Steam coming to Macs in April. [Surf, Ain, and Karth's only]

[KarthXLR]

Steam on Macs? [CONFIRMED] Portal 2? [CONFIRMED] Possibly more? [EFFIN CONFIRMED]

Discuss, I guess.

After much speculation and some not-so-subtle hinting, Valve has officially announced a Mac version of popular gaming service Steam coming in April, and its bringing Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series with it.

While rumblings of Steam coming to the Mac platform have been stirring for quite some time, the first solid indicators came last month, when Mac-specific graphics were found in the beta test files for the new Steam service. Then Valve took things a step further, teasing Mac users with a series of images featuring popular Valve games integrated with Mac themes.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

The Mac version of Steam will include all of the features of its PC counterpart, as well as a new feature called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the game on one platform to download and play it for the other at no additional charge.

While it remains to be seen how many third-party developers will jump on board the Mac train, Valve is full-steam ahead on supporting the platform, eschewing popular emulation techniques to deliver native Mac games, day and date with the PC versions from here on out.

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and PC will be Portal 2, announced earlier this month.

And now Mac users will be able to experience the joy of a large Steam release. I can't wait to share that with you guys.

[Maxon]

I'm going with Portal 2 due to the obviousness of them updating Portal quite close to GDC.  Or they'll be evil and not say a thing about Portal 2 due and have that update just be only thing going on.  Or they actually come out to say that Portal 2 won't be out this year, but it totally will be after more secrets are trickled out.  Valve are crafty bastards!

[chronomaster]

Steam for Mac has been referenced pretty heavily.

[Spore]

Left 4 Dead 4.

[CaffeinePowered]

Steam for Mac has been referenced pretty heavily.

Steam/Source for Mac 90%+ probability

Portal 2 is give much lower odds on

[ainmosni]

[quote author=Chronomaster link=topic=4270.msg139503#msg139503 date=1267693688]
Steam for Mac has been referenced pretty heavily.

Steam/Source for Mac 90%+ probability

Portal 2 is give much lower odds on
[/quote]

Steam/Source for Mac would be awesome because then we could play tf2 as our beer o clock game at work. (We all have macbook pros here)

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

I'll settle for any news on Episode 3.  Even if it's "lol, we've spent all our time on TF2/L4D2 and only have some concept art for episode 3"

[Surf314]

It's Valve, anything could happen as long as it isn't on time.

[CaffeinePowered]

It's Valve, anything could happen as long as it isn't on time.

Announcement they are being bought by Activision

[If-I-Die-Its-Lag]

They are going to make a Half-Life MMO.

[Dtrain323i]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4270.msg139538#msg139538 date=1267714089]
It's Valve, anything could happen as long as it isn't on time.

Announcement they are being bought by an Activision/EA joint venture
[/quote]

fixed  :-X

[Spore]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=4270.msg139539#msg139539 date=1267714366]
[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4270.msg139538#msg139538 date=1267714089]
It's Valve, anything could happen as long as it isn't on time.

Announcement they are being bought by an Activision/EA joint venture
[/quote]

fixed  :-X
[/quote]

Get with the times. EA isn't evil anymore.

[Squishy3]

[quote author=Dtrain323i link=topic=4270.msg139553#msg139553 date=1267717457]
[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=4270.msg139539#msg139539 date=1267714366]
[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4270.msg139538#msg139538 date=1267714089]
It's Valve, anything could happen as long as it isn't on time.

Announcement they are being bought by an Activision/EA joint venture
[/quote]

fixed  :-X
[/quote]

Get with the times. EA isn't evil anymore.
[/quote]EA is great now, aside from sports games. Everything else is pretty damn good.

[Mission Difficult]

The mac thing is pretty much a sure thing.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/E/W/240296/...for_us.jpg
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Valve-S...,9793.html

[backfire]

The mac thing is pretty much a sure thing.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/E/W/240296/...for_us.jpg
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Valve-S...,9793.html

Huzzah! Now I can be even less productive at school!

[copulatingduck]

Mac fans don't deserve steam

[Spore]

Mac fans don't deserve steam

That has to be a troll. Please, it has to.

[beep beep diglett]

[quote author=Duck link=topic=4270.msg139724#msg139724 date=1267784974]
Mac fans don't deserve steam

That has to be a troll. Please, it has to.
[/quote]

see i didnt know who spore was until this post, and this post is great. maybe rummy should buy this user so that bonerversus doesnt buy him and port him to MW2. this is precisely the kind of user bonerversus would buy to deliberately kill just so rummy couldn't have it and dominate the posting industry.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

[quote author=Spore link=topic=4270.msg139729#msg139729 date=1267789268]
[quote author=Duck link=topic=4270.msg139724#msg139724 date=1267784974]
Mac fans don't deserve steam

That has to be a troll. Please, it has to.
[/quote]

see i didnt know who spore was until this post, and this post is great. maybe rummy should buy this user so that bonerversus doesnt buy him and port him to MW2. this is precisely the kind of user bonerversus would buy to deliberately kill just so rummy couldn't have it and dominate the posting industry.



[/quote]

Ah, you made my day, I feel better now

[Ungodly]

Mac fans don't deserve steam

ahahaahahahahaa