evil Village demo on the iPhone 15 which ran at 30 fps on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
While the tech giant might take on handheld gaming consoles like Lenovo Legion Go and ROG Ally with the iPhone 15 Pro series, the problem with Apple is that it will have to convince game studios to bring their AAA titles to iOS, something the gaming industry might resist because of its 30 per cent tax policy. But since the tech giant sells millions of devices every year, it might be easy to convince game developers to make a separate version for the iPhone.
Also, it still remains to be seen if gamers would be interested in purchasing a different license for AAA titles for iOS and if Apple can strike a deal with gaming studios so games on iOS cost less than their console counterparts.
