Could Apple be preparing the way for Mac gaming?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1780

by raju • 18 years ago

10 9 18 years ago

blogs.zdnet.com

mrtron• 18 years ago

Blizzard's games have played on macs for years. Who plays any other games?

(awaiting SC2) edit: Starcraft 2

stcredzero• 18 years ago

By SC2, do you mean Star Control 2? Probably not, since this retro game has been available on OS X for years now.

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

cstejerean• 18 years ago

just from browsing the apple store I've noticed that the amount of games available on the mac has increased to a decent number.

dbreunig• 18 years ago

Has anyone considered that gaming has made it's way to the mainstream about the same time Apple has? Seems like the two met halfway...

mlinsey• 18 years ago

The Mac as a gaming platform should have most of the advantages of PC's and consoles: The advantage of consoles are standardized hardware, and the advantages of a PC are the openness and not having to pay royalties or operate at the whim of the console manufacturer. (Sony, MS, and Nintendo exert even more control over console game developers than Apple does with the iPhone)

Of course, the high cost of Macs and the lack of intersection between the gamer and Mac demographics has kept all of the medium-sized game developers away; only the very smallest developers (eg shareware writers) and the very largest developers (EA, Blizzard) bother to pay attention to the platform.

wanorris• 18 years ago

> The advantage of consoles are standardized hardware

One central part of this is that any given console has a particular GPU that you can optimize the crap out of. Even Apple has many more than that over a 2-3 year period.

Honestly, I can't imagine Apple bothering to go after the gaming market unless they can find a way to collect royalties on the games. Jobs goes after markets only when there are profits to be had.

pkaler• 18 years ago

My psycho-analysis of Steve Jobs is that he blessed the iPhone to avenge the Newton. Avenging the Pippin is probably on his list too.

jcromartie• 18 years ago

> preparing the way for Mac OS X-based gaming

What?

OS X has all the tools necessary to host game development, let alone the consumer side of gaming. It ships with full fledged OpenGL (even going so far as to give non-shader-enabled cards shader support), and even help pioneer some really nice GL extensions that make game dev easier. You can use virtually any programming language you would ever want to build games with (sorry, no DarkBASIC...).

My MacBook can play World of Warcraft and Half Life 2, and that is more than I could ever hope to build as an indie developer. All of the other "pro" machines, and the iMacs, have come with good discrete GPUs for a long time now.

rainface• 18 years ago

No. zdnet is one of the most miss lead online journals available. This debate has been peaking its head for the past 5 years. Again and again companies walk away fed up with Apple's 'we are good enough, deal with it' attitude toward game developers. I don't think Apple will be willing to couture to game developers because they will ask Apple to change its course ever so slightly and Apple will change for no one but its own will. That and Apple is currently advertising it base model workstation for $2799.

Could Apple be preparing the way for Mac gaming?

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