Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

[Shawn Zipay]

Valve has just revealed, by way of a new teaser trailer that Half-Life 2 is slated to be released on Steam for the Mac OS X on May 26th.

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Free Yourself.

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

LOL, at $999 with Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz and Nvidia 9400M, I wonder what kind of HL2 performance it offers. For twice the price you do get better CPU, but GT330M with 256MB VRAM isn't exactly the set up you want to run HL2.

I think Valve is wasting their money on OTW (other than windows) platforms. As the economy is going to fold very soon, people will value function over style, and eventually luxury should be priced as luxury.

Gaming and luxury just don't match with each other.

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Gaming and luxury just don't match with each other.

LOL, Que?

Gaming rigs are over the top over anything other than gaming and/or 3D rendering. Otherwise, any best buy PC will do. I would think that would count as luxury, right?

Crunch

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Also, Valve is doing a discount on the HL:2 stuff. I just bought HL:2, Ep1 and 2 for $18 US.

I know, I never owned the HL2 stuff Im not a real gamer :cry:

[Iwantcable]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Also, Valve is doing a discount on the HL:2 stuff. I just bought HL:2, Ep1 and 2 for $18 US.

I know, I never owned the HL2 stuff Im not a real gamer :cry:

Shoot, I got the Orange Box for less than that. >.>

[CptainCrunch]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Shoot, I got the Orange Box for less than that. >.>

Must be a pretty good deal wherever you live. It costs more for me. I already had the other Orange box items.

Crunch

[Iwantcable]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Must be a pretty good deal wherever you live. It costs more for me. I already had the other Orange box items.

Crunch

This was a while ago, but yeah it was a good deal:

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

LOL, at $999 with Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz and Nvidia 9400M, I wonder what kind of HL2 performance it offers. For twice the price you do get better CPU, but GT330M with 256MB VRAM isn't exactly the set up you want to run HL2.

I think Valve is wasting their money on OTW (other than windows) platforms. As the economy is going to fold very soon, people will value function over style, and eventually luxury should be priced as luxury.

Gaming and luxury just don't match with each other.

Yeah see, this is where you're wrong. All of it. Just wrong.

So far the move to Mac has been a phenomenal move for Valve and 3rd party companies. I can't speak for all of them but the moment Killing Floor made the move to Mac, it was immediately back in the top sellers on Steam for a few days.

The Mac OS is a hugely untapped market by most companies that aren't casual developers, Blizzard, or just a small handful of other dev studios. So what if it doesn't have the most powerful hardware in the world, graphics do not make the game.

And really, the economy is going to fold very soon? The economy is on the rise and has been for a few months now. Stop watching Glenn Beck.

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Yeah see, this is where you're wrong. All of it. Just wrong.

So far the move to Mac has been a phenomenal move for Valve and 3rd party companies. I can't speak for all of them but the moment Killing Floor made the move to Mac, it was immediately back in the top sellers on Steam for a few days.

The Mac OS is a hugely untapped market by most companies that aren't casual developers, Blizzard, or just a small handful of other dev studios. So what if it doesn't have the most powerful hardware in the world, graphics do not make the game.

And really, the economy is going to fold very soon? The economy is on the rise and has been for a few months now. Stop watching Glenn Beck.

I don't watch Glenn Beck. He is too creepy and he is an actor who perform on the screen play handed to him. However, if you follow others such as Gerald Celente, Marc Farber, Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers, then you won't be optimistic about the economy. Also, if you follow what some very questionable figures such as George Soros are actually doing, not what they have said, then you will find the pattern matched very well.

In short, first some people created the .com bubble. Then it bursted, so the other batch of people propped real estate bubble. Now it also bursted, so the current batch of people are trying to prop the economy by cash injection, and it will be the currency bubble. The sad thing is that all other major currencies are going to burst before the dollar. Euro is going to be bursting very soon, while Yen and RMB kept floating by massive lending to US treasury. Keynsian works on different promise which the economy is relatively isolated, government debt is low and production capacity is higher than demand. The theory is unfortunately abused to the hilt.

I don't think Mac and gaming are two things you want to mix. It never took off before 3D revolution, and it never took off after 3D revolution. I'm talking about the time since 80386 and Motorolla 68030. Without Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. can't compete. With Steve Jobs, they are control freak. Mac is the worst gaming platform you can find. The cheapest Mac has lame graphics and all iMacs are unupgradeable. For the price they are way too expensive compared to gaming consoles. For the price/performance point of view, it doesn't make any sense to use Mac to do gaming. Most Mac gamer already dual boot anyway, so what's the point? Also, compare to current generation, OpenGL as gaming library is also no comparison to Windows. The performance, as tested by Anandtech.com, is lower than Windows. Given how MacOS wraps applications, modding would be a challenge. And, finally, there might be some issues with gaming peripherials.

For half of the price, you can get equivalent performing laptops on the Windows side. Cheap AMD box with 5770 can trump 95% of Macs actually sold on gaming. Remember, this is slow sale season, so any sudden fluctuation might give false impression of market success. It is still new, and some are always voluteering lab rats. Major developers already consider PC gaming market a niche and even show signs of abandonment. For even smaller market such as Mac gaming, entering is more like throwing money into bottomless pit. Mac gaming is already a saturated market when Valve decided to jump in. And, finally, Steve Jobs hates games (and pr0n as well): http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/...-hates-games/1

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

LOL, Que?

Gaming rigs are over the top over anything other than gaming and/or 3D rendering. Otherwise, any best buy PC will do. I would think that would count as luxury, right?

Crunch

Maybe I should explain the point better. The cost to outfit a computer for gaming purpose is also a determining factor of game sales. If gaming platform is luxury, then the business as we know today won't survive.

However, if developing cross-platform games is the industry trend, then it is a bad news for us gamers. It means developers will spend more on cross-platform issues and less on making a good game on Windows.

[signa]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

I think your missing the point. Zips is correct about Mac being an untapped market. New markets = new money. There are also die hard mac fans that are going to be elated to finally get some real games for their native platform. I'm also very surprised you would compare a Mac to a gaming console.

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

I think you dropped this on the way in:

I don't watch Glenn Beck. He is too creepy and he is an actor who perform on the screen play handed to him. However, if you follow others such as Gerald Celente, Marc Farber, Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers, then you won't be optimistic about the economy. Also, if you follow what some very questionable figures such as George Soros are actually doing, not what they have said, then you will find the pattern matched very well.

In short, first some people created the .com bubble. Then it bursted, so the other batch of people propped real estate bubble. Now it also bursted, so the current batch of people are trying to prop the economy by cash injection, and it will be the currency bubble. The sad thing is that all other major currencies are going to burst before the dollar. Euro is going to be bursting very soon, while Yen and RMB kept floating by massive lending to US treasury. Keynsian works on different promise which the economy is relatively isolated, government debt is low and production capacity is higher than demand. The theory is unfortunately abused to the hilt.

I don't think Mac and gaming are two things you want to mix. It never took off before 3D revolution, and it never took off after 3D revolution. I'm talking about the time since 80386 and Motorolla 68030. Without Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. can't compete. With Steve Jobs, they are control freak. Mac is the worst gaming platform you can find. The cheapest Mac has lame graphics and all iMacs are unupgradeable. For the price they are way too expensive compared to gaming consoles. For the price/performance point of view, it doesn't make any sense to use Mac to do gaming. Most Mac gamer already dual boot anyway, so what's the point? Also, compare to current generation, OpenGL as gaming library is also no comparison to Windows. The performance, as tested by Anandtech.com, is lower than Windows. Given how MacOS wraps applications, modding would be a challenge. And, finally, there might be some issues with gaming peripherials.

For half of the price, you can get equivalent performing laptops on the Windows side. Cheap AMD box with 5770 can trump 95% of Macs actually sold on gaming. Remember, this is slow sale season, so any sudden fluctuation might give false impression of market success. It is still new, and some are always voluteering lab rats. Major developers already consider PC gaming market a niche and even show signs of abandonment. For even smaller market such as Mac gaming, entering is more like throwing money into bottomless pit. Mac gaming is already a saturated market when Valve decided to jump in. And, finally, Steve Jobs hates games (and pr0n as well): http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/...-hates-games/1

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

I think your missing the point. Zips is correct about Mac being an untapped market. New markets = new money. There are also die hard mac fans that are going to be elated to finally get some real games for their native platform. I'm also very surprised you would compare a Mac to a gaming console.

No, What I'm comparing is business model, revenue, consumper decision and profit/return. As business model, both M$ and Sony provide support while Apple Inc. rely on open source. The revenue model favors consoles. For consumers, gaming console has low acquisition cost, slightly higher software cost for new games, and is cost-effective on the long term. Consoles also win the profit/return in terms of raw number. Macs as a gaming platform do not make much sense thus will always be a niche market.

Also, gaming on Macs is not untapped market. Gaming existed on Macs since 1984. The reasons that gaming didn't and can't take off on Macs are stated previously. Valve think they can grab the market of digital distribution, but, if they prove that they are successful, how long do you think Apple Inc will setup their own and make sure every major title is available to Mac users from Apple.com?

It is a bad business decision. Given Valve's track record, they are efficient and successful enough at their core business to do some community service like this.

I think you dropped this on the way in:

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Jesus, could you possibly pull more nonsense out of thin air?

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Half-Life 2 on Mac OS X - May 26, 2010

Jesus, could you possibly pull more nonsense out of thin air?

Which part of my posts is the nonsense out of thin air?

Or is it just that I am simply pulling things you don't like and don't want to read?

Even at first month mac game sales mounted only 11% of total sales. Mind you that's launch sale with aggressive pricing on Portal, HL2/ep1/ep2 and L4D at slow season. Yet, only 11%. It will be going straight down afterwards due to lack of impetus on sales. People who bought the game recently are unlikely to buy new games at full price in the near future. The funny part is that they tell you about the sale number, but not revenue and not profit. Eventually the sales will down to 5-6% of all sales by the end of the year, and revenue and profit from those sales are even smaller due to the games sold are either cheaper or with less profit margin. For they, it's just as worthy as 1/20 of their market on Windows games.

I paid full price on HL2 and $19.99 for EP1 and EP2. Now it's available on Mac for total of only 1/3 of price I paid, and it's hailed as if it can cure a cancer. Give me a break.

Now you bring up the issue regarding Killing Floor. I don't know anyone who is playing Killing Floor. Maybe there IS a small Killing Floor community on Macs. I won't be surprised due to the lack of titles available to Macs.

And Lucas Adventure series is also on the top list. Surprise? Either they are digging a market that doesn't exist, or just doing some community service. Steam on Linux is also coming out. You really think they plan to make money out of Linux games? Is that the reason we still don't have EP3 on our hard drive?

Also on the economy:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gNiyJ905Ho0Ur96V2TQhsBX19lGwD9FVDGA81

Consumers spent less than first estimated. Same goes for business spending on equipment and software. And the nation's trade deficit was a bigger drag on economic activity. Those factors led to slower growth last quarter than first estimated.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said the number of newly laid off workers filings claims for unemployment benefits fell to 460,000 last week. But the latest level of claims is actually higher than it was at the start of the year.

There is simply no recovery. Just take a look at the figures that matter to real economy, not the phony one traders created. Unemployment still increases albeit at slower rate. We are heading toward Greater Depression.