69 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

At the WWDC 2007 keynote, Electronic Arts' Co-Founder, Bing Gordon, announced the company's return to the Mac with six Mac titles including Command & Conquer 3, Battlefiled 2142, Need For Speed: Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Madden NFL 2008, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008.

Following the announcement, Gordon showed off a demo of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to the crowd at WWDC. Gordon said during the demo that "The only thing better than living on a mac, is living at Hogwarts."

EA plans on releasing Command & Conquer 3, Battlefiled 2142, Need For Speed: Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in July with Madden NFL 2008 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 later on in the year.

According to our sources, EA is using TransGaming's Cider for its Mac titles. This means that there will be no PowerPC versions of the games.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Janichsan]

Wait... a... second... I have to read this again, otherwise I won't believe it...

Oh...

my...

god...


W000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BenRoethig]

Looks like we're going to find out exactly how good cider is.

[PeopleLikeFrank]

BenRoethig, on June 11th 2007, 02:18 PM, said:

Looks like we're going to find out exactly how good cider is.

Didn't we already with HoMM V?

[BenRoethig]

nobody, on June 11th 2007, 01:20 PM, said:

Didn't we already with HoMM V?

I'm hoping that was just a fluke.

[Janichsan]

BenRoethig, on June 11th 2007, 08:23 PM, said:

I'm hoping that was just a fluke.

Since the other two available ciderized titles (Myst Online, X3) appear not to be plagued by bugs that much, it really seems that the problems with HoMM V were mainly problems of the game itself, not of Cider.

[Bastich]

OMFG!!!

[Jan]

It's Apple and games in one sentence. And, after all those years, it finally makes sense.

Steve really seems to be interested in world domination now. iPod, iPhone, Safari for Windows, and GAMES on Macs.
Hell must be a pretty cold place.

[DaveyJJ]

Hurray!!!!!!! Tiger Woods on the Mac!!!! And when's the last time we could play (American) football?????!!!!

[Jan]

If other publishers follow that road, Boot Camp and Windows will soon seem like tales from a dark, distant age. Hell yes!

[nagromme]

What's this I hear? Racing returns to the Mac?

And to think I might have bought NFS for Windows

[Janichsan]

nagromme, on June 11th 2007, 08:50 PM, said:

What's this I hear? Racing returns to the Mac?

About time that Feral releases CMR...

[MysteryQuest]

I really wonder if this is Cider work. Looks more like their marketing trick. Seeing that some games are completely redesigned for the Mac, I think this isn't Cider, but just a complete port. Cider wouldn't be good for Apple. It would also only support 32-bit games and it can't take advantage of any 64-bit features.

[macdude22]

This must be a blow to Aspyr, they typically port a lot of the EA games. I was expecting them to be doing the C&C port as well. However I have to say that seeing developers make the games cross platform in house is a refreshing change and probably the preferred method. I'd hate to see Aspyr go under, or something, but it might be the beginning of the end for Mac porting houses.

[Steephill]

Yiihaaa!!! Finally we have a breakthrough!

/Steephill

[Brad Oliver]

macdude22, on June 11th 2007, 12:52 PM, said:

This must be a blow to Aspyr, they typically port a lot of the EA games. I was expecting them to be doing the C&C port as well. However I have to say that seeing developers make the games cross platform in house is a refreshing change and probably the preferred method. I'd hate to see Aspyr go under, or something, but it might be the beginning of the end for Mac porting houses.

Two things: first, they're using Cider, so calling it in-house is probably stretching it a bit (no doubt the support, QA and beta-testing move in-house to EA). Second, history has shown (at least for Aspyr) that the sports games did not sell well for us on the Mac, and BF1942, while it broke even at least, didn't do well enough to warrant doing the subsequent titles (none of this is news - a googling or search of the forums can probably find quotes from Glenda on this). Aspyr is still heavily involved with EA - we do development for all the Sims Stories games, for example, and they are not small potatoes.

So I don't think this is really bad news for anyone. Most likely this is the best path to get these games on the Mac.

[Mister Mumbles]

Well,  that might also mean that those games have cross-platform compatibility then. Especially, Command & Conquer 3 and Battlefield 2142 wouldn't do well without it. I'm pretty sure that's another reason why the BF 1942 port didn't do so great.

[Janichsan]

Pegasus, on June 11th 2007, 10:07 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure that's another reason why the BF 1942 port didn't do so great.

I know it's a long time ago, but actually, BF1942 had crossplatform compatibility. It was one of the last games that featured GameSpy on the Mac before the long and dreadful hiatus.

[rufwork]

DaveyJJ, on June 11th 2007, 11:34 AM, said:

Hurray!!!!!!! Tiger Woods on the Mac!!!! And when's the last time we could play (American) football?????!!!!

Well, the last time you had Classic installed, I suppose, though the eight year-old rosters might be a little long in the tooth.

This really is great news for Mac owners.  I hope the Cider implementation is relatively transparent and doesn't involve cutting any features from the Mac version.  Not having to Boot Camp Windows is A Very Good Thing, and should help out a bit with fewer owners pirating Ballmer's Pride.

I was surprised not to see anyone complaining about the PowerPC divide finally coming into the open, which I hope means we all saw that coming.  It's a good move.  Neat machines (I'm using a G4 now), but it sure is a good thing IBM c/wouldn't keep up with Apple's demand.

[ijedi42]

this will be a day long remembered