Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends
Transgaming makes deal with Ubisoft
First EA, and now gaming giant Ubisoft has inked a deal with Transgaming to wrap their titles in Cider and port them over to the Mac. Which seems like great news -- Ubisoft has a huge number of quality titles, and bringing those to the Mac must be great for gamers who appreciate a better operating system. But not so fast.First things first, Cider hasn't exactly proven itself in terms of making great games, or even ports for that matter. And apparently Ubisoft is taking it slow -- rather than bring us games like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed or the great Rainbow Six Vegas series, we're getting... wait for it... Catz and Dogz. Oh, and CSI: Hard Evidence, which was hardly a blockbuster on game shelves.
It's definitely good news that Mac gamers are getting more to play, but if this is all we're going to get, they can keep it. If they wanted to port us Far Cry 2 when it comes out, or maybe even the long-awaited Beyond Good and Evil 2 whenever it's done, awesome. But if all we're going to get is years-old bottom-of-the-barrel crapware, we'll stick with original Mac game developers, thanks.
[via Big Download]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kelly Albertine said 3:17PM on 7-03-2008
Something additional about VOLUME. Many Iphone owners may have noticed reduced volume on their speaker phone. I noticed lint, accumulated in the speaker phone area itself on the Iphone. Simply break out an old toothbrush and "brush your speaker. Volume is back to normal. "from a loyal TUAW Reader"
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Fritz Laurel said 3:22PM on 7-03-2008
But ... I can already play those killer games ... on my xbox.
I still don't understand why gaming is SO important to people. I've been using Apple computers and products almost exclusively since 1979 and while I've enjoyed my Ming's Challenge and Infocom games over the years, I can accept that the Mac platform isn't the right platform for gaming ... for me. I actually like keeping those two sides of my life separate.
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Brandon Martinez said 3:35PM on 7-03-2008
As long as Blizzard keeps up their commitment, I'm happy. Who here is up for some Diablo 3!?
Seriously though, I love my WoW and I'm quite content with that. Any other game I play is on a console anyway.
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w00t said 3:52PM on 7-03-2008
This would be good news, however the performance of Cider is just terrible.
I'm not playing the games in half-quality and months/years late when a quick reboot gives me native speed.
Worthless... Even my 3Ghz Mac Pro was struggling with c&c3 using Cider.
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Steve Mills said 5:00PM on 7-03-2008
They should spend money on real Mac development instead of Cider. Ack. That crap's just horrible.
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Brad said 5:36PM on 7-03-2008
I think Diablo 3 may change the state of gaming on Macs. Blizzard has an in-house Mac development team, which means the game will more than likely be a native application, and not wrapped with the Cider engine. D3 is a game in a major, major franchise, and will have proper promotion. Not to mention it's a continuation of a series that was available, and popular, on Macs before.
D3 will be the first "must-have" game that can deliver a completely modern game experience since Apple made the switch to Intel processors. I don't count the Cider games, since the wrapper discards a lot of the effects available when running in Windows. (Cider games look noticably worse than their Windows counteparts).
What will need to happen is for D3 to sell. A large company needs to see that it's possible to make money on the Mac platform if the product is good. As long as it's not wrapped in Cider, I'm planning on getting the Mac version instead of the Windows.
I also tend to discard the idea that Macs are not a platform for gaming. The ideological mindset behind Mac users is changing as rapidly as the market share grows. I have several friends who ask me on a routine basis if there are any good games for Macs.
Ubisoft using Cider is disappointing news. I can't get excited over something that I can do myself with just a half hour of reading.
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potato said 6:28PM on 7-03-2008
Brad: World of Warcraft is already native, already a huge hit, and already a "must have" game by many measures... Mac gaming exists, Diablo 3 won't be the revolution that ushers in a new era... It will merely be one more in a long line of games Blizzard has ported natively to Mac. Obviously over the years Blizzard has found it profitable to port their games, which is why they're CONTINUING to do it.
"Ubisoft using Cider is disappointing news. I can't get excited over something that I can do myself with just a half hour of reading."
Cider isn't that easy to use, I hope you realize. It's not a half-baked VM solution, it's an API wrapper. It's not ideal, nor is it fast, nor is it pretty, but give Ubi *some* credit.
I don't get why it's so stupidly difficult for game developers to write games natively. I program on both Mac and Windows, and considering that they're running 100% C++, it's *not that hard* to engineer a game from the ground up to be cross platform (hint: don't use platform-locked libs!). PhysX is cross-platform, graphics engines work across platforms...
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Brad said 11:15PM on 7-03-2008
potato: I know that WoW is native. I was under the impression that WoW was originally released before Apple made the switch to Intel processors, and later released as an Intel binary. If that is the case, then it's not really a brand new product, merely updated to support the latest machines. I'm willing to bet that a lot of WoW players were playing before Apple made the switch. I'm not saying people haven't started since, because there are always new people joining. It wasn't a Intel Mac showcase that D3 has the opportunity to be.
I understand what Cider is, but it really is not that hard to replace the contents of the wrapper and run any DX8/9 game in OS X. I have gotten King Kong, Far Cry, and the windows verisons of Myst 3/4/5/Uru running under Cider on OS X. It's not that hard, and I barely knew what I was doing. I've experienced a couple compatability issues before, but nothing too serious. The real issue is that it doesn't run as well as native OS X applications.
Jon said 7:19PM on 7-03-2008
What annoys me is that publishers will charge the same price for the Cider version as for the Windows version when the Cider version is clearly an inferior product.
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Tyrone Rugen said 8:01PM on 7-03-2008
Finally, Mac gamers will get to play all those great Ubisoft titles that only Wii gamers have been able to enjoy. Hoo. Rah.
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Rhywun said 11:17AM on 7-04-2008
OMG OMG OMG - Beyond Good & Evil 2??? One of my favorite games ever, that nobody bought, is getting a sequel? Fantastic! Now all we need is Psychonauts 2 and my day will be complete!
Now, as for Mac gaming, many titles simply play better using a keyboard and mouse. I got an Xbox to play some kinds of games that I used to play on Windows - and the controls on some of these games just aren't usable enough for me.
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Nate said 4:40AM on 7-07-2008
Just an FYI. EVE Online has a "native" Mac app which is wrapped in Cider and packaged by Transgaming. The "native" client is solid and has minimal fps loss over running the game in Windows.
I think that sort of proves Ciders' capabilities.
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