This is actually awesome to see. Sadly the main thing holding Linux back is still just momentum. And for a lot of people MS word. Even if the free suites are pretty good nowadays.
Honestly Apple sucks for not providing proper support for video games. People buy 3k usd laptops and can't run videos games on it because of lacking software. I don't understand how anyone with get invested with their VR when the hardware will be held hostage to whatever the overlords find it fit for.
Apple has absolutely cornered the mobile market, so that’s probably why they don’t seem to be in any hurry to seriously support the PC gaming space.
They tend to focus hard on niches they can overcome, and PC/console gaming is a little too established for them to stick their toes in. They tried with the Pippin and the pre-Halo era of gaming, but it didn’t work out for them.
If the Apple headset takes off, they may start pushing harder for VR game support, but who knows?
Can we finally get a proper linux alternative to ios and android? I was researching on linux mobile last week and from what I've found it's infinite times harder to get it to work than a linux pc. I just want a cheap, basic foss phone as a daily driver.
I bought my Macbook for working not for playing. Don't think anyone who buys a macbook cares that much that they can't play on it (which I am pretty sure is not true but I don't care to check how many of my steam games runs on it)
also if you can drop 3+k on a macbook what is dropping another 500 on a PS5?
I agree with you that it's great for work. I got a MacBook with Apple silicon for $2.5k and it's been great. The games isn't that big a deal because A) i have a desktop computer with Linux and can run 98% of games just fine and B) with parallels you can run a lot of Windows games on Mac. Darkest Dungeon for example I play through that
My main complaint is I can't install Linux on the laptop yet. I know Asahi Linux is working on it but it's not quite there. It'd be like putting an old engine in a sports car. So I'm stuck with MacOS for now. Not ideal but better than Windows.
Having said all that, a PS5 is not a proper replacement for a PC. Most of the games I play are all strategy games.
I'm curious how big of a dip there was with macOS when they fully dropped 32 bit support. I'm just one person but a lot of the games I played through steam were older 32 bit games. I don't think I've opened steam on my Mac since that update.
Apple's macOS has been the second most popular operating system on the Steam game distribution platform for a long time, but that has now changed.
Linux has surpassed macOS for the number two spot, according to Steam's July user hardware survey.
Steam regularly asks its users to give an anonymized look at their hardware, and the company makes the information it gathers available each month.
The Steam Deck was first released a while ago, but it only became widely available without a waiting list last October.
It worked with game publishers to see high-profile releases like Resident Evil Village and No Man's Sky in recent months, and those games run pretty well on modern Macs—certainly better than similar titles on Intel-based Macs with integrated graphics chips.
It also announced a new gaming porting tool in an upcoming version of macOS that works in some ways like Proton, as seen on the Steam Deck.
Apple has never taken gaming seriously. Their new M chips are not going to hang with dedicated graphics cards in a gaming pc, but they are also not a slouch. Many games will run well. And Nintendo proves you can make fun games on modest hardware. Imagine if the had spent the $1-2 to include a game controller with every AppleTV. They could of built an ecosystem. They need a VP level person to push gaming.
Sure you can, but you must have quite an audience for devs and publishers to care enough to make and optimize games for your platform. Apple does not have it on Mac side as they are too pricey in terms of what they offer performance wise in case of games.
You will get a Windows laptop with much better performance for less money and most gamers (those interested in AAA games at least) usually care about the price, only a niche buys those Alienwares for 10k (and they on the other hand want the best of the best, which Apple also does not offer as their GPUs are at best around 3060/3070 level).
I don't see Apple changing the price structure anytime soon, so I don't see their market share changing. With current pricing they are too expensive for an average gamer and are not at the top of performance charts for a rich gamer.
I think people underestimate just how many windows users are on Steam. Even if the Deck sold 5x more than they expected it still wouldn’t make a huge dent in the number of windows users.