Magazine confirms Steam gaming platform coming to Mac in May

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Steam, the PC gaming platform from Valve Software, will be coming to Mac systems in April, while one of the company's most anticipated forthcoming titles, Portal 2, will also be available for Apple machines in the fall.



Update: Later Monday, Valve officially confirmed Steam for Mac would arrive in April.



According to TUAW, the April 2010 edition of GameInformer magazine reveals that Valve intends to start a beta of Steam for Mac in the spring, while a full release of the program has been "targeted for May."



In addition, the article revealed that Windows users who already have a Steam account will be able to re-download games using their existing keys on the Mac. If true, that means PC users could easily migrate to the Mac and play their favorite Valve games -- including Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 -- without having to buy them again for a new platform.



Steam is a cloud-based service that integrates game purchasing and a friend system in one all-encompassing application. By logging in to a Steam account, users can currently download the games they have purchased to any Windows-based computer. But in the future, it would seem, that functionality will be cross-platform, for both Mac and PC.



Last week, Valve began a teaser campaign for the coming release of Steam for Mac. The images released paid homage to Apple's iconic "1984" TV ad, the "Think Different" campaign, the "Get a Mac" campaign and more. Prior to that, users discovered Mac OS X specific files hidden in the latest beta version of Steam for Windows.



In 2007, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said that there was "no evidence" that Apple had interest in helping developers to bring their games to the Mac. He also noted that he believes the lack of support for games has held Apple back in the consumer space.



But Apple has found great success with games on the iPhone, even making an impact on major players in the portable space like Nintendo. With more than 140,000 applications available for the App Store, a significant number of them are games for the iPhone and iPod touch.







Valve's support for the Mac will also reportedly be extended to new titles, as GameInformer's preview of the anticipated game "Portal 2" notes that the title will be available for the Mac, as well as PC and Xbox 360. The first-person puzzle game, developed and published by Valve, will support one or two players. It is slated for release this fall.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    sheffsheff Posts: 1,407member
    Awesome. First we get the iPad and now this! I enjoyed portal back in orange box days, and am exited to see what portal 2 will be like.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    kfury77kfury77 Posts: 47member
    It's very generous of them to offer free downloads of games you've already bought for Windows. I'm looking forward to seeing Steam come to Mac. Thanks Valve!
  • Reply 3 of 17
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    It's all coming together.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sheff View Post


    Awesome. First we get the iPad and now this! I enjoyed portal back in orange box days, and am exited to see what portal 2 will be like.



    Yeah I hope the sequel puts us outdoors rather than boring plain rooms one after another.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    kpluckkpluck Posts: 500member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kfury77 View Post


    It's very generous of them to offer free downloads of games you've already bought for Windows. I'm looking forward to seeing Steam come to Mac. Thanks Valve!



    Well, that assumes there are Mac versions of those games to download. The article specifically mentions Portal 2 is coming to OS X and Steam. Steam is not Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, etc. Those games would have to ported.



    This article seems to be making the same mistake that a lot of people are making, Steam = Source Engines games, which is not true. Steam is just a distribution platform.



    Hopefully Steam's release on the Mac does mean we will be getting these games on OS X. If not immediately, at least over time. I own them all and would love them to play them on the Mac, albeit significantly slower because of Apple's crap GPU offerings.



    -kpluck
  • Reply 6 of 17
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    This is amazing... I only keep my PC for Left 4 Dead (1 and 2), Crysis and Total War series (oh, and Quicken... but that can run on a virtual machine).



    However, for this to work, Apple has to stop shipping iMacs with such mediocre GPUs.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    zorinlynxzorinlynx Posts: 170member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kpluck View Post


    Well, that assumes there are Mac versions of those games to download. The article specifically mentions Portal 2 is coming to OS X and Steam. Steam is not Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, etc. Those games would have to ported.



    This article seems to be making the same mistake that a lot of people are making, Steam = Source Engines games, which is not true. Steam is just a distribution platform.



    Hopefully Steam's release on the Mac does mean we will be getting these games on OS X. If not immediately, at least over time. I own them all and would love them to play them on the Mac, albeit significantly slower because of Apple's crap GPU offerings.



    -kpluck



    Why would Valve bring Steam to the Mac, but not their A-list titles? That would be incredibly stupid.



    Besides, the teaser images showed stuff from HL2, TF2, L4D, and Portal. This suggests their A-list titles are coming to OS X along with Steam.



    Stop being a doubting thomas and enjoy this; we're finally getting a great game developer supporting our platform!
  • Reply 8 of 17
    bobrikbobrik Posts: 36member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zoolook View Post


    This is amazing... I only keep my PC for Left 4 Dead (1 and 2), Crysis



    Well, Crysis (by Crytek) will not be ported, I said to myself: OK, Source engine + its games are ported, that finishes the first half of my gaming universe ported, but until Crysis (the second half) is ported, gaming on Mac is not complete for me. Still glad I will be able to replay Portal in the near future and not have to reboot.
  • Reply 9 of 17
    it would be a great time for Valve to also release a bunch of the games already out for macs.



    Enemy Territory Quake Wars

    Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

    Sims



    heck they could even release some of the classics cheap

    Unreal Tournament



    Me, i am hoping that this restarts real gaming on macs. :-)



    great news everybody!
  • Reply 10 of 17
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bobrik View Post


    Well, Crysis (by Crytek) will not be ported, I said to myself: OK, Source engine + its games are ported, that finishes the first half of my gaming universe ported, but until Crysis (the second half) is ported, gaming on Mac is not complete for me. Still glad I will be able to replay Portal in the near future and not have to reboot.





    Well let's see - if this gains some traction, then others may follow. However the same thing applies, if Macs are going to be serious gaming machines, we need better GPUs.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    zorinlynxzorinlynx Posts: 170member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mitchelljd View Post


    it would be a great time for Valve to also release a bunch of the games already out for macs.



    Enemy Territory Quake Wars

    Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

    Sims



    heck they could even release some of the classics cheap

    Unreal Tournament



    Me, i am hoping that this restarts real gaming on macs. :-)



    great news everybody!



    Doom 3

    Quake 3 (Freaking native Intel binary please, with PB support)

    Quake 4



    Heck, pretty much the entire Id library. Even the classic DOOM can be ported excellently using PrBoom code.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    ghostface147ghostface147 Posts: 1,629member
    While Steam for Mac is a great idea, I have a feeling that some big developers won't spend their resources on OS X gaming. The OS X gaming community is very small compared to all other platforms. id is proported to bring Tech5 to the Mac, Steam may bring some games over and will of course release Portal 2 on Mac. Porting a game is one thing, but developing for Mac natively is another. I don't forsee Valve writing a non-ported version of Half-Life 2 episode 3 anytime soon. I am also sure that Crytek won't develop for Mac since the graphic card options are severly more limited on Mac. I am surprised that the PS3 isn't getting Portal 2 while the Mac is. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the PS3 a much larger audience than Mac?
  • Reply 13 of 17
    dooghdoogh Posts: 37member
    OSX is growing quickly and the publishers realise that supporting it will grow the platform further and produce greater profit.



    Mac GPU's are not bad at all... They may not be the high-gen ones that you can buy when building a computer, but they are plenty good enough to run most games with high graphics. The real issue lies around price.



    I suspect this will also change Apple's focus on computer hardware as well. I think this will cause one of the biggest growths in apple's platform ever.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    al_bundyal_bundy Posts: 1,525member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ghostface147 View Post


    While Steam for Mac is a great idea, I have a feeling that some big developers won't spend their resources on OS X gaming. The OS X gaming community is very small compared to all other platforms. id is proported to bring Tech5 to the Mac, Steam may bring some games over and will of course release Portal 2 on Mac. Porting a game is one thing, but developing for Mac natively is another. I don't forsee Valve writing a non-ported version of Half-Life 2 episode 3 anytime soon. I am also sure that Crytek won't develop for Mac since the graphic card options are severly more limited on Mac. I am surprised that the PS3 isn't getting Portal 2 while the Mac is. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the PS3 a much larger audience than Mac?





    going with Steam reduces some of the risk. no need to design and print boxes and print CD/DVD's to be sent to retailers that will be sent back if they don't sell
  • Reply 15 of 17
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member
    Quote:

    In addition, the article revealed that Windows users who already have a Steam account will be able to re-download games using their existing keys on the Mac. If true, that means PC users could easily migrate to the Mac and play their favorite Valve games -- including Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 -- without having to buy them again for a new platform.



    This is why I love Valve.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    801801 Posts: 271member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post


    It's all coming together.



    Yep. Seems kinda funny in hindsight, but it looks like apple could just knock off the PC gaming market as a only a hobby side project.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    jpklockjpklock Posts: 25member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ghostface147 View Post


    The OS X gaming community is very small compared to all other platforms..... Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the PS3 a much larger audience than Mac?



    It might be possible that the OS X gaming market is small, because there aren't a lot of games for OS X, yet.



    As near as I can tell from a couple seconds of web-browsing, the current PS3 install base is something like 24 million consoles worldwide. The US Mac OS X install base is a bit hard to pin down (because the most popular method for calculating install base is web traffic, which (a) can't distinguish US or non-US and (b) often doesn't distinguish between a Mac and an iPhone, since they're running the same kernel). Last year at WWDC, it was pointed out that the Mac OS X install base had tripled, from 25 million (pre iPhone) to 75 million (including iPhones)-- so even if the Mac install base has been flat since 2006, it'd be about even with the PS3.



    For my part, I'm eager to ditch my windows box, and very excited by the upcoming Steam release! Now to get Bioware on board... and also to upgrade from my 2.5 year old (black) Macbook (with the Intel GPU, codename Suxxor).
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