Apple Arcade Should Steal These Ideas From Xbox Game Pass

Apple Arcade is a mobile gaming subscription that offers excellent quality games built on a simple foundation of zero adverts and in-app purchases, but it could always be better.

An Ultimate Tier

One of the most appealing aspects of Apple Arcade is the relatively cheap $6.99 monthly price tag. For this you get access to over 200 games, which you can play on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. You can also bundle Apple Arcade in with Apple One (and you get a three-month free trial when you buy an eligible Apple device).

The games on Apple Arcade are mostly focused on short, sharp, mobile experiences. Even though the catalog is playable on more than just smartphones and tablets, it’s not hugely compelling if you’re only playing on a Mac or your living room TV. But Apple could address this issue.

Hear me out: keep the current Arcade offering as it is and maintain it as an approachable mix of indie and mobile games, and introduce a pricier “Ultimate” tier. With the changing face of gaming on the Mac, and the introduction of big triple-A releases via the App Store, there’s never been a better time to push the envelope a bit.

A new high-end option could provide access to more demanding PC and console-quality native games like Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and similar titles that Apple has already been working on incorporating into its ecosystem. You can now play games like Resident Evil: Village, Assasin’s Creed Mirage, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and Alien: Isolation on an iPhone. These are ripe for inclusion in such a tier.

Assasin’s Creed Shadows will also be coming to Apple’s platform, and CD Projekt Red has already announced Cyberpunk 2077 for Mac. Touching feline adventure Stray also has a native Mac version on the Mac App Store. Since macOS and iOS (or iPadOS) now share so much of the same codebase, a little push from Apple could see these titles on mobile platforms too.

An “Ultimate” tier would need to be priced accordingly—less than Game Pass or PlayStation Plus Extra, but enough to demonstrate that Apple is now serious about gaming. It could give Apple’s reputation among gamers the shot in the arm it needs. Let's not pretend Apple doesn't have the money to invest in this side of the business.

More Big Day-One Releases

If you’ve watched Severance on Apple TV , you’ll know how good things can get when Apple hands over a truckload of cash and lets creatives create. Apple already has something similar going on with Apple Arcade, though many of its originals are iterative. The company will take a successful formula, add a “plus” to the name, and (most of the time) make it better.

A good example of this are smash hits Balatro and Vampire Survivors, both of which ended up on Apple Arcade, and both of which were massive cross-platform successes beforehand. But these Arcade releases don’t have the same level of prestige that Microsoft manages with its Game Pass day-one releases.

While a lot of this comes down to the fact that Microsoft purchased companies like Bethesda and Activision, having the next Call of Duty and DOOM on your platform on day one makes Game Pass hard to ignore. Neither of these titles are exclusive to Microsoft hardware either, and even those that are (like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle) are only timed exclusives going forward.

It would be nice to see Apple cozy up to developers to offer more interesting day-one releases. I remember playing Vampire Survivors in early access on Steam and thinking that Microsoft or Sony should be falling over themselves to sign up for Game Pass or PlayStation Plus. In reality, Apple could have pipped them both and made the game a mobile smash hit even before the console release.

Games are mostly arriving on Apple Arcade too late to be super competitive, but some investment from Apple and a bit more tenacity when approaching developers and publishers could turn that around. Sure, the Apple Arcade audience aren’t the “hardcore” gamer types that flock to Game Pass or buy next-gen consoles on day one, but why shouldn’t they be? Apple getting in on the action sooner would offer more value to its subscribers and lend more credibility to the platform.

Triple-A releases could work well alongside the concept of an Ultimate tier (as raised above). I hear Ubisoft is struggling for cash, I bet a fat cheque for an Assassin’s Creed Shadows iPhone release on day one via Apple Arcade would sound pretty appealing. So-called double-A games could be another sweet spot that turns heads

Greater Focus on Local Co-Op

Finally, one thing that Game Pass does really well is local co-op. At all times Microsoft maintains a well-stocked roster of games, under the guise of providing a little something for everyone and plenty to sample in between. While many of these are online experiences like Astroneer and Grounded, there are many games for playing locally too.

Local co-op has experienced something of a resurgence in the last few years, but the saturation of online multiplayer has certainly not helped. There are many ways Apple could go about this, from a Nintendo Clubhouse Games “the touchscreen becomes a board game” approach, to Jackbox-style party games, Among Us style wireless play, and more games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes which are already available on mobile platforms.

Turning the Apple TV into an honest-to-god console with the use of Bluetooth controllers (or iPhones for controllers) wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

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Apple Arcade is already great, if you haven’t tried it you should give a go (you probably have a free trial waiting for you). Open the App Store and hit the “Arcade” tab to get going.

Alternatively, take a look at rolling your Arcade subscription into an Apple One plan instead.

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