Posts tagged with "games"

Game Tracker: A Powerful App to Track, Organize, and Customize Your Videogame Library

Game Tracker is a new videogame tracking app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac from Simone Montalto, who is probably best known to MacStories readers for developing the excellent Book Tracker. In fact, Montalto has created an entire suite of tracking apps that also includes Movie Tracker, Music Tracker, and Habit Tracker. That experience with various tracking apps shows with Game Tracker, which does a fantastic job of tailoring to the particularities of videogames and leveraging metadata to allow users to make the app their own.

Let’s take a closer look.

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Epic Games Announces iOS Store Expansion in the E.U.→

The Epic Games Store, which is available in the E.U. on iOS as a result of the Digital Markets Act and globally on Android, is expanding.

During a press briefing, Epic’s Tim Sweeney said:

Our aim here isn’t just to launch a bunch of different stores in different places, but to build a single, cross-platform store in which, within the era of multi-platform games, if you buy a game or digital items in one place, you have the ability to own them everywhere.

As part of the store expansion, The Verge’s Lauren Feiner reports that Epic will cover Apple’s E.U. Core Technology Fee charged on free games for the first 12 months. Epic will also offer monthly free games, and eventually, weekly freebies. The new games aren’t available just yet, but should be soon.

It’s good to see Epic expanding its offerings on iOS and Android. Alternative marketplaces have grown slowly in the E.U., but with Epic willing to reduce the financial risk of Apple’s Core Technology Fee, we should start seeing Epic’s store expand more rapidly.

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Netflix Games Seemingly Narrows Its Focus→

I’ve followed Netflix Games’ journey closely for the last three years. The company has dipped its toe into a wide variety of genres but stood out for its deep catalog of artistic indie games, including recent additions like Monument Valley 3. However, based on an earnings call reported on by Neil Long of mobilegamer.biz, that may be changing.

According to Long, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said:

After three years of releasing a broad range of mobile titles, Netflix said it is now focusing on “a few key genres”, including narrative games based on its own IP, party games, kids games and “mainstream established titles (like Grand Theft Auto)”.

From that, it sure sounds like indie games are being squeezed out at Netflix Games, which has seen its fair share of upheaval recently. I hope not though. Having high-quality indie titles on my iPhone that are also available on my Ayn Odin Android portable console has been a delight.

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NVIDIA Announces GeForce NOW Support Coming to Safari on Vision Pro Later This Month

With a press release following an otherwise packed keynote at CES (which John and Brendon, my NPC co-hosts, attended in person last night), NVIDIA announced that their streaming service GeForce NOW is going to natively support the Apple Vision Pro…well, sort of.

There aren’t that many details in NVIDIA’s announcement, but the gist of it is that Vision Pro users will be able to stream games by visiting the GeForce NOW website when a new version launches “later this month”.

Get immersed in a new dimension of big-screen gaming as GeForce NOW brings AAA titles to life on Apple Vision Pro spatial computers, Meta Quest 3 and 3S and Pico virtual- and mixed-reality headsets. Later this month, these supported devices will give members access to an extensive library of games to stream through GeForce NOW by opening the browser to play.geforcenow.com when the newest app update, version 2.0.70, starts rolling out later this month.

This is all NVIDIA said in their announcement, which isn’t much, but we can speculate on a few things based on the existing limitations of visionOS.

For starters, the current version of Safari on visionOS does not support adding PWAs to the visionOS Home Screen. Given that the existing version of GeForce NOW requires saving a web app to begin the setup process, this either means that a) NVIDIA knows a visionOS software update in January will add the ability to save web apps or b) GeForce NOW won’t require that additional step to start playing on visionOS. The latter option seems more likely.

Second, as we covered last year, there is a workaround to play with GeForce NOW on visionOS, and that is the Nexus⁺ app. I’ve been using the Nexus⁺ app on my Vision Pro to stream Indiana Jones and other games from the cloud, and while the resolution is good enough1, what bothers me is the lack of HDR and Spatial Audio support (which should work with the Web Audio API in Safari for visionOS 2.0) in GeForce NOW when accessed from Nexus⁺’s built-in web browser.

The Nexus⁺ app supports ultra-wide aspect ratios, but HDR is nowhere to be found.

The Nexus⁺ app supports ultra-wide aspect ratios, but HDR is nowhere to be found.

With all this in mind, I’m going to guess that, at a minimum, NVIDIA will support a PWA-free installation method in Safari for visionOS. I’m less optimistic about HDR and Spatial Audio, but as I gravitate more and more toward cloud streaming rather than local PC streaming2, I’d be happily proven wrong here.

My only question is: with the App Store’s “new” rules, why isn’t NVIDIA making a native GeForce NOW app for Apple platforms?

  1. I’d love to know from people who know more about this stuff than I do whether Safari 18’s support for the WebRTC HEVC RFC 7789 RTP Payload Format makes a difference for GeForce NOW streaming or not. ↩︎
  2. I’m actually thinking about selling my 4090 FE GPU in an effort to go all-in on cloud streaming and SteamOS in lieu of Windows in 2025. But this is a future topic for NPC. ↩︎

CES 2025: What to Expect from NPC and MacStories

Today, I began packing my bag full of the gear I’m bringing to CES. I’m excited because it’s shaping up to be a very NPC CES.

Brendon, Federico, and I started NPC: Next Portable Console because we each sensed that handheld gaming had reached a tipping point. Thanks to the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, companies around the world have spent the past year experimenting with new ways to make gaming more portable.

I’ve covered CES from afar for years at this point and always enjoy it. Sure, a lot of CES amounts to incremental changes to TVs and new attempts to embed screens into kitchen appliances. But if that’s all you see, you’re not paying close enough attention. The fun of CES is discovering what’s new and trying to separate the vaporware from truly innovative ideas. Plus, Weird CES never disappoints, bringing truly bizarre gadgets to life that everyone should know about. Who can forget Qoobo the headless cat robot?

This isn’t technically my first CES. Until the mid-‘90s, the show was held in Chicago and New York, and it was open to the public. I went a few years before it moved to Las Vegas and had a blast. That was a long time ago, but with the rise of handheld gaming, the time felt right to return.

Over the summer and into the fall as the rumors of new Windows and SteamOS devices gained momentum, it became clear that handheld manufacturers were targeting CES for splashy announcements. That’s the main reason Brendon and I are heading to Las Vegas. We’ll be roaming the show floor to see what’s coming next and get a sense of where handhelds are heading in 2025 and beyond.

However, as excited as we are about portable consoles, that’s not all we’ll be covering. There’s a lot more to CES, so we’ll also be on the lookout for the latest in smart home hardware, AR glasses, headphones, speakers, anything with an e-ink screen, and more.

What we plan to bring to you here and on the MacStories YouTube channel is something uniquely NPC and MacStories: insights into what to expect from the next wave of portable videogame hardware and the other gadgets worth keeping an eye on in the new year, plus a sprinkling of the weirdly wonderful “what were they thinking?” hardware.

To follow along, you can find our coverage on MacStories.net under the tag ‘CES 2025’ and this dedicated RSS feed. You’ll also find two playlists on our YouTube channel: ‘NPC @ CES’ for handheld gaming news and ‘MacStories @ CES’ for everything else. Plus, be sure to visit Brendon’s blog Wavelengths for even more coverage from him.

Apple Reveals the Top App Store App and Game Downloads of 2024

Apple’s App Store has published its year-end list of the top free and paid apps and games, along with its top Apple Arcade games.

The top free apps are about what you’d expect. There are social networks, shopping apps, a few streaming music and video apps, Google, Gmail, McDonald’s, and ChatGPT. Among the top paid apps are several we’ve covered here and on Club MacStories, including AutoSleep, Paprika, Procreate Pocket, Forest, RadarScope, µBrowser, and long-time favorite Streaks. Strangely, the paid app list also includes a game – Suika Game clone called ‘Merge Watermelon for watch’ for the Apple Watch.

Among the free and paid games, highlights include Subway Surfers, NYT Games, Minecraft, Geometry Dash, Stardew Valley, and Balatro. If you’re an Arcade subscriber, top games include NBA 2K24, Sneaky Sasquatch, Sonic Dream Team, NFL Retro Bowl ‘25, Angry Birds Reloaded, Retro Bowl+, Stardew Valley+, stitch, and Tomb of the Mask.

Each of the three lists includes 40 free and paid apps or games for 120 total. The vast majority of apps are the sort of everyday apps people download to shop, search the web, browse social media, and entertain themselves. There is more variety among the paid apps, with categories like health, self-improvement, productivity, and creative apps leading the apps for which users are willing to pay.

On the games lists, what struck me more than anything else is how many games on the lists aren’t new. That’s less true of Arcade, but it seems as though the hits of the past continue to rule the regular App Store game list. I’d like to see more variety in 2025, but it’s also good to see some truly great apps among the more everyday apps that will undoubtedly continue to get lots of downloads.

Celebrate the MacStories Selects App of the Year with the MacStories DS Skins for Delta→

This year’s MacStories Selects App of the Year was never in question. No app has had a bigger political, cultural, and competitive impact on the App Store this year than Delta. On top of that, Delta is a beautifully designed, native app that takes advantage of Apple’s latest technologies, putting it head and shoulders above other iOS emulators. Of course, Delta is also a delightfully fun way to relive classic videogames on the iPhone’s outstanding hardware.

Delta’s impact on the app world this year transcended retro gaming. However, for most people, being able to dip into the world of Pokémon or battle their way through the dungeons of Hyrule on the device they carry with them is all the payoff they need.

That’s why, to celebrate Delta’s many accomplishments in 2024, we commissioned three Delta skins for Nintendo DS games from Sean Fletcher, a Seattle-based designer who has created dozens of Delta skins that pay homage to classic Nintendo hardware. The MacStories DS Skins, which incorporate MacStories’ signature colors and a subtle logo, work in portrait and landscape orientations and are available for $3 on our Gumroad store. As Nintendo’s first touchscreen device, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Delta’s emergence as an emulation powerhouse on the iPhone than with skins for the DS.

The MacStories DS Skins for Delta.

The MacStories DS Skins for Delta.

With the rise of generative AI and the decline of search engines, we’ve made a point of working with as many writers, artists, musicians, developers, and now, designers as possible this year. The fact that Delta enables anyone to make skins for its app allowed us to work with Sean, another talented creative professional, whose work we’ve supported personally and linked to in the past. If you like the MacStories DS Skins, be sure to check out Sean’s other skins, too.

We’re delighted with how the MacStories DS Skins turned out and hope you love them, too. We can’t wait to see screenshots of what you’re playing with them.

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Control Ultimate Edition Is Coming to the Mac Early Next Year

Source: Remedy Entertainment.

Source: Remedy Entertainment.

At WWDC this year, Apple announced that Control Ultimate Edition from Remedy Entertainment would be coming to the Mac. At the time, no release date was announced, but thanks to a Remedy investor event, we now know that the game is slated to arrive on February 12, 2025.

A few days ago, Tom Polanco of Tom’s Guide got a brief demo of the game and came away optimistic about how it will run on the latest Macs:

I briefly played Control Ultimate Edition on the new Mac mini M4, which was the first time I’ve played the game since it originally launched in 2019. The high-resolution textures and buttery-smooth gameplay make it feel like a completely different game from the PS4 version I remember.

According to Polanco:

Apple says that Control Ultimate Edition has been optimized for Macs and will have smooth performance, precise gameplay, and support HDR and MetalFX Upscaling. The game will also support hardware-accelerated ray tracing on Macs with M3 and M4 processors.

Although Control is a five-year-old game, its demanding visuals are still a benchmark against which hardware is often measured, so those details are encouraging. It’s also great to hear that Remedy has gone to the trouble of adapting the game for Apple’s latest videogame APIs. Apple’s hardware has become increasingly capable of playing AAA games, but cooperation from publishers like Remedy is necessary, too.

I expect it will take a while before the entire Mac lineup can run the most demanding games. However, as Apple silicon continues to make advances that trickle throughout the Mac lineup, the market for videogame publishers like Remedy will expand. If Remedy can show that the Mac can deliver a great experience with a game like Control, I’m cautiously optimistic about the platform’s long-term prospects as a high-end gaming platform.

Update: Control Ultimate Edition is available to pre-order on the Mac App Store for $39.99.

The Mac mini Excels as a Videogame Emulation System→

Over at Retro Game Corps, Russ Crandall put the new M4 Mac mini through its paces to see how it handled videogame emulation. As Crandall’s video demonstrates, even the base model version of Apple’s tiny Mac did very well:

Crandall walks viewers through the basics of setting up Emulation Station Desktop Edition on a Mac, which serves as a front-end that uses a variety of emulators to play classic systems. It’s not surprising that the M4 mini didn’t break a sweat emulating the oldest systems like Nintendo’s NES and Game Boy. However, it also did well with more modern systems like GameCube, running at six times the native resolution at 4K.

The mini struggled at times with the most modern systems Crandall tested, like Xbox, but the takeaway is clear: the Mac mini is a capable videogame emulation system. That will be true for other M4 Macs, too, but what’s unique about the mini is its size. The computer’s small footprint lends itself to sitting under a TV or pairing with a portable monitor to play games wherever you have the space.

Uses like Crandall’s are what make the Mac mini such a compelling update. It’s always been small, but by shrinking the mini even further and significantly improving its power, Apple has opened up new possibilities for its smallest Mac.

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