The Time for a Gaming-Focused Apple TV is Now

When Apple Arcade first launched in September 2019, I couldn’t help but feel that Apple had come up with something refreshing: a way to play great games on their devices that weren’t bogged down by pay-to-win mechanics and micro-transactions; that didn’t blind you with ads every time you tapped a button or tried to do anything. Even though I was on Android at the time, I still downloaded some games to my iPad and MacBook to check out…and I really enjoyed them!

One of the promises of Apple Arcade (aside from the promise of premium games) is that all Apple Arcade Originals will play on all of Apple’s (supported) devices. That means that you can install a game to play on your Apple TV and have the same game installed on your Mac and your progress will sync automatically. That’s particularly great if you find yourself with some time to game on the go and you don’t want to pack the Nintendo Switch…at least in practice.

Apple found a way to effectively turn the currently supported Apple TVs into “game consoles”. The thing is…I don’t think the current hardware is up to the task.

Currently Out of Date

When I say currently supported Apple TVs, I’m referring to both the Apple TV HD and the Apple TV 4K. Neither of those devices are new by any stretch of the imagination. The Apple TV HD was available from September 2015 until September of 2017, when the Apple TV 4K was released. That means the Apple TV model currently available was released a little over 3 years ago, while at least one game on Apple Arcade (The Pathless) was simultaneously released on the PlayStation 5.

Looking at the specs of the two devices really shows just how far back the chips inside of these Apple TVs are. The HD model is packing an A8 chip, which was the same chip that powered the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, released a full year before this Apple TV.

The Apple TV 4K, on the other hand, comes loaded with an A10X Fusion Chip (the A10 line was what powered the iPhone 7 family the year before, though the Fusion variant used here was the same one that released in the early 2017 iPad Pros.) Still, current iPhones are packing an A14 Bionic chip, so even the 4K is a bit out out of date.

It’s worth noting that while the iPhone 6 line no longer receives software updates, the 7 is most likely going to be getting its final new iOS release this fall with the release of iOS 15 — while the chip is still arguably fine for day to day tasks, gaming is a much more intense activity for the iPhone’s SOC, which us what creates the discrepancy here.

Arcade Potential

But now is the time that Apple should be leaning into Apple Arcade harder than ever. The service is now up to 180 games (though they cheated a bit to get to that number) and I don’t see them dropping the service anytime soon.

While there are games on Apple Arcade that are aimed at casual iPhone gamers, you can’t ignore games that launched on consoles as well, such as Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time and The Pathless. You also can’t ignore the fact that Fantasian, the newest game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is only available on Apple Arcade. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and play this one yet, but from what I have heard, it is fantastic. This is a game that, by all rights (from what I’ve seen and heard), should be available on the full range of consoles as well as PC…and it was instead made an Apple Arcade exclusive. Now it’s possible that a port to other consoles could come later (my understanding of the Apple Arcade agreement is that Android is the only platform that is off-limits) but for the time being, if you want to play this game, you have to subscribe to Apple Arcade.

How is Apple not taking advantage of that?

The fact that this ever happened is proof that if Apple wanted to get serious about gaming, they could do something big in the space. Now I’m not saying that they would ever overthrow Windows as the platform of gamers, nor do I think that they could disrupt the three way dance that is Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo….but I think they could exist alongside them. But they have to do more.

Selling hardware that’s several years out of date, along with the bring your own controller approach, just isn’t going to cut it anymore. It’s time for Apple to go all in and launch two new Apple TVs. The first is the “boring” one: Apple TV 4K (2nd Generation). There’s nothing exciting to be done there, short of updating the processor. If you want to pair a controller you have to play some Apple Arcade titles…go for it.

But if you really want to get the most out of your Apple Arcade experience, they should make the Apple TV Arcade Edition. I know the name is crap but hear me out: an Apple TV with a bundled controller, a little more RAM and a little more cooling. In short, everything you need to best take advantage of the most demanding games that Apple Arcade has to offer.

I really do believe that the Apple TV needs every advantage it can get if it’s going to be that killer device to play Apple Arcade releases on. Personally, I have an Apple TV HD and while I do have a few games that I play on it, I generally don’t try and put new releases on there first because I never know if the device will be up to playing it, ever since the Nuts incident.

I was really excited about Nuts and was actually in quarantine when the game came out, so I figured I was going to make a day of the release: install it on the Apple TV and lay in bed while seeing exactly what the game had to offer. Unfortunately, the poor A8 chip inside my Apple TV struggled so bad with the menu that I never bothered to try and press play. I promptly uninstalled the game and put it on my 11″ iPad Pro instead. There’s a part of me that really wants to try out Fantasian on the Apple TV HD, as I feel that a 55″ screen is exactly what that game deserves…but there’s another part of me that knows deep down inside that it’s going to wind up being an iPad or MacBook Pro game…but I’ll be happy to admit it if I’m wrong. Hell…I want to be wrong!

I don’t know what Apple is ultimately going to do, but with WWDC coming up in June, I have a feeling (and a hope) that we will see some kind of new Apple TV released that’s better suited to the hopefully bright future of Apple Arcade.