why can't MacBooks play as many games as Microsoft?

Ask the games' developers - it's they who choose not to write their games for the platform.

reddog34 wrote:

why can't MacBooks play as many games as Microsoft?

Windows has more market share first off.

Second: Apple's MacPro is too expensive for most 3D gamers to afford

As a result there are nearly no video card upgrade options for the MacPro which 3D gamers need to upgrade so as to take advantage of game improvemnets and newer games without having to buy a new machine.

Third: Apple changes it's operating system way too often, then deny's earlier OS X users security and stability updates, developers need Apple to fix things on their end too, and Apple just ignores them.

Fourth: Dedicated consoles have seriously dented the 3D gaming market and play on TV's etc., at subsidized prices, aka the war between Microsoft and Sony, which they have income coming from other parts of thier buisness to assist in their battle.

Apple could make a awesome 3D gaming machine and likely sell a lot of units just on their brand name alone.

I have been using Macs since 1994 and I have found that noondaywitch may be the closest to the reason despite ds store's eloquent points.

I have done what noodaywitch says in the past and the response has generally been something like "The Mac is not considered a games machine." So basically it is prejudice on the part of the developers I'm afraid. Note - never any explanation as to why the Mac is not considered a games machine (or why the PC is). I mean, in days gone by people invented games to play on the Abacus didn't they?

As for Window having a greater share of the Market. Well, that has always been the case. But that hasn't stopped anyone producing games for the PS3, the Xbox, Wii DS and so on. In fact they do produce games even for the Mac - just at least 12 months after every other machine available. Other than prejudice against the Mac, what other reason is there for doing this?

The lack of upgradability of video cards for some Macs could concievably pose a problem for some Developers. But I doubt it. If this were the case, how come games still come out for the Mac, even a year later when any installed cards will be that much older? Also how do ordinary PC owners cope? Send the machine to landfill and buy another?

I have to say that my late 2007 iMac copes well with all the games I have bought for it so far, such as Bioshock, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Myst etc. My only issue is lack of 'Game controller' availability in the games. Mostly they are keyboard control only and I detest this. Hurts my hands something rotten. I do need to be careful when buying games. For example the latest outing of LaraCroft and Tomb Raider specifically stated that it did not support the ATI Radeon HD2600 series graphic cards. As mine is an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB I assume that mine is not covered.

Looking at today's AppleStore, Tomb Raider doesn't appear to state the above limitation any more. I wonder if this has changed now or they simply don't mention it? Looking at Feral Support, Tomb Raider is still at version 1.0 so I doubt if anything has changed.

"Apple could make a awesome 3D gaming machine and likely sell a lot of units just on their brand name alone." I agree. That would be amazing. Sadly I believe that they got their corporate fingers burnt with the Apple 'Pippin'.

Finally, one more thing that might interest you. When I was a youngster during the mid 1980's many of us had the ZX Spectrum. These machines had their own programming language built in (a form of BASIC). There were dedicated magazines for the machine that dealt with programming in BASIC amongst other things as well as Gaming. Gaming sold the machine. The machines's built in programmabilty created young programmers. One could learn to programme in Machine Code too. There was even a C Compiler that one could purchase.

I believe a lot of people went on to programme for the PC. I don't recall Apple machines existing at that time. At least, not in the UK. PCs were established here before the Mac. Long enough to get it great sales advantage.

I don't if anyone has ever been encouraged to programme on the Mac the way we were on the ZXSpectrum. To this day I have never read any literature at all, nor seen any magazines, on how to do it. For some reason, on the Mac, programming seems to be a proprietary secret (here in the UK at least).

Sorry to reply so late but I have only just come across this thread whilst looking for something else.

Have fun, whichever game you have! Let's hope the situation improves.

Message was edited by: El Deanio