If you own a Mac, by now you've become used to the idea of watching on the sidelines while your PC pals have all the fun. They burned all those strictly legal backup games for their Dreamcasts with the slightest of ease, threw all those marvelous Psyvariar II and Ikaruga parties which you weren't invited to, while you tooled around in some dark closet trying to perfect your command line prompts, waiting for the coach to throw you in during the last inning out of pity. It's hard to be a lazy Mac user. If you want to take advantage of all the recent exploits you have to actually, ya know, work for it.
Which is why I rejoiced when I discovered the fine folks over at Nullriver Software had already integrated the recent 360 dashboard update with their Mac compatible media-streaming software, Connect360. This means sane people have absolutely no reason to blow $299 on an Apple TV. How does it feel to no longer play second-string to all the loud, proud Vista users? Within a day or two, the cavalry had already arrived for the downtrodden game enthusiasts who happen to bat for the other team. I've tested the updates to Connect360 myself over the last few days and it's one of the rare times when I actually didn't pine for the sprawling, virus-ridden yesteryears of owning a PC. Upon downloading this nifty program, I promise you that I did not immediately torrent episodes of Battlestar Galactica to watch effortlessly on my large TV. That would have been morally wrong. I suggest that you refrain from such reprehensible activity yourself, for the sake of deceny. Because, really, DivX and Xvid are the perfect codecs for sharing footage of your daughter's softball practice with strangers over the internet. That's what you're using it for, right?
By the way, apart from functionality, what's sexier, a Mac or a PC? Wait, stop! But it was only a joke ...
[Pew, pew, pew, Kotaku. Much love.]
Contest:
2:09 AM on 12.08.2007
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There are loud and proud Vista users. Wow, news to me!
They're the same people who are pretending the 360s don't have disc-scratching problems.
I dont know if mac is sexier, but the guy in the switchover ads apple runs reminds me of the sort of guy you meet at work, go to a hockey game with, then when you go back to his apartment you notice all the tasteful black and white male nude photography on his walls. By the time you realize whats going on, the roofies in the merlot kick in and you pass out, waking up several hours later in your bed sticky, sweaty and confused.
Haven't seen BSG since a few episodes into season 3, don't give me spoilers just like that! Laura Roslin a cylon?! How can that be!!
Damn you, now I have no choise but to start watching this show again!
*trots off to watch BSG*
After being a windows guy for 20 years, just thinking about gaming on a Microsoft machine nows makes me frustrated
They're all Cylons!!! That'll be the big twist at the end, right?
Yay, total Cylon orgy with every actor in the series!
2girls1toaster.com!!!
Also, blocks.
I think you just devised the perfect new ad campaign for Macs. We gotta get John Hodgman in on this.
Ratcliff: as to gaming on a mac isn't frustrating? heh.
As for my personal preference for desktop computers, gaming aside, let's just say I don't want to pay $599 for a low-end system with a small hard drive, no keyboard, and no monitor.
Find me one.
I guess I'll have to dust it off. Most of my home movies are divx encoded.
Oh, and so you know, Microsoft and Apple have in the last decade or so been playing nicely together. Microsoft has had office on the mac for a good long time, and is just about to release another update. Apple's iTunes has been playing on windows almost as long as it has on mac. Microsoft's flagship OS (and Vista, if you really want it) will run on all the new macs as well.
By all means, if you're a big fan of piece-parting together your machine every 18 months, for gods sake, don't get a mac. But you should probably be running linux, or hackintosh, because really, Windows, even the actually usable XP variety, sucks major ass as slowly as it can, before it bluescreens.
For those of you that have .mkv files that are unsupported by Xbox 360 and Connect360: download and install the Perian plug-in for Quicktime, open the .mkv in Quicktime, in the Quicktime menu chose "save as," and in a matter of moments you will have a .mov file suitable for play on your 360. There is one caveat; the Xbox 360 does not support the playback of h246 files with surround sound. So, you either have to hope your audio is in stereo or convert it later.
If I'm looking to play games, I'm simply NOT going to look at a Mac. That's why I didn't mention any of their non-budget systems. If you're not playing games on it, you probably don't need a screaming-fast system.
What I don't understand is that if the hardware is so great, why is it that every time I ask any Mac owners that I know what's so great about the system, they only talk about how easy it is to use and have almost nothing good to say about how well the hardware performs. The only good thing I've heard is that it also runs Windows (now that Macs have become overpriced PC platforms), which defeats the whole purpose of getting a Mac.
Face it: You're paying a buttload of cash just to say you have something that's not a PC, or as the TV ads show, not Windows.
Anyone wanting to play games on a $599 computer deserves the pile of shit they call a PC.
What is there to talk about on ease of use with hardware when you don't have to think about it because it works?
For my end of things, I get really fast render times on video, invisible render times on complex 2D vector art, why would I even think about hardware when it's not an issue?
Everything runs smooth as silk. Gee, should I find some problem with that?
You think you have to bitch about Windows being a superior platform, well, we'll just wait till you have to get out into the real world and balance gaming and work on one computer and we'll see how much money you'll wanna bleed before macs start looking like an attractive option.
I game on my mac, on occasion, don't have any issues with it.
Do I run Crysis? Fuck no, but I have my Xbox and PS3 for that.
I don't know why your pee-hole started burning when this story got posted that you had to come in and make asinine remarks about a whole platform when it's just been posted that the Mac has been updated to work with a console. A console. Not gaming on the mac. A console.
Keep your own damn small minded opinions to yourself. If you don't like macs, fine, fuck off about it. I don't come into your PC game related posts and dick over you with long tirades about how nice it is to not have viruses or spyware on my computer.
I paid a buttload of cash to have a computer that I don't want to have to run Vista on. That's it really. Vista is garbage, and I wanted a newer OS. I don't want leopard, not yet.
Meeh... same thing....
We're discussing the Mac's capacity as a 360 media server. I don't see anyone claiming gaming superiority.
Oh, and this arrogant Mac user [s]works[/s] wrestles with PCs all day.
Nice KisMAC icon... you don't happen to work in network security, do you? :-)
Buy a PC, you'll save a shitload of money.