Apple Arcade

Who knew, Apple has deep pockets? The company is reportedly spending billions of dollars a year on Apple TV+ original content, will pay about $480 million for the Texture acquisition which ultimately became News+, and is reportedly also spending several million dollars per game in Apple Arcade.

The Financial Times says the company is spending ‘several million dollars each’ on more than 100 games, putting Apple Arcade’s budget in excess of $500 million dollars. At its March event, Apple announced that Arcade would launch in the fall but did not announce pricing.

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On Monday, I attended Apple’s very different kind of special event at Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. There was no new hardware to unveil — new iPads, iMacs, and AirPods came the week before — so four new services took the show: Apple News+, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+…

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Apple significantly increased its investment in gaming yesterday with the announcement of its new Apple Arcade service. While details are still sparse on the service, developers are optimistic about what Apple Arcade could mean for gaming.

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I have to say yesterday’s Apple event was something of a snoozefest for me.

Now, I fully acknowledge that this is partly down to my particular tastes. I’m not a TV guy, for starters: I haven’t owned a television in 20 years, and while I do have a Netflix account, it’s borderline whether or not I actually use it enough to justify even the small cost. So it didn’t really matter what Apple announced there; it wasn’t going to interest me.

Same thing with gaming. I have X-Plane on my iPad, and use that briefly a few times a week, and three or four other games I play maybe a few times a year. I basically don’t have the gaming gene.

But while I could say to Apple ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ the truth is, it is partly Apple too …

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Apple today has revealed a new game subscription service it is calling “Apple Arcade.” This will allow iOS, macOS, and tvOS users to pay a flat monthly fee and access a bundle of otherwise paid apps through the App Store.

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