Yesterday, Digital Foundry published their review of the iPhone 17 Pro, which as you’d expect, focuses on the Pro model’s gaming capabilities. Tested against iPhone 13 and 15 Pros and using a series of benchmark tests as well as real-world gameplay, Digital Foundry’s tests revealed significant improvements in several areas, including:
GPU performance;
Ray tracing capabilities;
Second-generation dynamic caching; and
Improved thermals.
Benchmarks are one thing, but Digital Foundry’s tests also revealed real-world benefits to the iPhone 17 Pro, such as:
a 60% performance increase over the iPhone 15 Pro on Resident Evil Village,
the elimination of freezing and big frame rate drops in Assassin’s Creed Mirage,
more reliable 30 fps gameplay in Death Stranding.
Those are significant improvements in just two generations of the A-series chips.
What really caught my eye, though, was the impact of cooling. The iPhone 17 Pro uses a vapor chamber and aluminum chassis to help cool the device and keep its chips running at full speed longer. When Digital Foundry placed the 17 Pro on a desk fan, it became clear just how important that cooling is.
Running a benchmark stress test with air blowing across the back of the iPhone 17 Pro reduced the performance drop by roughly 50%. With those sorts of results, I expect external cooling solutions like this X5s telescopic controller and FX5 Cooler combo from GameSir to become a popular accessory in the coming year, so of course, I’ve ordered one and will report back soon.
However, thanks to the efforts of the Clickwheel Games Preservation Project led by GitHub user Olsro, every iPod game has been preserved. As Orland explains:
[Olsro] lucked into contact with three people who had large iPod game libraries in the first month or so after the project’s launch last October.
Getting working access to the final unpreserved game, Real Soccer 2009, was “especially cursed,” Olsro tells Ars. “Multiple [people] came to me during this summer and all attempts failed until a new one from yesterday,” he said. “I even had a situation when someone had an iPod Nano 5G with a playable copy of Real Soccer, but the drive was appearing empty in the Windows Explorer. He tried recovery tools & the iPod NAND just corrupted itself, asking for recovery…”
Not only has the project preserved the entire library of games, but now, they’re available to anyone who still has a working iPod that supports them. Sonic on iPod will never be considered the definitive version of Sega’s classic, but if you ask me, it’s still worth preserving the memories of people like Reddit user Mahboishk for whom, “The iPod version of Sonic the Hedgehog was my introduction to the franchise as a kid, and it got me into speedrunning.” That 2000s version of Sonic is an important link in the story that has helped Sonic endure as a franchise from its ’90s origins to today. Now you too can try your hand at navigating the Green Hill Zone with a click wheel.
Yesterday, I wrote about the upcoming release of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on the Mac. Today, CD PROJEKT RED published a support document, listing the game’s Mac system requirements. As I wrote yesterday, the company says the game will work on all Apple silicon Macs; however, the beefier your CPU and memory, the better.
As reported by Tom Warren at The Verge today, the support document summarizes the game’s system requirements in four categories: Minimum, Recommended, High Fidelity, and Very High Fidelity. It’s worth checking out the support document and Warren’s coverage before buying Cyberpunk 2077, which still hasn’t shown up on the Mac App Store for pre-order, because if you want the Very High Fidelity experience, you’ll need at least an M3 Ultra or M4 Max with at least 36 GB of memory.
Last fall, alongside the announcement of the M4 MacBook Pro, Apple and CD PROJEKT RED said that Cyberpunk 2077 was coming to the Mac in early 2025. But when WWDC rolled around last month with no more news about when the game would come to the Mac, I thought it might slip to the fall when macOS Tahoe is expected to be released with Metal 4 and other game-friendly features.
So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, which includes the Phantom Liberty DLC, will be out this Thursday on the Mac App Store, as well as on GOG.com, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Cyberpunk, a notoriously demanding game when it comes to system resources, will run on any Apple silicon Mac with 16GB of memory that is running macOS Sequoia (or the Tahoe developer beta).
Source: CD PROJEKT RED.
To support every 16GB Apple silicon Mac since the M1 MacBook Air, Cyberpunk relies on the latest Metal technologies, including Tile-Based Deferred Rendering and tools like Metal’s C++ interface and the Metal Shader Converter, to optimize for Apple GPUs. The game also takes advantage of Apple’s MetalFX Upscaling.
CD PROJEKT RED has gone all out with other compatibility features to make its game feel at home on the Mac, too, including:
“For This Mac” graphics presets that are optimized for the Apple silicon hardware running the game, which promises to take the guess work out of configuring graphics settings;
AMD FSR upscaling and frame generation optimized for Apple silicon Macs;
Support for Spatial Audio and head tracking for those playing with AirPods;
HDR support that is dynamically optimized for Apple’s XDR displays and HDR output for calibrated external displays;
Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and controller support; and
Cross-progression across all platforms.
In the fall, Apple says Cyberpunk will get a boost from the videogame technologies announced at WWDC 2025. Those include MetalFX Frame Interpolation to increase and stabilize frame rates, which Apple says will allow the game to hit 120 fps using the game’s Ultra settings when combined with MetalFX Upscaling. Cyberpunk will utilize MetalFX Frame Denoising to clean up the noise produced by its path-tracing renderer, too.
Source: CD PROJEKT RED.
I’m looking forward to trying Cyberpunk on the Mac. I already own it on Steam and have played it on the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch 2, both of which should be excellent points of comparison to the wide range of Macs that Apple says will run Cyberpunk 2077.
The Mac version of Cyberpunk 2077 will debut this Thursday, July 17. There is no additional charge for the Mac version if you already purchased the game from one of the stores that offers it. Alternatively, you can purchase the game from the Mac App Store, where Cyberpunk 2077 is making its debut.
On the one hand, this news isn’t that surprising. Sneaky Sasquatch was a launch title for Apple Arcade when it debuted in 2019, and it has been highlighted in several keynotes in the years since. As Colantonio notes in his story, Apple Arcade Senior Director Alex Rofman specifically called out Sneaky Sasquatch as an Apple Arcade success in a 2024 interview with Digital Trends.
On the other hand, however, this is Apple’s first known game studio acquisition and a very small indie studio acquisition at that. Out of context, that seemed like an odd acquisition. However, not long after Digital Trends broke the acquisition news, Mark Gurman reported for Bloomberg that Apple will unveil a dedicated Games app, which lines up with a previous report by 9to5Mac. Not much is known about the rumored app at this point, but it certainly puts the RAC7 acquisition in a different light. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear news of other indie studios joining Apple in the coming months.
Today, Blue Prince, a critically acclaimed videogame appeared on Apple’s App Store. The trouble was, it wasn’t offered for sale by its developer, Dogubomb, or its publisher, Raw Fury. The real Blue Prince is only available on the Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
Before it was removed, I easily found one iOS copy of the game just by searching Blue Prince on the App Store – it was the first search result. The icon looked like it would be the icon for a hypothetical mobile version of the game, the listing had screenshots that looked like they were indeed from Blue Prince, and the description for the game matched the description on Steam.
The port was available long enough for Blue Prince’s developer and publisher to post about it on Bluesky and, according to Peters, for the fake to reach #8 in the App Store Entertainment category. I feel for anyone who bought the game assuming it was legit given Peters’ experience:
I also quickly ran into a major bug: when I tried to walk through one of the doors from the Entrance Hall, I fell through the floor.
This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. As Peters points out it happened to Palworld and Wordle too. Other popular games that have appeared on the App Store as janky scam ports include Cuphead, a version of Balatro that appeared before its official release on iOS, and Unpacking.
This seems like the sort of thing that could be fixed through automation. Scammers want users to find these games, so they can make a quick buck. As a result, the name of the game is often identical to what you’d find on the Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation stores. It strikes me that a combination of automated searching for the top games on each store, combined with an analysis of how quickly a game is moving up the charts would catch a lot of this sort of thing, flagging it for reviewers who could take a closer look.
By the way, if you haven’t tried Blue Prince, you should. It’s an amazing game and early contender for game of the year. You can learn more about the game and find links to where to buy it here. Also, Brendon Bigley, my NPC co-host, has an excellent written and video review of Blue Prince on Wavelengths.
The Lost Crown was released at the beginning of last year. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier in France, the game was released to critical acclaim and won an Innovation in Accessibility Award at The Game Awards in 2024, but Ubisoft was unhappy with the game’s sales. The comeback of the celebrated series sold around 300,000 copies in its opening weeks, totaling around $15 million in revenue. In today’s “blockbuster or bust” gaming world, that wasn’t enough. Ubisoft released the Mask of Darkness story DLC in the fall but disbanded the team behind the game.
However, Ubisoft wasn’t finished trying to recoup its investment in The Lost Crown. The company called on its Da Nang studio to port the game to other platforms, starting with the Mac last December. The same group also adapted the game for the iPhone and iPad.
Today, The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is available everywhere. It’s on the Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PS4 and PS5, Switch, PC, Android, and other platforms, with Android being the latest addition alongside the iPhone and iPad.
If you’re a console or PC gamer, it would have been hard to miss The Lost Crown’s release in early 2024. The game follows Sargon, a warrior in an imagined version of ancient Persia, who is tasked with trekking to Mount Qaf to save Prince Ghassan. Along the way, there are puzzles to solve and a fun combination of platforming and fluid combat. It’s a shame the game didn’t fare better because it’s an absolute gem.
I’ve played at least the opening level of The Lost Crown on an M1 MacBook Air, M4 Max MacBook Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, M4 iPad Pro, and Sony PS5. Ultimately, the game ran well on all five devices, but there were differences. The PS5 was the smoothest of all, and the game looked phenomenal on my OLED TV.
As you’d probably expect, the game runs very well on an M4 Max MacBook Pro and M4 iPad Pro, although both got quite warm, and I could clearly hear the MacBook Pro’s fans when I removed my headphones. In both cases, I noticed a little hitch in the frame rate from time to time when transitioning from one area of the map to another, but it wasn’t a big deal in either case. The Lost Crown’s gorgeous artwork and sound design really shine on both devices, too.
The worst experiences were on the iPhone and M1 MacBook Air, for different reasons. The iPhone 16 Pro Max handled the game well, and it looked great, but the game is a lot more fun on a bigger screen. I noticed more frame rate hitches on the M1 MacBook Air than on any other device, but I didn’t really expect the game to be playable, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that it worked.
Dialogue scenes work better on the iPhone than combat where everything is tiny.
Both the iPhone and iPad versions of the game have been adapted for touch. There are on-screen touch controls, but I’d highly recommend using a controller instead. The onscreen controls are well done, but The Lost Crown’s combat feels much, much better with a controller. If you’re looking for a good controller for iPhone or iPad, check out our Setups page for a few recommendations.
An example of the mobile version’s touch controls.
The mobile versions of The Lost Crown have added automatic parrying and healing potion use, as well as a new option to slow down time during combat, all of which are designed to make the game more touchscreen-friendly. I’m glad those options are there, but again, you really should use a controller with this game. It’s also worth noting that none of the Apple platform versions of the Lost Crown include the DLC, and the Mac version is capped at 60 fps; that doesn’t bother me, but I know it’s an issue for others. The Lost Crown also supports cloud saves if you have an Ubisoft Connect account, but the saves only work Mac-to-Mac or among iOS and iPadOS devices, which stinks.
Finally, we need to talk about the princely price Ubisoft is charging for The Lost Crown on the Mac. The game is $40, which is less than the $60 launch price over a year ago, but now, you can pick it up for as low as $15–$25 on other platforms, depending on whether it comes with the DLC. Given that difference, it’s hard to recommend the Mac version of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown unless you have no other way to play it.
Playing on iPhone with a controller.
The iPhone and iPad versions are much more reasonable. First of all, you can download and play the tutorial level of the game for free to see if The Last Crown is for you, which I appreciate. Second, until May 5, the full game is available for $9.99 – the best deal available anywhere. There’s no guarantee you’ll ever have the option to play the DLC on either device, but $10 is fair for anyone who prefers to play games on their iPhone or an iPad. After May 5, the price is set to rise to $14.99, which is in line with console versions of the game that don’t come with the DLC.
So in the final analysis, there’s not much to commend the Mac version of The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown if you have any other way of playing it because it’s more than double the price of PC and console versions. The iPhone and iPad versions are a closer call, especially while the game is on sale for $10. The Lost Crown looks great on both and plays well (though not perfectly), but any iPhone’s screen is a little small for a game like The Lost Crown. That said, if your preference is for portability or you don’t have the option of a PC or console, The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is worth downloading on your iPhone or iPad to try the free tutorial level.
In addition to the many games showcased during today’s event was a new iOS and Android app called Nintendo Today. The app is a mix of Nintendo news, a game release calendar, and fun posts like Super Mario short movies and Metroid Dread concept art. Users can theme the app with images from their favorite Nintendo franchises and pick the games and characters they want to follow, which determines what you’ll see in the app’s Home and Calendar tabs. There are also settings to fine tune whether you get notifications about news and events.
Source: Nintendo.
The iOS app includes two styles of widgets, too. A medium widget displays content, such as video from today’s Nintendo Direct, news, and more. The larger widget displays the current month’s calendar and a list of upcoming game releases and other events, and is themed to match the franchise you pick when setting up the app.
Nintendo’s widgets. Source: Nintendo.
According to Nintendo, it intends to continue to announce games via Nintendo Directs. However, the company also says it will be releasing more information about the Switch 2 via the app after its April 2nd Switch 2 Direct, so fans can expect a mix of Directs and app announcements going forward.
Whether intentional or not, the app disclosed a small bit of information about the Switch 2 by labeling a new button on the Joy-Con with the letter ‘C.’ The C button has been rumored for quite a while, and no one knows for sure what it does, but the Nintendo Today app’s image of a Switch 2 appears to confirm that the button is in fact a ‘C’ button.
Nintendo Today is obviously meant to get Nintendo and its products in front of consumers more often via the device that most people are glued to throughout their days. So, yes, it’s marketing. However, it’s also a fun, playful app that’s beautifully designed and the kind of app that I expect Nintendo sickos like me will turn to daily for a little dose of their favorite franchises.
Today is Pokémon Day, and, as they do every year, The Pokémon Company held a Pokémon Presents keynote showcasing the latest updates coming to their slate of titles, including a gameplay reveal for the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A for Nintendo Switch.
