Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, writing for ZDNet, recently did a post that he titled: "Where are Apple's high-end gaming Macs?"This is a good question, indeed, and one I that I often personally asked myself. As Adrian points out:
"If you didn’t already know, allow me to let you in on a secret. Gaming is a very lucrative sector for both component manufacturers and OEMs. Markups are still very comfortable on pretty much anything labeled as gaming. Gaming equals high-end, and high-end means high prices and good profits. In many ways this is an ideal market for Apple to go after, so why hasn’t it?"
Personally, I think he is right - Apple really needs a good gaming system and one that doesn't just equal those in the world of Window based PC machines, but one that actually goes beyond them, if at all possible. Certainly, of course, one can run games on the existing range of Macs, but not in the way that most serious gammers would like. As Adrian points out, gaming is big business and if anybody could make such a machine, I think it an innovative company like Apple - as they are super great at making both computers and money, and lots of it, I might add.
Adrian pointed out that most games are now developed for the Window PC's, but I say, considering how the Mac is selling like hot cakes these days, and how developers are now flocking to the Mac more than ever, developers wouldn't need, in my humble opinion, much arm twisting to start developing Mac specific games.
Already Electronic Art and other big time developers are looking to the Mac and developing versions of their games for it. Even though not technically written from the ground up for the Mac, they are, non-the-less, producing them in ever greater numbers, though they rely a lot on virtulization technology to get the job done.
Virtualization is a good a start, but hardly the best way to play games, as serious gamers will tell you. They demand more, and Mac users, frankly, deserve more. Gaming tends to push both the software and hardware design envelope, something that usually trickles down and ends up benefiting all computer users. A high-end Mac gaming machine would also give Apple not only a chance to capture more of the significant and growing market share that the gaming offers, but also a chance for Apple to really show it's stuff, to really create something more compelling than just a great multi-media machine, something that the Mac is now.
I agree with Mr. Hughes that Apple should add a really good and dedicated gaming mother board, however, I'm not quite sure that I agree on Apple adding an Assus motherboard, because, as great as they are, I believe Apple has the ability to create something better than Assus, or anybody else for that matter. I want to see Apple design it's own gaming motherboards, because, as usually is the case with Apple, it usually ends up doing the ordinary in an extraordinary way, and gaming motherboards, etc., should be no different.
So, in conclusion, I must say that even though I'm not a gamer myself, I would very much love to see Apple come out with a true and dedicated high-end gaming rig, but when it comes to Adrian's question: "Where are Apple's high-end gaming Macs?", only Apple can answer that.
Hopefully, Apple will soon answer with a high-end Mac gaming rig, and one that will not only blow our minds, but also gaming aliens, and what not, completely out of the water!
And that's my 2 cents 4 this Thursday, April 10, 2008.
Photo credit: ZDNet
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2 comments:
"Already Electronic Art and other big time developers are looking to the Mac and developing versions of their games ..."
Already? Where have you been? Is this just another article designed to ignore the horrible truth about Apple?
Major developers have been making games for Apple computers for as long as there have been Apple computers.
I was playing Mario Brothers on an Apple II more than 20 years ago!
For most of the last 20 years, very few games were made for apple because it was an unpopular platform with a narrow audience, running on odd hardware. Not worth the effort.
Today, Apple is closer to having games ... you're on the right hardware finally, but you still have too narrow of an audience and too odd of a platform. Not worth the effort.
Mac's are supposed to be the fun and cool computer, all the Mac TV ads promote it.
Where's the "I'm a Mac..." ad that talks about the utter lack of support or content for gamers?
Huh? Was the PC guy too distracted to be in that ad, busy having a great time on the hundreds of cool games available for him while the Mac guy just slacked off some more?
Surely that idea could have been squeezed into the new ad where the PC is made to feel bad because Microsoft just released a new version of Office for the Mac.
Yes Microsoft is so evil and horrible ... unless you're a Mac owner that needs to get something done, then it's right back home to MS Office.
At least you can sit in your dark corner and blog with your Mac, I guess it's not totally useless.
Dear Anonymous.
As a user of Mac computers I know that games have always been a part of Apple, but OS X is not yesterdays old Mac Classic.
Mac Classic, to be honest, sucked! I can't believe I loved it so! OS X is really just Nextstep, which is really just Unix, and as such, Unix never really was much of a gaming platform until OS X brought Unix to the masses.
As such, OS X is certainly better than any Unix which came before, game wise, but it still has a long way to go. Windows certainly the best damn gaming system, but now, with OS X, we may see some competition? However, personally, I'm not into gaming... too old or something?
Regarding the Mac vs PC ads, well, that's all they are - they are designed to get and bring attention to the Mac, and as such, well, it's safe to say that Apple got their money's worth, regardless as to whether you love em or hate em. I, like so many others, like the PC guy the best. That said, Apple paid big money to get attention and that's the whole purpose. Apple is a big business, but they are not an agency, that's why they pay big bucks for one to create those ads.
Again, getting back to gaming for the Mac, that's the whole point of my post - we need more. My blog is nothing more than a practice blog, I never thought that thousands of people each month would read the damn thing, but I guess, practice makes perfect, right?
Anyway, thanks for your comments. We obviously don't agree, but that's life. I prefer OS X over Windows, but I never said Windows was useless, even though, as an Apple cheerleader it may seem that way. You wouldn't expect the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to root for the Denver Broncos, now would you? Neither should you expect an Apple fan to root for Windows, or vice versa. I think OS X, Windows and Linux are all valuable. They give us a choice.
And, choice is good; very good indeed!
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