Rumor: Steam coming to the Mac?

Telltale Games recently held a Mac revolution, and that was a nice piece of news for Mac gamers, but this would be a "game-changer": Valve may be considering bringing their Steam platform over to the Mac. They released the beta version of the new UI for their digital game delivery system, and a few users found some "OSX" icons hidden in the game files.

Unfortunately, that makes this just a rumor (it's certainly possible the icons were simply included in some stray bit of code, as they appear to be simple window controls, not actual game code), but if there's anything to this at all, it would be huge for us Mac gamers: Steam comprises a gigantic library of present and classic PC games, and bringing even a portion of them over to the Mac would be terrific. CrossOver Games has been working with Steam in the past, and they already have most of Steam's biggest games up and running on the Mac platform through emulation. If there's a partnership between the two companies, or if Steam is planning to take advantage of the demand for their games running on OS X, that would be great.

We'll keep our eyes open. Ever since Apple switched over to Intel, there's been more potential than ever for Mac gaming, and Steam on the platform would be amazing.

View Tags

Source: http://www.totalgamingnetwork.com/showthread.php?240121-Stea…

Categories

Gaming Software

Telltale Games recently held a Mac revolution, and that was a nice piece of news for Mac gamers, but this would be a "game-changer": Valve...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

32 Comments

Filter by:

phatbhuda

There are a couple concerns here. The company that is responsible for marketing the technology behind many of today's Mac game ports, TransGaming, has their own online store and download delivery system. Valve would have to make a deal with them, as they probably own some sort of rights for digital download publishing.

And for background info, TransGaming licenses Cider, a software development wrapper that allows Windows software to come to Mac OS X with fewer adjustments.

March 01 2010 at 10:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DMXell

I swear the "Send a Tip" button is completely useless. I sent TUAW this tip right when the thread was made and only on page 2 of the Steam forum. They didn't even read it. How do I know?

"Unfortunately, that makes this just a rumor (it's certainly possible the icons were simply included in some stray bit of code, as they appear to be simple window controls, not actual game code..."

Actually, there was code for Steam OS X as well as icons. If you look, you can find menu files for OS X in the new Steam beta. These include keystrokes specifically made for Mac users (ie. Command + C = copy). So had you guys actually read my tip or the forum thread, you'd know that this is based not only on icons found, but menu code found as well.

February 26 2010 at 4:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ulrikdamm

Then I can play Portal again :D Epic!

February 26 2010 at 2:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

GrantC

bit pedantic, but Crossover doesn't emulate Windows, it's a re-implementation of the Win32 API...

http://www.codeweavers.com/about/

February 26 2010 at 2:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to GrantC's comment

Joshua Meadows

Thanks, I was just about to say this as well. It's not an emulator at all.

February 26 2010 at 11:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

JedixJarf

Meh... Apples NVIDA drivers for OSX suck compared to their windows counterparts.... And thats why i have bootcamp.

February 26 2010 at 1:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

robotplague

I've been wanting this for YEARS now. I really, really hope this one is true.

February 26 2010 at 1:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to robotplague's comment

JedixJarf

So what if STEAM comes to mac... All the games they sell are mostly windows based anyways.

February 26 2010 at 1:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Gilbert Palau

I had lunch with Gabe Newell the other day and he told me that too. j/k

February 26 2010 at 1:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

AreUSerial

Steam + TF2 native on a Mac = pure win

February 26 2010 at 12:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

astigmatism

My contact within Valve is specifically working on the OSX port and has been for the last couple months. He explains however, that there are politics involved with releasing a OSX port however as Microsoft has a pretty large influence over the company.

February 26 2010 at 12:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Whippet

The latest steam client drops the IE rendering engine and now uses webkit. Maybe this is a good sign thats its coming to OS X soon.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-valve-ie-beta-webkit,9736.html

February 26 2010 at 10:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply