Mac Game Devs Speak on Intel Move

An Anonymous Reader wrote "InsideMacGames has posted a response to the news of Apple using Intel processors from both original Mac game developers as well as people who work on porting Windows games to OS X. Some negative and positive feedback is expressed, though it seems there's more uncertainty than anything else at this point. Can the fear of a Wine-like VM solution gutting the biz be balanced by faster CPU speeds?" From the article: "We think Apple's move to Intel is great. For one thing, it demonstrates that Apple is really serious about giving Windows-based computing head-to-head competition. For another, it lays the groundwork for the future of personal computing in a digitally connected home. And, for another, it's going to narrow the gap between the release of a game on Windows and the release on Mac -- maybe to zero."

Comments

Hmmm

[Auckerman]

Games are only relevent when you start thinking about APIs. With DirectX being Windows only, I really don't see how it's going to be that much easier to port.

The one issue it might solve is byte order problems (big/little endian) on the graphics cards. Though, theres going to be no guarantee that drivers for OS X for any off the shelf card is actually going to be any good.

It may be some time before Apple gets around to even caring that the Half Life 2 market exists, much less builds machines to compete in that market.

Re:Death of Mac games

[squiggleslash]

You are misinformed. The intel based macs will most likely be running a custom BIOS, not on compatible with Windows by default

You're accusing me of being misinformed?

Apple has said, outright, they intend to do nothing to prevent Windows from running. That's a fact. It's been widely quoted.

Most mac users (like most Windows users) do not dual boot their systems, or even have any idea how to partition and install a second OS

That's because there's no benefit to them as yet. What is the incentive to install OpenBSD, GNU/Linux, or AIX, on their other partition?

There's a huge incentive to install Windows on an ix86 based Mac. Out of the box, your choice of games, if you're interested in them, becomes pretty much the sum total of almost every game written since the mid nineties.

They certainly don't know how to, or don't care to hack their BIOS, which may be necessary.

Oh goodness gracious! What are you talking about? To remind you, we're talking about Apple shipping PCs with one minor change - they'll come with a version of OS X installed by default that can detect whether it's running on Apple hardware. That's it. You don't have to "hack the BIOS" to dual boot on any PC made now. Why, oh why, are you pretending such a thing will be necessary just because it has the word "Apple" on the front?

A wine style port will have a very large footprint, but will probably be used by some game developers once the project is up and running well on OS X. Wine ports of some games may be fine, while others will suck very badly (depending on the type of game and controls).

Sure. But you're missing the point here. The point is that developers are no longer going to care about porting games. There's a fairly large expense associated with doing so, and those developers are going to see little point in doing this themselves when Codeweavers can do it for them, and if Codeweavers eff up, the serious gamers will probably already have Windows anyway.

I know why you're arguing against this. You're arguing because I'm telling you stuff you don't want to hear. That's why you're making stuff up, pretending that Apple is going to disable Windows, or that dual booting is somehow hard (it's not even hard on a real Mac, believe me.) You're saying "This is going to suck, I'll have to run Windows or use a poor clone of the Windows API that might not run the games I want the way I want them". And you know what, you're right. But you're failing to look at the bigger picture. The developers are interested in making games that people will buy. Serious gamers will get Windows. Non-serious gamers will probably get Windows anyway, if only to help see the occasional website under IE or use some bit of software from the office. For the rest, open sourcers can help. It's no longer a matter of emulating a CPU, just an API. No, it'll not be perfect, but hey, that's your fault, you should have installed Windows, right?

If you really think most users are going to install a second OS and reboot every time they want to play a game, well you're an idiot.

Thanks, but I think the truth is you're delusional. Most people will look at the relative merits, and realise they don't have a choice in the matter. Just as now, the majority of games will be Windows-only. Just as now, the Mac games that exist will generally cost more than their PC counterparts. Those sales can and will dwindle as the majority of people put two and two together and realise they're better off buying Windows games than Mac games. There will be multiple ways in which those games can be run, but at least one of them will involve dual booting.

Will 90% of the Mac market not install Windows? I don't know. But I can tell you that 90% will probably not be playing many games.