

Second, Arcade includes two new game categories: Timeless Classics and App Store Greats, which are a big collection of all-time favorite iOS games that are now available at no extra cost as part of an Arcade subscription on the iPhone and iPad and differentiated from other titles with the addition of a ‘+’ in their titles.

Timeless Classics and App Store Greats are differentiated by the addition of a ‘+’ in their title. See also: my story from 2018, App Preservation: Saving the App Store’s History, featuring – among others – Zach Gage, who brought four classic games to Apple Arcade today. The fact that Apple, possibly inspired by Microsoft, has a real chance to do game preservation better than Sony is not a sentence I would have expected to type in 2021. And Sony confirmed that it will be closing its digital storefronts for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita - with no clarity on how or if those venues or their games will be preserved, let alone be made available in the future. Nintendo ceased selling a digital collection of Mario games for no greater reason than artificial scarcity, despite already hosting an online subscription service that could house the games. They’re providing the best deals in gaming at this moment.Ĭompare Friday’s news and these strategies with other industry announcements from this week.

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Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier costs $14.99 a month and includes games on Xbox console, Windows PC, and Android devices - and will now regularly feature launch-day releases from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, and even Sony, along with a rotating collection of more than 100 catalog titles.

Apple debuted 30 games on Friday on a service that costs $4.99 a month and is often included in larger Apple product purchases for free. Their success shows that they’re neither ahead of the curve nor behind it they’re simply meeting the expectations of their players. Microsoft’s and Apple’s bets on downloadable subscription services would seemingly place them behind their streaming counterparts in the long run, but that’s not quite the case. I just wish Apple would consider making its own controller with a fast, low latency connection like AirPods, which benefits from Apple’s proprietary technology layer that sits on top of Bluetooth.Ĭhris Plante, writing for Polygon on today’s major Apple Arcade news: With support for Microsoft and Sony controllers available since tvOS 13 and the addition of support for current-generation console controllers in tvOS 14.5, Apple has clearly made the decision that a purpose-built controller provides a better gaming experience. The new Siri Remote is a little bigger than the former version, but I don’t expect it would work any better as a controller. The button layout and diminutive size made it a poor substitute for a traditional game controller. Still, the original Siri Remote was never a good game controller. On one level, the omission of the sensors in the new Siri Remote is surprising because it comes hard on the heels of an expansion of Apple Arcade’s offerings on all platforms, including the Apple TV.
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According to code in tvOS 14.5 seen by MacRumors, trying to play an incompatible game will lead to the following error message: “To play this game on your Apple TV, you need to connect the Apple TV Remote (1st generation) or a compatible PlayStation, Xbox or MFi controller.” The change means that the new Siri Remote won’t work with certain Apple TV games that rely on motion controls. First reported by Digital Trends, the new Siri Remote lacks an accelerometer and gyroscope. Jon Porter of The Verge rounds up recent discoveries about the new Apple TV 4K’s Siri Remote.
