Steve Jobs led off this year ’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address with an declaration from Electronic Arts ( EA ) that it would bring some polish off software to the Mac itself this year . That ’s outstanding news for gamers , but it ’s only a start , and a draw more needs to be done before the Mac will be require seriously as a gambling political platform .
EA Centennial State - founder Bing Gordon announce that beginning in July , the gigantic video and calculator game publisher will bring six major game passing to the Mac , include the already - released Need for Speed Carbon , Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars , and Battlefield 2142 . Also coming are Macintosh versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , Madden NFL ’ 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’ 08 — the latter two are expected to be free simultaneously with their counterparts on other platforms .
EAis no alien to the Macintosh platform . For class , the company ’s game have come our elbow room thanks to print mint withAspyr Media , which has take the game ’ beginning code , rewritten it to run natively on the Macintosh , and print a Mac variant . What ’s unlike about this declaration is that for the first time since Mac OS X was released , EA is let go the games itself .
This is a sea change for play on the Mac , as those conversions produced by other publisher often take calendar month or a yr or more to see the igniter of daytime . That ’s relegated the Mac to “ also ran ” status as a gambling platform — people who require timely releases own PCs or , progressively , video game console table , and give the Mac to iLife applications , pro apps and Web surfing .
EA counts its yearly gross in the multiple billions of dollars , so directly involving itself in the comparatively small Mac play market is no big hatful from a dollar - and - centime position . But it is a big pot for Mac gambling as a whole — a party with the selling muscle of EA could certainly make a braggart difference in changing the visibleness of the Macintosh as a valid gaming organisation . If nothing else , it ’ll be great to see Mac versions of these games ride the impulse of EA ’s merchandising thrust for their non - Mac similitude .
On the other hand , EA ’s size makes me a fleck nervous . The Mac political program will be just one more that EA corroborate , and a small one at that . What if EA has unrealistic expectations for how many Mac biz units it sells ?
Also , this announcement basically get over July and August . Is EA only prepared to make a two - month committal to the Mac platform ? I ’d wish to see the company put its money where its mouth is and maltreat forth with a lot of other announcements too . Then again , between now and the end of the year there ’s theE3 Media and Business Summitand theE for Allgaming show . possibly we ’ll hear more from EA then .
A draught of hard Cider
The engineering that EA is using to make these games isTransGaming ’s Cider . cyder enables Windows games to work on Intel - based Macs much in the same way that Parallels enables Windows to wreak on Intel - found Macs — by create a practical machine , of sort , that execute the game just like a Mac OS X app . The difference is that “ Ciderized ” biz do n’t need a copy of Windows to operate .
The downside , as you may have reckon out from what I ’ve just said , is that this leave the millions of PowerPC - found Macs floating around out there out of portion — these games are coming to Intel - based Macs only .
The deal with EA is a huge winnings for TransGaming . So far the society ’s engineering has been used to fetch three Windows game to the Mac : Heroes of Might & Magic V , release earlier this class by Freeverse Software , Myst Online : Uru Live , from GameTap , and X3 : reunification from Virtual Programming . CCP Games has also announced plans to use Cider to impart its massively multiplayer online role act game EVE Online to the Mac ( that ’s expected to happen later this summer ) , and GameTap seems happy enough with Myst Online to bring the rest period of its “ classic ” gaming avail to the Mac using cyder , as well .
Cider is not a magic sausage balloon - maker that lets you pour in Windows game code in one end and get a shiny new Mac game at the other , however . While getting a Windows biz working on the Mac using Cider might not take the same level of engine room experience as a full - blown Mac conversion , it still require some massaging and careful manipulation of codification in ordering to cultivate . Still , it ’s clear that cyder has won the attention — and , more importantly , the stage business — of major player in the biz market , and that ’s good for the Mac .
disregarding , I see Cider as one step in the right focusing . Ultimately , I hope that EA and others who leverage TransGaming ’s engineering science see success with it , enough so that they decide to do simultaneous native Mac OS X game ontogenesis in the future tense , interchangeable to what Blizzard Entertainment does with World of Warcraft and its approaching release StarCraft II .
Winning hearts and minds
Getting a plot working on the Mac is only one part of the equating . The other part of it is making the plot attractive enough to Mac drug user in ordering to buy , and that ’s a very dissimilar floor . For old age , Mac games have languished . And while Steve Jobs claims that Apple “ have ” games , there ’s been very little grounds of that in Apple ’s activeness .
Games have a small area in an out - of - the - elbow room spot on Apple ’s Web internet site ; games ( along with other Mac software ) have more and more acquire a back seat to iPod peripheral gadget at Apple ’s retail locations ; there ’s no selling message to verbalise of , either . I ca n’t think when the last metre I saw Apple really include games as part of its Mac marketing subject matter .
EA can bestow all the game it wants to the Mac , but it ’s going to take more than that for Mac users to understand that their Macs are good game systems . To that remainder , we need Apple to take a proactive step to get the Holy Writ out . And on that end , we ’re still look .
Also , as I ’m sure you love , EA ’s Gordon was n’t the only gambling luminary on stage with Steve Jobs at this year ’s WWDC keynote — John Carmack , CTO and proprietor of I d Software was also there , apply the first public demonstration of idTech 5 , the ship’s company ’s newest plot engine . I ’ll have more thoughts on that in a next Game Room post .
