Macs have always lagged behind PCs when it comes to gaming. It may have something to do with Apple’s strategy of keeping the inner workings of its shiny devices as hidden and inscrutable as possible, but whatever the cause, the lion’s share of games for home computers are released on PC only, and if they do come to Mac it’s only after a monumental gap. Based on what Apple said today at WWDC, that might be about to change.
In the past couple of years Apple has become of the biggest players in gaming, even if it didn’t necessarily do anything to get there. The iPhone and iPad are some of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, and many developers are following a reverse strategy from PCs when it comes to mobile games – iOS first, maybe Android and Windows later.
Now it appears Apple is taking a more proactive stance when it comes to games, and it’s doing it with the new Macbook Pro rather than mobile devices. At WWDC today, Phil Schiller used a version of Diablo 3 updated for the Retina display to show off the new laptop, and the message was clear: the new Macbook Pro will be a gaming machine to stand with the best of them.
The Retina display could be revolutionary (or, fine, resolutionary) for any game, whether it’s on the phone or on the computer. The ability to display pixels smaller than the human eye can readily distinguish could pave the way for a sea change in how games look. With a Kepler-powered NVidia GPU and Ivy Bridge Processors, the new computers should be able to handle a title like Witcher 2 without too much trouble.
The piecemeal and continuous nature of gaming PCs means that they will likely develop stronger graphical processors before Apple updates its computers again, but the Retina display will remain an Apple toy and a competitive advantage for the foreseeable future. It won’t come cheap, however – a next-gen Macbook pro will set you back $2,199 at the low end.
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