Apple is reportedly spending a lot in the race to secure games for Apple Arcade. A new report is stating that the Cupertino based company is spending over $500 million to secure games for their upcoming subscription service.
Financial Times made the report citing a number of sources from within Apple itself. Apparently, Apple is incentivizing developers by actually spending money on some of the games set to release with the service.
Apple Arcade will launch later this year with over 100 games from various developers. The report states that these will be exclusive to Apple Arcade, and will not appear on other competing subscription services. More interesting however is that Apple is not preventing these developers from releasing their games on platforms such as the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch.
Apple not stopping developers from releasing on PC and consoles is interesting. It seems that the Cupertino giant doesn’t see these platforms as directly competing with Apple Arcade, at least not in the same way as Google Stadia and other subscription services.
Of course, both Sony and Microsoft also have competing subscription services in PlayStation Now and Xbox Game Pass. Whether or not the exclusivity applies to these services is unknown. That said, Apple might not be counting these since they’re still tied to specific consoles. Apple Arcade on the other hand will work on various Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV.
For the most part, people haven’t really seen Apple as a company that cares about gaming. Outside of the failed Pippin console, itself a collaboration with Bandai, Apple has never really produced anything directly targeting the video game market until now. With Apple Arcade, the company seems to be trying to change that perception. By spending a lot to get exclusives for the service, they’re at the very least, making sure that gamers will have something unique to play on the platform.
