A Huevo : Steam For Mac
It's officially official: Valve will bring its Steam online distribution service and titles from its massive library of hit games to the Mac this April, the company confirmed Monday. The successful content-delivery service will bring Valve titles like Left 4 Dead and the upcoming Portal 2, as well as games from other publishers, to Apple computers for the first time. The move was telegraphed last week in a series of that mashed characters from Valve games into retro Apple ads. Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games, called Apple and Steam a natural fit. 'The traditional model has always been that you have these really extended development times. Where you do nothing for customers for several years and then you try to drive everybody into the theaters or into the stores on a given date,' Newell said. 'It makes it hard to steer your decisions based on customer feedback, and customers don't particularly like that.
They would like to have the experience of being part of an entertainment community where they're getting something on a daily or more frequent basis. 'The Mac represents a great opportunity to deliver these things.' Bringing Steam to Mac will give gamers several cross-platform benefits, 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.
A Huevo Steam For Machaca
If you're playing Half-Life 2 on 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, in Monday's press release. '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,' Cook said. '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.'
Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows, the company said. 'Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step,' said Josh Weier, said Portal 2 project lead in the press release. 'We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.' Bringing Valve's gaming engine Source, and the company's, to the Mac will make it easier for developers to bring games to OS X. 'Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs,' said Jason Holtman, Valve's director of business development, in the press release.
'We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.' Easy updates ———— Steam lets the company take full advantage of the freedom that the PC and Mac platforms give it to constantly update and tweak its games. For instance, the developer has updated its 2007 game Team Fortress 2 more than 100 times, Newell said. Valve isn't the only PC developer with a strong, engaged fan base looking to Mac. Telltale Games, creator of the episodic Sam and Max games, announced last month that it would be moving to Mac, even inviting fans to vote on which of its games should be ported over first.
While Telltale has not confirmed any of its games will be on the Mac version of Steam, Connors called getting his companies titles on Valve's digital-distribution platform 'a no-brainer.' 'We have games that run on the Mac and we have games that run on Steam, so our goal is to be there,' Connors said. 'We think they're going to do a great job with getting the Steam client over there and we want to continue to be a part of it.'
A Huevo Steam For Macros
Valve press statement on the Steam Link app for iOS being rejected by Apple. — Steam Database (@SteamDB) Valve appealed the ruling, but was ultimately rejected.
That means the app, which was initially approved, won’t be coming to the App Store any time soon, if ever. The ruling could potentially make sense if there weren’t already other apps already available that let you remotely view your Mac, which is just what Steam Link does. There are several VNC apps available, like for example. Movie presentation template. And give you remote access to your Mac desktop, too.
The big difference with Steam Link is that it was optimized for playing Steam video games. It seems Apple isn’t interested in the iPad being a place where you can play Steam games. That’s especially disappointing considering how well beta versions worked.