"Is the macbook neo good for Gaming" the Influencers howl, looking at multivariate equations including the price of RAM and the number of teraflops that a GPU can produce
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@dalias yeah my point is not that the $300 laptop segment is going away, or that you can't squeeze more FPS out of a cheaper rig with some bargain hunting. my point is that "$300 asus laptop" is not a sufficiently homogenous platform target that developers will bother testing against it, but "macbook neo" is going to be a spec floor that developers care a LOT about for economic reasons, and will test on directly
@glyph I think that's a very solid take.
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the entire video game industry rested on the Nintendo Entertainment System for an entire decade, a computer with 2 kilobytes of RAM when price-competitive home computers had megabytes.
the macbook neo is not a good choice if you are a competitive Valorant or a Cyberpunk 2077 streamer with a million dollars of annual brand deal revenue on the line. but it is going to change what "gaming" *is* for the actual public where game studios make their money.
unrelatedly, as an owner of a Macintosh Computer Book (Professional) with 64GB of RAM, I am _psyched_ that Apple has implicitly made a promise that its operating system will be usable with only 8GB for at least 8 more years. this is absolutely my favorite computer that I will never ever use
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unrelatedly, as an owner of a Macintosh Computer Book (Professional) with 64GB of RAM, I am _psyched_ that Apple has implicitly made a promise that its operating system will be usable with only 8GB for at least 8 more years. this is absolutely my favorite computer that I will never ever use
@glyph I’m just slightly shocked at how replaceable the battery is.
Also global supply chain collapse something something.
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unrelatedly, as an owner of a Macintosh Computer Book (Professional) with 64GB of RAM, I am _psyched_ that Apple has implicitly made a promise that its operating system will be usable with only 8GB for at least 8 more years. this is absolutely my favorite computer that I will never ever use
the reason that this makes me annoyed enough to post about is not that I have any particular animus for "tech review" people. it's just that it's a very small but egregious example of the omnipresence in our culture of "analysis" that looks at metrics but ignores systems.
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unrelatedly, as an owner of a Macintosh Computer Book (Professional) with 64GB of RAM, I am _psyched_ that Apple has implicitly made a promise that its operating system will be usable with only 8GB for at least 8 more years. this is absolutely my favorite computer that I will never ever use
@glyph I'm hoping the RAM crisis has the side effect of pressuring desktop app developers to be more responsible in their memory use. Electron apps, and so forth, are just unhinged in their memory usage. (This is probably wishful thinking.)
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the reason that this makes me annoyed enough to post about is not that I have any particular animus for "tech review" people. it's just that it's a very small but egregious example of the omnipresence in our culture of "analysis" that looks at metrics but ignores systems.
I guess what bugs me the most is that I am not _good_ at this. I don't have any resources to analyze markets. Spreadsheets make me tired. I should not be routinely able to glance at what passes for "professional" product reviews or market analysis and be yelling at the screen "you forgot that more than one person is going to buy a computer this year!!!"
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"Is the macbook neo good for Gaming" the Influencers howl, looking at multivariate equations including the price of RAM and the number of teraflops that a GPU can produce
you dolts, this machine is about to be in the hands of like ten million children. its price point means it is highly likely going to be The Computer for an entire generation. it already plays a huge catalog of casual games just fine. the demo units in the apple stores are all playing Apple Arcade titles with no difficulty.
@glyph I, and many other people, predicted this. I for one am happy to see the rise of the potato computer. Let’s hope developers get smarter about resource usage.
(I say as many developers are getting demonstrably stupider.)
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@glyph I'm hoping the RAM crisis has the side effect of pressuring desktop app developers to be more responsible in their memory use. Electron apps, and so forth, are just unhinged in their memory usage. (This is probably wishful thinking.)
@swelljoe yeah I don't think we are going to see a lot of silver linings from this. like you'd think oil on its way to $200/barrel would result in immediate mania for EVs and electrification of all kinds. and yet
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the entire video game industry rested on the Nintendo Entertainment System for an entire decade, a computer with 2 kilobytes of RAM when price-competitive home computers had megabytes.
the macbook neo is not a good choice if you are a competitive Valorant or a Cyberpunk 2077 streamer with a million dollars of annual brand deal revenue on the line. but it is going to change what "gaming" *is* for the actual public where game studios make their money.
@glyph also like, it’ll probably play minecraft just fine. and that’s what counts for a LOT of people lol
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I guess what bugs me the most is that I am not _good_ at this. I don't have any resources to analyze markets. Spreadsheets make me tired. I should not be routinely able to glance at what passes for "professional" product reviews or market analysis and be yelling at the screen "you forgot that more than one person is going to buy a computer this year!!!"
@glyph also just... a lot of them missing the point about who it's targeted at, entirely.
The new apple device is clearly targeted at the 'exploiting children, who are vulnerable and have no choice in the matter' market - not gamers. Maybe businesspeople as a secondary market, but, unclear on that. -
@glyph also just... a lot of them missing the point about who it's targeted at, entirely.
The new apple device is clearly targeted at the 'exploiting children, who are vulnerable and have no choice in the matter' market - not gamers. Maybe businesspeople as a secondary market, but, unclear on that.@miss_rodent @glyph they are definitely targeting kids who would otherwise get a chromebook, definitely. That might be a net positive if more kids get an actual computer rather than a google surveillance machine.
But that necessitates being better at fleet sales which Apple is not great at.
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@glyph also just... a lot of them missing the point about who it's targeted at, entirely.
The new apple device is clearly targeted at the 'exploiting children, who are vulnerable and have no choice in the matter' market - not gamers. Maybe businesspeople as a secondary market, but, unclear on that.@miss_rodent that's part of my point though. people of all ages play games but there's a reason that children were the original market for video games: they have more time to play, and more interest in new titles because they have less attachment to old brands. Game studios are going to *lead* with the question "what hardware do our potential buyers have", not insist on a particular set of specs.
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@miss_rodent that's part of my point though. people of all ages play games but there's a reason that children were the original market for video games: they have more time to play, and more interest in new titles because they have less attachment to old brands. Game studios are going to *lead* with the question "what hardware do our potential buyers have", not insist on a particular set of specs.
@miss_rodent now if the hardware in question is literally unsuitable to make entertaining content, sure, they'll have to look elsewhere. but the macbook neo is absolutely sailing miles above that bar, it's like 10x more powerful than the Switch 2, which is nominally a current-generation console.
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@miss_rodent now if the hardware in question is literally unsuitable to make entertaining content, sure, they'll have to look elsewhere. but the macbook neo is absolutely sailing miles above that bar, it's like 10x more powerful than the Switch 2, which is nominally a current-generation console.
@miss_rodent re: a secondary market in business… I mean, maybe? people find all kinds of weird uses that I'm not aware of in advance and so there may be a market somewhere, but having seen the device in person now I'd be pretty surprised. just physically in terms of the size of the display and keyboard, the physical chunky clickable trackpad, the color-matched tinted keys, everything about it reads as "for kids"
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