Valve titles, Steam coming to Macs

Valve Software has confirmed they will bring their stable of titles, including Left 4 Dead and Half-Life, to Apple devices in April. The studio will also bring the online service Steam to Macs next month.

“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,” says Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve, in a statement. “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.”

The first simultaneous video game release for both PC and Mac will be Portal 2 later this year.

I for one am thrilled.  I have boot camp running Windows XP for the express purpose of playing Valve games (mainly the HalfLife series).  This will be huge for the Mac’s standing among gamers.

More info here.

No one find this at all interesting?  Odd.

incorrigible - 08 March 2010 06:36 PM

More info here.

No one find this at all interesting?  Odd.

Actually this is great news.  Since they are using Open GL in the source engine it would not be a huge leap to move capability to an Apple TV or iPad if they get the controls figured out.  I tried Steam via Crossover and it crashed all the time so I broke down and bought a version of Windows 7 just to run games.  Saved some money by using an OEM disk of Windows 7, but would have loved this news about 6 months ago.  It will be nice to not have to reboot in bootcamp.  I’m interest to see how the new Apple mouse might be incorporated into a unique game controller.  As far as gaming on the OS X platform for the first time ever the GDC has an Iphone Summit

And Unity 3.0 in beta adds support for iPad   via Gamasutra

Better late than never.  This is important for the Mac’s growth, though I don’t think it’s vital.

I wonder if Valve was able to avoid a performance-robbing kludge like Cider for the non-Portal 2 games releasing soon.

Mav - 08 March 2010 07:56 PM

Better late than never.  This is important for the Mac’s growth, though I don’t think it’s vital.

I wonder if Valve was able to avoid a performance-robbing kludge like Cider for the non-Portal 2 games releasing soon.

They know the Mac folks will do a comparison since we are already running Steam via bootcamp.  The release I read said they were doing native apps and that Source was using Open GL so we should get good performance.

My reaction?
We need a new emotocon for “doing handsprings of joy”.
I’m really excited about Portal. Several of their other games look cool as well.

Good news indeed.
The Mac market-share is significant enough for Valve to notice it.

Finally .

actually only Left 4 Dead 2 will be ported

Khaled - 09 March 2010 03:20 PM

actually only Left 4 Dead 2 will be ported

Not true.  According to the above:

Valve Software has confirmed they will bring their stable of titles, including Left 4 Dead and Half-Life, to Apple devices in April.

Also, Portal 2 is being developed for the Mac simultaneously with the PC.

Edit: 
Valve’s official notification

Steam and 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.

You should see the drama when they announced L4D2 so soon after L4D1 release

incorrigible - 08 March 2010 06:36 PM

More info here.

No one find this at all interesting?  Odd.

I am thrilled. The only reason I have XP on my MBP is to play the occasional game with my buddies. I own the titles mentioned, and am ecstatic there will be no additional fee to use the Mac version. Valve must know how many Macs are running Steam, so they already know the size of the market, and perhaps more importantly, how fast that market is growing.