Comments on: Apple still quiet on game strategy

Windows PCs still own the game world, as Apple seems content to focus on digital media and portable music.

[bcalica]

Anyone Remember Apple Game Sprockets???

Once upon a time (back in '96) I had a small but talented team that Apple dedicated to providing technology to support the gaming community. The group was axed, actually by accident, during the layoff-a-thon that was that time right before Steve came back. It's very sad to see this come up again as if it is the first time that it came to Apple's attention.

[technewsjunkie]

That was then, this is now

FWIW I think that as a result of Intel based Macs it probably is a
good time to revisit this shortcoming.

I hope for the best.

[MasterWang]

Macs need more exclusives

Another fact about Mac gaming is that they do not have a large number of must-have exclusives. Pretty much any game on the Mac is also available on the PC. But this is not true the other way around.

The PC has a much larger library of PC-only games that will probably never see the light of day on the Mac.

Friend1: What's that? They have FEAR on the PC? I hear that's an awesome game! Is that on Mac?

Friend2: Nope. It's only on PC.

Friend1: I'm getting a PC.

Why get a Mac for gaming when the game of you really want to play is a PC exclusive? If Macs had more killer games that were Mac exclusive, they would be able to lure more gamers over to the Mac side. This is the same tactic used in console gaming. And exclusive titles are a BIG factor when deciding to buy a game console. Why buy a PS3, when the Legend of Zelda is available only on the Nintendo Wii? Likewise, wouldn't it be interesting if, say, the next Warcraft game was a Mac exclusive?

Apple needs to do whatever it takes to get more exclusives their way. They need gamers to be saying, "What's that? The game I must absolutely play or else my life will not be complete is available ONLY on a Mac? Then, I must get a Mac now!"

[technewsjunkie]

I agree that would help, Content is king

Windows has large volume which trumps everything from a purely
economic POV but your point about having exclusive Content is
good.

I just hope Microsoft doesn't just buy-out the next Halo(s), again,
before exclusive Apple game makers can get traction.

[Llib Setag]

Apple & Atari

Steve Jobs worked for Atari before starting Apple with Steve
Wozniac...

Leopard OS X 10.5 & Apple TV Console will be interesting on the
game frontier...

iPhone device as portable game station? Part of the Apple
patents on the motion sensors was for potentially controlling
game actions by tilting the device from portrait to landscape
positions...like steering race cars or action adventure games.

MultiTouch screen & motion sensors could very easily make the
new Video iPod with OSX a PSP competitor.

[AquaMaster]

I don't care about Games , But for those who do ...

Seriously I don't find computer games interesting at all

But for those who do you can get Boot camp from apple and run
windows on a Mac

see:

Mac can Run windows

PC can't run Macintosh

The choice is yours

[DarkHawke]

I do, and I chose Windows...

...for all the reasons outlined in the story, more and better games first and FAR greater flexibility. Aesthetics is a part as well. There are dozens of great chassis for Windows gaming rigs, in particular those from Alienware and the new Dell XPS line (I'm a happy 710 owner myself). I'll give ya, the Mac Pro gives you a more powerful processor at a lower price, but on looks alone, there's NO comparison to the PC competition. Plus, I can drop practically any modern hardware I want into my current rig and it'll run like a dream, whether it's a top-of-the-line graphics card, sound card or even a HDTV tuner. Can that be said of the Mac Pro? Don't think so.

I couldn't care less about the vaunted Mac OS, so why would I want a machine that could run it? Not that Windows is the be-all, end-all in the OS world, but it gets the job done without unduly getting in my way, which I all I need.

BTW, if you don't care about gaming, why are you responding to this story?

[russel_samson]

if you don't care..

then why are you posting a comment on this topic? get out of here apple troll..

"mac can run windows.. windows can't run osx"

and? name one program made for the mac that every pc user has been dying to run, just for an excuse to dual boot into osx? yeah, i thought so..

back on topic.. nvidia's SLI rendering still isnt functional on macs.. that's why pc gaming > mac gaming..

[DarkHawke]

I do, and I chose Windows...

...for all the reasons outlined in the story, more and better games first and FAR greater flexibility. Aesthetics is a part as well. There are dozens of great chassis for Windows gaming rigs, in particular those from Alienware and the new Dell XPS line (I'm a happy 710 owner myself). I'll give ya, the Mac Pro gives you a more powerful processor at a lower price, but on looks alone, there's NO comparison to the PC competition. Plus, I can drop practically any modern hardware I want into my current rig and it'll run like a dream, whether it's a top-of-the-line graphics card, sound card or even a HDTV tuner. Can that be said of the Mac Pro? Don't think so.

I couldn't care less about the vaunted Mac OS, so why would I want a machine that could run it? Not that Windows is the be-all, end-all in the OS world, but it gets the job done without unduly getting in my way, which I all I need.

BTW, if you don't care about gaming, why are you responding to this story?

[SPUY767]

No games. . . Huh?

I have no problems at all playing all the latest games using my Mac Pro, Oblivion, Prey, The Seque to FEAR. The author forgets to note the simple fact that all Macs produced in the last year are Windows machines and therein are quite capable of running 99% of the games out there handily. I don't catch much grief at LAN parties either, Even Alienware users are typically quite jealous of the high quality aluminum shell on my Mac, and all but the most sxpensive machines lack the power of the nVidi 8800 in the tower. Until C|Net authors get a clue, there's nothing more to see here.

[Nick Fortier]

Long hard road for the mac gamer

Im a mac gamer ( I can already hear you laughing). And while I
do continue to support macs, I am becoming increasingly
annoyed with apples disregard for mac gamers. Apple has been
going on about trying to change everyones lives with new bits of
tech, and while there computers have greatly improved we still
lag far behind gaming technology front. Apple can change this
now, more than ever but they actually have to start making a
effort to do it. There is some hope on the horizon, Open GL is
supposed to be going through some major overhalls in Leapord,
but it won't be enough. Apple needs to start working with game
developers and video card manufactures to make their games
and hardware come out at either the same time for both mac
and pc.
There are also alot of missinformed pc users, when it comes to
macs. I always hear pc users say that you can't upgrade a mac.
Not true, while the imacs can only have there memory upgraded,
mac pros are completely upgradeble. Hard drives, graphics
cards, memory, and the cpus can all be upgraded, although
upgrading a cpu on the current versions of the mac pro is
difficult and possibly dangerous to your computer, I suspect
newer versions will make upgrading the cpu easier. And because
those are the four things that most people worry about
upgrading anyways, the argument that you can't upgrade a mac
is rather null.
Another argument that pc users make against the mac is that
they become obsolete quickly. Once again not true. While the
switch to intel has admitidly going to mac the old powermacs
obsolete in a few years, the old powermacs were before the intel
switch computers you could rellie on for years. How many pc
gamers can say that they didn't upgrade there computers for 4
years and still play all the latest games. I can. My old 933mhz G4
I didn't upgrade until WoW came out, and I bought that
computer when they first released them. The new intel macs will
be the same. My Mac Pro won't need a serious upgrade for years.
And besides with all the money pc gamers spend upgrading
there machines it would probably be more cost affective to just
buy a new one.

[SPUY767]

I've used Macs forever

I've used Macs forever, as well as PC's. I know both inside and out. The thing with IBM's PPC Chips, and the RISC architecture in general is, that it will perform tasks faster, but only if they are programmed properly, and since so may development houses have forsaken good code for ease of writing, brute forcing seems to be the way to go, and in that respect, 12GHz of processing seems to beat out anything that IBM could offer up as far as PPC is concerned.

[SPUY767]

Wow, another Know-nothing post

Not entirely surprising on this forum, but whatever. I'm not gonna attempt to deal with the abomination that was your post in its entirety, but merely two points which were so glaringly false as to make me angry. 1) Apple decided to Develop its own API, which I am assuming is your meaning when you say that they were mean to Metrowerks, because Codewarrior was a mediocre product. I have been a C++ programmer for years, and I found it easier to learn an entirely new language and API than to continue working with CW after XCode was released. 2) pple has, by far, the most efficient OpenGL implementation to date. OpenGL on an integrated GPU in a Mac will run rings around DX9 on mid grade hardware. But, since MS likes to corner people into its markets, DX is still king, and no one bothers to code stuff in GL any more.

[SPUY767]

I tolerate gaming on a Mac. . .

And by tolerate gaming I mean playing the latest games at obcene framerates on ridiculously overpowered hardware. Why do I tolerate this, you ask? Because when I'm done runnng Oblivion at over 80FPS in 1080i, I like to reboot into OS X, so that I can get real work done without the problems that plague my PC at work.

[rapier1]

what?

80FPS? Thats it? Whats wrong with your system?
I can get 150FPS at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF.

Oh thats right, no SLI or XFire. And the x1600 is kind of decrepit
now. Let me know when your ridiculously overpowered systems
grows up.

[texasags]

I'll take a....

...Playstation or an X-Box.

[geoffinak]

Cheaper More flexible

You get what you pay for and people fail to take into
consideration that they are getting a full functioning computer
out of the box. A full OS not watered down or Vista that most
recommend waiting a years till service update one comes out.
It's not bickering who is better. The guy who posted an $800
difference, probably loaded the MacBook with ram, something
that is a customer installable part. Takes 2 minutes and will save
you probably $500 dollars right.
If he wants to play windows games, well the Macbook will do
your windows. In general, I do not think of the mac as a gamer,
then I am not into them either, from what my son says, it's
cheaper to build one then buy one for gaming. However when it
comes hardware to hardware and software to software and the
value for your dollar. The Mac still beats everything out there
hands down. I have a Pismo 500, a 1999 model. That I bought
used for $1100.00 2 years after it was new. It still runs fine,
runs the latest OSX 10.4.8 and will run the next one to come out
Panther. That is full security, yes the graphics card is slow but
for daily internet browsing, banking, mail, it does just fine. The
only thing I have done is punch the memory to 1 gig and put a
7200 100 Gig HD. I have the last of the PPC lap tops and it's a
little faster on the web. A lot faster at Photoshop. That Pismo
just keeps going and I have a room full that run back as far as
well as a 512K The worst failure I had on a Mac was a power
inverter. Apple wanted $1000.00 to fix it, I bought the part on
eBay for $5.00 and in 5 minutes it was running fine. If you want
a computer that will last get a Mac. Otherwise spend your
$500.00 bucks on a Wintel and buy another in 2 years.
Macs just run and run

[SPUY767]

T. . . C. . . O

I agree completely. people like to forget about a nice little figure I like to call, total cost of ownership, incedentally, I think that a lot of financial analysts like to call it that too. How much does a windows PC cost to run for five years VS a Mac. Well, most windows PCs would be lucky to make it five years, while I have a collection of 9 Macintoshes, the oldest of which is a Mac Plus, all functioning by the way. If I paid myself even a meager 18$ an hour wage for all the time that I spend having to fix inane problems on my Windows Macine, or the time it takes to re-install the entire OS once or twice a year, the TCO suddenly skyrockets. I suspect that my MacPro will be running ten years from now, as will the Mac Plus most likely, my Windows machine, I suspect will also be inhabiting a rubbish heap.

[ZTthebigP]

Exactly!

I have been in great conflict lately because we have windows right now and have some games like Battlefield 2142. It is time to update the family computer and a Mac would put a lot less stress on me because I have to do all the maintenance, however I like getting games when they are new and the Mac doesn't support that with the ones that I want. The gaming aspect could be the deciding factor so I might end up waiting until service pack 1 for vista comes out in a few months.

[jpmccloud01]

"Oh MAC gamith thee"

Look Mac is a great operating computer I give it that, but MAC has not been a tweeker computer company; I mean look Mac is not got kids going crazy changing Video cards, sound cards, and building systems that push the envelope. When have you heard it possible to build your own MAC from scratch. That pushes the tech tree which is the same tree that most Gamers live for. Bigger capabilities, Better graphics, sound that rocks your world, and and on-line gaming community, that celebrates more of a gaming experience. Simply put, I at 37 played comp games when I was 11, and the games have gown from Ok to "WOW". Mac should be getting the games, but they should also open there hold on their architecture more, so tweekers help them along. Bye the way, Wasn't HALO developed on a MAC? A rumor that should haunt THE MAC VERSE. Hope to meet MAC heads on the gaming scene more their creativity is as big a part of gaming as the tweekers, they just don't push hard enough for their game scene

[parkerpjd13]

Mac's are not practical

My dad has used mac's most of his life. Once he switched to Mac's, you know what he said....."Mac's are not practical". If you have used a Mac one thing you might notice is, when you are having a problem with drivers or software there is no Trouble Shooting or no help. Does anyone know what I am talking about?

[ewelch]

No, not really

Your father's comments about Macs not being practicle, or not
getting help with troubleshooting is nonsnese. Macs have had
better customer satisfaction in research studies of any computer
maker. And it's because there's lots of support for Macs - and
the fact they don't need fixing as much as PCs. Plus, they do
everything PCs can do, plus things they can't. So the argument is
now turned, and it's not practicle to get a PC which restricts
what you can do when you can do everything on Macs since they
can run OS X, Windows, Linux, DOS, OS/2 and UNIX programs.
PCs can run a lot of those, but not OS X.

[bmarti]

Do I know what you're talking about?

No, and I don't think you do, either.

Look, dude, the simple fact is that Microsoft has been pirating
Apple innovation since 1984. Do your homework.

The sad part about Microsoft Windows is that it would take a
genius to code a dumber operating system.

Cheers, Big Ears.

[ewelch]

Apple proprietary? Are you nuts?

Microsoft is proprietary. All of their software is designed to lock
you into their verison of Kerberos, or Java or whatever. Apple
uses OPEN SOURCE software throughout. Safari, their web
browser, has contributed siginficantly to the open source
Koqueror Web Browser program.

OS X runs on BSD. Bonjour is an open source netowrking
technology. The list goes on and on. They put their own spin on
the software as it's implemented in the OS, but they contribute
to open source as well as take from it.

That's open. Microsoft is nothing of the sort. They are
propretary in a predatory manner.

[calvn84]

Any real gamer will tell you....

Mac User = Nub

[pedershk]

$970 million? Who flunked math?

Lesse..

World of Warcraft subscription sales = 8.5 million users*12 months*$12.99 = $1.324.980.000. Yes, people, that's more than 1.3 billion in subscription sales from WOW Alone. And that's a pc game, yes? I'd say the PC game market is a LOT bigger than 970 million bucks.

[wraith808]

Re: $970 million? Who flunked math?

Subscription sales are not included in market analyses as a point of fact. That's why the figures are smaller than they might otherwise be. XBox live and live games are also not included, so it's not a Console based prejudice.

[Thomas, David]

Whol Flunked? You Did!

WOW is NOT a PC only game.

When you do your math, you need to understand the variables.

[Jon N.]

Let's keep it in perspective...

First of all, Unix and Linux are VERY stable. If you are having lock-ups & freezes, it's most likely due to insufficient RAM, Video RAM, or drive space(Virtual RAM). Ya can't blame your PC/MAC for that. If your op/sys code is cracked, or your Primary Hard Drive is fried, then that's a different story.
I don't know how many times I have uninstalled a driver for something, and it rips a piece of my OS with it(usually a .dll). This is known in the Apple world as .dll hell! M$ wants to make it so that you can only install your OS once, and then you'll have to buy another copy. Sounds like a end user disaster in the making. With Windows, I have had to re-install my OS almost every time I uninstall large hardware drivers.I shouldn't have to use 3rd party back-ups such as Ghost, when re-installing my OS, and I shouldn't be worried about how many times I can put the SAME OS on the SAME machine. Here's where Unix & Linux shines.
Second, Windows got their early lead in market share after the advent of Word, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and Office. When MS Office came out,(which initially was ported on the Macintosh in 1989)it took the business world by storm. M$ appropriated Mac's OS Windowing technology because Apple didn't patent it! Apple is still paying for THAT marketing blunder in decreased market share to this day.
Now, with Windows being attacked so often, Apple is showing everyone an experience of a more secure, more user-friendly computing environment. Apple must try to get a open source version of DirectX, so they can port Win Games to OSX. If you think that M$ will willingly hand over the DirectX source code, think again. Apple has taken an interesting step, with boot camp. They need to make OSX THE primary platform for everything from games, to office suites. Linux has crossover office, but running games is a gamble at best. Apple is making great advances in integrating the computer into the home theatre. Apple now shines in the MP3/Multimedia market. They have had M$ Office on their machines since 1989...so far with very little market share increase.
Let's all hope that Apple will see the wisdom of porting to the gaming market. If they do, then I'll tell two friends, then they'll tell two friends...and so on...and so on...and so on...

[s70fixer]

Apple IS proprietary...

...when it comes to hardware. Just like Dell, and the rest of the major manufacturers. Just try to switching MoBo's between the any of the majors and see how far you get. I bet most Mac users wouldn't even try it because they are afraid or don't konw how to open their cases.
And btw, OS X IS proprietary too. Can I run it on any system other than a Mac? NO, therefore I MUST buy a Mac to use it. Sure it is open source but only at it's beginnings. True, non-proprietary OS's are SUSE, Red Hat, and Ubuntu.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

Mac is the new nerd toy

PC is like the bike that you can customize any way you want it. Real gamers laugh at Mac "gamers". Go make your cute DVDs with nice transitions, its like watching a relative's holiday slides. Try customizing your Mac. I built my PC by hand, I upgrade it and I customize it. Can you build your own Mac?

[open-mind]

Definition of "nerd"...

So a nerd is someone who authors video content on DVD.

But a nerd is NOT someone who builds their own computer from parts so they can play games on it.

LOL.