Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil and Death Stranding are coming to iPhone for the first time enabled by the A17 Pro chip with hardware ray-tracing, paving the way for AAA games on Apple TV.

Apple is quietly transforming the Apple TV media box into a Trojan horse game console, much like the iPhone today doubles as a portable game console, video camera, GPS navigator, payment device, and more.

Apple TV 4K already supports PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and other game controllers, and offers games that are also available on consoles such as The Pathless (a PS5 launch title), Beyond a Steel Sky, Inside, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and The Last Campfire.

We would not go as far as to call them triple-A games and graphics are typically scaled down on Apple TV as compared to the console versions.


First AAA games for iPhone
AAA games are, however, coming to the iPhone for the first time enabled by the world's first 3nm chip, A17 Pro, in the new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Assassin's Creed Mirage will arrive on iPhone in the first half of 2024, while Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding are coming later this year. These are the full console games – not scaled-down mobile ports.


 Apple's demonstration of Assassin's Creed Mirage running on iPhone 15 Pro

In an interview with IGN (link), Apple confirmed that it is working with game developers to bring the same games – for those titles missing – to iPad and Mac.


A17 Pro with ray-tracing
Apple's latest A-series chips eventually find their way to Apple TV, so the A17 Pro provides a good indication of what to expect in a future Apple TV. For example, the current Apple TV 4K (2022) is powered by binned A15 Bionic, which was first introduced in iPhone 13 Pro in 2021.

Based on the early indications and benchmarks (Geekbench), A17 Pro's 6-core CPU is roughly 30% faster than the A15 Bionic while the 6-core GPU is 40% faster. Apple proclaims that it is "the biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs" and the "best game console".


 A17 Pro's GPU capabilities. Photo: Apple

A15 Bionic vs. A17 Pro
A15 Bionic (in iPhone 13 Pro)
A17 Pro (in iPhone 15 Pro)
Improvement
CPU benchmark (single-core)
2265
2908
28.4%
CPU benchmark (multi-core)
5515
7238
31.2%
GPU benchmark (metal)
19653
27531
40.1%
NPU (Neural Engine) spec
16-core, 15.8 TOPS
16-core, 35 TOPS
121.5%
RAM
4GB
8GB
Ray-tracing
Software
Hardware
MetalFX Upscaling
No
Yes
-
Mesh Shaders
No
Yes
-
Chip design
5nm
3nm
-
 FlatpanelsHD
Some rough calculations for perspective: This makes A17 Pro's CPU roughly 75% faster (single-core) than the CPU in PlayStation 5 and a little slower in multi-core (-10%) because A17 Pro has only six CPU cores (of which four are efficiency cores) versus eight CPU cores in PS5. In terms of GPU power, PS5 is still far ahead with 10 TFlops of graphical performance versus an estimated 2 – 2.2 TFlops in A17 Pro, but PS5 also consumes many times more power.

There are of course many other parameters to consider such as RAM and memory throughput, SDD speeds, storage capacity, battery versus outlet-powered, and cooling/throttling over time.

A17 Pro's GPU far surpasses the GPU in Nintendo Switch but does not match the latest and greatest PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Still, Apple seems confident that the A17 Pro's performance and features are enough to enable AAA console gaming, initially at 30fps and HDR (confirmed for Resident Evil Village). A17 Pro's hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, mesh shaders, and MetalFX Upscaling alone should offer a significant boost to graphics.

The powerful 16-core NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in A17 Pro, which delivers 35 TOPS, will be utilized for MetalFX Upscaling (similar to Nvidia's DLLS), said Apple, but it may someday play an even a bigger role in gaming due to the proliferation of AI.

Another advantage that Apple is touting: Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and Assassin's Creed Mirage will be universal purchases meaning that if you buy them on iPhone, you will also get them on Apple Silicon-powered iPads and Macs – and Apple TV later, if the developers decide to release them for tvOS.

The company could significantly scale up the graphical performance on Apple TV by equipping it with an M-series chip or a custom-designed TV chip, but so far it has refrained from doing so, sticking with its A-series chips.

If we had to guess, Apple's rumored plans to combine Apple TV with HomePod and a camera also have a gaming angle. Imagine controlling games with just your hands and body movement.

 Also read: A 'Nintendo Wii' in your TV? A new startup is working on it