“With the introduction of Apple’s Boot Camp software, Intel- based Macs can now dual-boot Windows XP and Mac OS X. Many people are curious about games performance, and while it’s still a bit early as I write this to provide you with hard and fast numbers, I can tell you this much unequivocally: It works. And it works really well,” Peter Cohen reports for Macworld. “I’ve been playing with Windows XP SP2 on a 20-inch Intel-based iMac. And it really works quite remarkably. I’ve thrown a bunch of game demos and full games at it, and I haven’t found one yet that doesn’t work.”
“People who keep an eye on the Mac game market are worried about this turn of events, and from my perspective, rightfully so: I fully expect that this will effectively decimate the licensing of some Mac conversions of high-profile AAA list releases that fall into the ‘hardcore’ gaming camp,” Cohen writes. “But all in all, that’s a pretty small bunch of gamers. There are still a lot of games that carry a huge amount of mass market appeal that will continue to come from the same Mac publishers that we know now… A year or two down the road, I hope that Apple’s market share will look much larger than it is today. And if a significant percentage of those buyers are drawn to Macs because they can run Windows, all for the better—because they’ll get to know and love Mac OS X as many of us do now.”
Full article here.
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Who gives a flying rip about playing games on a Mac?!!
Macs are for PRODUCTIVITY.
MDN magic word “lame”
As in, this is as lame as it gets…
It all depends on one thing. If after a couple of years Apple can prove that only a small percentage of Intel Mac users have installed Windows, then the conversions will continue. Otherwise kiss goodbye to Mac versions of games. Developers already have three platforms to code for (XBox, PS3, PC) with a fourth from Nintendo on the horizon. There’s no way they’ll code for a fifth unless they really have to.
We mustn’t forget that people who buy a Mac to run Winblows will also be exposed to superior hardware. Something most PC users are not familiar with, other than the iPod of course, but that’s a different experience from using Mac.
Anyway, a Mac sold is a Mac sold. This is definitely the best way for Apple to maintain it’s control–Awesome!
There’s always something I can’t seem to do on my Mac. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the platform, it’s because some developers don’t bother writing software to support their devices or features for the Mac. Rockstar custom tracks anyone?? So, Say I have a small collection of Windows things I would like to do but I can now do it on my Mac-it’s still a Mac sold. The more Macs that get sold, the more of a chance that these developers will stop ignoring the platform. I see a win all the way. It would be much nicer if this is the first step in a larger scheme where the Windows OS loads alongside OS X without a reboot. That would be even better until all the developers hire people who can code for Macs. Nice smooth transition…..
My favorite game, Delta Tao’s “Strategic Conquest”, runs only in Classic 🙁
Why are these people so surprised it doesn’t work. The Intel Macs are PCs for feck’s sake….
The release of the Nintendo Revolution is going to eliminate the PC gaming market anyway.
Besides, it would be amusing if Windows started to be seen as “that OS you boot into to play games”.
There are a few PC-only games I wouldn’t mind trying, but there’s no way I’d BUY a copy of Windows and install it on my Mac. Maybe if I had a spare hard drive lying around, but I seriously doubt it.
Mickentosh: You’re absolutely right! When I describe how straightforward it is to do things on a Mac, how easy it is to connect and run new peripherals and install (or DELETE) software to the few wretched Pee Sea users I know, they’re stunned. Firsthand Mac experience is the perfect conversion tool.
My household is very excited to be able to play more games on our intel iMac. We wanted the ability to play more computer based games but weren’t willing to buy a windows machine just to do it. I wouldn’t trade OS X for windows nor would I trade the iLife package for anything. It should also be noted how much more expensive mac version of game titles are compared to the windows versions and how many games never come out with a mac version. However, now that I can play all those game titles on my iMac the value of my mac went up. Simply put, I can do much more on my Mac now that I have this option available to me. It’s also nice to be able to walk into Target and pick up any software that I want to use. It’s rare to find a mac compatible program at a lot of stores. I wish that we could get a mac compatible version of everything at the same stores where only windows software is sold but that simply isn’t how the world works. Boot Camp gives to boot to the age old problem of not being able to run any number of programs on your iMac. (granted you might have to do it in windows but now you just have to press a few buttons on your machine to do it)
It may affect Mac gaming, but according to this site, there are some new Mac buyers coming because of this turn of events:
http://www.cabel.name/2006/04/boot-camp-first-look-half-life-2-video.html
I’ve always found it amusing that PC trolls always characterize the Mac as nothing more than a toy. And then the next thing out of their mouths is a comment about how there aren’t enough games for the Mac.
I wish they’d stop watching wrestling and Hee-Haw long enough to make up their minds.
Video Card Drivers.
That’s what I have to say.
Maybe we can get some for the Mac now for all of those PC only video cards. It won’t do any good to buy a hot Card that only works when you boot windows.
Turd F: “Macs are for PRODUCTIVITY.”
What in the hell does that mean?
How does a Mac do PRODUCTIVITY?
g3m4nn >There’s always something I can’t seem to do on my Mac. >
Never happened to me in fifteen years.
I don’t play around with games. I DO run a business.
Apple will get short term gains with the fence sitters that will take the plunge because of this. Long term though, this will hurt native OS X software development, and certainly not JUST games. Now more than ever, it’s a WINDOWS World.
Bottom Line: Apple has cannibalized OS X software growth for hardware sales.
We mustn’t forget that people who buy a Mac to run Winblows will also be exposed to superior hardware. Something most PC users are not familiar with, other than the iPod of course, but that’s a different experience from using Mac.
It’s remarks like this that make the mac community seem so delusional and stupidly ignorant, but makes for quite a laugh!
Superior hardware? What hardware would that be? Are there any AMD chips on a Mac? Where can you order a Mac with a 7900GTX or Radeon X1900XTX top of the line graphics card? How about dual PCI express 16x or 32x options for dual/quad graphics mode? How about 533Mhz DDR or high end DDR2 memory?
Who was the first with dual core chips? Integrated memory controller?
Just why do you think Apple went with Intel? Because the “superior hardware” was on the PC side, and has been for some time now…and will continue to do so as Apple increasingly loses its identity and becomes more and more a typical x86 PC maker day after day.
There are plenty of Mac games that I want to play without installing Windows and all the mess and headache that goes with installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting Windows.
Now running theses games in a VM as a OS X process might be pretty cool, depending on how it’s done. That is to say without installing Windows.
However there will be plenty of people, schools, and businesses that will buy the like of Dell, Gateway and such because these computers are very, very cheap.
Most people agree that you get what you pay for…except when it comes to computers.
Ok, I’m going to try to be calm this time… OF COURSE ITS GOING TO HAVE NEGATIVE IMPACT ON GAME PORTING TO THE MAC!!! What kind of imbecilic question is that? Its just a question of how much negative impact.
Thanks a lot Steve… If you didn’t have a real plan before today regarding booting you know what on a Mac, then I sure hope you’re gettin one, ’cause this really sucks the very big one.
While I’m on it – Stop and think what’s just happened, Apple is always soooo careful about leaking information and here it has just let out the smelliest, deadliest, foulist fart it has ever managed, sight-unseen, no explanation, no plan, no nothing. I can tell you that it has left those of us who have staked alot of our reputations over the last 2 decades on this stuff in a real lurch. As of today we’ve got real egg on our faces.
I hope someone at Apple decides to come out of their hole and start doin some ‘splainin.
“Who gives a flying rip about playing games on a Mac?!! Macs are for PRODUCTIVITY.”
Haha… famous last words uttered back in the day when the Mac first competed with WIndows PC. Ultimately what happened was the game publishers then ignored the Mac market and soon many software houses followed suit. Fast forward to current time and notice that these same companies find it much easier to write software for Windows because they’ve been developing apps and games for years for that market while very few had experience doing the same in the Mac market.
As many other before have noted, study history or be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
That being said, I love playing World of Warcraft on my Mac. It’s probably the only game that counts.
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Macromancer’s right about the trolls/games thing-ha ha!
Wannabe–that’s hilarious: “that OS you boot into to play games”. Microshaft is now through and through a game company.
We should all be like “Hey we can put xboxs on our Macs! What a nice terd party app.”
That’s funny-the big reason the general population cares about winblows on a mac is games. Of course I like games too so this is good for me, but winblows is now truly “that OS you boot into to play games”!
…And I pray that I will not have to support Windows in addition to Mac OS. The beauty of having a Windows VM as part of Mac OS is not supporting Windows, just a new version of Mac OS with the VM technology folded into it.
A more interesting perspective is how Microsoft sees it: Is it an opportunity to sell more exPee or will they release a Service Pack to degrade exPee in Macs?
Who the hell is going to waste money on an expensive mac and then buy a windows cd for even more money
In the short term Boot Camp and virtualization software will have a negative impact on the porting of niche software and games to Mac OS X.
However, in the long term I see a great potential for a very different situation: Growth in sales of hardware will drive porting of software.
I believe being able to run multiple OSes on Mac hardware will drive sales of Mac hardware, and the Mac market share will increase. IF the market share doubles (to the neighborhood of 8-10%) then this becomes a viable market for more companies to port their software. I believe people will want software to run natively under OS X, and if the market share for Mac hardware significantly increases then there will be a greatly increased incentive for companies to port their software.
This is why Boot Camp is a necessary “evil” for Apple. Unless Apple can get to the point where they are selling 10-20 million Macs a year compared to today’s 4 million units, the Mac will never be a first class target for gaming companies.
Gaming companies look at only one thing, and that’s how many units ship per year. 4 million Macs is good enough to keep Apple profitable and healthy, but the gaming situation on the Mac will never improve unless Apple is shipping at least 10+ million Macs a year. Boot Camp makes this possible because it removes a huge psychological barrier to switching.
“Will Boot Camp decimate licensing of some Mac game conversions?”
What will happen to the other 90% of games?
Decimate:
Originally meant the killing of one in 10, as the Roman legions once did to punish troops for avoiding going into battle. It should be used only to mean killing, not other destruction, and even with killings, it ideally should be reserved for cases where the idea of one in 10 isn’t outlandishly off the mark.
Is it possible Apple released this boot camp thing because the iMac & ipod sales were not good in the first quarter?
Maybe all these iphone and bootcamp releases are done pre-earnings report to create a cushion for apple stock?
If I want to play games, I’ll buy a PS2 or Xbox.
(Point of order: Which do we hate more this week? Sony or Microsoft?)
Remember OS/2? Sure it was better, but was EATEN ALIVE when it could run Windows software. Why? There was no more incentive to write NATIVE OS/2 ports of software as developers simply expected OS/2 to run it in Windows comapatibiltiy mode.
Microsoft is wholeheartedly applauding this move, what does THAT tell you?
Soooo Apple is going to take over the world now because Macs run Windows?
It’s like commiting suicide the moment before you get shot. LOL.
Desktop gaming in general is for those nostalgic types. The future of gaming is on the console, PERIOD! And besides, no one ever got gaming on the desktop right except for maybe Commodore (and the Amiga)!!
I agree with Realist – to a degree.
A couple things that OS/2 had for it was lack of viruses/malware and it was better. One big thing against it – MS was contracted to write it.
What’s different now? OS X doesn’t have level of malware frustration Windows has. And MS isn’t writing OS X (but it does try to copy it). Also, if (and that is a significant IF) Apple stabalizes its APIs, writing OS X applications is far more straightforward than Windows.
The major SW players already have OS X versions of most everything. After they compile for Intel, why would they abandon the Mac product? And, for titles that have never been part of the Mac, well suddenly there is another market available for them. Imagine all the vertical apps, AutoCAD, etc., that have never seen the light of day on a Mac. Now you can avoid the crap OS and get down to business.
We still don’t know if Apple will do virtualization within OS X. That is a key part.
I will buy Mac OS X games. I will install windows to play PC games I already have. Managing a PC is such a pain in the %&^% that I would rather go without games than deal with the mess installing Windows software makes.
When I install something for Mac OS X, I don’t have to worry if it’s going to break this driver or that setting. There IS a better way, it’s Mac OS X.
I will install Windows XP just because I can. Then I will remove it and reformat my system back to one partition. I will buy Mac OS X games because even though they will run slower, they will be fast enough and Mac devs deserve it. Apple is working on improving everything, you all know that.
I will buy Mac software. Windows is just for nostalgia.
Desktop gaming in general is for those nostalgic types. The future of gaming is on the console, PERIOD! And besides, no one ever got gaming on the desktop right except for maybe Commodore (and the Amiga)!!
What did Commodore and Amiga offer that shook the gaming industry like a classic such as Doom? Or the birth of MMORPG’s? Or tremendously popular real time strategy titles like Command & Conquer?
The “future” of gaming was NEVER on the console, PERIOD! Since the birth of 3DFX and up until today, consoles have always followed behind PC’s. Guess who powers the graphics behind Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Revolution? PC graphics manufacturers, that’s who….who’s existence emerged from PC gaming, not console gaming.
I mentioned previously statistics like to clump consoles sales together to compare against PC sales, which is slightly misleading. How many people own ALL the major consoles at once? Not many. PC games still outsell console games in direct platform vs platform comparisons, and that is not something to ignore. Neither is the cost of a console PLUS a good quality HDTV to properly compare against a gaming PC.
PC gaming hasn’t been losing sales to consoles, it’s been losing sales to piracy…which is shockingly easy if you know anything about torrents.
If this results in an increase in market share, then game developers will follow. If they want our money they are going to have to pay for it.
Mac game users (for the record, I’m not one of them) may play Windows games,
but I doubt they will pay for them.
It’s the nature of business – duh. You had better believe that mac users interested in gaming will be installling windows and dual booting. Why not? For the cost of 3 mainstream Mac titles you can buy XP and those 3 mainstream games (discounted because of mac game time lag).
But if mac sales increase, so does the likelihood of mac game developers being able to sell titles – especially to new users. Also, with decreased porting time for Intel macs, mac game developers may be able to offer more titles.
Oblivion on your mac. Sounds cool.
DudeMac – Apr 06, 06 – 09:15 pm
“Desktop gaming in general is for those nostalgic types. The future of gaming is on the console, PERIOD! And besides, no one ever got gaming on the desktop right except for maybe Commodore (and the Amiga)!!”
You obviously are neither a true gamer nor very intelligent.
You CANNOT properly play a first person shooter on ANY frigging console. And FPS’s are the majority of games sold. Battlefield 2 on a console? LOL!!!!!!! Not to mention the screen resoultion.
Go away.
What is different between OSX and OS/2 is that Apple writes majority of the Apps that is ran.
Also Apple has given small software writers (all software writers) free software writing programs, (Apple has a large shareware following) That’s more than Microsoft has ever done. Also MS Office will be on the Apple platform for at least 5 more years. which equals to two more releases. Adobe needs the Mac platform because majority of graphic artist uses the Mac Os because of the technologies built into it. This also includes dreamweaver now (which is one of the more popular webpage creating program.
Those who write software could essentially by a Mac now to code their program dabble into xcode finding that with a little work they now can write their software for OSX. All done with one computer purchase.
I really shouldn’t be trying explain things on pain killers.
It’s not going to effect it one bit.
Programers can’t reasonably expect customers to have to purchase windows just to play their games on a Mac.
This changes nothing as far as porting is concerned in the current sense. Unless Apple starts pre-loading windows, which we know is not going to happen.
As usual, though, think different.
Majikthize: Thought I am the only one still playing Strategic conquest. I guess that’s what I will keep my 8200 for. Got my MacBook Pro today. BTW, am trying to win a level 14 game for the first time, puuh.
In all these MDN threads (which I really enjoy) one very important development seems to be overlooked.
In one or two years, computers will increasingly be using flash memory instead of mechanical hard drives.
In about three years the process will probably be complete.
Booting will take a matter of seconds, and, consequently, you’ll be able to switch from OS to OS to OS (if Linux is on board)in a matter of seconds.
BUT … ONLY ON A MAC.
This is a huge advantage for Apple and I believe market share will snowball.
If this desimates making games for Mac, but I can restart and play the game in Windows then who cares.
Yeah, this will pretty much kill off the port market, but it’s not like that was incredibly vibrant to begin with. Was getting games 6-12 months after everyone else really all that great? I feel sorry for Aspyr and the lot, but hey, we still need cool original games to play in OSX!
Is Apple now just a box maker for Windows?
Who else is making a product like the iMac?
Nobody.
Trendy offices want the iMac because it looks cool. But wouldn´t buy it because it was OSX only.
Now they can have it and run Windows.
———-
Great news for gamers. Bad news for OSX gamers – no need to port anymore.
Dang! Should have sold my Apple stock yesterday.
Getting greedy.
Wake up! When it comes to games, it’s a Windows World.
Mac users, in the Windows World you no longer have to pay for software. You just download the games you want from the torrents. Hell, you can start by downloading the copy of XP you’re going to need.
If you find that certain game, you know, the one that becomes ‘your game’ then you can buy a copy if you feel a bit guilty.
For the most part though, all Windows software in the Windows World is a free public beta, in more ways than one. Download everything and try it out. For the price of high speed internet you have the Windows software industry at your mercy.
Windows users pay $350 for their hardware and nothing for their software. No wonder they think Macs are expensive.
more people buy macs but use windows on them.
load there new mac with windows software.
apple release a thin wrapper client to run windows applications natively in OS X with mac UI and full hardware support.
people forget about windows……
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Porting software can be accomplished by Apple should it decide to set up a porting company out of its billions of extra cash. Should Apple think it would be a good idea, it could simply buy an existing company.
One presumes it could also put some tools in place to help developers program for both Windows and OS X. How difficult can it be to visualize that?
Apple has the means to effect necessary change should it wish to positively affect its market.
(this is for the spell challenged bloggers who don’t know the difference between verbs.)
Hortense knows best.