Vista's built for Games; How about OS X?

[The Continental]

With the upcoming launch of Windows Vista in all of its DX10 glory, the Games for Windows initiative, and the movement towards 360/PC interoperability via Live! Anywhere; Macworld's (http://www.macworld.com/) Peter Cohen has decided to take a look (http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/gameroom/2007/01/vista/index.php) at the state of Mac gaming.Over the past year, Mac game publishers have seen dwindling shelf space in Apple retail stores as Mac software has been pushed to the back in favor of more popular iPod accessories. The effort has forced some publishers, like Aspyr Media and Virtual Programming, to develop their own online software distribution methods. (Virtual Programming sells its products through the Deliver2Mac service (http://www.deliver2mac.com/index.php?main_page=index), and Aspyr is expected to launch Aspyr Game Agent 2.0 later this year with support for online transactions.)

With dwindling retail space an issue, publishers have taken a more cautious approach to releases, which caused the number of major commercial games to drop dramatically in 2006, leading some gamers to believe that the Mac game industry itself is on the wane. In fact, sales have remained more or less solid—it’s just that the mix of games has changed, as Mac game publishers put more emphasis on selling top-tier commercial titles and focus less effort on bringing “b-list” games to the platform.

As on the PC platform, casual gaming on the Mac has grown in leaps and bounds, as well. Casual gaming, which relies much more heavily on electronic distribution than on retail sales, continues to attract new developers and publishers to the Mac platform, with myriad puzzle, card and simple arcade action titles.While Blizzard and Boot Camp certainly seem to have helped the cause of gaming on Macs, we haven't seen Apple really embrace gaming since the days of pre-MS Bungie.

[Frogleg Special]

"Vista's built for games" is BS without first-party exclusive games

[cp#]

Gaming on Vista right now is complete shit and yes I am running it as we speak.. I have random ass crashes and the drivers.. well they suck dick. A whole 'nother problem is that nVidia is starting to threaten the driver-modders like NGO and dhzer0 so they aren't modding nVidias shit anymore

[J-Dizzle]

Gaming on Vista right now is complete shit and yes I am running it as we speak.. I have random ass crashes and the drivers.. well they suck dick. A whole 'nother problem is that nVidia is starting to threaten the driver-modders like NGO and dhzer0 so they aren't modding nVidias shit anymore

Hey dude. Check out my reply to your woes in the Vista Footprint thread.
I'm having similar issues, especially in WoW, but I think it's the nVidia driver.

I'm hoping very much that when the OS is commercially released a good driver will release along with it.

Not wanting to threadjack... People will one day realise that games drive everything. Why isn't everyone using Linux ? Mostly I believe it's cos you can't play games. Yes there's familiarity and complexity issues, but if I could play ALL games on Linux, then bye bye Microsoft.

Why don't I have a Mac ? Yes, it's more expensive, and that's a hurdle, but hell, it's better. If I could play ALL games on a Mac, then bye bye Microsoft.

I quite like Vista, but Microsoft have only two things going for them. Firstly, familiarity with Joe Average (to them Windows IS a PC), and Games.

[Deadend]

Of course the Mac lacks games, as games are considered to be childish and stupid and immature passtimes for the hipsters and other stereotypical mac users who only play old console games on their emulators because it's cool to play old games.

[Venkman]

Of course the Mac lacks games, as games are considered to be childish and stupid and immature passtimes for the hipsters and other stereotypical mac users who only play old console games on their emulators because it's cool to play old games.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/07/07

;)

[Wraith]

That's what I don't get about the Got Mac tv ads. They always portray the PC as being all about numbers and charts and business functions, while the Mac is about fun and entertainment and creativity. But apart from a handful of big titles (Sims, Civ, WoW, etc), Mac doesn't really do much for games, which definitely falls under the fun/entertainment category they're praising themselves for. While the PC has tons of games, and is compatible with a huge number of video cards.

It would be nice if Apple would have some sort of incentive for PC game companies to port their titles to Intel Macs.

[Metal Jesus]

Here's my personal experience: In my office, we have a bunch of Mac users and developers.

Guess what? They all own either the Xbox 360 or a PSP.

[Jack Random]

So much of a PC gaming experience is based on driver support, I'm going to hold until the drivers mature before i judge

Edit: using Vista RTM here

[Slack3r78]

"Vista's built for games" is BS without first-party exclusive games
Here we go again. :rolleyes:

[Paranoia]

Here we go again. :rolleyes:

He got banned for saying that?

[Frogleg Special]

Nah, he just love to use them rolleyes.

[J Arcane]

Over the past year, Mac game publishers have seen dwindling shelf space in Apple retail stores as Mac software has been pushed to the back in favor of more popular iPod accessories.

One of the stores in my own town pulled this very thing, and it's really rather pissed me off. Basically just stopped stocking software all together. It's fucking retarded.

[independentcreator]

"Vista's built for games" is code for "we crippled DX10 so it won't run on XP".

[Antdude]

While Blizzard and Boot Camp certainly seem to have helped the cause of gaming on Macs, we haven't seen Apple really embrace gaming since the days of pre-MS Bungie.

As a Mac user (and formerly Linux user), I can say that Apple is the one at fault here. Games drive the platform, whether people want to admit it or not. Apple let Game Sprockets die when they moved to OS X, so there is currently no Mac gaming API comparable to DirectX. The best option devs have on the Mac is OpenGL, which is in need of a serious update. Why Apple doesn't put some money or effort into advancing dev tools ( a developer friend of mine says that Xcode is great for building pro applications, but a nightmare for creating any kind of serious game engine) for the Mac to become a serious gaming platform is beyond me.

Apple could be taking the lead on this by licensing middleware (i.e. Havok) and developing the tools to compete with Windows, but this goes all the way back to the first launch of the Macintosh, when Apple actively discouraged game development by pushing the Mac as a business-only computer. With all the success Apple has had pushing the iPod, and the iLife applications as fun and family-friendly ways to use a computer, Steve jobs has never, ever taken gaming seriously. You only have to walk into an Apple store to see that. Driver and graphics support is still lacking on the Mac, which is why even the best ports of Mac games still don't run as well as they do on Windows. Blizzard being the notable exception, developers are left high and dry by Apple.

I use a Mac for all my video and photo work. I'd gladly leave Windows behind permanently, if Apple would make a serious effort to make the Mac a gaming-friendly platform.

It's in their hands.

[Schnoogs]

He got banned for saying that?

HA! No...he banned himself ;)

[Nadreck]

Without going into NDA'd details, things going for the upcoming release of 10.5 (OS X):
1) Fully up to date OpenGL (http://www.opengl.org/documentation/current_version/)
2) Better development tools and more API support
3) Increasing number of platform agnostic or cross platform game engines (including some big names like the Unreal 3 engine and editing tools).
4) They actually have a game partnership director to work with game developers more directly at Apple now. This is new, like within the past 6 months.

So yeah, right now is actually potentially an ideal time for OS X, and if they handle things right, they could actually stand to become a really excellent computer gaming option.

[jeffbax]

Here's my personal experience: In my office, we have a bunch of Mac users and developers.

Guess what? They all own either the Xbox 360 or a PSP.
Is that supposed to be problematic?

I own a Mac (two of them) and a 360. I also have a DS, Xbox, Saturn, Dreamcast. Are we not allowed to own consoles?

As for Mac games, 2007 will be a lot better than 2006 say most of the publishers. And yeah, Apple is partially to blame, but so were PowerPC CPUs, PC Developers not writing portable code and living & dying on DirectX.

Oh, don't forget middleware like Havok and Gamespy who at least until recently wanted to charge so much for Mac support the porting houses wouldn't even really make much profit off of the port. This is the largest problem first and foremost.

That said, yeah Mac gaming is not nearly as good as PC gaming, but I'm not going back to Windows. Maybe Parallel's will add 3D support so I can play my older PC titles in there (Crossover/WINE just is too inconsistent) but I'm not really sweating it.

Yeah, my 720p HDTV and 360 are keeping me pretty happy. and I can still do all my hardcore Quake-ing on my Mac. Hopefully as Apple's intel marketshare rises it will help speed along development more.

Then stuff like this pisses me off... from the recent Game Informer
Gabe Newell says: Microsoft has so many problems with Vista; I wish they were focusing more on the thing that runs on hundreds of millions of PCs rather than six million proprietary clients. Vista really shows a lack of focus on making a better consumer platform. I came out of the Windows group, and right now, I'd go with a Macintosh as being a better solution for most consumers than a Vista-based PC. It's shocking to me. If you're an XP user, you're going to be more comfortable upgrading to an Apple than Vista. Vista is going to drive you crazy in terms of some of their interface decisions. Other than gaming, which is Apple's heel, almost everything else works better on a Mac. As somebody who used to live and die to make Windows succesful, that's super sad for me.
Yet this man cancels Half Life 1's near complete Mac port and just about every cross platform thread on Steam's forums gets locked up faster than a dissident in China :mad:

Heh, I guess you can say I have mixed feelings.

[Venkman]

I own a mac, and I say the Xbox 360 has the smoothest interface I have seen. It made me think of Apple at first, but it has way more detail put into it. I swear the 360 does not seem like a microsoft product.

Open GL on the mac is sad. The developers at Maxon and Autodesk are waiting for more modern features like hyper-threaded Open GL (partial support on Mac Pros only).

I am switching to the PC to continue my use of Maya. In every other aspect besides games (that's why I have a 360) and high-end 3d software, my mac was fine. I think it's way too little, too late. we know how cut-throat the game business is.

[jeffbax]

Mac OpenGL is multithreaded, it was in one of the newer OS X updates.

As for the 360 UI, I agree its not bad, but I don't think its as good as an Apple UI, at least not yet.

[Nadreck]

OpenGL is already multithreaded in 10.4, and several companies are already making use of that (WoW, for instance... read your patch notes). 10.5 is going to have full 2.1 support.

I was a little confused about the mention that you were having to switch to PC to continue to use Maya... went over to the Autodesk website. OS X is listed as a supported system, so... uh, huh? Where are you getting this information that they're waiting?