TheElectronic Entertainment Expo(E3)—the self-aggrandizing yearly gathering of television game developer , publishers , resellers and press in the universe — convenes at the monolithic Los Angeles Convention Center next week . And this E3 ought to be a special one for Mac gamers , if only for two words that we ’ve recently added to our vocabulary : Boot Camp .
To be sure , the cock-a-hoop adept of this show have nothing to do with the Mac or PC — it ’s all about the cabinet this class , as it has been for a while now . Microsoft should be firing on all cylinders now that its Xbox 360 is out in the world . Nintendo will offer scads more details about its novel cabinet , called Wii . And Sony will be on hand with its fresh offer , the PlayStation 3 . But personal computer gaming remains almost a $ 1 billion diligence , and now , more than ever , it ’s relevant to Mac users .
Mac and personal computer gaming has always long been inextricably bound together . Much of the commercial Mac plot marketplace depends on port , or conversions , of existing PC games to the Mac . Most Mac user still are n’t using systems capable of run Boot Camp , and many of those who can do n’t need to install Windows on their Macs — after all , they buy Macs to draw Mac OS X. So the handiness of native Mac OS X games will remain important to the grocery for some time to total .
To that destruction , there ’s always a small - but - steady provision of Macintosh - aboriginal games and gaming hardware that ’s shown at E3 , which we ’ll cover in full next calendar week . in all likelihood the high - profile Mac game to be shown off next hebdomad is the forthcoming World of Warcraft expansion , “ The Burning movement , ” coming soon fromBlizzard Entertainment .
One aspect of Mac and PC gambling has absolutely exploded in the preceding twelvemonth : so - forebode “ casual play . ” There has been an epic proliferation of puzzle games , countersign game , card game and other alike offerings for both Mac and PC in late months . It was obvious to anyone who went to E3 in 2005 that passing play was go to be a major force in gambling , but I anticipate that it should practically hit attendees over the head this year . What makes this especially interesting is that the Mac is on a much more level playing field in the casual gaming quad — casual plot developer recognise that Mac gamers like and frequently play casual title .
Still , it ’d be silly to push aside the potential drop of Boot Camp as a transformative business leader in the traditional Mac game space . Almost every day , I ’m field motion from readers who have installed Boot Camp and Windows XP on their newfangled Intel Core Duo - based iMacs or MacBook Pros and have question about how Windows games run on the Mac . So this year I ’ll be involve a close expression at new and approaching microcomputer game releases , with an eye on what Boot Camp gamers can look forward to in the come up hebdomad and month .
