UE5 is just a tool. Developers are the ones who are responsible of the game performance, more than Epic.
There are some problems that plague UE5 games like transition stuttering (moving from one zone to another) among other things, but overall I couldn’t blame the engine when the ones who use it are not me, but the developers themselves.
Same flak for Rocksteady and Batman Arkham Knight. They used Unreal Engine 3 instead of 4, and ran like crap anyway.
Studios and publishers will happily pay UE fees if that means pushing the game on schedule than wasting 2 years creating an engine from scratch that can’t resell or reuse (there are exceptions , tho)
As I said multiple times before, this iPhone sits in price over substantially better phones (from Google, OnePlus and Samsung), and below a feature-complete iPhone 16 with a complete A18.
My guess is there are not too many units (binned A18), and they will use this opportunity to raise the iPhone prices by $100.
It would been killer for $399 or even $499. Guess the previous iPhone model have become the new SE.