After a week of not-so-subtle hinting, Valve have announced that Steam and the Source engine will be making an appearance for Mac users.
This means that Mac users will get access to Valve’s range of games such as Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series as well as future games like the newly announced Portal 2.
Steam will launch in April on the Mac and will incorporate new features in keeping with Valve’s idea of entertainment as a service.
One these is ‘Steam Play’, a handy feature that allows you to buy the game once and still be able to play it on both Windows and Mac.
Another feature is cross-platform compatibility giving Mac users the opportunity to fight the PC crowd, after all there’s only so much stick a man can take.
Valve are showing full support for the Mac providing native versions of Mac games as opposed to simple emulations. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development.
“We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”
Gabe Newell, President of Valve, added: “As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients. The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”
Mac and PC users under the same roof? Valve announcing two things in the space of a few days? Surely the World has gone mad. You decide.
