The Allure of a Large-Screen Gaming Experience

I’ve fallen into the camp of wanting nothing more than a small-screen handheld console like the Steam Deck to play my favorite games. However, what if I wanted the biggest screen possible to play my games? The Apple Vision Pro and Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service would be the answer, but Apple’s walled garden yet again stifles what could be a great experience.

The Apple Vision Pro: A Big-Screen Solution

The $3,500 price tag on an AVP is more than I would be comfortable paying for any visual product, let alone a 75-inch big-screen QD-OLED TV. However, the Vision Pro could offer the equivalent of a wall-to-wall big-screen experience if you can get comfortable with it. The system has a 3660 x 3200 resolution per eye micro-OLED display. The headset includes some of the best displays on any VR headset I’ve used. Shouldn’t it be the best possible display to play non-VR games?

Nvidia’s GeForce Now: A Promising Service

Nvidia announced early in January that GeForce Now would start to support Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 without players needing to jump through extra hoops. It’s essentially the same experience on Safari, with all the same limitations. However, the service is expensive, especially if you want to play at 4K. The Ultimate subscription normally costs $20 a month, which gets you the equivalent of a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU and long sessions. But, the page says all plays, whether day, 1-month, or 6-month, are all sold out.

The Limitations of the Apple Vision Pro

So many of these issues could have been aided with a dedicated app. Either Nvidia doesn’t want to spend time creating a VR-first app, or it doesn’t want to get entangled with Apple’s demands for a 30% cut on in-app purchases. There’s no GeForce Now app available on iOS or iPadOS either. You also have to remember the service is expensive, and the gaming potential for Vision Pro is there, but without controller support or games outside the app store, it will always be limited.

Apple’s Gaming Strategy: A Walled Garden

Apple has stepped up its push to get gaming into its ecosystem, though only on its terms. The tech giant wants its customers to buy the latest and greatest Macs or iPads for gaming. No Apple system can be a prime target for gamers without opening up the hedges on its walled garden. The gaming potential for Vision Pro is there, but without controller support or games outside the app store, it will always be limited.