The PC is Dead, Long Live the PC

So Valve made an interesting announcement today.

To summarize:

• Steam is coming to the Mac platform, starting in April.
• Valve games, starting with Portal 2, will be simu-released on Windows, Mac, and 360
• Cross-play between Mac and PC is supported
• Purchasing for one platform can mean getting it for both (Steam Play).
• All existing Steam services will work for Mac
• Source Engine is also coming to Mac
• Source Engine code will cross-compile to either Windows or Mac, meaning less re-work in porting

Let that sink in for a minute.  This means a lot more than simply another way to buy Mac games, this is potentially the first step in a complete shift in the computer video game market.  About 60% of all AAA Mac games are published by one company: Aspyr.  That means that with a single business deal, Steam could be fronting a large portion of the entire Mac gaming catalog.  Steam is already easily the dominant digital distribution service for retail titles on PC, and could easily become the dominant force in Mac gaming too.  By making a bet on their future titles, they’re also saying that they see the Mac as a valid platform on it’s own, at least on par with Windows.

We’re moving to a world of digital distribution on the PC (Windows and Mac both).  The benefits to (transparent, non-obtrusive) DRM that becomes available on that channel make this a certainty.  To Valve, this isn’t just about opening a new market segment, this is about consolidating the retail channel under their house, and about continuing to provide further reasons why when you make a PC game, you should integrate with their user services and their social network.  If they’re successful, it means that they’ve abstracted away the OS.  The game will not be defined by what OS it runs on, but on what social network it’s tied to.  You won’t be a Windows Gamer, or a Mac Gamer, you’ll be a Steam gamer.

Spore Hates your Macbook

I was just talking with a friend of mine, who was really, really excited about spore.  He even got a new computer to play it, just a year ago.

The thing is, my friend got a macbook, and if you have a macbook made earlier than late 2007, no Spore for you.

The problem is that until late 2007, Apple was making Macbooks with the GMA 950 graphics card embedded, after which it was upgraded to the GMA X3100.  Spore explicitly does not support the GMA 950.  I told you that you should have bought a PC.  None of the Macbook Pro line have this issue.

That said, I think this is more a Maxis fail than an Apple fail.  They’ve got like, 4 video cards guys, you couldn’t support one that was brand new in the system less than a year ago?  Fail, and fail hard.

[Update] If you run Windows XP in Boot Camp, however, it runs fine.  This seems to just be an issue with the GMA 950 on OS X.  Isn’t that interesting.

[Update]: xkcd brings up a solution for Mac Owners:

Kindle eBook reader not available in Canada

Yeah, this is off topic, but I when I’m not doing the video game thing, I’m reading books.  I read a LOT of books.

And I would really, really like an e-paper based eBook reader.  So today Amazon launched their new eBook reader, the Kindle.  It’s ugly as fuck, but they have some sweet wireless setup going on.  Unlike basically every other reader out there, the Kindle has a free, EV-DO based wireless network that allows you to browse, buy, and download eBooks from Amazon’s ever increasing collection (they plan to eventually make every book they carry available).  You can also grab newspaper, blogs, RSS feeds, etc.

Great, sign me up.  Take my $400 dollars, I don’t care that your device is hideous, it looks marvelous.  Wait a second, as per usual, Canada gets the raw end of the stick.  Despite the fact that Sprint and Bell Mobility have agreements with each other, Amazon’s Whispernet does not work outside of the 50 US States.

Ever wonder why Canada is a haven for piracy?  Maybe it’s because companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, and Apple - the premiere offerers of digital content - don’t fucking offer their services in Canada.  Remember prohibition?  If there’s a demand for something, it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal, people will obtain it.  And unlike prohibition, under which criminal organizations were still charging money for booze, digital content is free to steal.

I don’t know whether the issues are legal or economic, but once there’s a culture of theft that’s been established for a long time, it’s very difficult to legitimately offer content and expect the people you’ve been shirking in the past to expect to pay for your shit.

Apple Gaming

Introduction
Apple is certainly has in the last few years really taken off in terms of profitability and general consumer awareness of their products. There have been a number of radical and aggressive moves undertaken by the management, many of which have proved to be successful. Despite the surges in profit and market share in the last few years, and the popular marketing campaigns, Apple has failed to entrench itself as a serious competitor against PCs in terms of market share. Apple’s 2006 Year over Year market share increase of 16%, while massively out-weighing the industry average still only results in an increase from 4.4% to 4.8%, Hardly a major threat to the PC platform.[digg=http://digg.com/gaming_news/Why_Apple_Gaming_Sucks]

I had the fortunate privilege of working for Apple last summer as an intern, and I can tell you the company is just as phenomenal from the inside as they seem to be from the outside. Having never used a mac before working there, I was definitely a fan of the smooth interface and the elimination of the “Death by a thousand paper-cuts” experience that one often finds using Windows (or Linux, for that matter). Despite this, at the end of the summer I couldn’t bring myself to buy a Mac, even though I needed a new computer, and I could leverage employee discounts. The reason was simple. Gaming.

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