You probably knew it was coming, but that doesn't make this confirmation any less exciting. Valve went all out with an information dump today, saying more than just "Steam and Source are coming to Mac."
For starters, there's this new feature called Steam Play. Essentially, it's the thing that lets you purchase games for PC and play them on your Mac (or vice versa) at no additional cost.
To make matters crazier, Steam Play -- when the developer opts to include it -- allows you to switch between Mac and PC versions of the same game without losing any progress; you can pick up exactly where you left off.
Expect to see all Valve games simultaneously launch on PC, Mac, and Xbox 360 -- Portal 2 will be the first one to hit PC/Mac on the same day. Valve also says the two platforms will be connected through multiplayer, and all updates will hit simultaneously as well.
Finally, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available for Mac in April. See, I told you this was more than a simple confirmation!
Contest:
12:40 PM on 03.08.2010
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Am I doin' it right?
Actually yes they do. When you act like an ignorant fool your opinion becomes less valid.
However my gripe with Mac/Apple is the price and lack of software.
How many people played Modern Warfare on Mac?
Linux, your days are numbered before you're Steamified. :F
:|
What's that supposed to mean?
A step in a positive direction for mac gaming. yay!
Also: I can play CS again without going into boot camp!
Woo!
dun dun DUNNNNNN
(Come to think of it, though, I still haven't picked up ME2 yet, so I guess there's that...)
It's still fun to play but I'd love to play with my friends on PSN who only own a PS3. I also do a majority of my gaming on the PS3 compared to PC and 360.
my poor poor wife...
But will Steam Play retroactively cover games which I have already purchased?
It's long past due to figure out the cell and how to work with the architecture, first year was understandble but come on it's been a few years now . You have games that keep pushing the bar for the ps3 and those publishers don't whine . A console that is expected to last 10 or more years because of potential and they don't give it the time of day to do a good port. Utterly pathetic they whore themselves to Microsoft for eclusivity and support when out the box a brand new 360 has a 60% chance of failing ontop of rumors of newer chipsets and consoles in development for ms, valve is stupid. Yeah I'm
bitter.
Hopefully we'll see a surge of Mac ports now that there's a distribution platform for it. So far the only place I've ever seen a Mac game is at an Apple store, which probably isn't much incentive for publishers to commission a Mac port of a game.
Anyway, TEAM FORTRESS 2 WOO. Also, when Episode 3 comes out I won't have to reboot to get my HL2 fix.
Valve needs to get serious about supporting the ps3.
FUCK.
SO awesome. Only problem is OSX's mouse acceleration. Hopefully they can program their own into it (many quake 3 engine games on OSX use the OS's acceleration, and it's curve is quite different from Windows -- aiming feels very off because of it).
Also
Any and every excuse to use this must be ceased.
Sure, we all saw this coming, but i doesn't make it any less awesome. Now I won't have to buy TF2 and bootcamp, I can just buy it on Steam! Valve, ignore all these PS3 fanboys, you are awesome.
I was surprised by the utter lack of MACS SUX VALVE BETRAYED US comments.
I'm hoping this opens up to more companies putting out mac versions of the games. With macs using generally the same hardware as the PC (only the OS is different now), it really shouldn't be too hard.
Fantastic news.
Whatever gets the game played.