Was just thinking to myself, it's almost May and Steam is still Window-only. Didn't seem to get into Valve's Mac beta program either.
But there's news says their WebKit update is coming out Monday, at least for PC-users. Think we'll see the OS X version then?
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Was just thinking to myself, it's almost May and Steam is still Window-only. Didn't seem to get into Valve's Mac beta program either.
But there's news says their WebKit update is coming out Monday, at least for PC-users. Think we'll see the OS X version then?
I hope they stick to the April release. The following videos show what it looks like and how to get a copy of the client:
http://www.cultofmac.com/video-steam-for-mac-beta/39514
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JX3GLnc6Y
You can't get any playable games without an approved Steam account but it's nice to play around with the interface to see what it looks like. It's better than the old PC client.
They have some interesting information too. There will be a brand that goes on in-store games called SteamPlay that indicates games will play on a Mac and PC.
At the very least, Portal has been ported over so far. The current Steam games I have are listed as not being available for the platform and that includes all of Half-Life series and MW2 but I imagine that is again to do with not having an approved account. The video above showed installed games were: Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat, garry's mod, Half-Life 2 DeathMatch and Lost Coast. The latter two show up on mine as not available.
It certainly feels ready enough to launch any time now so Monday is a possibility. I'd expect them to want a large catalogue of games available and it sounds like they've contacted Mac games publishers (probably Aspyr and EA) and will get their games on board too, which means MW1, Force unleashed, NFS etc. This means the only new game ports we'll see are likely to be Valve's own games, which themselves are old.
Still, it's nice to finally have the Mac in a better position as a gaming platform and getting some solid support and i'm more interested in what it will bring in future. It will be a great catalogue for new Mac gamers to start with too. Developers will have a secure distribution method and so I'm sure we'll see more ports in future because of it. There are a number of great titles that haven't been ported to the Mac yet and should be like MW2, Arkham Asylum, Battlefield 2, Burnout Paradise, GTA 4, Mass Effect, Street Fighter 4 (already have an iPhone version so maybe), Tomb Raider underworld and a few others. I don't care if developers port a huge list of games, just the most popular ones.
Steam only has 25 million users. I say 'only' because the majority of iPhone/iPod downloads are games and that's an audience of 85 million. If this can push a large portion of game-starved Mac users into buying fully copy-protected games and heavily supporting developers, the Mac platform will get a lot of games support as it will generate a lot of revenue. Especially at first as the titles will stand out better than they will on the PC side.
If it comes out on Monday, I'll be hooking up my XBox Controller using the Mac OS X driver and playing some HL2. I will definitely buy Portal 2 if it's available. Good times.
Even better reason to put a 'real' video card in the Mini! (When Steve Jobs freezes over, of course...)
The 320M would be good enough. That chip is powerful enough to play Mass Effect 2, GTA 4 and Lost Planet, even though the settings would be down low.
Double the frame rates over the 9400M on CoD4 and WoW:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1470...enchmarks.html
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=900670
Sure, it's not a great GPU if you're into gaming big time but I've found most modern games look fine on lower settings anyway. I played Arkham Asylum and Battlefield 2 on a 9400M and you just sit back a bit from the screen so you don't really notice the lowered detail. Being able to up the settings a bit and get a framerate boost will be a big help.
If they boost the low-end CPU to 2.4GHz, put in 4GB RAM and a 250GB drive, people won't really need to upgrade it either so the entry price is much better, though I'd probably switch the drive to a 7200rpm one again.
If the 320M can be overclocked, that might get some interesting results:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUgUJMUHhA8
Sad thing is, the Mini, Macbook and entry iMac updates might not come out for a while. If Steam launches on Monday then next Tuesday would be a good time to release them but I doubt they will.
It's not worthwhile buying a computer for serious gaming anyway. You can pick up an XBox cheap enough now and they have better exclusive games. Computers are better suited for casual gaming.
I hope they stick to the April release. The following videos show what it looks like and how to get a copy of the client:
http://www.cultofmac.com/video-steam-for-mac-beta/39514
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JX3GLnc6Y
You can't get any playable games without an approved Steam account but it's nice to play around with the interface to see what it looks like. It's better than the old PC client.
They have some interesting information too. There will be a brand that goes on in-store games called SteamPlay that indicates games will play on a Mac and PC.
At the very least, Portal has been ported over so far. The current Steam games I have are listed as not being available for the platform and that includes all of Half-Life series and MW2 but I imagine that is again to do with not having an approved account. The video above showed installed games were: Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat, garry's mod, Half-Life 2 DeathMatch and Lost Coast. The latter two show up on mine as not available.
It certainly feels ready enough to launch any time now so Monday is a possibility. I'd expect them to want a large catalogue of games available and it sounds like they've contacted Mac games publishers (probably Aspyr and EA) and will get their games on board too, which means MW1, Force unleashed, NFS etc. This means the only new game ports we'll see are likely to be Valve's own games, which themselves are old.
Still, it's nice to finally have the Mac in a better position as a gaming platform and getting some solid support and i'm more interested in what it will bring in future. It will be a great catalogue for new Mac gamers to start with too. Developers will have a secure distribution method and so I'm sure we'll see more ports in future because of it. There are a number of great titles that haven't been ported to the Mac yet and should be like MW2, Arkham Asylum, Battlefield 2, Burnout Paradise, GTA 4, Mass Effect, Street Fighter 4 (already have an iPhone version so maybe), Tomb Raider underworld and a few others. I don't care if developers port a huge list of games, just the most popular ones.
Steam only has 25 million users. I say 'only' because the majority of iPhone/iPod downloads are games and that's an audience of 85 million. If this can push a large portion of game-starved Mac users into buying fully copy-protected games and heavily supporting developers, the Mac platform will get a lot of games support as it will generate a lot of revenue. Especially at first as the titles will stand out better than they will on the PC side.
If it comes out on Monday, I'll be hooking up my XBox Controller using the Mac OS X driver and playing some HL2. I will definitely buy Portal 2 if it's available. Good times.
Bit of difference between the casual games on the iPhone and the commercial games on steam.
Bit of difference between the casual games on the iPhone and the commercial games on steam.
Sure, I don't expect anywhere near 85 million Mac gamers on Steam at launch or anything like that, the majority of iPhone/iPod Touch users will probably be Windows-based anyway but PC users have more places to go for games and Mac users are more used to a central place for content so I would expect a higher portion of Mac users to be interested in Steam that Windows users compared to marketshare - marketshare would dictate 2.5 million Mac users on Steam but I reckon closer to 10 million is perfectly reasonable. Steam also has casual games that are on the iPhone like the Secret of Monkey Island, Need for Speed Undercover etc.
The 320M would be good enough. That chip is powerful enough to play Mass Effect 2, GTA 4 and Lost Planet, even though the settings would be down low.
It's not worthwhile buying a computer for serious gaming anyway. You can pick up an XBox cheap enough now and they have better exclusive games. Computers are better suited for casual gaming.
Good point on the 320M, it should eventually make it to the Mini. I was thinking along the line of a mid range card with dedicated memory instead of taking system RAM. I don't keep up with the latest and greatest even on my game box, I stay one generation behind for the benefit of a huge price difference while still getting good performance.
I do have game systems also, they are good for certain types of games while PC is better for other types. (RTS, FPS, etc.) Maybe it's because I "grew up" playing the first generation of shooters on a PC with keyboard and mouse, but trying to play Halo and others on my little brother's Xbox with controllers seems counter intuitive and clunky.