“There is only one reason I still have a Windows PC: games. Obviously, I need a device for hooking up to the net, answering email, and general productivity… But I prefer that device to be a PC so I can play the latest and greatest cutting-edge games. It’s not that the Mac gaming shelf is devoid of life — any system that plays Civ IV gets a thumbs-up in my book — but for a serious gamer the PC continues to be where it’s at,” Fargo blogs for FirePlanet.
Fargo writes, “This is not a new development. For years I’ve wanted a Mac.”
Fargo writes, “I know it’s humiliating, but for once you’ve got to look at what Microsoft is doing and copy it. Those guys are scared of you — and they know that games are the one and only thing that has prevented you from hitting the Tipping Point years ago. The ‘Games for Windows’ team is making noise at every game convention I go to. A whole division at Microsoft is devoted to developing game technology — like DirectX or the Microsoft XNA developer’s toolkit. Microsoft buys up development studios and publishes triple-A games with regularity. Microsoft knows that games are the key to getting people to adopt hardware: how is Microsoft attacking the American living room? Through a game console. How did they make sure that game console was a household name? They bought Bungie and brought Halo on board. Man, Halo was supposed to be a Mac game.
“They shanked you,” Fargo writes.
“I say, take some of that big money you’re making from iTunes and shovel it into gaming. Don’t go half-assed, Apple. Buy some companies up. Get with the mergering and acquisitioning. Get some exclusive content. Make sure that the next Spore-like event appears on the Mac first,” Fargo writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We remember sitting in the keynote hall at the Javits Center when Halo was introduced to the world by Steve Jobs (“Halo will be released simultaneously for Mac and Windows”) with a preview trailer at Macworld Expo NYC in 1999. Less than a year later, Microsoft bought Bungie.
Macworld Expo NYC 1999, Steve Jobs shows off Bungie’s Halo:
That’s the other halo effect.
Sigh…. I still have that Halo sneak peak on an Apple CD in Quicktime form. Everybody I showed it to was just blown away at the time.
Apple needs to do so much work in this area, and in 3D too. Studio Max still isn’t written for the Mac, and it keeps many 3D art and game designers I know on Windows. I think Apple knows this, and they have plans for the future of AppleTV and widescreen iPods. It has to happen NOW. Like right now. By this holiday season.
Why doesn’t the guy just buy a Mac Pro and use BootCamp. With 8 cores, and an nvidia quattro, what more could he want?
“Sigh…. I still have that Halo sneak peak on an Apple CD in Quicktime form. Everybody I showed it to was just blown away at the time.”
stick it on you tube! please
@ anaknipedro
“what more could he want?”
To stop using Windows.
Here’s on Open Letter to the Open Letter Writer:
Keep your Windows box for games, I don’t want MS to completely disappear (well actually I do, but…), we need them to keep the competition alive until there are many economically viable alternatives.
Your’s Truely,
Mr. Peabody
Inventor and Operator
of the WayBack Machine
which proves, Windows PCs are essentially toys.
Amazing they are used in the real world as well when essentially are TOYS.
Who opened this letter?
I tried searching but couldn’t find it, but I remember reading something about Steve Jobs not liking violent video games. Perhaps as they’re not intrinsically creative.
I may’ve just dreamt it of course.
I am in the same position – I switched away from Mac years ago because I like to play games on my computer and I couldn’t afford and did not like having to switch between 2 computers.
I am “this close” to switching back to Mac now that I can run windows on the same machine, but now my problem is that I can’t get the video card I want in it. Sure – when in Windows, I could install any PCIe video card in the Mac, but then when I switched back to OSX, I would need to remove it. THAT is just not going to happen – the cards were not meant to be installed and removed in that fashion.
As I see it there are several things Apple needs to do:
1) Spend some big money on Mac gaming development
2) Enable Mac users to use any off the shelf video card from ATI or nvidia (This should be a no brainer – in Windows, there are only a few driver versions for each platform [nvidia & ATI] that pretty much allow you to use any video card form those companies. How hard would it be for Apple to offer/create a “unified” driver for nvidia cards and another for ATI cards?)
3) Update OpenGL to be a true competitor to DirectX or offer another means of getting over the DirectX hurdle.
4) Do something that would blow us all away – make the Mac OS run windows software natively.
I will keep my fingers crossed!
NO NEED TO LINK:
MACWORLD HALO PREVIEW
@ChrissyOne
I concur 100%. In fact, I’d go a step further and say I think Apple is already on the late side with this technology, especially with regard to real next-gen iPods. Apple has a lot on it’s plate right now, and it DOES need to get the iPhone and Leopard out the door AND in good order, but the very next thing has got to be new iPods – its got to…
Games are over-rated…
In over 5 years, the XBox has LOST Microsoft well over $5 billion… If Apple were to do the same thing, they too would be dumping billions into a bottomless and empty well.
No, Apple should continue to focus on the high end, high margin element of the business.
Only a Mac can run both Mac OS X and Windows (and uber geeks can play with their linux too)
@ muchmore
“4) Do something that would blow us all away – make the Mac OS run windows software natively.”
And here lies the promised land. My biggest hope for ‘top secret features’. [crosses fingers]
@ Think:
i have that demo disc, too. found the MacWord demo disc just before i moved 6 months ago. at that time i was excited about and bought “Oni” (after several delays) and was waiting for “Halo”. boy was i pissed when i discovered that Microshaft bought Bungie and “Halo” was available only for XBox.
fast forward to today: Still havent played “Halo”, not gonna buy an Xbox, havent finished “Oni” and i spend more time playing “Ace Combat” and “Gran Turismo 3” on PS2 with my son than gaming on my Mac. as a matter of fact, i still havent finished my copy of “Sam and Max Hit The Road” from the OS 9.1 days.
so much for my being a Mac gamer….
Apple does not need to make its computers friendly to gamers. Gamers need to grow up and find a life outside of their computer. It’s really that simple.
i think it is funny that mac’s were always derided as toys and game machines, and not serious machines for business by the windows community for a long time, when actually the gamers used windows or dos, and proportionately more serious work (especially scientific) was done on mac’s. at my age eye/hand coordination games are not what i am most interested in, i would like some more serious games for people that played games before there were computers. but even something like civ iv (and all the ones that came before it) has lousy a.i., and there isn’t much challenge to those games except for trying to overcome cheating by the computer-controlled forces. i don’t want to have to play a person online, i can do that over a board game at home with more realistic rules, have been able to do that for decades. computer-based games today just aren’t very good at the cognitive aspects and even the physics aren’t all that great. good graphics though. hides a lot of weaknesses. the phrase potemkin village comes to mind. but better application interfaces for a mac would make my professional work a lot easier, so if it takes low quality games to cause that to happen, then i guess that is what i should hope for.
@muchmore:
I don’t think you need to uninstall the video card, do you? I could be wrong, but just set up the OSX side to just use the Mac video card and ignore the other one.
If someone has a definitive answer on this, please clarify. Thanks.
Just watched the version on Youtube. What crappy resolution. That just doesn’t do it justice. I’ll try to find my quicktime copy.
@ BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
This is also the one thing that bugs me with the ‘I’m a Mac’ ‘I’m a PC’ adverts. If all Macs are for home and PCs are for business and spreadsheets, how come games for the Mac are always late, are not coming out at all. So maybe PCs are for the home after all (unless you wanna do some photo / music / video stuff at home). If Macs are truly more for the home (even though I work with them in the office every day, and am much more productive than the guys in the company next door on their Dells, as nothing breaks down, and I don’t have to wait for IT to arrive), then they should be better at gaming as well.
Let Microsoft have the frag-boys. Those dudes would never be happy with an all-in-one Mac. If they can’t choose from two dozen video cards they complain. If they can’t switch CPU’s every few months they have conniptions. It they couldn’t fill their Dell boxes with neon tubes and triple story heat sinks they whine.
Macs have a higher calling. Let’s keep it that way.
I can’t believe all of the time and money “invested” into video games. They are a good way to lighten up and pass some time, but when you are pumping thousands of dollars into a computer just so you can play the latest video games, perhaps you need to get your pasty white ass outside and see the world a bit.
I understand that Money talks,
But I really felt that Bungie betrayed the platform and I’ll never forgive them for that transgression.
I’ve played most of their games-
Marathon I, II, & III
Myth I & II
Oni
And I shot a wad when i saw the Halo demo in 1999.
Halo is probably one of the best FSP games ever. But I would not buy a POS XBOX just to play that game.
Yeah, I guess you could say I’m F-R-I-C-K-E-N B-I-T-T-E-R!