Game developers eye the Mac after Steam's jump to Apple - Page 2

For becoming really rellevant Mac gaming has to keep price level with the Win versions. At least for COD and MOH the mac versions kept the full price well after the Win versions were bundled and sold for a fraction of the original cost.

But if I van get Valves Orange box at a decent price and Apple release the "xmac", then I am all for buing gamels for the mac againg. Back in 1992 it was actually a game, Hellcats, that was one of the reasons to get a 16 MHz LCII instead of a more powerfull 40 MHz 386

Hmm are my eyes playing tricks on me or did I just see Satan wearing a fur lined parka and mukluks?

This is where Apple can POSSIBLY / FINALLY entertain the idea of releasing an xMac (headless-imac) in short a machine with a user upgradable CPU and video card.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away Apple lived or died SOLELY by the sales of Macintosh Computers. Basically it was their 'one trick pony' and Steve did a remarkable job rebuilding Apple and along the way and without anyone noticing... Apple's bottom line is less and less dependent on the sale of 'premium priced' un-upgradable (great looking) computers. Each and every year (for a good number of years) shows Apple relying less and less and less on those bloated Macintosh profit margins. This is a GOOD THING because it may empower Steve entertain ideas that years ago would be shot down due to fear of killing the bottom line!

Is it time for Apple to pull an xMac out of the R&D lab? Maybe so! Is it time for Apple to license the OS? (that I'm not too sure of - too many people can still feel the burn from Apples last adventure in OS licensing)... and make please make no illusions that running OS X on 'generic hardware' is a walk in the park and Apple could simply sell OS X that doesn't require Apple hardware. Yes I'm well aware of Hackintoshes (glancing ever so quickly at an clone case in my computer room) and NO, OS X won't just install on ANY hardware it usually takes additional patches and hacks. Sometimes you CAN build a box that will boot OS X without any hacks to the OS at all but EFI work still needs to take place.

For Apple to truly run on 'generic computers' would require a team of developer as large as... Oh I dunno... how about the ones found at Microsoft or the 'nameless thousands' (more?) that have contributed code and drivers for Linux. Apple OS X is what it is (fast and reliable) due to many factors and one of them is that Apple doesn't include drivers for ten billion different hardware offerings. Apple uses the Audio chips of its own choosing and will likely continue to do so until such a time that a cheaper and markedly better alternative comes out and its then and only then that they have to worry about writing a driver for OS X to handle the new audio chip (ASIC?). In the rest of the PC world you have a great number of different AUDIO chips and microsoft pretty much has to write (or more likely have the hardware vendor write) and include in its product. Windows is HUGE and Microsoft can make DEMANDS that hardware makers write drivers (and the hardware makers are likely very happy to do it) unfortunately OS X doesn't command the same attention.

Either way... It certainly could make for some interesting times ahead... OR Apple could continue to do what they do and eventually let the Mac fall too far back in the CPU & Video departments and once again see game developers fall off due to poor sales.

All Apple has to do is make a gaming desktop and this could actually go somewhere.

Its great that Valve is doing this, but the price of hardware will still be an issue for enthusiast-type gamers. It's just much more cost-effective to do your gaming on a windows pc. You can't even buy a base model iMac and upgrade the video. The best video in the imacs now is the Radeon 4850, which is a decent card for gaming, but you have to buy the 2000.00 model just to get that video upgrade. You can spend half that, have better raw specs for gaming, and still run steam.

People who have macs and want to try some of valve's games, or only do casual arcade style games will get the most out of this, which is still a good thing. Steam has a lot of casual games and its a great distribution channel for that.

Yes and no.

But do you REALLY want to lug a 27" imac or Mac Pro and cinema display to a lan when you could take a 15/17" laptop?

PC Game software totaled $13.1 Billion in 2009

So, yes!

Source: http://www.overclockersclub.com/news/26185/

I want what you're smoking

The A4 is about as powerful as the G3 in my 6.5 year old iBook. Not gonna happen. If they did, you'd see Mac sales drop by about 90%.

I would just like to know if this means I could set up a mac mini as a theater PC and then also use it to play games on Steam thus negating the need for an xBox. I really don't want to have to get an xbox to supplement the PS3 and wii i already have.
But I suspect the on board graphics of the mini would not be up to the task of gaming......

yeah me too...

I would actually expect that other 3rd party software will do better than games if future.

When you consider number of PCs in wild and low gaming market share PC has, what can you really accept from Mac with their (comparably) low PC market share..?

Even if porting from Windows to OSX and from DirectX to OpenGL is reasonably easy, I'd be surprised if Mac gaming really does much further than a couple of titles released to "sense" the market. Even if Mac users response turns to be big enough to keep developers interest in Mac platform, it still has to survive couple of things:

- piracy (which will follow, only question is to what degree)
- compatibility and performance issues
- real life experience - on line cheating etc.

All those things are plaguing PC gaming as well, but considering much bigger user base, developers are willing - sort of - to invest into anti piracy technologies, frequent game fixes and updates, techniques to minimize on line cheating... all things that take extra money and resources from developers and are not directly related to the size of user base (for example I'd expect Punkbuster development expenses are the same no matter if user base is 10 or 90% of the market).

And at the end - what is in there for the gamers? I am long time computer gamer, going back to ZX81, Spectrum and Commodore 64... and recently I'm finding myself playing much more on PS3 than on my PC, and my PC is more than capable. For me, it is primarily the cheating thing - I really hate giving NZ$100 for a game to find myself being killed behind the wall by a pistol from a person on the other side of the map. True enough I'd prefer kbd and mouse, better textures and higher resolutions, but at the end of the day playing game where you know good players are just that - good players, not cheaters - beats all the tech advantages of the PC platform, for me at least.

Actually detail is not incredible, most PS3 games are running on 720p and with nVidia 7800 graphics and 256MB of video memory there is only that much you can get even with all the possible optimization and fine tuning... I have recently compared Assassin Creed on my PC and on my PS3, having both plugged to 42" full HD TV. Visual difference was obvious, PC running game in full HD with better textures and smoother gameplay (Intel quad core with nVidia 8800 GT), but that being said PS3 version was still more than good enough.

I was wondering the same. I tried L4D 2 demo and it was running absolutely brilliant on my PC, which is not surprise - Source engine is not overly demanding (for nowadays standards) when it comes to hardware...

Hello. I am a trojan / malware / virus. Since Apple opened up their platform to games, people have started pirating cracked versions making it very easy for me to infect the Macintosh platform.

Hello. I am McAfee and I am Norton. We have released new versions of our anti-malware products for the Macintosh that only utilize 32% of CPU time. That is an improvement over the last version.

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WASD + mouse = real controls.

Steam addressed those issues years ago.

In the beginning there was a lot of opposition to Valves draconian DRM protection policies, as Internet speeds picked up it became less of an issue.

You create an account which is linked to your games, it checks to verify and install updates every time you go to play a game.

You could play in offline mode if you aren't connected to the Internet which defeats the purpose of the online component of their games which is usually the main reason to play them.

Regarding cheating Valve anti-cheat system (VAC) protects users from cheats, you get caught cheating on a VAC secured server, your account is banned with no comeback, that extends across the entire steam platform you can still play on non VAC secured servers but thats it.

Valve with steam is very similar to Apple's App store a controlled, secure environment which ultimately leads to a better user experience,


You don't know much about the steam platform, do you?

Apple will never ever release a cheap desktop that is upgradable,
it contradicts the strategy they've used throughout their lifespan.

iMac is the closest thing to a product for gamers Apple is releasing.
Recently they finally started putting decent graphic cards in them.

Again. I know you guys want to believe that everything is how it is now and block everything else out (especially the hard times over the bondi iMac), but not that long ago the PowerMac was $1299 and Apple's best selling computer.


AKA why have desktop whose life can be expanded when you can sell them an all in one which is worthless after 18 months. Its a monopoly not like your users have a choice. What are they going to do, switch to windows losing most your files and spending thousands replacing software? Not all that great for the environment, but great for Apple's profits.

I dunno, as a solid gamer, I would invest in a Mac Pro. I'd just hope that I'd be able to upgrade the video card in a few years. I invested in a Power Mac Dual G5 in 2004. I'm still using it six years later, and it is still as snappy as the day I got it (running Leopard).

Nope, never claimed I knew anything about it either. Even if Steam is secure, the entire premise of games (the most pirated commodity out there) coming to the Mac is a not good with regard to security in the long run due to PEBKAC.

Apple is more than twelve years old, FYI. Even after Jobs returned to the company, for a while they did make affordable upgradeable towers.

The 4850 is the best card available for an iMac right now. That's a very decent card but $1999.99 is not a decent price. At that price, I could have a 5870-equipped machine with enough left over for accessories and a monitor (before you ask: yes, a 27" monitor). Most gamers know this and Apple isn't going to get any of them with the machines they currently offer.

Troll a video game board some time with a Mac thread and you'll see the hurdle Apple has to overcome to win over anyone that Steam for OS X would benefit.

And it's not an AIO form factor, with an H-IPS panel and more.

A. That it's not an AIO is an advantage.

B. What good will the monitor be when the computer it's grafted to becomes too slow to play anything?

C. By "and more" I assume you're humourously referring to the SD card reader? Did your point-and-shoot camera somehow not come with a USB cable?

I found that too. The consoles really don't look that much better than mid-range PCs. The advantage is in the cost. You essentially get mid-range PC quality graphics for a very low price and exclusive games and you don't have to install all manner of upgrades and DRM software or wait 20 minutes for the game to install.

The PC is a solid alternative to a console when you actually get a game up and running and the games are cheaper because they aren't subsidizing a console but the platform is held back by the piracy, low-end graphics in affordable machines (especially on the Mac) and fewer good games.


I don't think game piracy has any impact on OS security unless perhaps you mean that pirated versions of games will encourage more people to bundle trojans. Steam itself only verifies the game installation as you boot the game up.


I agree, it will mainly be for Mac users who could use a game delivery platform that is popular with publishers, not to attract PC gamers over. Aspyr have their own digital store already but will probably support Steam.


I used to think so but a single analog controller can control your entire movement with just your thumb as well as allow walking and running without holding shift and crouch if it's a clickable stick. Essentially to do the same as a stick requiring 1 thumb, you need 6 fingers on the keyboard.