The Apple Power Mac G5 is “among the most powerful desktop computers on earth” due to its 64-bit G5 CPU and high-speed hard drive, according to The Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray. The Power Mac G5 is just the sort of machine you’d want for playing intense 3-D games. Bray says it’s too bad there aren’t more games for Macintosh. “There are 660 million personal computers in use worldwide, but only 40 million of them are Macs. Nearly all the rest use Microsoft Windows operating systems. That means few companies will spend the millions needed to produce a top-drawer 3-D game just for Mac users, preferring to target the huge Windows market instead,” Bray writes.
Due to porting of major titles, though, Bray says “this is a golden era for Mac gaming” because the most popular game makers “now routinely issue Mac versions of their most popular titles. You don’t need a PC to play hot PC games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Warcraft III, Soldier of Fortune II, or The Sims. A Mac will do just fine.”
Bray looks at genres of games, different game makers, and Apple’s role in bringing more games to the Mac platform in his article, “Thanks to new technology, Macintosh gets in on the action” here.
MacDailyNews Take: More games would be nice, but the game situation is one of the most blatant results of Mac market share. Not a lot of hardcore gamers look to Mac, which means not a lot of Mac users are very interested in games. Some interest, yes. But, obviously not enough to make it worth it to develop new titles exclusively for the Macintosh first. Apple is doing it’s part, with Open GL and other technologies, to make is easier to get the best games to the Mac; games that have the potential to realize a profit from the Mac user base. You want the best personal computer? Get a Mac. You want to play the best games? Use a dedicated game console instead.