Is the mac a gaming platform?

Apple has come a long way with hardware and software and has made significant inroads in its ability to be a desktop system in business. I've been using Macs for work in small and large companies for the last 6 years and its been pretty rare that that's caused me grief (the major point being Exchange/Outlook support which I hope will be fixed in Snow Leopard)

I wish I could say Apple has made a lot of progress on the video game front, but the reality is that it hasn't. Despite having some leading edge Video cards like the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT that  I have in this MacPro and essentially the same Intel-based hardware, there are few games for the Mac. Why is that?

Part, I would say is that Apple has continually ignored the video game industry while MicroSoft with its "Games for Windows" drive and others has encouraged the PC as a gaming platform. So the company is not supportive. Thats a major point.

Next is that the hardware support for games is not complete. I recently spent a lot of time looking for a way to get 5.1 sound on my Mac for gaming. The issue is that you can't get that. Sure it can output 5.1 sound optically from DVDs etc, but generated sound from games cannot be piped over the optical output and you can't buy a card, USB device etc that does it in the current MacPro generations. Griffin Technology did make a FireWave product that outputs sound over FireWire to a device that gives you 5.1 sound output, but both FireWire and the FireWave have been discontinued. So there is no 5.1 sound support for games on the Mac. 

Along similar lines, if you really want the best bleeding edge video cards as they come out from vendors like Nvidia that offer "upgrade" programs so you can continually upgrade your card you're out of luck. The mac hardware lacks the specific power connectors that the current generation video cards require so Mac video cards end up being custom made for Apple. If you could make the power problem work your next issue would be the total lack of video diver support for the platform.

Ok you say, I can use my Mac HW and then run windows games in VMWare or Parallels. Well, no, you can't really, while some DirectX support has been added to the virtualization platforms, the performance and compatibility limit you to games that have fairly modest requirements.

Fine, then just play games under BootCamp and let Windows own the Mac hardware. Well, thats what I do, but you still wont have 5.1 sound or the latest video card. It does well and you can play Far Cry 2, Crysis, etc in this mode, but you wont have as good as an experience you get on a PC. And you're not running OSX and you've paid a premium for Mac HW to get less out of it.

If you're a serious gamer, don't buy a Mac. That's what Apple is telling us. My love of the OS (and dislike of the alternatives) is stronger than my need for the best video gaming experience but I long for the day when Apple either gets "with it" or legalizes the hackintosh.

My good friend recently sold me his MacPro (at a great price!) and went back to the PC. He's a serious gamer. He loves the Mac and hates Windows, but the gamer side of him won. 

Wii Fit

My daughter got a Wii fit for Christmas and i've been amazed with the device. While it looks like a simple slightly raised step platform they've dramatically changed the video game experience with the introduction of this wireless board. When you step on it it knows your weight, and where the weight is placed on the board. From there you can snow board, ski, do push ups, jog etc. While I don't think its a good substitute for a gym (and some are quite upset about it) I do think forcing some more movement into video gaming beyond just the fingers is a great idea. The fit, along with the Wii itself has innovated on the video game front and despite its very dated graphics capabilities it has continued to have a serious impact on the video gaming industry. If you have Wii and dont have a Wii fit, I'd suggest you get one. Not to get in shape, but to experience one more incremental step of progress in the video gaming industry.

Dilemma

Ah the dilemma: Gaming has been part of my entertainment since I first saw a computer in the early 80's. Perhaps i'm too old for video games, but are they worse than the junk on TV? I watch NO TV, Games are my entertainment. But i'm an OSX user, so how does that fit? A few games (like World Of Warcraft) run great on OSX, but most generally arent made for it. So I have a number of options:

1) Dual Boot -- thanks to the intel macs and decent graphics support, this is now an option, but still Laptops arent going to keep up with the technology needed for the latest games

2) Console -- XBOX360/PS3 are appealing, but i've been using Keyboard/Mouse for more than a decade and some game types like the MMORPGs arent supported. The ability to sell back games once you're done is nice and some game types arent available or as good on the PC (arcade racing etc)

3) Windows XP/Vista game machine -- this is what I have now. Its in the basement which is cold, but when used solely as a game machine its been ok. The HW is a couple years old now (Athlon 64, 6800GT card, 1GB memory) so it could use a refresh. It also needs to come upstairs, its just too cold down there. But then you have to do the normal windows system admin stuff that is just a pain. On OSX you spend maybe 5% of your time doing admin stuff, on Windows its more like 50% in my experience (i'm a tweaker so that doesnt help, but in OSX there's just no need).

So which way do I go? For now i'll keep the Windows thing limping along (perhaps with some hand-me-down upgrades) and we'll see what the ps3 looks like in the fall. The consoles are now in the PC price range and you can do a very nice upgrade to a PC for the cost of either leading console...

Games

Ok, so since I quit World of Warcraft I played FEAR and Call of Duty
2. At $50 each and about a week of play time (even with a busy life)
you begin to see the value of the MMORPGs. The only problem with them
is they don't evolve fast enough, they quickly get too big for the
companies to manage and you end up getting bored with them.

Another nice thing about World of Warcraft was that it supported the
Mac. The other ones out (top ones being Eve and Guild Wars right now)
don't support OSX. Hopefully with the intel macs things like that
will change. No reason to suffer a lousy OS just to play a good game...

Bye bye World of Warcraft

So I finally had enough of the Chinese Farmers and poor response by
the World of Warcraft (WoW) support people and nuked my account. I
had a level 60 pally with an Epic mount and a level 39 mage before I
called it quits. The final straw was a wait queue of 400 (51 minutes
esimated) before I could even login. WoW's response was "they've
optimized the number of servers for the number of subscribers they
have". Yeah right. You do the math: $14.95/month, 5 Million
subscribers. I think they could afford a few more computers and
someone who knows how to program a load balancing algorithm.

It was a huge time sink anyway. So whats been going on on this planet
in the last year??