Steam OS X

[hayden]

some of you may of heard of steam being brought out on mac.. and ever so slowly more and more games seem to be becoming available. Steam has done its own signature games strait away (Portal, Half life and of course all the spin offs including COunter Strike: Source).

CS is arguably the biggest online FPS ever and now runs nativaly on mac.

Does anyone else see mac becoming a legitament gaming platform? Thus, i would like Mac in the description of the gaming thread un-strikethoughed. lol 

[vystral]

Mac's usually have the muscle to run decent games, but the price is prohibitively high. Honestly, I can't see people taking MacOS seriously as a gaming platform until the hardware prices drop sharply.

Some people will spend $1000+ on a good gaming PC, but that would translate to $2000+ for a Mac.

After all of this, an XBOX 360 Arcade is only $199.

[TetsuoShima]

Add to that that most macs come default with very crappy graphics cards if you intend to play 'serious' games. On top of that comes also that all games on mac perform at least 33% slower than on windows atm.

So, no, this does not make the Mac a good gaming platform, but for those who'd rather not check around, have money in abundance (so they don't have to care about increase in cost for no reason other than mac-os and mac logos), there now at least is the option to play games.

No, this is not for the masses, but it's clear by pricing that Apple does not want Mac to be for the masses. They could probably slash all prices by 25% and make up the lost profit by increased sales volume, but it's very clear they're not interested in competing in that area. They want high margins and 'low' volumes, it's what makes them 'exclusive' so people will indeed pay the extra amount for that, even more so if you take into account the marketing and hype effort Apple always puts into its products.

There are better alternatives on all ends, but the total package Apple offers is very nice (hardware/design/looks/software) and doesn't require any knowledge to set up and from the consumer's pov has only one drawback: pricing. In terms of markets, there is of course the drawback of anti-competitive behaviour, admittedly all companies do that, Apple just does it a little more.

So, would anybody buy a Mac because it can now more easily do games? Probably not. Is it an added value for those that are already interested in getting a Mac? Definitely so.