15 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

James Brightman has posted an article on the web site Game Daily that stirs up the age old debate... "will Apple ever get serious about games?". With all the media attention at Macworld and the recent release of numerous games for the iPod, James questions just how long Apple can keep this up.

From the article there is a quote from Mark DeLoura (a former technical director at Ubisoft):

the Mac gaming market may not be big enough. Moreover, Apple doesn't seem as devoted to the space as they would need to be if they were truly serious about gaming. "The Apple guys, they were always very encouraging," DeLoura told CNet. "'Please bring stuff to the Mac, please bring stuff to the Mac,' but they never gave us a lot of support. They're great guys, but they don't have a lot of resources, I think." He added, "It didn't seem like we could justify porting over a hard-core shooter (game), because as far as we could tell, those games didn't sell on the Mac."

Follow the link below to read the full article and sound off in the forums on if you believe the "video game industry's tremendous growth will be too attractive for Steve Jobs and company to ignore".

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Riko]

So... Uhm.... what else is new?

<-- Goes back to bed.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Funny, most of my friends don't want to go Mac basically because of the games. I'm pretty sure many teenagers and "grown-ups" feel that way.

[jackdawsson]

Not under Steve Jobs' leadership & vision.  I already have little doubt that the next iMacs to succeed the latest aluminium ones will be designed even thinner &, thus by necessity, with similar limited graphics options.  

As for MacBooks?  Now we have the MacBook Air, don't expect to see discrete graphics in MacBooks for the foreseeable future, if at all.  Jobs won't want to jeopardize sales of the under-powered & expensive MBA by giving the far cheaper MacBook even better specs.  AFAIC, there'll be nothing much doing game-wise from Apple any time soon.  

[Rev-O]

ssssssssh... don't tell anyone and don't fer the love of broccoli say that you heard it from me but last time I was sneaking around a certain corporate office in Cupertino I saw a 2010 calendar in a certain black turtle neck wearing guy's office that had June 19th circled with a  red marker. A big  red arrow pointed to the day with the word "GAMES" written in the same  red ink. GAMES was even underlined... twice! And it had three exclamation points after it!

[Frost]

No, because Steve Jobs, for all his good ideas, seems to have something against gamers.

Steve, if I want religious/morality police, I'll go to Saudi Arabia. Just give me the tools so I can do what I want to do on my Mac, and you can merrily do non-gaming things on your Mac, and we're all happy.

[panjandrum]

jackdawsson, on January 19th 2008, 11:35 AM, said:

Not under Steve Jobs' leadership & vision.  I already have little doubt that the next iMacs to succeed the latest aluminium ones will be designed even thinner &, thus by necessity, with similar limited graphics options.  

As for MacBooks?  Now we have the MacBook Air, don't expect to see discrete graphics in MacBooks for the foreseeable future, if at all.  Jobs won't want to jeopardize sales of the under-powered & expensive MBA by giving the far cheaper MacBook even better specs.  AFAIC, there'll be nothing much doing game-wise from Apple any time soon.  

I absolutely agree with this. I wonder if anyone at Apple actually realizes how much $$$ they lose by not not offering decent graphics performance. I would likely have ordered the Air already if it had reasonable graphics performance. I would likely have a MacBook already as well. Why not go with a Pro? I absolutely don't want a machine that large. I want a small machine with decent graphics acceleration. The fact that my 12" PowerBook remains the single best solution for me at this point, even though it is so old, says a lot (of bad things) about Apple's current line of laptops... I don't expect top-tier performance, just something acceptable.

Performance on these integrated intel machines is also very bad in any application that makes use of many of Apple's new rendering technologies. Take a look at BareFeats and check out their non-gaming performance comparisons. You simply don't want an "integrated GPU" even if you don't run any games at all, since it has such a great impact on overall system performance.

[BenRoethig]

panjandrum, on January 19th 2008, 09:32 PM, said:

I absolutely agree with this. I wonder if anyone at Apple actually realizes how much $$$ they lose by not not offering decent graphics performance. I would likely have ordered the Air already if it had reasonable graphics performance. I would likely have a MacBook already as well. Why not go with a Pro? I absolutely don't want a machine that large. I want a small machine with decent graphics acceleration. The fact that my 12" PowerBook remains the single best solution for me at this point, even though it is so old, says a lot (of bad things) about Apple's current line of laptops... I don't expect top-tier performance, just something acceptable.

Performance on these integrated intel machines is also very bad in any application that makes use of many of Apple's new rendering technologies. Take a look at BareFeats and check out their non-gaming performance comparisons. You simply don't want an "integrated GPU" even if you don't run any games at all, since it has such a great impact on overall system performance.

I don't know if they really care.  For all the awesome ideas they have, Apple as it currently stands is a means to reshape the computing world according to Steve Jobs' will.  Unfortunately he has little tolerance for anything he doesn't do personally.  It pains me to see how visionary they can be on some things yet completely short sighted on those that are more conventional.

[PMAvers162]

Frost, on January 20th 2008, 01:08 AM, said:

No, because Steve Jobs, for all his good ideas, seems to have something against gamers.

Part of it wonders if it has to do with game companies.

Remember what happened last time they made a major game announcement at a MacWorld, and a half-dozen big-name games were announced? How many of them actually came out?

(I bet he still holds a bit of a grudge.)

I'm guessing he mainly works now with companies he can *trust*, like iD or Blizzard.

[Janichsan]

PMAvers162, on January 20th 2008, 03:44 PM, said:

Remember what happened last time they made a major game announcement at a MacWorld, and a half-dozen big-name games were announced? How many of them actually came out?

Half a dozen?

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Until further notice from Apple I'm inclined to say no. Apart from putting an 8800 as a BTO option in the Mac Pro they haven't shown that they are serious about graphics as I would like for them to be. Although putting an 8800 in the Mac Pro was a good start. Now let's see upgrades for the rest of the line. Also as a lot of people here already know they could be doing more to get OpenGL optimized for real time 3D graphics in games. But hopefully that's why they hired Brad Oliver.

They could also use a better gaming input API that's easier for developers to use. But I'm not holding my breath and I may end up building myself a new gaming PC and just using my Mac for the older titles that run well on it and other general purpose tasks. We could also use a good LIVE type multiplayer community app that integrates with the games with achievements, etc. Yeah I know about gameranger for multiplayer stuff but that's still not the same in my opinion.  Making an upgradeable mid-range Mac tower also wouldn't hurt.  But I don't see things changing anytime soon and if companies also see the mac as too small a market to bring most titles to then we wont be saying very many titles that PCs and consoles are all enjoying.

It gives me that sad empty feeling when I think about all the games the PC has that the Mac doesn't get.

It's obvious that Apple is way way way more serious about music and videos than they are about games. I think they probably begrudgingly put games onto the iPod. I certainly don't think them showing Rage and EA games at that one conference should be interpreted as them taking games seriously. Especially since they've had token game appearances at Macworlds before.

[Frost]

PMAvers162, on January 20th 2008, 08:44 AM, said:

Part of it wonders if it has to do with game companies.

Remember what happened last time they made a major game announcement at a MacWorld, and a half-dozen big-name games were announced? How many of them actually came out?

(I bet he still holds a bit of a grudge.)

I'm guessing he mainly works now with companies he can *trust*, like iD or Blizzard.

It's karma catching up with him for Macworld '99.

Jobs: "It's coming early next year from Bungie..."
Jones: *CRINGE*

[iRolley]

The switch to Intel was good for gaming (better performance, and maybe quicker port). What is left to improve, for us gamers, is access to a cheap/reasonably priced mac with a high end GPU.

But the purpose of such a machine would be ONLY for gamers. If not for games, and not a pro machine, a powerful GPU is useless. So I can understand why Apple choose not to sacrifice its iMac design for a GPU... except for gamers, nobody would care. Integrated GPU by Intel seem capable enough of running HD video.

As for a mid range tower, I am not sure it would work in Apple's interest, plus it doesn't fit in with Apple's philosophy. It could cannibalize Mac Pros, but most of all, Apple believes that
desktop home computer = iMac
desktop pro computer = Mac Pro
and there is no in between. The mac mini ? ahem, the little bastard child.

So the only feasible solution, seems to be for Apple to build an iMac computer "for gamers" :
the 24inch iMac with the 7600GT wasn't that far from being a gamer mac. But the current iMac with a Radeon 2600 was a big step back... let's hope for the next iMac revision.

[Eric5h5]

iRolley, on January 22nd 2008, 03:07 AM, said:

Integrated GPU by Intel seem capable enough of running HD video.

Well...the more CoreWhizbang stuff Apple puts into the OS itself, the more integrated GPUs become lacking.  In the long run, it seems like it would be in Apple's best interest to drop them, unless they improve massively.  Even the AppleTV doesn't have integrated graphics.

--Eric

[teflon]

Eric5h5, on January 22nd 2008, 08:36 AM, said:

Well...the more CoreWhizbang stuff Apple puts into the OS itself, the more integrated GPUs become lacking.  In the long run, it seems like it would be in Apple's best interest to drop them, unless they improve massively.  Even the AppleTV doesn't have integrated graphics.

spot on, but the main reason why the aTV has a GPU is specifically to handle HD content. The processor is something like a 1.2Ghz Celeron combined with a 7300 Go I believe, both of which are heavily involved in the processing of HD as the requirements for quicktime to do that are along the lines of 2Ghz Pentium 4. It has a GPU out of necessity so that the overall heat profile of the machine is lower while still being able to handle all the 720p HD content you can throw at it. (actually I wonder if it can handle the notoriously power hungry .mkv)

the main reason that mac minis can play back HD content (mp4s are probably fine, but I suspect theyll struggle with .mkvs) is because they have relatively good CPUs. Not to mention that Apple's stuff only goes up to 720p.

[Tesseract]

teflon, on January 22nd 2008, 07:47 PM, said:

(actually I wonder if it can handle the notoriously power hungry .mkv)

Matroska is a container format. Choice of container format makes negligible difference to performance, it's all about the codecs and encoding parameters used. (Although sometimes those can be limited by the chosen container format, for example, not all H.264 features can be used with an AVI container.)