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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,523
30,809



AppleInsider reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook paid a visit today to the the headquarters of Valve, the video game firm behind the Steam digital distribution platform and a number of popular PC and Mac games. While the purpose of Cook's visit is unknown, his presence at the company's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington suggests that it may have been of some importance potentially relating to collaboration between the two companies.

valve_logo.jpg

Just over two years ago, Valve made a splash by leaking a set of teaser images to MacRumors and other Apple and gaming sites revealing that it would be bringing its Steam game distribution platform and a number of its own titles to the Mac platform. Steam for Mac launched in May 2010 with over 60 titles, and Valve now offers over a dozen of its own games for Mac through the store.

Earlier this year, Valve released a Steam companion app for iOS, allowing users to browse the Steam marketplace and even purchase games for later download and play on a PC or Mac.

It is unclear just what Apple and Valve might come up with in terms of an expanded collaboration if one is in the works, including whether it would extend in some form to iOS or remain limited to gaming on the Mac platform. Valve has been rumored to be working on its own hardware offerings related to Steam services, and the company has just posted job openings related to hardware engineering for such projects.

Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits Headquarters of Video Game Firm Valve
 

inket

macrumors regular
Dec 23, 2009
151
102
*Hoping Tim Cook is more serious about gaming on Mac than Jobs*
 

tonytiger13

macrumors regular
Jan 9, 2008
106
3
I may be too optimistic here but Valve was teasing a gaming console (but had little support in hardware and distribution of said hardware) and now a huge hardware/software company is visiting. I can dream.
 

Cougarcat

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2003
7,766
2,553
Valve is working on a "big picture mode" for TVs...maybe Apple's TV will be getting it?

I hope Cook urged Valve to make a real Cocoa-native Steam client rather than the half-assed hack we have now.
 

RoboCop001

macrumors 68000
Oct 4, 2005
1,561
451
Toronto, Canada
Maybe he's just secretly a huge gamer and loves Half Life so much that he wanted to visit them. :D

Actually perhaps they're meeting to discuss games on the App Store. Whether that includes the Apple TV remains to be seen, but that'd be sweet.
 

Mr-Stabby

macrumors 6502
Sep 1, 2004
330
273
It's probably going to be about developing games for iOS. Maybe the original Half Life for iOS or something.

As much as i'd like to believe otherwise, i doubt the CEO of Apple would visit Valve to try and organise some new gaming initiative for Mac. They just don't appear to care about the Macs that much anymore.
 

2499723

Cancelled
Dec 10, 2009
812
412
I wonder if it has anything to do with trying to merge together Mac App store game purchases and those purchased on Steam. Such an eventuality would most certainly gain my support!
 

chrmjenkins

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2007
5,325
158
MD
*Hoping Tim Cook is more serious about gaming on Mac than Jobs*

He should be. It's the single greatest market segment of the PC industry that Mac is largely missing out on.

Behind price, playing games is the second biggest reason I hear from young people as to why they don't go mac.
 

pgiguere1

macrumors 68020
May 28, 2009
2,167
1,200
Montreal, Canada
Valve and Apple join forces to make a gaming console.
Hardware and OS design by Apple. Online integration and ecosystem by Valve.

Gabe Newell (director of Valve) on their upcoming gaming hardware:

"We'd rather hardware people that are good at manufacturing and distributing hardware do [hardware]. We think it's important enough that if that's what we end up having to do, then that's what we end up having to do."

One can dream. :rolleyes:
 
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Limboistik

macrumors regular
Aug 11, 2011
193
5
Perhaps they are colluding to combine their software and hardware expertise to create something that will revolutionize the gaming industry.
 
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