Apple wants a bite of the $84b market dominated by Playstation and Xbox
The new iPhone 15 Pro is powerful enough to play PlayStation and Xbox games. That opens Apple up to adding a highly lucrative new type of app to its App Store.
In Assassin's Creed, gamers are tasked with using stealth and strategy to execute their targets. Yet much of the game's allure lies not in violent murder — though there is plenty of that — but exotic locales. In recent Creed games developer Ubisoft has put the player in Greece during the Peloponnesian War, Egypt during the rise of Cleopatra and the British Isles amid Viking expansion.
The upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage explores new territory in a different way. Following its traditional console launch next week on PlayStation and Xbox, it will land on Apple's App Store early next year, playable by anyone with an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max.
The processors in Apple's high-end phones have always had impressive grunt, but iPhone owners who don't do graphic design or video editing typically don't have much use for it. The A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max changes that. It's an astonishing chip, capable of playing titles typically reserved for dedicated PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
The potential upside from a push into this market is significant — even for a company the size of Apple. The console gaming market generated USD56 billion ($84 billion) last year, Ampere Analysis says. About 17% of Americans and Western Europeans are lapsed gamers, according to NewZoo research, people who once enjoyed playing but at some point stopped splashing out for new consoles. Meanwhile, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives predicts Apple will sell up to 168 million iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max devices over the next year. Even a minor overlap of those two demographics could be lucrative.
