How many hardcore gamers do you know who are also avid Mac users? Probably not many. Windows users have thousands of titles to choose from, and cheap hardware to run their games on. Despite the many virtues of the Mac platform, it is not the first choice of serious gamers. Even the speedy new G5’s will not change that.Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Today, the Mac has a limited number of games compared to the Windows platform. Many titles are published months after the Windows version debuts, if they become available for the Mac at all. To make matters worse, many users cannot buy Mac software locally.
Why should this concern Apple (aside from the fact that games are a six billion
per year industry)? There are two reasons. Games are the major sales driver of
high end hardware, and the lack thereof is one of the major reason most PC users won’t
become “switchers”. Is there anything Apple can do about this?
A Proposal
Apple should create a game division to produce original Mac games and port
Windows games to the Mac. I’m not talking about Tetris clones; I mean top flight
commercial games. Apple should produce or port ten to twenty games per year, and
make them available as a free download for all Mac users.
The question is how much would this cost? The answer: less than you’d think.
Most commercial video games cost five to ten million dollars to
develop
(although that can be as high as 20 – 30 million). Therefore ten to twenty games
would cost between fifty and two hundred million dollars per year. Porting an
existing PC title costs only
15 – 20% of
that.
How would Apple pay for developing all these games? The easiest way is to pass
the cost onto the consumer. Since Apple sells almost
three million Macs
per year, adding fifty dollars (the cost of a single game) to the price of each
Mac would generate an additional 100 million in net revenue per year. This is
enough to port ten to fifteen PC titles and two or three Mac only games.
Benefits to Apple and Mac users
Many Windows users feel that Macs are simply too expensive. Getting $500 to
$1000 worth of free games per year makes the Mac a much better value
proposition, without sacrificing the margins Apple needs to retain to finance
Research and Development for the platform.
Even hardcore gamers will have to take a serious look at the Mac when purchasing
a new system. If they decide to switch, those gamers are going to buy high
margin G5’s with upgraded graphics cards. This should lead to a small increase
in Market share for Apple.
Why Apple is uniquely positioned to do this
The combination of small market share and Apple’s control of the platform makes
Apple the only platform where this plan is financially feasible. According to
this article , the
“break-even point on a (Mac) title is 7,000 units. A good Mac title for us
sells about 30,000 units worldwide. One hundred thousand units is our
theoretical guess at a ceiling for a Mac game. The Sims on the Mac may hit this
point.”
Let’s assume a fifty dollar retail price, and do the math. A “break-even Mac
title” produces $350,000 in gross revenue. “A good Mac title” produces 1.5
million in gross revenue. The theoretical ceiling is five million in gross
revenue.
Even if it cost Apple five million for each game (the theoretical ceiling), the
$50 per unit price increase for each Mac generates enough revenue to cover the
cost of producing twenty titles for the Mac each year.
This is a win-win for both Apple and the game publishers. The game publishers
would receive maximum value for their Mac ports, with very little (if any)
cannibalization of their Windows sales. You only get the free game if you have a
Mac. If you use a PC, you’ll have to pay for a copy.
Linux distributors couldn’t make a similar deal, because it would destroy the
sales of the Windows version (it runs on the same hardware). Microsoft couldn’t
make a similar deal since the sheer size of the PC market would make the cost
prohibitive (the cost of Windows would increase dramatically). Large PC OEMs
such as Dell couldn’t do it either since it would be difficult to restrict the
game from running on non-Dell PCs.
The worst thing that could happen is that Apple’s market share would increase to
the point where such a deal is no longer economically feasible.
Why would I want to subsidise games for others that I never play? I’d rather pay something for Open Office port to Mac. Presently it’s about 150MB compared to about 60MB for the Windows version.
Pretty good idea, although the main hurdle would be the creation of a killer app; as you said, no-one will switch for a tetris clone.
Perhaps Apple could license the rights to a sucessful franchise such as Harry Potter or LOTR, release the game on OSX then, later on, release it for x86.
Just a thought..
Apple just buy a game developer!!!!
http://www.aspyr.com ?? and there are some more porters..
Do you know how many bad games get made? How hard is it to ensure that at least half of them are worth playing?
Just look at how many studios only produce good games. Blizzard has a winning streak, and id Software if you like that, otherwise, most studios have a good mix of good, great, and horrible games.
So the problem is that you would have to hire the game gurus, like Peter Molyneux or Sid Meier. And they are quite expensive.
Yes, if you could gaurantee that the 3 best multiplayer games (like Half-Life, still bitter about that…) every year are ported to Mac, and that there are a gouple other awesome games that come out for Mac first(maybe a year or even 6 months), then you’d have a good thing going.
It may even be a good business move, but it seems like a really high risk proposition.
<brainstorm> what about something like click-n-run but for games? <brainstorm>
It is a pipe dream though
I think only a minority of game projects started are completed and are successful. Apple could save a lot of money by convincing game companies to release an Apple version before the PC version. It might take a little bribe money, but it would save money in the long run.
if I want to play games, i buy a console
Where are you living..?! This suggestion has gone astray to some extent… *lol*
I would have to admit that if the majority of high profile games were coming out for the mac that it would be a whole lot easier for me to make the switch. Games are what ties me to my pc. Actually I wouldn’t mind switching at all. If I could afford it, I would use both. I like Photoshop much more under a mac. And may switch anyhow after getting into the job market. Illustrations are being done on the computer more and more after all.
When I used my MAC to play games this was a talk in the gaming community. I think thatg Apple should not subsudise developers but should give any resource possible to help port/develop games for the mac/ Unfortunelty APPLE lost BUNGIE that made excellenet games for the MAC. BLIZZARD is still supporting Apple BIG which is great to hear.
While I think this is a brilliant idea, I wonder if it stands up to the test of reality. For one thing, Apple isn’t hampered anymore (as far as we can optimistically tell) by bad performance. Therefore, Apple can start evangelizing with the advantage that its demographic is wealthy and that a lot of PCs are used as servers or other non-game things.
Also this article ignores that the money they get on even successful projects on the Mac is so incredibly low compared to Windows versions. So why should they spend resources maintaining the ports? The quality may lag behind.
Further, it may be seen as a desperation move by Apple. This more than anything else may kill it. “Apple needs to buy games for its users,” editorials may point out. I believe that simple evangelism is good enough because Apple doesn’t need to do this.
But this is an interesting article.
A game console costs 1/4 the price of a Mac and doubles as a dvd player!
Sheesh… Yeah there’s certainly no games for the Mac. Whatever…
Apple doesn’t need to subsidize these guys. What they need to do is show how cross-platform development is trivial and that developers will save money by not porting the games _after_ all the code has been written for Windoze.
Before the boys at Bungie got bought out, they stated that about 90% of their code is platform independent. Carmack, I believe has said similar things, but don’t quote me.
The thing that pisses me off most about PC gamers is that they instantly _assume_ the game isn’t on the Mac. Personally, most of this erroneous thought comes from the way gaming magazines and e-zines target their audiences. When a review comes out for a game, a pc-centric magazine will only list the requirements for the pc version even if multiple platforms exist. It’s quite frustrating.
Rumor has it that Epic is going to design their next engine to be more platform agnostic. ID already does, as does Blizzard.
Support issues for Mac gamers should cost companies infinitely less than their PC bretheren because almost every Mac is alike. Not many random issues because of mis-matched, cheap PC hardware.
While I admit that the PC is currently the best platform for gaming, Macs are not all that shabby. Apple needs to give their consumer machines better video cards, but other than that… it’s up to Mac gamers to bring up demand.
Be VOCAL. One thing is for certain, fragging PC gamers on a Mac is bliss, especially when they find out what you’re using. They can’t deal with it…
>>So why should they spend resources maintaining the ports?
Developers shouldn’t be doing ports, they should be developing cross platform from the get go. Minimizes their costs and the income they make from the Mac market should bring a profit over the 10% Mac specific coding.
Console games are different beasts than “pc” games. Much less you can do on a console, etc… Two completely different mentalities.
BTW, this is an interesting article on software economics: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000051.html
“Now, if you want me to make a Mac port, I need the third thing:
* cost of porting from Windows to Mac is less than 10%.”
The Mackido article cited by the author of this OSNews article places the cost at 15-20%, and probably overestimates the desktop marketshare of MacOS X. (Remember, only OS X matters, not Mac share overall.) Plus, game companies are not known for basic software engineering practices like CVS that would make ports much easier. So while Blizzard, ID and Epic may be professional implementors, most other companies are testosterone-driven and may even be throwing bad programmers at the porting effort.
But again, things will likely get better. It does seem that a more affluent userbase should buy more games, though I don’t have any numbers for that right now.
Game titles are more frequently being released on multiple-platforms simultaneously. Take, for example, “Enter the Matrix” – there is a PC version, an Xbox version, a PS2 version and a Gamecube version (heh, but no Mac version). There are fewer and fewer “killer titles” that are produced exclusively for the PC anymore.
Consoles have been taking ever more market share away from the PC, as a gaming platform, and the overall trend is away from PCs (or Macs) towards consoles.
IMHO, it is not gaming that will pull more users onto the Mac platform, but your idea is a very clever one.
most PC games are using the DirectX API. Isn’t it very complicated to port such games to the Mac? Is there something equivalent to DirectX on the Mac?
Apple is willing to sell the game company/companies once it has made mac gaming successful, i.e., once they got the ball rolling they must be willing for someone else to have control of the games market.
A company whose name slips me, recently made porting software from directx to open gl. The result is supposedly weeks porting rather than months/years.
Just a thought, but maybe Apple should buy and leae it cheap or open source it.
http://www.coderus.com/ Coderus has a technology called MacDX.
A game that performs well (in terms of sell figures) costs less than that. You are talking about a major AAA title, selling 2-4 million copies worldwide (probably from MS or EA) with 2+ years in development …
Rome wasn’t build in a day. Try something smaller first, before conquering the world …
Porting is less that 5% of the base costs. I know lot’s of coders who would do it for even less than that. Europe’s software business is on it’s knees – many talented geeks are looking for a paid work.
ASH (Application Systems Heidelberg) has a deal with EA. All Aspyr titles (that where originally published by EA) are localized to German by using the PC audio and data files. I guess they will expand soon and covering French and Spanish as well.
I understand your point but I think Apple should only support the few (remaining) porting studios as good as possible (is there room for much improvement?). I’m working in the entertainment software industry for more than 10 years. Believe me when I say, that there are far to much risks, that Apple could not stand with their empty war chest. It’s like a unclear minefield out there.
since nobody else has stated the obvious, I’ll do so:
the gamers and the people who buy Mac are largely independent demographics. Gamers like speed and low price; Mac buyers are people with more money and who don’t care about games.
I think this idea sucks.
Mac users already get most major game releases, and they continue to get them as they go well. Take a look at http://www.aspyr.com http://www.macplay.com as well as companies like Blizzard and Id who do it ont heir own. (There are still recent updates to Quake 3 to at altivec support officially)
1) I doubt that high-end hardware is mostly bought by gamers. Those G5’s will sell pretty well with graphics designers, 3D, video market, DTP, scientific workstations, unix lovers, software developers… According to Think Secret Apple is “asking” commercial unix developers to port their software to OS X. Those G5’s are positioned against Sun Blades, SGI workstations and even dual xeons with linux on them.
I doubt that apple they will win back any investments in a gaming department from those switchers. Gamers will buy amd opterons, not G5’s, even if Apple has a game developer department. And it would be bad pr if Apple pushed products from macplay out of the market, like Adobe’s Premiere and MS Internet Explorer. They need to attract 3th party developers, not pushing them away by doing it all by themselves.
Apple should in my opinion go “more international”. Sherlock, iPhoto book services, iTunes Music Store, products-announcements-by-steve, they should all be done and be available in the rest of the world, not just in the US. The same goes for marketing. Never in my life have I ever seen an Apple ad on tv, maybe 2 or 3 ads in the newspaper. That’s weak.
Those guys are killer game porters. They even added SMP support to Giants, while doing the port for OS X (Giants on Windows doesn’t support multiple CPUs).
The Omni guys really rule, Apple should pour all their money into them.
I got Warcraft 3 mainly because there wasn’t anything else for my mac, its a good game and worth the £30 i payed for (expansion included in price). i’ve registered the product as well to show my support for mac gaming.
I like how their cd’s have a dual use, and can be used in either a pac or a mac.
What i don’t understand is EA, why do they port over every single crappy sims game to the mac but not games like Red Alert or Generals?
It’s inevitable, apple will create their own gaming console based on the powerpc (just like the nintendo gamecube). In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if nintendo partnered with apple. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw a startup company being spawned by apple/pixar for developing killer next generation games. Actually, I take that back, I think Apple will develop games for the big3 consoles. Imagine booting up a game and seeing a white screen with a big grey apple in the middle of the screen while playing on your playstation2 or xbox–fucking cool!
There’s no point in playing games on a workstation, it’s so faux pas, and it’s too costly as someone suggested. Plus, computers are losing their margins, apple is expanding their portfolio and gaming is just the biggest growth market in the high-tech industry right now, even bigger than bio-tech.
iTunes, iChat, to iGames.
this would solve many problems, a) the people that can’t afford an apple workstation that primarily play games and need the *performance of an x86 el cheapo system (shutting them up would reduce the 90% spam comments that osnews gets) b) get more revenue into apple so that they can get their creative juices flowing and bring you more wonderful software/hardware c) help proliferate the apple branding d) stick a large 2×4 up bill gates’ ass
sorry osnews if apple shuts your site down, this was just an epiphany for me and I really see it happening within the next 3 years. So you heard it first from me, ya heard?!
i.e. I have Warcraft 3, UT2003, Dungeon Siege.
All of these are available in Mac versions; I play them on my PC, though (it’s just so much faster than my iBook).
What I’d like would be some adventures like Broken Sword, but since nobody produces games like that any more…
how many hours i spent playing pacworld just to unlock the classic pacman game. hmm.
Ah, Bungie. They were so far ahead of anyone. I still get annoyed when I hear that “Quake” was the original first-person shooter.
I have found that Mac users tend to actually *pay* for their games as well. Not that the market is big enough to notice, but I figure there’s a higher percentage of people willing to put money down rather than copy discs. I hope that also continues, because these guys need to be encouraged by Mac users to keep them coming.
http://www.emulation.net/
I am really sad that they pulled the plug on the Playstation emulator
Go to the land of games – Japan. They all play games there. On a PC? Of course not, that’s no fun at all. Use a console, western dummies.
Apple tried a console like device call the Pippin. They partnered with Bandai on it. It went nowhere.
But they are now collectable.
I dunno…The Mac gets most, if not all, of the top flight games. I am lacking anything. UnReal Tournament, WarCraft III, SimCity 4, etc.
But like other posters said, consoles is where its at. I have a console I play games on.
Personally I agree that Apple should get an in-house porting group to do games, but I also don’t see a reason why they would have to give it away for free. If they made it a point to port the most anticipated titles, I’m sure they would get the # of sales to break even and have that division sort of support itself.
don’t flame me now.. this is just my take on it. btw: i do have an iMac at home along with my gaming machine and 2 servers.
that’s not a good idea from my point of view in that the Mac is already overpriced for the h/p and to add maybe as little as $50 is not going to help. Why do you think that most people buy PC’s and not macs. Not because the PC is a better machine or more powerful.. it’s because a Mac low priced entry level mac is still twice as much as an low price e/l PC. The hardware and the construction of a mac is much better then a PC… but still that just doesn’t cut it. People see an iMac at $1200 running at 700mhz and see a PC at $400 running at 700mhz.. which would I buy?
I don’t think games would change the outcome.. pricing will change the outcome.
The problem is as follows:
Piracy. The reason why a lot of gamers exist (especially in foreign countries) is that games are pirated and can be found as cracked everywhere. Now what good is a pirated game if you dont have the hardware to run it? No good is the answer. Will people who are so cheap as to pirate games buy a mac to run it? No! And will they wait until the PC version comes out? possibly but they might lose interest by the time it does. If the CD (or DVD) makes a concurrent launch of both Mac, windows and linux platforms, how will apple make profits from pirated games? after all people do not have incentive to switch since they are getting it for free.
” For one thing, Apple isn’t hampered anymore (as far as we can optimistically tell) by bad performance. Therefore, Apple can start evangelizing with the advantage that its demographic is wealthy and that a lot of PCs are used as servers or other non-game things.”
Apple is still hampered; the only speed demon in Apple’s arsenal is the G5, and ALL the laptops, and consumer computers, and STILL hobbled by the much, much, much slower G4 which by comparison are STILL way overpriced for performance when compared to the consumer P4s.
Reality: Moto is still “TALKING” a great fight (200Mhz FSB; still very low), but hasn’t produced much more than vapors to date.
For those who ask “why play games on a computer when we can do so on a console?” I have a list of things you can do on computer games but not on consoles, or not as well.
1. Online gaming. Always has been better on computers IMHO. Although the major console makers are moving in this direction, they are still behind computers in this area.
2. Customization. From creating your own maps, campaigns, mods, skins, etc. You can even go as far as reusing an existing engine and creating a whole new game (more sophisticated than just a mod).
3. In my opinion, computer monitors look better. For similar image quality I’d have to buy an expensive TV. And games in general can be higher resolution and have better textures.
Consoles and computers have a certain life span for games, but with computers they can be upgraded, and we don’t have to worry about the manufacturers switching medias. Remember the transition from ROM cartridges to optical media? Some people, such as my brother, could not stand why we have to buy all new games every time we get a new console. Sony was smart in making the PS2 backwards compatible wit PS1 games.
I can still play all my old games and then some on computers. They last longer.
//I still get annoyed when I hear that “Quake” was the original first-person shooter. //
You should.
And, I get annoyed when people think BUNGIE had anything whatsoever to do with the _true_ original first-person shooter: Castle Wolfenstein 3-D.
>A game console costs 1/4 the price of a Mac and doubles as a dvd player!
But they don’t have a DVD Burner!
There are already mac game companies out there. Aspyr has been mentioned. Macsoft games ( http://www.macsoftgames.com/ ) is another company publishing mac games. Apple doesn’t need to join the fray.
There are plenty of titles to choose from. The way we’ll get more games is to buy the existing ones. It’s as simple as that.
Any reasonably affordable Mac is too slow to play high end games on. You also need a CRT not an LCD. Even the G5 doesn’t have a high end video card – the FX5200 is just an OK US$80 video card.
.NET on OS X is what we really need!!
I’ve got a home-built PC hidden away on a KVM if I really want to play games. It’s a good 4 times faster than my Mac, but the Mac is still far more “usable” for normal stuff : mail, internet, messing with pictures, etc. I played the EQ Mac beta and was amazed at how poorly it ran.
What’s my point? The Mac right now just isn’t a good games machine. It plays cards and other simple games very well, including my current favorite, Enigmo. You want a home PC, buy a Mac. You want a games machine, buy something else. You’ll be happier financially as well. A Mac has an average lifespan of 5 years compared to a PC’s 3 years. With the relatively high cost of buying new Macs, you’ll want your game platform to be something cheaper than can be refreshed on a more frequent basis.
The idea is a great one, but what games should you port. I would say Half-life 2 would be the best and should be the first, along with all the mods. If that was ported, you would have more than half the gamers out there looking at the mac as a gaming console.
I go with part of what the author is talking about, but I don’t like the idea of blanket charging every user $50 extra for their Mac. A lot of Mac users don’t play games on the. How about a subscription game service, costing $50 U.S. a year, all the free games you can download. I’d go for that!
The only cross platform piece of a game is really the main executable. So if any game company wanted to just create a Macintosh Executable and an Install script that would rip the game files from a PC install. It would reduce the cost of Mac Games. For Example UnReal Tournament 2003 I purchased for the PC about 3 months ago for 29.99. I would definitely pay $5 to download the game engine for Mac with an installer and use my PC CD’s that I already own. Compare this to the 49.99 price for UnReal Tournament 2003 for Mac.
Years ago I had a Mac IISi and ran a cool program called RoboSport by Maxis. My friend had a Windows box and also ran the Windows version of RoboSport.
I was very smug in that the Mac version was clearly superior in every aspect, interface, sound, graphics etc.
There’s no reason why the Mac being a better gaming platform be the norm again. If not in quantity of titles then at least in quality.
Can I write the $50 off as a donation to a charity on my income taxes?
Consoles display their graphics on a TV! A TV only does around 320×240.
Console games can’t do mods!
Console games can’t do extensions!
Strategy games, roleplaying games, firstperson games all suck on a console/TV.
My PC already got a mouse and keyboard, don’t feel like buying them for a console, too.
“”And, I get annoyed when people think BUNGIE had anything whatsoever to do with the _true_ original first-person shooter: Castle Wolfenstein 3-D.””
Nah, first was ‘Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss’. Dunno if that comes under the definition of an FPS though.
Is that a russian TV from the 50s or something..? 🙂
apple should cooperate with transgaming…
“The only cross platform piece of a game is really the main executable…”
You gotta a point there. It’s already feasable with the Linux Version of Quake 3. One would only need to install the latest Linux patch and copy the binaries off the CD.
//Nah, first was ‘Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss’. Dunno if that comes under the definition of an FPS though.//
Nice try. Not an FPS. Going that route, you could almost count Wizadry as an FPS, which it clearly wasn’t.
And, remember … UU:SA was _barely_ released before W3D. Within a few months, IIRC.
Either way, they were both loooooooong before Bungie got into the mix.
I think that what could really improve the porting rate of Windows games to Mac is Apple working out in a true multi-platform solution and evangelize it to the gamehouses.
They could, let´s say, buy the aforementioned company that does a DirectX bridge, bundle their product with OS X, produce some sort of a SDK and give it away for free. Better yet; they could start to improve something like SDL, which is quite impressive by itself and already has good OpenGL bindings and then create that SDK. They also could put some features that could work best only in a Mac to avoid Windows, Linux and others platforms to simply gain that advantages for free.
Lastly, they should stay away from that market only enough to make it attractive to game developers, without letting them drop the ball. It would justify the extra work to mantain the Mac version of their titles.
DeadFish Man
So Apple can make money by selling these games for free?
At least thats how the article reads… buy a xbox/ps2/gamecube or just a PC (cheaper and better).
How about supporting the burgeoning Mac indie developer community. A few thousands could go a long way at..
http://www.idevgames.com
I think that if Apple were to put some support into something like libsdl (http://www.libsdl.org), they could have some success. The SDL Library performs the same function on Linux/Windows/Mac that DirectX does on Windows. If that library was competent enough that developers could use it instead of directx, then it would literally be a re-compile to support Mac or Linux.
‘Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss’. Maybe but I would have thought it was The Colony for my old Mac Plus.
http://www.macworld.com/2000/01/bc/gamesgameroom/
“Apple should produce or port ten to twenty games per year, and make them available as a free download for all Mac users”
I’m stunned into silence. Why would Apple want to do this? You’re suggesting Apple devote huge amounts of resources to porting games, only to give them away for free? Several companies have tried this porting games over to Linux, but have been unable to make a proft as people just didn’t buy them.
If Apple is to port games, which is a good idea, they should charge for them. Otherwise what sensible incentive is there for Apple to do this?
…why everyone is so set on PORTING. Porting is wasted effort. The real goal is SIMULTANEOUS development. Porting is currently a necessary evil, but one that should be abolished.
How about a KVM-compatible console… I.E. a console intended for HD-TV’s and SVGA monitors. There could be a video downgrade for normal TVs built in, just like ATI, NVidia, et al already do today. If it has to be Apple producing it, they could call it the lunch-box or the fruit-cube…
On the library issues… developers should use SDL and include binaries for all the platforms they intend to support on the gaming disk. I like the idea of a $5-$10 upgrade for those of us that have already bought the WIN PC version.
You think that a large coorporation is going to only tax for one game, loosing the income from the other 9 they may additionaly sell. That’s laughable, these guys are about bottom line. And how many people would be upset about a tax of 50 bones for something they don’t want. Plus PC gaming has been declining fast and hard and most “hardcore” gamers focus more on console gaming these days.
“”‘Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss’. Maybe but I would have thought it was The Colony for my old Mac Plus. “”
Well it depends on your exact definition of what an FPS is. My vote might go to Dungeon Master (Atari ST version was released in ’86). It was real time (Of a sort), 3d (Although not rendered, simply constructed from static graphics), it was first person, and you could shoot at things. Might not fulfil all the requirements of an FPS, but anyone who ever played it can see the evolution from there to today’s FPS games. In many ways (Graphics/AI not included) some things have barely changed at all since then.
I’ll admit though that Wolfenstein 3D is the first game that would be a recognisable FPS compared to the current generation.
If a console like the PS2 came with a keyboad and a mouse, a HD, plus a MSWord compatible word processor, spreadsheat, image editor, internet browser, email, ICQ/AOL. And support for a range of printers, scanners and webcams…
If so… any real gamer would buy it, and live without Apple or Microsoft.
One thing I don’t understand is the oft-repeated notion that Mac users aren’t gamers or are less inclined to play games. That statement is ridiculous. Why would Mac users be less inclined to play games than Windows users? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it’s not as if the practice of buying a Mac causes a person’s gaming desire to go away.
I know Many Mac users and Many Windows users. Proportionally-speaking, the amount of people that enjoy gaming on both platforms is about equal.
Yes, there are more games for Windows, but most of them are trivial games that most gamers don’t play anyways. The vast majority of popular games are available for Windows AND Macintosh. This means that Mac users have the same titles that excite the “hard core gamers” who often think that high-end gaming is only done on Windows.
Additionally, the notion that Apple’s G4 computers don’t have what it takes to keep up in the gaming world is preposterous. They may not necessarily be the fastest in all cases, but by no stretch of the imagination is a G4 unable to address the needs and wants of the most avid of gamers.
The G5 has the same (if not greater) specs, and the same price point (if not lesser) than the equivalent machine that any hard core gamer would have demanded on Windows.
Nearly every major game title is available for the Mac and because the hardware has what it takes to stay at the same pace (it’s arguable that the G5 will offer even better performance) than any PC gaming machine.
To suggest that the Mac is not a gaming machine is simply false.
The problem with Apple porting games to the Mac and then giving them away for free is that you’re killing all the current porting houses (Aspyr, MacSoft, etc.) Most people just want a few games for their computer and if Apple gives them away for free then no one will buy any others.
What Apple should do is create, or buy, an original game house that will make spectacular titles that’ll come out first/only on Mac. Then they sell them, just like every other game out there, but under the Apple moniker. Now, if these games can be extremely amazing games, like Halo, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, the press they’ll get from all the PC gaming magazines and conferences like E3 will help more than anything else to solidify the Mac as a gaming machine.
Then, if this Apple game house can create a must-have game that’s only out for Macs it would force anyone who wants to play it to have to own a Mac. A lot of extreme gamers would really start considering buying a Mac if Doom 3 was mac-only.
Oh well, here’s dreaming.
Varcos
Ok, couldn’t help myself because it’s been fun looking at all the games I played when I first started out.
I believe this might be the grandparent of them all:
“Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord”
1981, Apple II, Sir-Tech Software, Inc
Now I don’t want to call this an FPS, for the simple reason that you can’t actually shoot anything on screen, all combat is turn based.
BUT, consider this. It’s first person perspective, and the idea is to go around a maze like structure killing people with various weapons. Sound familiar?
It’s kinda fascinating to follow the path of a genre like this. You can see just how little of the basic premise has changed, even though they appear to be so different.
Has game design actually moved on from the relevant genre originator? Or have we just got better eye candy? Could be grounds for an OSNews article (General interest of course, not actual OS news) :>.
If you add all that, then its not a console anymore is it?
If you did, then you would recall the scene with the programmer that was sitting in front of an Apple IIe or something and was having a happy time showing off this new “game-thing” he developed…
Anyway, Steve Jobs walked up, saw what was going on and flipped out, hit the roof and was ready to draw blood…
He went on proclaining something about productivity software or what-not and that games were not the way… Then a scene or two later, he was rude to a former IBM interviewee that might have been able to seriously help Apple with developing “boring” productivity apps…
I highly doubt that Apple will invest in a Games division, Steve apparently (If he hasn’t changed from that portrayal in that movie) doesn’t see computer games as anything of worth…
With that attitude, he has permanently cursed Apple to exist in the Niche Market that they exist in and NEVER will be able to break out of.
Sure, they will mildly increase marketshare with some geeks that want a portable UNIX machine, but that doens’t mean that all geeks will drool over a Mac. (I for one think they look nice and feel nice, but they won’t grace my desk, they aren’t versatile enough to meet my needs, the operative word being ‘my’ needs not yours.)
“Anyway, Steve Jobs walked up, saw what was going on and flipped out, hit the roof and was ready to draw blood…”
At the time, the reraction might have been (a lttle) more appropriate because everyone in the media was spreading FUD saying that the mac was only a toy due to its GUI.
Apple needed to shed that image so it was important that they invested their primary efforts into business development.
It was kindof a souble edged sword… Apple was dammed if they did and dammed if they didn’t.
in response to your subsoquent questions as to whether or not Stevestill maintains that viewpoint… he doesn;t and has said as much during several Mac World expos.
…This scene took place WAY before the Lisa and before the Mac group scenes…
It’s good that he changed his mind, it just appears to have come to late to make much of a difference. Until all, or most all, new games are released for MacOSX and Windows at the same time, then Apple will stay a niche player.
Since Microsoft has started the business of buying up a number of killer game houses and game franchises, it is highly unlikely that you will see a Mac version of games, such as Mechwarrior (Which is always a big seller) and many others… I am not saying it is impossible, just unlikely.
“Until all, or most all, new games are released for MacOSX and Windows at the same time, then Apple will stay a niche player.”
I don’t care about “new” games but rather… new good games. As of late, nearly all new good games are being released simutaniously.
“Since Microsoft has started the business of buying up a number of killer game houses and game franchises, it is highly unlikely that you will see a Mac version of games, such as Mechwarrior (Which is always a big seller) and many others… I am not saying it is impossible, just unlikely.”
Of the development houses that Microsoft buys up you may have a point if Microsoft is that insecure about their OS that they cant release a game that would bring in a healthy profit if it would mean more people moving to the Mac.
BTW, Mechwarrior has been available on the Mac for quite some time. (not sure about OS X though)
I don’t like most of the games out there. Most are too violent. Why should I pay for somthing I will never use?
And as far as windows being a superior gaming platform I beg to differ. I play the games I have on the Mac much more than I do the ones on Windows and it is much more fun as the graphics are so much better and it is so much more stable. I was able to buy every type of game I was interested in on a Mac and others I didn’t even imagine.
If RealPC works the way FWB claims it will in the OSX version then you will be able to play all the games you want at full hardware acceleration.
“I think only a minority of game projects started are completed and are successful. Apple could save a lot of money by convincing game companies to release an Apple version before the PC version. It might take a little bribe money, but it would save money in the long run.”
LOL do you know the business of game development at all ? I mean one of the most riskiest and deadly market you can find ? All game developers are on a small, thin edge, and a very small perturbation will throw them on the floor.
And you think they can afford, no problemo, to concentrate their efforts on a max 10% market share instead of a 85% one ?
Pipe Dream buddy ! 🙂
“[i]Go to the land of games – Japan. They all play games there. On a PC? Of course not, that’s no fun at all. Use a console, western dummies.[i]”
Not true for many people. The kind of game you find on consoles and the ones on PCs are very differents. Personally, I think nearly all console games are deadly crap/boring/repetitives, and nearly *all* of the best games available are on the PC.
Dummy yourself.
“And you think they can afford, no problemo, to concentrate their efforts on a max 10% market share instead of a 85% one ? Pipe Dream buddy !”
As has been said several times before, the process of co-releasing a game is somewhat trivial. It’s not as if the game has to be totally re-written from scratch for a new platform as might be the case for productivity applications.
Games are actually one of the unique areas of software development where making the game multi-platform would in fact prove very lucritive (assuming the alternative platforms have a certain core base of consumer users that would make the effort worth while. So far, only the macintosh has this… yes, Linux has similar install base, but that install base is composed primary of servers and not consumer machines (although this is slowly changing.)
I have an AthlonXP system at home and a G4 both connected to a KVM. I have played games on both and I know that MHZ wise the Mac is slower and the Mac has a Radeon 9000 versus a GeForce4Ti 4600.
Playing MOHAA and Spearhead on the Mac is dismal. If slow framerates and not using advanced features available on the video card is your cup of tea thats fine. For almost everything else I advocate the use of a Mac but for gaming a PC is a better choice.
Consoles are at a lower resolution and graphically do not look as good as PC platform games. In online gaming the PC is better than a console.
What does Apple need to do? Probably releasing some homebrew games would be good at least as a tech demo and also AGGRESIVELY advocate budding game companies create new games on the Mac platform and also provide some type of support structure to help companies port and optimize for the Mac platform. Macs don’t need to run every single game out there but the ports need to be good and the Mac platform does need more games.
In the end Apple has to give some incentive and also make it inexpensive to port games to the Mac platform.
When I read the title and the beginning of the article, I thought this guy is smoking crack. Then as I read on, I began to feel that this actually make some sense!
But I doubt Apple will give games away for free. Look at what they did with .Mac. Dot Mac should have remained free. It makes the Mac that much more attractive as a platform. And it makes it harder for Mac users to defect.
“But I doubt Apple will give games away for free.”<?i>
Of course not… why would they do that?
[i]”Look at what they did with .Mac. Dot Mac should have remained free. It makes the Mac that much more attractive as a platform.”
First of all, .Mac was NEVER free so therefore it can’t “remain” free. I’ve heard a few people say this and don’t understand why they came to this conclusion. These services cost a lot of money: Webmail, Online Address Book, Bookmark service, web hosting, automated web development software, 100 megs of online storage, iCards, Backup software, iSync, Virex and an Online Calander…
I think you’re confusing the previously free POP e-mail service that Apple rolled into .Mac, but this too is not an inexpensive service and therefore shouldn’t have been free. Sure, I would have liked it if the e-mail were free, but I certainly understand why that changed. Anyone that thinks otherwise isn’t really looking at the situation realistically. No one offers free POP email. Why should Apple?
“It makes the Mac that much more attractive as a platform.”
Sure, but so would free iPods all the way around, but that too isn’t a realistic business decision.
“And it makes it harder for Mac users to defect.”
First of all, Apple is in the business of working towards giving people to remain Mac users… NOT in the business of making it hard for its users to defect. That statement by itself causes me to believe that this was nothing more than a thinly veiled TROLL attempt.
But I doubt Apple will give games away for free. Look at what they did with .Mac. Dot Mac should have remained free. It makes the Mac that much more attractive as a platform. And it makes it harder for Mac users to defect.
Besides it being ridiculous to expect a company to devote tons of time and money to porting games just to hand them out for free, much less 10-20 a year when even the big porting houses can handle maybe 10 at most or get blasted for running b-list games otherwise… it’s funny you bring up .Mac.
.Mac has provided several free games from developers like Freeverse, Pop-Cap, and Gamehouse since it went subscription. Right now, if you resubscribe, you can pick a free copy of The Sims, a free copy of Everquest, or a $20 gift certificate to the Apple Store. Between those, the other free software, and the services, .Mac has been cost effective for me. It may not be so for everyone, but to a vast majority of folks who don’t have time or knowledge to piece together .Mac services from other providers, the freebies are icing on the cake.