If you had asked anyone six months ago what Apple’s biggest 2025 play would be, the obvious answer would’ve been “AI.” Maybe “home.” But gaming? You’d have been hard pressed to find anyone willing to bet on that. And yet, that’s exactly what it’s starting to look like.
Unexpected highlight
After an underwhelming, phased rollout of its initial Apple Intelligence offerings, the obvious move for Apple would have been to go balls-to-the-wall, all-hands-on-deck, real-artists-ship hard on fixing the delays, the limitations, and the growing sense that it simply can’t build frontier AI products and features as fast as its competitors. Or at all, for that matter.
But rather than touting the results of a massive, year-long, completely focused effort to prove it has the chops to stay in the game, it looks like Apple is about to just lean hard into gaming itself.
That’s not to say Apple is doing nothing AI-related this year. As Bloomberg reportedApple Intelligence is on track to get some stage next Monday, despite massive setbacks and internal drama. Still, Apple is poised to find itself further behind the competition than it was last June.
Of course, this isn’t a zero-sum situation. Had Apple not focused on gaming, its AI woes wouldn’t magically be solved. Different teams. Different resources. Different skill sets. But even so, the shift is unexpected.
WWDC 2025 is shaping up to be very different from what most users would have guessed up until just a few months ago. Part of that surprise is how much time Apple seems poised to dedicate to games, possibly more than ever before in a single event.
Between a new preinstalled Games app, Spatial Controller support for Apple Vision Pro, and the surprise acquisition of the studio behind Sneaky Sasquatch, gaming is emerging as Cupertino’s wildcard for the year.
Making fetch happen
For years, Apple has flirted with gaming. Halo and (ironically) Fortnite were first announced at Apple events, and the company spent the last decade and a half promoting products like the iPad mini and iPod touch as “the perfect mobile gaming device”.
More recently, it has been heavily pitching MacBook Pros as gaming machines as well, proudly showcasing dragons flying through ray-traced landscapes and AI-generated dust clouds in every event. Technically impressive, yes. But those demos often felt more like wishful thinking than real gaming momentum.
This time, though, it feels different. With WWDC just days away, Apple’s gaming efforts are being discussed more openly and more frequently than ever. And with a more cohesive, platform-spanning story to tell, it feels like Apple may finally be ready to treat gaming not as a selling point, but as a permanent strategy.
And of course, there’s the obvious money angle: the global gaming industry pulls in more revenue than the rest of the entertainment world combined. Doing more to secure a 15–30% cut of that pie is just common sense.
Whether Apple’s WWDC gaming showcase is part of a real long-term strategy or just a way to dazzle and distract from the fact that it still has little to show on the AI front, Monday’s play feels like a gamble.
Whether it will pay off, that’s another story.
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