News Valve launches Steam for Mac

How many mac users do you think will have integrated graphics and will be highly confused that their little beauty can't do something as simple as play games?

Good find Goty.

 

Amazed at some of the ignorance on here...

Macs haven't shipped with single button mice for years. Apple switched to dual (or more) button mice with the Mighty Mouse, and the new Magic Mouse is again multi-button. Plus, all Macs running OS X will happily support non-Apple USB mice, so you can use whatever mouse you want.


Must agree that the performance is quite poor at the moment, but I expect it to improve over time.

 

I think Valve will be rolling out their core games (HL, L4D, TF2) periodically so that they get as many sales as possible on the platform. If they launch with everything people are going to buy only the game they are most interested in. I think you'll see a mega hype every time they port one of their games to the mac to drum up lots of sales.

 

It's a step in the right direction but performance is pretty sucky at the moment. My MBP (2.4GHz C2D, 2GB RAM, 256MB 8600M GT) struggles a tad at recommended settings (1152x720, medium->high quality), yet the last PC laptop I bought 3 years ago used to be able to run it perfectly with all settings on high and maxed-out resolution (1920x1200).
Must be an OpenGL limitation methinks?

 

so... What happens when all the games are on Macs and PC ? This might never happen but, what IF it does ? What will we call PC gaming then ? Computer gaming ? That would be lame...

 

Macs are still PCs aren't they?

 

Burn the Mac user! Burn them all!

 

show me an Apple branded mouse with 2 clicking buttons inside.

"multi-button" are touch buttons, not real physical buttons. so to get the multi-button effect, when right clicking, left finger must physically lift from the mouse. i've used mighty mouse many times and it's really hard to use compared to my G5. same as magic mouse, touch surface, single button, lift left finger for right clicks.


ouch, the performance drop is really a shame, and most Mac users don't have good graphics cards. 9500GT, GT120 is considered very good, by looking at their Mac Pro lines. unless Apple brings out gaming Mac variants, Macs will never be a series gaming platform.

 

Who knows, maybe if this proves popular we'll see a corresponding boost in gaming hardware included in Mac products. I doubt it, at least in the short-mid term, and I reckon we'll see lots of indie 'little' (i.e., iPhone/iPad not FPS/RTS) games for the Mac - Peggle being a good example.

 

+1

 

Aside from just being what will run well, those seem to be the great little 'gateway' games that most Mac users will want. Then as their appetites grow they will learn the beauty of computer gaming! Macs having better hardware is a very good thing, it should drop prices, and Mac gamers are a good thing because they help show people that computers in general are very viable and enjoyable gaming platforms.

Though the current hardware/OpenGL limitations are a little saddening. I'm hesitant about getting my Mac using friends excited about playing TF2 together in the future because it's just not the same performance and I question if they'll really enjoy it to the fullest. And the peripherals are just terrible. The laptop style keys on the keyboard are generally not suitable for gaming and the mice... well, they'll never admit it but I've witnessed even long time Mac users seem to have troubles correctly making left vs. right clicks with the Magic Mouse.

 

doubt that.... any hardware upgrade you do on a mac now costs you through the nose, so why should they change a business plan that is already working?

 

Bleh, steam.

 

The theory in my head works like this:

-Current low end hardware which is overpriced
-Mac users start wanting to game
-Apple finds need to add in higher end product line, prices end up so high that people would just buy from brands like Alienware
-Apple simply upgrades current Mac product line at current prices, lose some profit on each unit yet keep their current users and possibly gain some
-PC industry has option to lower prices even more and steal Mac gamers.

The slight problem I see is space/heat in an iMac. Throwing in a beefier GPU might not even be possible.

 

http://www.goopeg.com/img/ZsXg0uHn.jpg

 

That mouse takes me back 10 years, I remember using those at school.

 

Hardly, I completed Portal in under 2 hours on my Mac and never had one problem with my macbook trackpad.

1 Finger Click = Blue
2 Finger Click = Red Portal.

Never had any issues with it and was always responsive.

 

I think that STEAM on the Mac (and eventually on Linux as well) is an all-around good thing (TM).

And yes, I also believe that if STEAM becomes a success on the Mac platform it will eventually pave the way for better graphics hardware on the Mac. Maybe not overnight, but eventually. I can see Apple having to invest some time to get their graphics drivers up to scratch as well, much to St. Steve's dismay.

 

I agree with Azrael here, Steam on MAC is a good thing, anything that helps bring some of those PC gamers who switched for a pretty silver/white box back to our community will be interesting

 

another problem: how do you install source engine mods?

eg, i'd recommend Pieface Portal Prelude, but it only comes in an EXE installer format.