Guys give up the notion that all your games on Steam will magically run on OSX because steam is ported. The vast majority of those titles use DirectX for graphics. It's still up to the game designers to either port their title to osx, or license the right to port the title.
It's still a great delivery mechanism for games and i'm pretty excited for it. I particularly like their occasional sales. I picked up Empire: Total war the other day for $9.99 on steam.
As others have pointed out, Steam is just a game distribution system.
Thinking stuff you bought on the PC through Steam would start suddenly working on the Mac would be like thinking iPhone apps would run on your Windows Mobile phone because Apple has a Windows version of iTunes.
Even if Valve were to port the Source Engine to OS X, that would just be the first step. Havoc would probably have to be ported as well and then the games would have to worked on. I would not hold my breath for any of that happening. Although I sure as sh@t would be happy if it does.
2. Apple releases something like a G4 cube or Mac Mini on steroids with a nice graphics adapter. not something super expensive, but better than the default integrated one they ship
As unlikely as that is to happen anytime soon, I've been thinking something like that would satisfy a lot of people. When you think about it, the only four main things most people upgrade over the lifetime of their computer are the RAM, the hard drive, the video card, and maaaaybe the CPU ? you could really get away with the first three for almost everyone (and, indeed, the vast majority of PC users are non-tech-savvy people who would sooner just get a whole new machine when their HD gets too full). If Apple learned from their mistakes with the G4 Cube and made something that measured up to SJ's cubical standards, but allowed you to quickly and easily upgrade just those three things...well, they'd have Ye Olde Mythical xMac. And if they somehow managed to write a suite of decent drivers for a good enough range of video cards, including current-generation cards (ha, as if), the xMac could serve as the go-to Gaming Mac if you wanted to configure it as such.
I love Valve. These teaser adverts are brilliant. Valve are always willing to go that extra mile with quality art and writing. That makes them a great fit for Apple.
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
I just cried tears of joy. Forget Xbox Live and PSN, it just doesn't get any better than Valve and Steam. This is truly a historic moment for gamers that love macs!!
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
For various reasons, the Steam versions of Valve's games receive far more updates. For example, Team Fortress 2 has received an amazing amount of free content on the PC whilst the Xbox 360 version has seen nothing. The amount and quality of the free content has kept the PC community going strong whilst the Xbox 360 community has completely died. That's very important for an Internet-based multiplayer game.
The other part of the excitement is that Valve games tend to be a variation on the FPS genre. The genre is much more suited to mouse and keyboard than a control pad. I wonder what Valve will be able to do with the Magic Mouse?
Unless you already own a half-decent Windows PC, this is big news.
I only see one problem with this: Apple don't really build computers for gaming. These days a gaming machine is essentially a normal computer with a high end graphics card, and Apple have traditionally used mid to low end video cards.
Maybe they will find some success with causal games, I hope so. I would like to see them get some success from this, since I love Valve and Apple.
As unlikely as that is to happen anytime soon, I've been thinking something like that would satisfy a lot of people. When you think about it, the only four main things most people upgrade over the lifetime of their computer are the RAM, the hard drive, the video card, and maaaaybe the CPU ? you could really get away with the first three for almost everyone (and, indeed, the vast majority of PC users are non-tech-savvy people who would sooner just get a whole new machine when their HD gets too full). If Apple learned from their mistakes with the G4 Cube and made something that measured up to SJ's cubical standards, but allowed you to quickly and easily upgrade just those three things...well, they'd have Ye Olde Mythical xMac. And if they somehow managed to write a suite of decent drivers for a good enough range of video cards, including current-generation cards (ha, as if), the xMac could serve as the go-to Gaming Mac if you wanted to configure it as such.
apple doesn't need to write drivers. Nvidia and ATI write their own Windows drivers. SJ wants control and either has the OS X team write the drivers or have Nvidia and ATI submit them for review.
i've been playing games on Windows for years and have never installed MS supplied graphics drivers. in fact the rule is to avoid them. i've always installed them from nvidia or ATI depending on which card i had at the time
For various reasons, the Steam versions of Valve's games receive far more updates. For example, Team Fortress 2 has received an amazing amount of free content on the PC whilst the Xbox 360 version has seen nothing. The amount and quality of the free content has kept the PC community going strong whilst the Xbox 360 community has completely died. That's very important for an Internet-based multiplayer game.
The other part of the excitement is that Valve games tend to be a variation on the FPS genre. The genre is much more suited to mouse and keyboard than a control pad. I wonder what Valve will be able to do with the Magic Mouse?
Unless you already own a half-decent Windows PC, this is big news.
Don't forget the biggest part. This is a centralized delivery and statistics platform for mac game developers. Basically, it's an AppStore (of sorts) for mac games.
The mac has quite a bit of games for it already, but not a lot of people know about it because they just aren't talked about in the general "gaming" circles. Example, I never knew until about a week ago that DragonAge Origins was available for the mac.
As for FPS with a Magic Mouse or gaming being better with mouse and keyboard. Honestly, I prefer analog stick over W-A-S-D keys (mouse is still better than an analog stick). However, the Mighty Mouse / Magic Mouse is NOT a gaming mouse, simply because of the way the buttons, or lack there of, is set up. A simple Logitech will always be better for gaming than any mouse Apple offers. Just to disclose: I have both a gaming PC, an iMac, as well as all 3 current-gen gaming consoles (wii, ps3, xbox 360), and while all control methods have their positives and negatives, I enjoy FPS on both computer and console equally as much.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
On current mac mini's the cpu is a pin type thats soldered in and has integrated gpu.
On iMacs, at least since the intel switch, has been impossible to upgrade the gpu.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
unless you build your own and buy a nice power supply it's hard to do it with a dell/hp as well. and unless you upgrade to a new CPU every 6 months which is a waste of money anyway, new sockets come out every 18-24 months and you have to buy a new motherboard, RAM, etc
As others have pointed out, Steam is just a game distribution system.
Thinking stuff you bought on the PC through Steam would start suddenly working on the Mac would be like thinking iPhone apps would run on your Windows Mobile phone because Apple has a Windows version of iTunes.
Even if Valve were to port the Source Engine to OS X, that would just be the first step. Havoc would probably have to be ported as well and then the games would have to worked on. I would not hold my breath for any of that happening. Although I sure as sh@t would be happy if it does.
-kpluck
Havok is already ported. Blizzard payed the havok team to do it years ago.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
I think in the imacs, the processor and maybe the graphics are soldered to the logic board. Pretty sure they aren't user serviceable.
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
Playing a game on a console is always a different experience then paying it on a computer.
Often games are developed with a primary platform in mind.
I'd say all of Valve's games are originally written with the PC (as opposite to the console) in mind.
Comments
I just hope yet ANOTHER processor switch doesn't throw a monkey wrench in the works.
A4 is here and Apple needs a way to lock OS X to hardware again.
Yes, lets spend a ton of money, annoy the developers, and switch to a processor that's less powerful than a G3.
It's still a great delivery mechanism for games and i'm pretty excited for it. I particularly like their occasional sales. I picked up Empire: Total war the other day for $9.99 on steam.
Thinking stuff you bought on the PC through Steam would start suddenly working on the Mac would be like thinking iPhone apps would run on your Windows Mobile phone because Apple has a Windows version of iTunes.
Even if Valve were to port the Source Engine to OS X, that would just be the first step. Havoc would probably have to be ported as well and then the games would have to worked on. I would not hold my breath for any of that happening. Although I sure as sh@t would be happy if it does.
-kpluck
2. Apple releases something like a G4 cube or Mac Mini on steroids with a nice graphics adapter. not something super expensive, but better than the default integrated one they ship
As unlikely as that is to happen anytime soon, I've been thinking something like that would satisfy a lot of people. When you think about it, the only four main things most people upgrade over the lifetime of their computer are the RAM, the hard drive, the video card, and maaaaybe the CPU ? you could really get away with the first three for almost everyone (and, indeed, the vast majority of PC users are non-tech-savvy people who would sooner just get a whole new machine when their HD gets too full). If Apple learned from their mistakes with the G4 Cube and made something that measured up to SJ's cubical standards, but allowed you to quickly and easily upgrade just those three things...well, they'd have Ye Olde Mythical xMac. And if they somehow managed to write a suite of decent drivers for a good enough range of video cards, including current-generation cards (ha, as if), the xMac could serve as the go-to Gaming Mac if you wanted to configure it as such.
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
What is all the excitement for?
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
For various reasons, the Steam versions of Valve's games receive far more updates. For example, Team Fortress 2 has received an amazing amount of free content on the PC whilst the Xbox 360 version has seen nothing. The amount and quality of the free content has kept the PC community going strong whilst the Xbox 360 community has completely died. That's very important for an Internet-based multiplayer game.
The other part of the excitement is that Valve games tend to be a variation on the FPS genre. The genre is much more suited to mouse and keyboard than a control pad. I wonder what Valve will be able to do with the Magic Mouse?
Unless you already own a half-decent Windows PC, this is big news.
Maybe they will find some success with causal games, I hope so. I would like to see them get some success from this, since I love Valve and Apple.
I just hope yet ANOTHER processor switch doesn't throw a monkey wrench in the works.
A4 is here and Apple needs a way to lock OS X to hardware again.
Why? Psystar got itself clobbered and outside handfull of tech heads no one tries to shove OS X on a non Apple PC.
As unlikely as that is to happen anytime soon, I've been thinking something like that would satisfy a lot of people. When you think about it, the only four main things most people upgrade over the lifetime of their computer are the RAM, the hard drive, the video card, and maaaaybe the CPU ? you could really get away with the first three for almost everyone (and, indeed, the vast majority of PC users are non-tech-savvy people who would sooner just get a whole new machine when their HD gets too full). If Apple learned from their mistakes with the G4 Cube and made something that measured up to SJ's cubical standards, but allowed you to quickly and easily upgrade just those three things...well, they'd have Ye Olde Mythical xMac. And if they somehow managed to write a suite of decent drivers for a good enough range of video cards, including current-generation cards (ha, as if), the xMac could serve as the go-to Gaming Mac if you wanted to configure it as such.
apple doesn't need to write drivers. Nvidia and ATI write their own Windows drivers. SJ wants control and either has the OS X team write the drivers or have Nvidia and ATI submit them for review.
i've been playing games on Windows for years and have never installed MS supplied graphics drivers. in fact the rule is to avoid them. i've always installed them from nvidia or ATI depending on which card i had at the time
For various reasons, the Steam versions of Valve's games receive far more updates. For example, Team Fortress 2 has received an amazing amount of free content on the PC whilst the Xbox 360 version has seen nothing. The amount and quality of the free content has kept the PC community going strong whilst the Xbox 360 community has completely died. That's very important for an Internet-based multiplayer game.
The other part of the excitement is that Valve games tend to be a variation on the FPS genre. The genre is much more suited to mouse and keyboard than a control pad. I wonder what Valve will be able to do with the Magic Mouse?
Unless you already own a half-decent Windows PC, this is big news.
Don't forget the biggest part. This is a centralized delivery and statistics platform for mac game developers. Basically, it's an AppStore (of sorts) for mac games.
The mac has quite a bit of games for it already, but not a lot of people know about it because they just aren't talked about in the general "gaming" circles. Example, I never knew until about a week ago that DragonAge Origins was available for the mac.
As for FPS with a Magic Mouse or gaming being better with mouse and keyboard. Honestly, I prefer analog stick over W-A-S-D keys (mouse is still better than an analog stick). However, the Mighty Mouse / Magic Mouse is NOT a gaming mouse, simply because of the way the buttons, or lack there of, is set up. A simple Logitech will always be better for gaming than any mouse Apple offers. Just to disclose: I have both a gaming PC, an iMac, as well as all 3 current-gen gaming consoles (wii, ps3, xbox 360), and while all control methods have their positives and negatives, I enjoy FPS on both computer and console equally as much.
If Mac games were anything but Cider wrapped windows ports they wouldn't have "performance issues" at all.
OPEN GL is what competes with Direct 3D not Open CL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...L_and_Direct3D
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
Steam is a distribution and social networking platform. Valve's games are built on the Source engine.
oh duh, i feel like such a retard LOL
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
On current mac mini's the cpu is a pin type thats soldered in and has integrated gpu.
On iMacs, at least since the intel switch, has been impossible to upgrade the gpu.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
unless you build your own and buy a nice power supply it's hard to do it with a dell/hp as well. and unless you upgrade to a new CPU every 6 months which is a waste of money anyway, new sockets come out every 18-24 months and you have to buy a new motherboard, RAM, etc
As others have pointed out, Steam is just a game distribution system.
Thinking stuff you bought on the PC through Steam would start suddenly working on the Mac would be like thinking iPhone apps would run on your Windows Mobile phone because Apple has a Windows version of iTunes.
Even if Valve were to port the Source Engine to OS X, that would just be the first step. Havoc would probably have to be ported as well and then the games would have to worked on. I would not hold my breath for any of that happening. Although I sure as sh@t would be happy if it does.
-kpluck
Havok is already ported. Blizzard payed the havok team to do it years ago.
I guess my only concern about switching to an Apple for my gaming, which I would LOVE to do, is the ability to keep up with hardware requirements when newer games and technologies come out. If you buy an actual Apple computer it's very difficult to do your own upgrades to new video cards and processors.
The MacPro can help with the video card issue somewhat, as long as you replace it with a card with drivers for Mac OS X. However, changing out processors on iMac and Mini models may be a totally different story for the average user. Nothing like getting a nice new Mac and a year later you want to play Bad Company 4 and your video card won't support it.
I dunno. Are my concerns valid?
I think in the imacs, the processor and maybe the graphics are soldered to the logic board. Pretty sure they aren't user serviceable.
What is all the excitement for?
Surely anyone who wanted to play those games would have already purchased them for a different platform. My son has most of these for Xbox and they have all been played to death. We would not for minute consider buying them again to play on a Mac.
I can see the point for future new content but back catalogue stuff is irrelevant.
Any new titles we would get for the Xbox as well since games tend to look nice on a big plasma.
Playing a game on a console is always a different experience then paying it on a computer.
Often games are developed with a primary platform in mind.
I'd say all of Valve's games are originally written with the PC (as opposite to the console) in mind.