Apple Arcade

[anewman]

I know nothing about the games, but it’s £4.99/month and the first month’s a free trial.

 

Plus in iOS 13 you can link an Xbox One or PS4 controller to your iPad or iPhone.

 

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-arcade/

 

Are any old the game going to be worth it?

[deKay]

Not for me. I don’t play mobile games, my Apple TV is too old, and I don’t play games on my Mac.

[df0]

I’ll definitely give the free trial a try, that should give a good indication of its value.

[Paulando]

12 minutes ago, deKay said:

Not for me. I don’t play mobile games, my Apple TV is too old, and I don’t play games on my Mac.

Ok great.

[ZOK]

Are the games exclusives or already in existence? I only recognised Sonic Racing at that link, and my interest in that could be described as precisely zero.

 

I’d give the free month a whirl for sure - if Archero was on it I’d probably pay a fiver a month anyway, so who knows, there could be some gems (clever IAP wordplay, cheers) available.

[MrHendo]

It says you can share with up to 5 family members. Any idea how this will work? Can I pay the sub and then gift it out to a few mates?

[footle]

3 hours ago, MrHendo said:

It says you can share with up to 5 family members. Any idea how this will work? Can I pay the sub and then gift it out to a few mates?

 

Apple family sharing is you create a family where one person agrees to pay for everyone else’s purchases. I’d suggest you probably don’t want to do that.

[Paulando]

4 hours ago, footle said:

 

Apple family sharing is you create a family where one person agrees to pay for everyone else’s purchases. I’d suggest you probably don’t want to do that.

You can actually be more selective about it these days, and can choose not to share purchases, but you still need to group a family. It’s not something you’d want to do with a bunch of mates really.

[deKay]

Apple Arcade does have exclusivity over the new Chu Chu Rocket game though.

[Wonderm]

If chu chu rocket and beyond a steel sky are both actually exclusives its going to be enough to make me subscribe, at least for a bit. Didn't want to care about this but they're tapping too deeply into personal nostalgia here. 

[Chooch]

3 hours ago, Paulando said:

You can actually be more selective about it these days, and can choose not to share purchases, but you still need to group a family. It’s not something you’d want to do with a bunch of mates really.

Does 1 person still need to have their card controlling it all?

[Paulando]

4 minutes ago, Chooch said:

Does 1 person still need to have their card controlling it all?

Only if you activate ‘Purchase sharing’:

 

 

I share my 2TB iCloud storage with my family, but nothing else, and we each have our own card setup.

[hub2]

Public Service Announcement:

 

This is now available if you've updated to iOS13 beta.

 

Just browsing through the list and (to me) lots of interesting titles.

[suzzopher]

I’m really impressed with the games I’ve played so far. Exit the Gungeon and Frogger are excellent fun.

 

 

[bradigor]

You can use the 8bitdo with the iPhone yes? Tempted to try some of the games out for the free month and see how it goes. 

[Popo]

I saw @Cyhwuhx‘s comment in another thread about this and did a little reading last night - it seems you can use PS4 and Bluetooth-enabled Xbone controllers as of iOS 13, but sadly it seems Apple have made special accommodations for these pads only - others still have to adhere to Apple’s MFi standard to work and unfortunately 8bitdo don’t support it. 

 

I asked them via email a while back and they don’t plan to support it in the future either. 

 

I found a thread on Reddit where someone had tested with iOS 13 and reported back and it didn’t work. 

 

It was possible to connect them through iCade in an old firmware (IIRC it tricked the device into thinking the pad was an external keyboard) but that’s no longer supported and, to be honest, it wasn’t a very reliable method to begin with. 

[hub2]

Still adding new games as of this morning. Jenny LeClue is up... first place you can get it I think.

[Eighthours]

Looking forward to trying this out, it sounds surprisingly good considering that Apple has totally squandered its devices' potential regarding gaming so far. Maybe that's FINALLY changing.

 

Oh! Does iOS13 mean that I can play the GTA:SA port with an Xbox controller now?

[Girth Certificate]

any recommendations for a clip thing to attach my phone to the top of a PS4 pad?

 

Actually, does it support the Switch Pro pad? with its fantastic battery life

[hub2]

No support for the Switch pro controller yet, but I read that Exit the Gungeon has controller mapping in its'settings for PS4, Xbox, and Switch... so maybe it's coming eventually? Or perhaps the devs are just future proofing (or it's just in the code base from other versions).

[Popo]

Not until Nintendo implements the MFi standard. 

[Yiggy]

What the Golf is excellent and chu chu rocket is...chu chu rocket. So great. 
 

There are a lot of good sounding titles on there I have to say. Sayonara Patterned and Assemble look cracking. 
 

The fact the saves carry over to iPad and with the Xbox / PS4 pad support it has some serious potential. I wonder how much revenue a popular game would generate on here for the publisher compared to it being on the App Store filled with in app purchases. 

[MK-1601]

You can make a lot more money in free to play but the appeal of Arcade to devs is that Apple are dishing out free money upfront and games already in development for PC/console can be ported relatively easily.

 

The long term prospects of the service are going to depend on how well Apple keep the flow of interesting new games coming, and whether players get bored with games that have to be kiddy-friendly and are generally limited to the scope of indie PC/Switch/PSN games.

 

There is also the issue that Apple are still suspicious of games and aren't imposing any real quality bar. You'll see a lot of publishers quickly reskinning existing games or putting together low risk spinoffs.

 

e.g.

 

I can see a lot of people using it as a rental service for the occassional month to try out games they'd actually buy to own permanently on Switch/PC/etc.

[gospvg]

Will this service only work on the newer generation ipads/iphones?

[Cyhwuhx]

Anything that got the new iOS 13 update, I think. Note that only iPhones have updated so far. The rest has yet to update (iPad Sep. 24th).

[hub2]

You can download the iPad OS beta to try it on iPad as well, but no-one has it on Apple TV or MacOS yet.

[gospvg]

Don't like the ideas of beta's will let other ipad users try it out and find the various bugs, I'm in no rush. I like the idea of £5 a month for in-app free games for up to 6 family members to enjoy.

[Yiggy]

Odd one. I played about 30 mins of What The Golf last night and when I’ve loaded it up today it’s not saved my progress. 

[hub2]

13 minutes ago, gospvg said:

Don't like the ideas of beta's will let other ipad users try it out and find the various bugs, I'm in no rush. I like the idea of £5 a month for in-app free games for up to 6 family members to enjoy.

 

The current beta is the GM, which means it's identical to the one being released next week, if that helps? Still, only a few more days to wait, so enjoy on iPhone 'till then!

[gospvg]

@hub2 see the post from @Yiggy about beta issues. There are always issues with any new service released to the mass market. I'll leave it a month to let Apple iron out all the issues & then subscribe.