Valve Brings Steam and Source to the Mac

Hectic Glenn

Hectic Glenn

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[br]An official announcement from Valve now states that Steam and the Source engine will become available on OSX. Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April this year. Gabe says:
As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients. The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.
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Valve are also announcing a new Steam technology - Steam Play. Jason Holtman tells us more!
Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.
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These versions will not be emulations but full native conversions according to John Cook
The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.
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The recently announced Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.
 
It's cool, people playing on PCs will be able to play against Mac players. I'd say thats a big step forward for Valve and all.
 
Can't wait to pwn some Apple noobs.

Also, imagine a Mac player going medic.
"Charge me doc!"
"How?"
"Click the right mouse button."
"But ..."
 
Finally, Steam comes to pretentious artistes!
 
Shakermaker said:
Can't wait to pwn some Apple noobs.

Also, imagine a Mac player going medic.
"Charge me doc!"
"How?"
"Click the right mouse button."
"But ..."
Click to expand...

Um... you do realize you can use any mouse with a Mac, right? I play HL2, TF2, COD4, UT3 - on my Mac (in Windows 7, of course)

Right clicking is only a problem for those who use the lame Apple 'mighty' or 'magic' mouse.
 
Will do some benchmarks when it comes out.
 
thats nice, now I will no longer need boot camp! :D

EDIT: I wonder if the Source SDK will be available also!
 
Wouldn't there be technical "gaps" between OpenGL and Direct3D capabilities? It used to be OGL was "better" and D3D was "faster", but I'm not sure anymore. A technical article on this port would be interesting.
 
Bob-taro said:
Wouldn't there be technical "gaps" between OpenGL and Direct3D capabilities? It used to be OGL was "better" and D3D was "faster", but I'm not sure anymore. A technical article on this port would be interesting.
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Yes, what about performances?
 
monkeyclass said:
thats nice, now I will no longer need boot camp! :D

EDIT: I wonder if the Source SDK will be available also!
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Valve can barely make the SDK work on Windows, so I wouldn't expect it for the Mac.
 
Hectic Glenn said:
For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac.
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Does this mean they're going to bring Steam Cloud saving to their SP games or this is just what they expect other devs to do?
 
All 13 people who game on the Mac are jumping with joy now.
 
I guess there will be a lot of "PC vs mac users" competitions isnt?
 
Atlantian777 said:
Um... you do realize you can use any mouse with a Mac, right? I play HL2, TF2, COD4, UT3 - on my Mac (in Windows 7, of course)

Right clicking is only a problem for those who use the lame Apple 'mighty' or 'magic' mouse.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know. I was just making a little fun. :bounce:
 
i have boot camp but i can't get steam to work, so this has made me SO ****ing happy. YES. i mean i'm pretty dandy playing L4D and HL2 on my 360, but as i have no reason to bring that to uni with me, this is going to be make me a very happy bastard come next term.

hoooorah!
 
Oh god, the Mac fanboys are NEVER going to shut up about this.
 
Praise Valve from whom all gaming blessing flow!

Now I won't have to buy a new computer! I can now play on my MacBook Pro!!!
 
I just hope this helps out PC gaming in the long run.
 
Mac users that are so fanboyish that they don't install Windows through bootcamp don't deserve to play TF2.
 
edit: **** it, no point.
 
Good news in every way! Seeing as Source is running on OpenGL now... how long do we have to wait for Linux ports? :p

A cool thing would be online leaderboards, Mac vs PC... nothing like a bit of friendly rivalry ;)

Oh, and automagically syncing save games between Mac and Windows gave me shivers. That's awesome.
 
scotland1 said:
Oh god, the Mac fanboys are NEVER going to shut up about this.
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Well it's great news. IF Valve can get steam and the source games to run as good on mac as on Windows. The only downside to mac gaming will be the impossibility to upgrade hardware for real (beside 4gb ram upgrade on macbook pro[yeah])
 
monkeyclass said:
Well it's great news. IF Valve can get steam and the source games to run as good on mac as on Windows. The only downside to mac gaming will be the impossibility to upgrade hardware for real (beside 4gb ram upgrade on macbook pro[yeah])
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True. But at least I won't have to fork over about $1000 for a gaming computer for another year or so.

Trust me. As soon as i am able I'm building another tower of power but with this I can keep up until then... instead of sitting on the sidelines.
 
Atlantian777 said:
Um... you do realize you can use any mouse with a Mac, right? I play HL2, TF2, COD4, UT3 - on my Mac (in Windows 7, of course)

Right clicking is only a problem for those who use the lame Apple 'mighty' or 'magic' mouse.
Click to expand...


Umm...you do realize the lame Apple 'mighty' or 'magic' mouse both have right mouse buttons, don't you? Not a physical button but the lame mouse can sense which finger you're using. I've been playing the entire Valve library and a variety of Steam games on my Mac for years...with both a 'magic' and 'mighty' mouse.

It's funny to me that even a Mac user doesn't know that...no wonder why Microsoft and Linux users have such a misunderstanding of Mac.
 
guiltytomb said:
Umm...you do realize the lame Apple 'mighty' or 'magic' mouse both have right mouse buttons, don't you? Not a physical button but the lame mouse can sense which finger you're using. I've been playing the entire Valve library and a variety of Steam games on my Mac for years...with both a 'magic' and 'mighty' mouse.

It's funny to me that even a Mac user doesn't know that...no wonder why Microsoft and Linux users have such a misunderstanding of Mac.
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Notice that I did NOT say these mice don't HAVE right click ability. They do - but with every generation of the 'mighty' mouse, the user cannot right click and left click at the same time, as is often necessary. The 'magic' mouse is a pain to use for gaming.

Do not put words in my mouth.

My point is it's the MOUSE that's the problem - not the OS.
 
Dinnesch said:
Mac users that are so fanboyish that they don't install Windows through bootcamp don't deserve to play TF2.
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Haha agreed.

I'm a Mac user, but I don't mind booting to Windows to play an occasional game. I like Windows 7. :thumbs:

Still, Steam + HL2 on OS X will be nice.
 
Atlantian777 said:
Notice that I did NOT say these mice don't HAVE right click ability. They do - but with every generation of the 'mighty' mouse, the user cannot right click and left click at the same time, as is often necessary. The 'magic' mouse is a pain to use for gaming.

Do not put words in my mouth.

My point is it's the MOUSE that's the problem - not the OS.
Click to expand...

Whoa! I was not trying to spark an argument. I agree the 'magic' mouse can be a pain to use for gaming. Never had a problem with the 'mighty' mouse, ever. Perhaps it was my own misunderstanding, it looked like you were implying the lack of right click (as many anti-Mac people still think to be true).

Trust me, not attacking anyone...definitely not trying to put words in anyone's mouth.

Whew.:O
 
My main PC is a Macbook Pro booted to Windows 7. I'll be psyched when I no longer have to dual boot.
 
In the long run, isn't this possible it will hurt Apple's sales? Look at it this way, a Macbook usually ships with a decent videocard, but it's already dated and something new is already out. At the rate that Macs refresh compared to the rate videocards are released and new hardware is needed. Isn't it possible that maybe after a few years noticing this trend, Apple customers will think twice of purchasing a second Macbook?

I mean I've been on a laptop for the past two years, and as I've grown accustom to the mobility of it and the power it's able to yield, I've noticed that some games don't play the same as when I first got it and newer ones just push my hardware and make me wish I stuck with a desktop.

I mean it's great that Steam and Source are coming to OSX, but I'm just wondering if the consumers will notice that they need to upgrade their hardware every so often. An iMac and Macbook usually receive the same hardware and/or configurations which makes them basically obsolete about a month after it's released whilst the Mac Mini isn't upgradeable and the Mac Pro is insanely expensive. I can see Hackintosh users loving this as they'll never have to leave their OSX install, and they can upgrade with fair ease.

Maybe once Steam comes to OSX and if what I say comes remotely true, maybe Apple will take note and make a desktop that is cheaper yet upgradeable by the consumer and their OSX is able to use whichever videocard you use then again this goes against their closed environment, and they'll more than likely see this as a plus for their sales as users will be more likely to notice that their system is obsolete when Apple releases a refresh of it the following year and that's when the consumer sells their old Mac and buys a new one.

Anyway, I welcome our new OSX friends. I'm actually excited about this. Me one friend has always loved TF2, and he used to come over to play on my spare gaming PC, but now he can install Steam and use TF2 right from his Macbook... Then again I think he has integrated graphics... So nevermind that! Either way, yay! :D
 
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