Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 15 series last week, bringing with it the iPhone’s long-awaited shift to USB-C.
But one of the more surprising elements of Apple’s new premium handsets, the 15 Pro and Pro Max, is their beefier gaming-related specs. In particular, they’re powered by Apple’s latest system-on-a-chip (SoC), the A17 Pro, which enables high-end graphical capabilities and can run native versions of big games like the recent Resident Evil 4 remake and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Apple is hyping the phones’ gaming prowess up so much that it’s even gone so far as to say the iPhone 15 Pro is “going to be the best game console.”
Speaking to IGN, multiple Apple engineers touted the power of the iPhone 15 Pro. When asked how the Pro series compares to Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S consoles, Tim Millet, Apple’s VP of platform architecture, gave a diplomatic answer, saying it’s “less on trying to compete with consoles” and more about giving developers “that same toolbox” to bring those console games to iPhone.
Jeremy Sandmel, Apple’s senior director of GPU Software, however, took it one step further: “I think they say the best game console is the one you have with you.”
“Yeah. That’s the new catch,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPhone product marketing, in agreement.
“It’s going to be the best game console,” Sandmel concluded.
On the one hand, it’s undeniably impressive that brand-new Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed games are running natively on iPhone. Most big-budget games, like Bethesda’s Starfield, are only playable on mobile devices through streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming.
That said, it’s certainly a bold proclamation to say that the iPhone 15 Pro will be the “best console,” especially based on a few ports of games that are playable on many other devices. It also remains to be seen how many people would even want to play, say, survival horror or open-world games on a small iPhone screen.
For more on the iPhone 15 Pro, check out our hands-on impressions. Meanwhile, Canadian pre-order information on the entire 15 family can be found here. The iPhone 15 Pro series launches on September 22nd.
Image credit: Capcom
Source: IGN
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
