recent article on Mac Game development from mac World (current)

[aka_tom_w]

MacWorld news page on Mac games and mac game development from MacWorld SF 2006

The Elephant in the Room:

Taking the long-term view, once Windows Vista is released, will dual-boot Macs doom the development of Mac games? After all, what’s to make a game publisher support the Mac if they can just sell them a Windows game instead?

This doesn’t seem to be an overwhelming concern for many of the Mac game developers with whom I spoke last week. They certainly recognize that some “hardcore” gamers may indeed create dual-boot systems (something they can’t, as I understand it, do easily today thanks to Apple’s use of Extensible Firmware Architecture, or EFI, in place of the BIOS that Windows XP expects).

But people who identify themselves as “gamers” make up a relatively small percentage of the overall Mac-using population. By comparison, if you ask the average Mac user if he plays games, you’ll more likely get an affirmative response.

Game developers and publishers understand this, and we’re seeing fewer and fewer “hardcore” Mac games with each passing year. More and more of those folks have defected to video game consoles from both the Mac and the PC, or are building (or buying) PC systems to run the games they want to play.

Instead, we’re seeing more games like Zoo Tycoon 2 and The Sims 2, which are more likely to appeal to a broad base of gamers, as well as a massive expansion in the number of casual games that we can all play between meetings, on commutes, or when we have a few spare minutes.

The market evolves

An informal count shows that in 2005, more than 100 game titles shipped for the Mac that incorporated 3D graphics acceleration — a new record. Interestingly, though, the number of games that emerged as “A” or “AAA” titles — a loose definition applied to major, commercial releases — dwindled from more than 50 in 2004 to less than 30 in 2005.

This is indicative of a continued shift in the marketplace. Major game publishers simply can’t afford to port a lot of games to the Macintosh every year — certainly not in the volume they have in years past. People aren’t buying them in large enough quantities to justify further expansion of development teams and marketing and licensing efforts.

The good news is that original Mac game development, and parallel development with Windows and console games, is a continuing trend that shows no signs of abating any time soon, with more tools to aid developers in creating multi-platform games being released and updated continuously.

Other news:

Aspyr Media led the way with an early announcement that it is porting Call of Duty 2 to the Mac. This is a hotly anticipated World War II-era first person shooter that’s sold like gangbusters since it was introduced with Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 game console. The Mac version isn’t expected out until Spring, but it will ship as a Universal Binary, which means that it’ll run natively on PowerPC or Intel-based Macs. Aspyr has similar plans for its already-announced Mac conversions of Quake IV and Civilization IV.

[Sixxkiller]

I dont think this is important. Macs never were good for gaming in the first place. Viva la PC (Even if the PC is a Mac)

-Ray

[MikeyD]

The elephant's still in the room.

To say that there's not much game-playing on macs is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Apple people haven't exactly been accommodating to game makers in recent years. I'm simply not going to know which direction to turn for a system upgrade until someone 'official' from BFC steps up and states outright that SMSF will-or-won't run on OSX Tiger, or will-or-won't run on the new mac chip.

[aka_tom_w]

Battlefront.com

Administrator

Member # 42

posted January 14, 2006 07:50 PM

This new development is great! CM:SF is slated to run on OSX regardless of the chip set, but now we are more sure that we can make something that will run equally well on PowerPC and Intel chips. We were holding off from starting on a MacOS version until we were reasonably sure that Apple wasn't going to deal us another last minute "gotcha" like they did with RAVE support under OSX.

Unfortunately, due to problems with compilers on the Mac and the uncertainty of the new Intel Macs, we held off making anything for OSX thus far. Because of where we are in development we aren't going to stop and port to the Mac right now. What we will instead do is continue to make the game and then evaluate our porting options when it is nearly finished. It might mean no simultaneous release. We don't know yet. But a release for MacOS is certain to happen no matter what. Worst case a few months after the PC version.

Steve

[Toad]

Wow! Is BF STILL dragging that "like they did with RAVE support" Apple grudge dead-horse around? OS X was first released almost six years ago. BF STILL uses dropped RAVE support as the reason why there's no OS X version of CM:BO, CM:BB and CM:AK? Now they're "holding off from starting on a MacOS version" because - what - Apple might change from using electricity to run their computers to gasoline?

"You never know! We better wait another year, just to be on the safe side!"

I loved CM:BO but after OS X, I have played it less and less every passing year. I never bought CM:BB or CM:AK. If BF thinks their Mac sales of the CM games are slow because Mac users don't like to play games, here's a astonishing fact: Mac sales are slow because no new Mac sold for the past several years will boot into the cancelled, done, gone OS 9 and BF's precious RAVE support.

Make good games that run well on the typical Mac hardware and Mac users will buy.

[Pzman]

For the time being Windows still will not run on a Mac, Intel or otherwise without an emulator. Why? the Intel Macs have a new chip (cannot recall the name) which will be on most future Intel chips, which will not allow it to run XP or earlier (so you would need the unreleased Vista to do it). So the problem of PC gamings running on the Mac is currently a dead issue. I don't think things will change much, there will be enough of the market (90% of it) which will not waste there money getting Vista just to play games.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

The Apple people haven't exactly been accommodating to game makers in recent years.

Were they ever? I've only been a Mac user for 13 years, and Apple has been more game-friendly in the last half-dozen than they were in the first half-dozen. Which isn't saying much, I know.

That attitude on Apple's part always struck me as odd. Given the Mac's more user-friendly OS, the home entertainment market could have been theirs to dominate if only they had tried. But they needed to start early, and they let that time slip away.

Michael

[Pzman]

Some people believe even the PC gaming market will die off in the next five to ten years in favor of X-box, PS, etc anyway, so I don't see why people care so much.

[Michael Emrys]

I think "die off" is overstating it a bit, as there are reasons why people will want to continue to play games on their computers, and they will want at least some of them to be quality products. But I would agree that there will likely be a mass migration to less-expensive systems optimized for game playing.

Michael

[Jarmo]

Originally posted by Toad:

"You never know! We better wait another year, just to be on the safe side!"

And right they were.

The intel switch would have required serious recoding, but thanks to waiting, there's no need for that.

But brighter times ahead!? Maybe.

And Apples legendary incapability to make reasonably priced macs at least somewhat suited for gaming, seems to be cracking a bit. The new intelmacs have reasonably good graphics cards in there (x1600). If the trend continues, there just might be some hope yet.

[tar]

The intel switch would have required serious recoding, but thanks to waiting, there's no need for that.

Not really. At least not if BFC is using the XCode environment. It will build applications for both PPC and Intel hardware. And the OS interface is the same regardless of processor. So is the graphics, so it really shouldn't matter.

But I understand the caution.

[Seanachai]

I've occasionally played 'console' games. They do not interest me. In fact, I think they're crap.

Anyone who brings up 'console' games in the same article with Mac or PC games, and equates them, does not merit my attention.

If the market goes that direction, they will do so without my money.

Maybe I've missed them, but all console games strike me as just a glorified version of side-scrolling and/or arcade games from earlier times.

I can't see something with the complexity of CM ever being done as a console game. So feck 'em.

[Pzman]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

I've occasionally played 'console' games. They do not interest me. In fact, I think they're crap.

Anyone who brings up 'console' games in the same article with Mac or PC games, and equates them, does not merit my attention.

I've never been a big fan of console gaming, but its a matter of reality. That said, why keep upgrading your video card every two or three years to just play the next big game when the console with indistry leading gaming technology costs the same price or less? It also means no more battles with drivers, wanting that game you cannot play because its only for Windows etc.

[lucero1148]

Anyways at least fromthe tests done onthe new intel Macs video frame rates are as good as a pc and i think twice as fast as a G5 dual core.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

I've occasionally played 'console' games. They do not interest me. In fact, I think they're crap.

Anyone who brings up 'console' games in the same article with Mac or PC games, and equates them, does not merit my attention.

If the market goes that direction, they will do so without my money.

Maybe I've missed them, but all console games strike me as just a glorified version of side-scrolling and/or arcade games from earlier times.

I can't see something with the complexity of CM ever being done as a console game. So feck 'em.

Exactly, and why the hell do I want to have a laptop, a desktop PC, and then go out and buy a console on top of it? To play ****ty FPS on? No thanks. Someone mentioned self-fulfilling prophecies. Well, if game publishers keep producing dreck and not quality stuff like CM, we the prophecy will be fulfilled. If game designers, on the other hand, continue to make stuff for we aging grognards, then all will be well.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

If game designers, on the other hand, continue to make stuff for we aging grognards, then all will be well.

Until we die.

Michael

[ng cavscout]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

If game designers, on the other hand, continue to make stuff for we aging grognards, then all will be well.

Until we die.

Michael </font>

[poorfish]

From macosrumors

Apple's "Gamer's Dream iMac" In-Depth Report

As we have recently reported, some of our most reliable sources at ATi and Apple have been waxing ecstatic about the latest project based on the next-generation Intel Core Duo chipsets and ATi's "CrossFire" dual-GPU technology.

Of course, the "Gamer's Dream iMac" will be more than just dual high-end ATi GPUs in the X1800/X1900 family.

It will include the latest Core Duo "Merom" processors at 2.4 and 2.8GHz, with an 800MHz frontside bus (compare to the current 667MHz FSB on Yonah) and faster memory -- on the Gamer's Dream Model, there has even been suggestion of dual-bank memory to make the most of the enhanced CPU, FSB, and GPUs.

The first generation of the Gamer's Dream iMac will probably employ early Merom chips with the same 2MB shared on-chip Level 2 cache as is seen on today's "Yonah" Core Duos, but by early 2007 the latest Apple Roadmap pegs the Dual 2.8GHz model as having 4MB of shared L2 for a considerable performance bump.

The heart of the Gamer's Dream is, of course, its twin ATi X1900-class GPUs -- each with 256MB of graphics memory and its own 16-lane PCI Express bus.

ATi's CrossFire technology allows the dual GPU's to work in tandem with a relatively high degree of efficiency -- thereby creating very nearly double the performance of a single X1900. In fact, the performance of the early prototype our primary source used for benchmarking (we hope to publish the numbers soon, but for the source's protection they are currently embargoed) was so stunning that the 2.16GHz Core Duo processor was the bottleneck -- quite the opposite of the current situation where the X1600 is rarely able to push a 2.0GHz Core Duo past 80% usage.

We're hoping that the 2.4GHz "Merom" Core Duo will be a perfect match for the CrossFire-powered Gamer's Dream and neither the CPU nor the GPU will bottleneck the other on most games or other 3D performance-intensive tasks.

Although the present cost of a high-end aftermarket CrossFire setup is nearly $1,000 just for the twin X1900-XT cards and dual-card-bridging DVI cable, Apple is working with ATi to offer a complete solution with ATi's bar-none, top-shelf GPUs (by that time, presumably the X1980 XL) built into an iMac with a 20-inch widescreen display and 1920x1200 pixel resolution for....drum roll please....

....a target price point of $2,499. That's with 2GB of RAM, a 2.4GHz Core Duo processor, and high-end specifications across the board. Considering that today's 20-inch/1680x1050, 2GHz Core Duo iMac goes for over $1,800 configured with 256MB of graphics memory, 1GB of RAM and all other specifications as standard, that's one heck of a value machine.

Oh, and there's one more thing.

Today's 20-inch iMac display not only sports a lower resolution than the model Apple's current roadmap specifies for the Gamer's Dream, it has a typical pixel response time of 16ms....not exactly the best on the market. Gamers want rapid pixel response for those fast-moving, high-framerate battle scenes....and the Gamer's Dream iMac will deliver with a pixel response of no more than 8 milliseconds. That's twice as fast as today's iMac and very competitive with high-end gamer's displays that top out at around 5 milliseconds.