Nothing that concerns my interests, but...

[Tyeforce]

<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Old'd</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">

Last week, Valve Software generated some excitement among gaming fans who noticed Mac OS X menu components and other items in the most recent release of the company's Steam distribution platform for the PC. Combined with reports of Valve recruiting Mac engineers, the evidence suggested that Valve may be planning to make a move into the Mac platform.

MacRumors today received a teaser image from Valve appearing to show Gordon Freeman, protagonist of Valve's Half-Life video game series, with an Apple logo on his chest. The image was accompanied with the following explanation: "In anticipation of an upcoming announcement from Valve."



Valve has not offered any additional information on what we can expect from them or when more news might be available beyond "soon".

Update: MacNN received a different teaser image showing robotic characters from other Valve games mimicking Apple's "Get a Mac" ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. The report suggests that we may see an announcement at next week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The image here represent turrets from Team Fortress 2 and Portal:

The presence of six dots along the bottom of the images, apparently for navigation reference, suggests that an additional four teaser images may have been sent to other outlets.

Update 2: A third image has surfaced at Shacknews with Team Fortress 2 reference:



And a fourth one has appeared at Eurogamer, with character from Left 4 Dead:



Update 3: One more image has been posted at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, revealing that Steam is coming to Mac:



Update 4: Macworld posts what appears to be the sixth and final image, depicting Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 in a reenactment of Apple's famous 1984 commercial.

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/03/valve-teases-upcoming-half-life-release-for-mac/</div>

Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac.

Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."

Support for the Mac in Source and Steamworks is available to third parties immediately. Interested developers should contact Jason Holtman at jasonh@valvesoftware.com.[/quote][url=http://store.steampowered.com/news/3569/]http://store.steampowered.com/news/3569/[/url]

 

[Pear]

Too bad Macs aren't powerful enough to run 90% of the games on STEAM.

 

[Megamannt125]

Hey Tye, you do realize, this means you now have a device that can play games that also have 360 ports, and therefore have a 360?

 

[AndyB]

Too bad Macs aren't powerful enough to run 90% of the games on STEAM.

BUT, this will then encourage developers to start making games for mac!
Sure, it's a shame they can't run much as of now... but it's a start!

 

[Tyeforce]

Too bad Macs aren't powerful enough to run 90% of the games on STEAM.

Exactly what are the minimum specifications needed? I bet you my MacBook Pro is more than enough to play any Steam game. >_>

 

[Tyeforce]

Hey Tye, you do realize, this means you now have a device that can play games that also have 360 ports, and therefore have a 360?

And you do realize that I'm a console gamer, not a computer gamer? =P Besides, I could always play them before. I have Vista, too, you know. And Ubuntu.

It's funny you say that, though, because just yesterday I was thinking of playing Sonic the Hedgehog '06 on one of our computers, for review purposes. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately XD), there isn't a PC port, so I can't play it. =p

 

[SamXX]

Too bad Macs aren't powerful enough to run 90% of the games on STEAM.

Yes, they are. A Macbook is a much more powerful gaming system than most Windows Laptops, just not many companies make games compatible for it.

 

[Bacon Boy]

Too bad Macs aren't powerful enough to run 90% of the games on STEAM.

Yes, they are. A Macbook is a much more powerful gaming system than most Windows Laptops, just not many companies make games compatible for it.

This.

 

[Trent the Paladin]

Hey Tye, you do realize, this means you now have a device that can play games that also have 360 ports, and therefore have a 360?

And you do realize that I'm a console gamer, not a computer gamer? =P Besides, I could always play them before. I have Vista, too, you know. And Ubuntu.

It's funny you say that, though, because just yesterday I was thinking of playing Sonic the Hedgehog '06 on one of our computers, for review purposes. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately XD), there isn't a PC port, so I can't play it. =p

06 sucks. First opened and played it, learned to hate it.

 

[Pear]

@ Mac people in this thread- Laptop gaming? Lol. Laptops on both sides have no power, and apart from that, a $350 PC laptop has as much power as a $1000 macbook.
And, no Tye, you're make can't play most of the games out there. You might be able to play some games on the lowest settings.

And you're right Andy, it could pave the way for more, but I don't think it's extremely likely. PC gaming appeals to a small group because of the technicalities involved, so I doubt it would appeal to most Mac users. I know I'm stereotyping, but most Mac users don't care about anything beyond web browsing and media viewing.

 

[SamXX]

@ Mac people in this thread- Laptop gaming? Lol. Laptops on both sides have no power, and apart from that, a $350 PC laptop has as much power as a $1000 macbook.
And, no Tye, you're make can't play most of the games out there. You might be able to play some games on the lowest settings.

And you're right Andy, it could pave the way for more, but I don't think it's extremely likely. PC gaming appeals to a small group because of the technicalities involved, so I doubt it would appeal to most Mac users. I know I'm stereotyping, but most Mac users don't care about anything beyond web browsing and media viewing.

I just used that as an example to show you that Macs are powerful enough to play games. Some just as well as some higher end gaming PCs can. Also, don't call us "Mac People", it sounds stupid.

 

[Pear]

@ Mac people in this thread- Laptop gaming? Lol. Laptops on both sides have no power, and apart from that, a $350 PC laptop has as much power as a $1000 macbook.
And, no Tye, you're make can't play most of the games out there. You might be able to play some games on the lowest settings.

And you're right Andy, it could pave the way for more, but I don't think it's extremely likely. PC gaming appeals to a small group because of the technicalities involved, so I doubt it would appeal to most Mac users. I know I'm stereotyping, but most Mac users don't care about anything beyond web browsing and media viewing.

I just used that as an example to show you that Macs are powerful enough to play games. Some just as well as some higher end gaming PCs can. Also, don't call us "Mac People", it sounds stupid.

I'm just going to copy this from a previous post of mine.

A 27" Imac has a 2.66 Ghz quad core processor, the same as mine. It has 4 GB of RAM, I have 8. It has 1 TB of Hard drive, the same as mine. It has an ATI Radeon 4850 HD graphics card with 512 MB GDDR5 memory. I have a GT 240, with comparable specs.
I have a slightly better computer, but they are comparable.
The cost of the Mac? $2000. My PC? $500.

Then, I downloaded a system file mods to change my PC to look and behave like a mac. That took me 10 minutes, and saved me $1500.

 

[AndyB]

And you're right Andy, it could pave the way for more, but I don't think it's extremely likely. PC gaming appeals to a small group because of the technicalities involved, so I doubt it would appeal to most Mac users. I know I'm stereotyping, but most Mac users don't care about anything beyond web browsing and media viewing.

Finally someone took the time to read my post.
Too bad most people are being a bit stupid about it all and not seeing the big picture here.

 

[Gnome]

hey hey hey.

I'm on a macbook and I can run most steam games fine. yo

And a list of some games that already have mac ports.

http://savygamer.co.uk/2010/03/03/here-is-a-list-of-games-currently-on-steam-that-already-have-a-native-mac-port-in-existence/

 

[The Sign Painter]

Those pics made me LOL, and what is Steam?

 

[beehdaubs]

Well this'll be pretty cool. I have a friend who owns a Mac and he is bored out of his mind with it. The more ingame bros the better.

 

[Tyeforce]

Hey Tye, you do realize, this means you now have a device that can play games that also have 360 ports, and therefore have a 360?

And you do realize that I'm a console gamer, not a computer gamer? =P Besides, I could always play them before. I have Vista, too, you know. And Ubuntu.

It's funny you say that, though, because just yesterday I was thinking of playing Sonic the Hedgehog '06 on one of our computers, for review purposes. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately XD), there isn't a PC port, so I can't play it. =p

06 sucks. First opened and played it, learned to hate it.

I'm well aware that it's widely hated, lol. I just want to play it so I can review it. XD

 

[VantagE]

I really don't care much about pc/mac/computer/whatever gaming, I am purely a console gamer.
I use my mac for school, internet, music, movies, photos. Awesome for movies xD
FYI I bought my macbook off of craigslist for 450 and its a 08 model and works like brand new.
Look in the right place and you can find a good priced mac.

 

[Bacon Boy]

I really don't care much about pc/mac/computer/whatever gaming, I am purely a console gamer.
I use my mac for school, internet, music, movies, photos. Awesome for movies xD
FYI I bought my macbook off of craigslist for 450 and its a 08 model and works like brand new.
Look in the right place and you can find a good priced mac.

This. And no PC can TRULY run like a Mac. The Mac's main purposes are for media and working. It has great graphics and all, but I wouldn't waste my time sitting around playing games when I have a free high-end quality movie making program. Three sets of DVDs waiting to be burned, and a $200 special effects program. The Windows at my school are the newest and supposedly top-of-the-line computers. Yet you can only run two programs on each of them at a time or otherwise it'll freeze. It takes too long to watch or edit movies, and this is not only on these computers, but a couple of my friends as well.

Point being, Windows are mainly used for spreadsheets and gaming. A Mac is mainly used for all kinds of media making. Depending on what you want, movie making or gaming, then that decides which is the best.

 

[David]

macbooks have enough power to run things fine, ive tried trials on this 1.6ghz windows and i could run them still. a macbook should be just fine. cant wait to get one, i dont care about gaming on it at all though, i have my 360 for that, im getting it for editing purposes, i want final cut so badly