M chips are super expensive. They’re optimized for low clockspeed/idle efficiency and pay through the nose for cutting edge processes, whereas most gaming hardware is optimized for pure speed/$, with the smallest die area and cheapest memory possible, at the expense of power efficiency.
And honestly the CPU/GPU divide over traces is more economical. “Unified memory” isn’t needed for games at the moment.
And, practically, Apple demands very high margins. I just can’t see them pricing a console aggressively.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Good points.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The base Mac Mini is not super powerful. Physically, it’s comparable to AMD Strix Point, which you’d find in any AMD laptop.
I am not trying to rag on Apple here: their stuff is fine. It’d be beyond excellent for a handheld like the Steam Deck.
…But a plug in gaming console? Not at the prices they’re asking.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It is “cheap” because they are hoping that someone is stupid enough to pay the upgrades like $200 for 256gb of extra SSD. Or that it later leads to purchasing more Apple devices.
It’s a gateway drug
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I love this Apple hater threads. You people are so unhinged about this stuff. It’s great!
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Charging $200 for having 256gb of extra SSD space on a $700 computer (cost for them: $2) is textbook definition of scam.
The price is actually good for the Mac mini but clearly they sat on a table for hours discussing how they can fuck the end user like “and for the SSD, let’s make a board that LOOKS LIKE a standard M.2 drive, has almost the same dimensions and connector, BUT we don’t include a controller on it, so it’s not electrically compatibile with existing drives and we can charge a 10000x markup on it”. And all the marketing managers in the room started clapping