Why does it matter if Apple makes their own controller? iOS/iPadOS supports other popular controllers and the Apple Store even sells multiple controllers (including the PS5 controller).
Adding built in support for a user's existing controllers, (XBox, PlayStation or Nintendo) to iOS devices and Macs is another one of those things that debunks the "Apple doesn't care about gaming" conspiracy theory.
Apple once argued in court that they ought to be allowed to kick out all games built on Unreal engine by third party developers from their platform.
Imagine you have developed a game, it is selling well, and one day you find out that the game engine you are using has been banned for disobedience and Apple wants you to rewrite your entire game in a different engine.
Apple doesn’t just not care about games, they despise game developers with a burning passion.
It's all a bit moot. Gaming is an ecosystem, and MacOS is not a big part of it. Even if Apple supported all the things it needed to, developers still wouldn't build for it, it's too small a segment.
Apple also has no buy in for the segment of gaming people wish it supported. Where SteamOS and Windows both have first party AAA game development studios.
It's not moot; it's software! So many developers put their pearls before swine these days, when the technical side of things couldn't be more clear.
Apple wants the same level of control Microsoft had with DirectX. It is blatant, and they're fighting for it even harder than Microsoft did. There's nothing wrong with offering a high-level API, but there is a problem with avoiding industry standards for the sake of maximizing your market size.
Stuff like the Game Porting Toolkit demonstrates just how deeply behind Apple is. They're desperate to prove how capable Metal can be, without acknowledging why nobody targets it. It's not surprising that a DXVK port could also support Metal. It's just not what developers intend to support; not upstream, downstream or direct from Apple. That sort of pointless insistence is where I draw the line between "just business" and "being an anti-competitive asshole".
How exactly does not caring (much) about gaming require a conspiracy? It should be the default state for the manufacturer of a computing platform whose main competitor has already cornered the gaming market.
Becsuse this is the gaming community and we can't speak subtly, apparently. There's definitely some spectrum between "does not support any games" and "full on dedicated gaming machine" and given the efforts of Google/Apple they are certainly somewhere in between.
Why does it matter if Apple makes their own controller? iOS/iPadOS supports other popular controllers and the Apple Store even sells multiple controllers (including the PS5 controller).