Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Odds and ends, MacBook
Next up for gaming: the MacBook
Peter Cohen's got a good commentary up at Macworld about Apple's should-be next target for gaming, the Macbook. Finally, as of the iPhone SDK announcement, we've seen some serious movement on the gaming front from Apple -- they brought EA in and commissioned their own programmers to punch out some game software to show off the iPhone SDK implementation (and as I've said before, including on the talkcast a few weeks ago, we're only seeing the beginning of what's possible with gaming on the iPhone). So maybe they're finally seeing the light on gaming.But as is, the Macbook isn't winning any awards as a gaming machine. As Cohen says, yes, the integrated graphics card puts the consumer Mac laptop hopelessly behind the times, but the problem isn't just upgrading the hardware -- the software itself needs to be optimized and redesigned. Apple has always been at the forefront of development, and Leopard especially, with Core Image functionality, looks great in the OS and in applications.
But when even mainstream sports titles, the kind that are on all platforms from day one, can't even play on your hardware, it's time to go back to square one. As Cohen says, we're not asking for much -- but games are a core part of the personal computing experience, and Apple shouldn't sideline that demographic any more than the others they serve.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Quix said 1:31AM on 3-18-2008
Forget the MacBook. How about either 1) putting a decent 3D card in the iMac, or better yet, 2) give us a consumer-priced tower with a replaceable video card?
It's a sad joke that to get decent gaming performance on the Mac platform, you have to drop $3k on a Mac Pro.
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DagMX said 1:41AM on 3-18-2008
but in all honesty, if you really do want to game, and this will be cliched, you'd run windows.
Get a good DIY system and if you want OS X, just get a patched install. Lets be honest, noone really buys macs for the gaming.
Tom von S. said 11:58AM on 3-18-2008
@DagMX: That's the point. IF people are to be expected to take gaming on a Mac seriously, things need to change. Obviously, right now, if you care about gaming you will not try to use your Mac for it (outside of BootCamp I guess).
ramond said 1:35AM on 3-18-2008
Na the screen is the worst
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dagamer34 said 1:39AM on 3-18-2008
Go back to having a dedicated card in the MacBook. Even an extremly low-range card will do. Anything but the bottom of the barrel Intel crap that does nothing for gaming.
Of course, that's how Apple suckers people into getting the MacBook Pro. =/
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starkruzr said 4:07AM on 3-18-2008
That said, it's not like the Macbook Pro is somehow a "bad deal." it's a high-specced machine with commensurate price, but it certainly plays games very, very well.
blinkcowz182 said 1:43AM on 3-18-2008
This topic comes up every 2-3 months somewhere and the same points are always made...1) the gaming market is saturated. It would take huge amounts of money to enter the PC or console gaming market. 2) 95% of the gamers on PCs are powerusers and wouldn't venture out of the box of PC games if the same thing on Mac is on PC. 3) The newest (and most profitable) games require huge amounts of hardware power. Apple has seen the future and it is mobile gaming, the Mac as a gaming hub will never happen as much as the community wants it to.
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G-WiZ said 1:46AM on 3-18-2008
What else does Apple need to do? They provide the SDKs, the APIs for 3D, video, sound, networking... what more? Free cookies and milk?
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Taylor said 2:39AM on 3-18-2008
Give the hardware to support it.
The price jump between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro is too big for gamers to even consider buying the latter.
Chalatoo said 2:34AM on 3-18-2008
I totally agree with what blinkcowz182 said!
... so don't waist money or battery life on trying to make the MB into something it's not!
... and was never meant to be!
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Quine said 4:13AM on 3-18-2008
in all honesty I'm glad OS X doesn't have a lot of games, it helps me stay focused because i know that i have to reboot into crappy windows to play games. the only thing i wish os x had was audiosurf...then again, that would majorly hurt my productivity too, so I'm glad it doesn't.
besides, if os x did gaming well, windows would have no reason to exist!
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jon said 4:38AM on 3-18-2008
If there was a huge demand for games on the MacBook then somone would make games that ran on it. Games were around when computers were less powerful than the MacBook. Garphics are not everything!
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Trimalchio said 4:50AM on 3-18-2008
The hardware is not the only problem in getting mac gaming to take off again. The Open GL framework doesn't provide enough benefits for developers to switch to it from DirectX. Without game developers using OpenGL, you can't reasonably expect them to ever port the game to the mac (much less co-develop for the mac). So getting the GPUs to handle Open GL as fast as DirectX, and getting OpenGL to be a much better framework than DirectX, will let Apple do the steps already obvious such as getting game developers onboard and producing gaming hardware.
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Michel said 5:14AM on 3-18-2008
I disagree
noone should buy a macbook to do" gaming"
but an integrated intel is not so bad. many nice games works with it. not the alpha new 3D game. (well it runs, but not with all nice marvels)
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and I don't think gaming is so important. Imac can have already a good 3D card. not the latest of nvidia and ati ? hoo I don't care ! it's nice enough for warcraft and eve online
if you want the latest shining stuff to play, go buy a macpro or in your local pc shop to buy newest cards and spend time with it. I don't think the differences worth the price.
well, of course, I'm not really a gamer. but I still looking for Spore and Starcraft 2. (nothing else)
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harlembrown said 5:46AM on 3-18-2008
Here's a thought. How about simply buying a game console for playing games, and using a MacBook for GTD? ;)
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crsh said 7:50AM on 3-18-2008
I doubt the Macbook will get a *decent* video card, it'd rival the Pro model; they could add a cheap 2 year-old GPU (like a nVidia 7300GT) though.. wouldn't do much to run the latest games, but the latest games aren't available on Macs anyway.
I love Macs, I adore OSX, but it's a terrible gaming platform.
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STrRedWolf said 7:51AM on 3-18-2008
Alot of good comments are here, so let me add mine:
Steve, it's Drake. PLEASE drop the Intel integrated graphics chips and go NVidia. The performance on Intel's chips is pitiful, and until they support OpenGL 2.x (is 3.0 out now?) they will always be lagging behind. The Mac Mini would be a perfect gaming machine if it had even a low-end NVidia Geforce 7-series in it. Everyone will understand, and Intel will get another kickstart to make their X-series GPU's work even better. So please? Nvidia across the board?
Oh, and can you get that high-end Macbook 15" up to 1680x1050? No-one but Dell seems to be doing that now...
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krye said 8:29AM on 3-18-2008
Not going to happen. Come 6 months from now, it'll be iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, and that's all. If anything, people will hack the iPhone games to play on their MacBooks, but I don't see this huge surge in MacBook game development as a reult of the iPhone SDK. It's just wishful thinking.
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Robbie said 9:09AM on 3-18-2008
The day that Apple adds dedicated video to the Macbook is the day I buy one.
The day that Apple adds a decent video card to the lower-end iMac is the day...that I buy one.
On my PCs, I've always waited for sales on certain parts, bought them, and assembled it for about half retail price simply because I can't afford better. An iMac is barely within my price range(and still double what I can build a PC for), but I'm not going from a 512mb X1950 to a 128mb HD2400; that's just stupid. Apple apparently doesn't want the gamers...
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mattias800 said 9:12AM on 3-18-2008
I find it strange that so many Mac users are unwilling to expand the uses of their computers, and go far to make up weird excuses for it. Apple has only one market to take shares from, the PC-market, and one of the biggest and most common excuse for not getting a Mac among PC-users is the lack of games. Why in the world would you think of games as not needed?
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