"We have tomb raider and death stranding 2 for $69.99" is not an interesting proposition except for Apple fanboy dads who hope that will placate their gamer child (it won't).
The ecosystem for running x86 games on snapdragon phones is already fairly robust. Crossover on my apple silicon mac works wonders.
That said, Apple has been attempting for years to make Apple Arcade a hit.
I was waiting for this release to upgrade the old Apple TV in my office. This is a pretty niche release, with a premium price. I don’t really care about the price, I waste money on way dumber stuff, but this has nothing that it adds over the previous gen that actually pacts any of the things I want to do.
It’s a shame they couldn’t just improve the box, skip the AI stuff no one wants or asked for, drop the fake gaming console aspirations, and drop it at a reasonable price.
It would really help me stomach a $300 dedicated box for my TV if it could do more than look at pictures and stream netflix. Games are the absolute obvious thing to do, especially since Microsoft and Sony are seemingly struggling.
Just ship a controller and cut some deals apple, it isn't that hard...