Gaming is Finally coming to the MAC (returning...)

For those of you that don't know, I am a converted mac user. I will not try and convert any of you that pledge your loyalty to the PC, but you can't help but admit the mac side of the world isn't looking too bad lately. While most of you might think, "oh macs are for artsy fartsy people, or people that want to do video editing and serious photoshoping and what have you." But the fact is, these things do pretty much everything except gaming.

All that is changing however with the rise in popularity of the mac for students and consumers it would seem that game developers have finally retaken notice. While many mac users felt betrayed by the original farewells of many studios it would seem that we are again embracing them with open arms as they return to give us what they should have been giving us all along.

First on board for full support of the mac is EA, and while you can hate them all you want for there monopolization of the gaming industry, them moving to the mac is solid proof that there is money to be made in developing for the mac platform, with that said, other game developers should follow. During the Keynote presentation at WWDC yesterday EA said they would be releasing some currently rather new games to the mac platform: Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Then starting in August will be releasing games simultaneously with other platforms. That means the new Madden and Tiger Woods will be hitting the mac at the same time as console and PC.

We can't forget id Software either, they have been rather shaky with not only the mac but rather the gaming industry, admittedly they created a great engine for Doom 3, but by the time it came out, it was rather expired compared to some newer engines emerging like the Unreal 3 engine. However it would seem that id has been rather busy, in the keynote they showcased a demo running a level with 20 gb of textures, that is bigger than some games on the 360 and ps3 in simply textures, that allowed for a vast amount of depth that is almost unseen in the gaming industry currently, with that kind of support for the mac it allows one to wonder just what these macs are capable of graphically.

Lastly a bit that matters more so to the hardcore. For those of you PC gamers that are just so over the edge that you actually purchased the gaming version of Vista this next bit of information in relation to the next Mac OSX release will be rather intriguing to you. The next release of Mac OSX Leopard will come with out of the box 64 bit functionality, and because the macs are so powerful most of them can already handle this type of upgrade, that means that high-end games that require a lot of rendering will be able to run off of the processor rather than the disc allowing for a much better and more detailed gaming experience that was previously not possible on the mac.

With all that said, I wonder if any of you that have been lusting for how gorgeous these machines are will not sway to the mac-side?