Valve's popular Steam digital distribution platform has been a mainstay in the wide world of Microsoft Windows for a while, but now Apple's Macs are getting a hot blast of air to the face as the Steam service... well, that metaphor isn't really working, but you see where I'm going with this: Steam is coming to Mac! Valve favorites such as Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal are all on the way for April. Wired's GameLife has the details, while Kotaku has the choice quotes.
Bringing Steam to Mac will give gamers several cross-platform benefits, [Valve's Gabe] Newell said.
- If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play.
- By using the Steam Cloud feature that the company introduced in 2008, players can save in-progress games online, then call up those saved games no matter which version they’re playing. If you’re playing Half-Life 2on your home PC but then head out on the road with your MacBook, you can continue your game-in-progress.
"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."
I'm not a Mac guy, but I'm glad to see Steam expanding to a new eager audience. Anything that makes it easier for more people to get involved with games they otherwise may never experience is a good thing. Moreover, offering native Mac support instead of trying to emulate Windows material only makes it better.
