Apple's MacBook Neo is reportedly close to selling out which has got me thinking about why we can't have more simple and affordable gaming PCs like the Steam Deck
Apple's new MacBook Neo is reportedly selling so well that the company may soon run out of A18 Pro chips to stick in it. Which has got me thinking: Why can't we have more similarly simple but appealing and affordable PC gaming devices? Ya know, like the Steam Deck?
Tim Culpan, a tech journalist based in Taipei, Taiwan, says his sources are telling him that sales of the MacBook Neo have surpassed Apple's expectations to the point of creating a "massive dilemma."
That dilemma is centred on the A18 Pro chip at the heart of the Neo. Famously, it's basically just an iPhone chip. But Cuplan's basic contention is that Apple had only planned to make so many MacBook Neo, which was intended to essentially be built using leftover A18 Pros.
Apparently, the plan was to sell around five to six million units. In the medium term, Apple intended to switch the Neo to the newer A19 chip. The problem, as Culpan has it, is that the Neo is selling so fast, stockpiles of the A18 Pro will run out before the new A19-based Neo is due to launch.
That puts Apple in a tricky position of deciding whether to commission TSMC to spool up more A18 Pro wafers, which would be much more expensive than the original batch of chips. Partly, Culpan says, that's because the A18 Pro chips in the Neo are binned down to five GPU cores from the six actually in the die, and many would otherwise have been thrown away, making them effectively free.
Whatever, there are two or three interesting-ish issues to ponder here. First, the MacBook Neo proves that even in this weirded-out tech market, you can have a smash hit at the budget end of the market if you get the product right.
The second is how the Neo makes the gaming PC market look rather obsessed with performance and specs. For me, one of the most appealing PCs of recent years has been the Steam Deck.
It's a polished but unpretentious and price-conscious PC gaming device, and we need more of them. That's why I've found the broader PC handheld market a bit disappointing. There are too many premium-priced models that are so expensive, all they're really good for is making gaming laptops look like good value. And that takes some doing in the current climate.
All of this also feeds into the gaming console sector, which seems to be in a state of acute stress, with Xbox's very existence in question and Sony seemingly pushing the PlayStation ever more upmarket.
There, too, the appeal of a simpler and more affordable device seems pretty obvious. The sector probably needs more Switch 2s, not a move further up market.
Anywho, maybe one of the big boys in the PC gaming industry could come up with something. Nvidia could easily do it in technical terms, and of course, has its own PC chip coming out soon. But if Nvidia was ever about making gaming more mainstream, it's hard to see evidence for that in recent years.
I think a lesser-known brand would struggle to get traction with such a device, so what this all comes down to is probably predictable enough. I'm going to have to make do with the Deck for now and wait for Deck 2, whenever that arrives, or see how low Valve can go with the Steam Machine, all the while the memory crisis makes everything so much more expensive. I can't see any other company making an impact.