macbook posts

The app store tool for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch mobile devices have been hugely successful, especially for both small and big game developers who can publish their titles directly to consumers. Can Apple do the same thing for their iMacs, MacBooks and Mac desktops? We are about to find out as Apple has announced it will launch the Mac App Store on January 6.

Like the app store for the Apple mobile products, the Mac App Store will have a variety of software to purchase and/or download and that will include games. Developers can set their own prices, can release free apps with no additional costs and keep 70 percent of the game's revenues for themselves. The big question: Will the Mac App Store be a big rival to services like Steam, Direct2Drive and others in the Mac game digital download business?

Confirming earlier rumors, Ubisoft has now revealed via their latest financial press release that a Mac version of the developer's stealth-action game Splinter Cell Conviction is in the works. In addition the publisher also has plans to release a Mac port of its hit open world action game Assassin's Creed 2.

Both of the Ubisoft Mac ports are scheduled to be released to gamers sometime this quarter which means they are due out before September 30. Our question: Will the Mac ports also have Ubisoft's "always on" DRM set-up that are now a part of the publisher's PC game releases? We hope not.

The announcement last week that the Mac would be getting their own native version of Steam sent shockwaves in the small Mac gaming community, and rightfully so. Our sister site Joystiq managed to chat briefly with Valve's director of Steam development manager John Cook and Cook states flat out that the launch of Steam for the Mac, due in April, is "the biggest event in Steam's history since the service was first launched."

Cook is still keeping some info about the Mac Steam launch to himself, such as pricing for Valve's games on the Mac, although, as we mentioned before, if you already own Valve's games on Steam for the PC you get the Mac port for free. And what about all the other games that Steam provides to PC owners? Cook says, "We are having discussions with all the 1,000 publishers and developers currently offering their games on Steam and hope that many, if not all, eventually bring Mac versions of their games to market.."

This week has been filled with Mac-based gaming news. First there was the official announcement of Valve porting its games and its Steam download client to the Mac. Then the possible prospect of porting Battlefield Bad Company 2 to the Mac was brought up by its developer. Now developer Icarus Studios has announced that their MMO platform has been ported to Mac OS X.

As a consequence, the MMO that uses their tech, the post-apocalypse themed game Fallen Earth, now has a free 10 day trial available to download now for the Mac which requires Intel-based Macintosh machines to work. The 5.1 GB client uses the Wine open source software to port the game to the Mac. Mac and PC players of Fallen Earth will be able to play in the same servers.

With the arrival earlier this week of a new user interface for the Steam PC game many folks have decided to take a dive into the system's programming to see what makes it tick. Now the Steam message boards are being lit up with posts by people who claim to have seen some Mac OS specific programming in the new Steam UI.

So does this mean that Valve is finally getting ready to unleash their hugely popular PC game download service on folks who use Apple products? If so we would hope that Valve would also decide to port their many games, including the Half-Life titles, Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead games, to the Mac platform. We think it's about time.

So, it's two thousand and nine. Sure, our digital minions are faster and more capable than ever before, but do you ever feel like you're missing out on the whole Gernsback experience? Where the hell is my flying car? This was supposed to be the future, but it's just.... now. We're still using magnetic media, transistors, and keyboards -- no fancy bubble chips, rod logic, or tactical neural implants (to quote Montgomery Scott, "The keyboard; how quaint").

So, what does 2009 have in store for us?

For one thing, Small Iron, and lots of it. Manufacturers and hardware vendors throughout the industry spectrum are anticipating a boom in the so-called "netbook" segment. Everyone from AMD and Intel to Acer and Asustek are gearing up in expectation of soaring demand for the ultra-portable/mini-notebook niches that were more or less defined by the introduction of Apple's Macbook Air and the subsequent introduction of the Atom and Eee PC. These certainly aren't desktop-replacement level equipment, but for folks who are frequently on the go and need something more robust than an iPhone or Blackberry, there's every expectation in the industry that these are the New BigSmall Thing.