Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Blizzard's Upcoming Game 'Overwatch' Won't Be Coming to OS X

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,560
30,891



While game developer Blizzard has a long-standing history of bringing its games to OS X in addition to Windows, the developer today confirmed at its BlizzCon fan convention that it will not be bringing its new game, Overwatch, to OS X, according to Polygon.


Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan confirmed the news, acknowledging that the company has longstanding support for Apple's computers. However, Kaplan says the company focused its efforts on Windows due to the "technology behind Macs."
"Currently with the technology behind Macs and the way Overwatch runs it's just too challenging for us at this point to support it," Kaplan said. "Our focus right now is entirely on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4."
Click to expand...
Kaplan didn't specify what Mac technology was making it challenging for Blizzard to make the game for OS X, but Apple's support for graphics technologies such as Metal and OpenGL may be part of the reason. Some of the early developers who committed to Metal, such as Adobe, have backpedaled a bit as they work with the new technology. Apple has also been criticized for not adopting the most recent versions of OpenGL, which is also heavily relied upon in modern game development

Most recently, Blizzard launched free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game Heroes of the Storm for Mac OS X on June 2, 2015.

(Thanks, Teyla!)

Article Link: Blizzard's Upcoming Game 'Overwatch' Won't Be Coming to OS X
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/11/06/blizzard-overwatch-mac/
D

DougTheImpaler

macrumors 6502a
Feb 28, 2006
569
64
Central Illinois
AleXXXa said:
It wouldn't run smooth on intel graphics anyway. :D
Click to expand...
Yeah, kinda hard to fault Blizzard when the only Apple machines that would be able to run it are $2500 iMacs and Mac Pros. Hardly anybody buys the highest-end Apple desktops (relative to the mega-selling 13" MBPs and MBAs)

Anybody who's serious about gaming on their Mac probably has a Windows installation anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: adib, sd70mac, saiz66 and 24 others
H

Horselover Fat

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2012
232
306
Germany
Fondaparinux said:
Dear Blizzard,

34MTwNI.png

.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't this go to Apple? They never cared about gamers and this development is just another manifestation of that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: adib, sd70mac, saiz66 and 49 others
R

Rogzilla

macrumors regular
Sep 11, 2007
192
6
Spock said:
I always liked console gaming anyway, I buy a game and I know it will play on my hardware.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much me. I've got an Xbone and I love playing games on it. I've been in love with this game's visual style since day one and the positive word of mouth I'm hearing from the beta has me really excited. But since I don't really game on my Mac (even though I do have a couple games on it), I felt like it would probably pass me up. But this has me excited again.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tucom
dumastudetto

dumastudetto

macrumors 603
Aug 28, 2013
5,023
7,164
Los Angeles, USA
Horselover Fat said:
Shouldn't this go to Apple? They never cared about gamers and this development is just another manifestation of that.
Click to expand...

Apple are blameless here. They have baked amazing technologies into OS X El Capitan that blow Windows out of the water. It's up to developers to take advantage of all the power and capabilities of the world's most advanced operating system. It appears Blizzard are not capable of getting the job done.
 
  • Like
Reactions: iPaintCode, MagMan1979, Watabou and 2 others
Pakaku

Pakaku

macrumors 68040
Aug 29, 2009
3,138
4,454
cycledance said:
then why are the minimum requirements for pc low?
then why is the overwatch tab in mac battle.net? remove it!
why are all other blizzard games on mac realised?
Click to expand...
Because the game isn't even out of beta yet? And Blizzard would be smarter to focus on a more widely-used OS?

Once things on the PC side settle down, they'll begin working on OSX. This is how virtually all game companies work. They start with a main OS and port it to others later. I don't understand why Overwatch is suddenly the odd one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac, simonmet and H2SO4
L

locust76

macrumors 6502a
Jan 23, 2009
688
90
To everyone in this thread: this has nothing to do with OpenGL or Metal, as is so ignorantly stated in the article. They're bringing the game to the PS4, which uses a form of OpenGL, so obviously the graphics API is not the issue.

This clearly has everything to do with the graphics hardware available in Macs. Intel Graphics is just too weak. The guy posting the emoji middle finger should take a look at benchmarks pitting low to mid-level discreet AMD and Nvidia PC graphics hardware against Intel's integrated graphics and then reevaluate his position.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FightTheFuture, Kiwikat88, Watabou and 7 others
SmileyDude

SmileyDude

macrumors regular
Jul 24, 2002
194
61
MA
Sure Apple has a role in this, but Blizzard has some blame too. Diablo 3 has been out for almost three years now and still ships as a 32-bit application on OS X, while requiring a 64-bit only OS. This is allegedly because it's easier to support Windows with a single 32-bit app.

And a big company like Blizzard can certainly afford to put more engineers on the OS X port to support Metal if they wanted to. This isn't the Blizzard of 10 years ago.

As far as Apple being behind on the high end gaming hardware, that may very well be true. But a company like Blizzard doesn't just make games for the bleeding edge -- they need the support of the more casual players that don't go out and buy the biggest and best hardware just to play games. And that's true on Windows as much as it is on OS X.

Finally, if the game can run on console hardware like the Xbox One and the PS4, it can certainly run on recent Mac configs. By the time the game actually ships next year, Apple will have most likely upgraded their machines again and the difference between a higher end Mac and the consoles will widen even more.

More likely, IMO, is that someone at Blizzard (or the higher ups at Activision) looked at the sales numbers for first person shooters on the Mac, did some calculations, and decided that it wasn't worth the effort to support the Mac. I don't know if that's a good idea or not -- it might work out on paper for them, but there might be some unseen consequences of this move. For one, Mac gamers have been awfully loyal to Blizzard over the years. Blizzard has been putting out Mac versions of it's game since the classic MacOS era (I still have my copies of WarCraft, Diablo and StarCraft -- all originally ran under MacOS 7.5, 8 or 9). For them to decide now, after Apple's largest quarterly Mac sales in history and with a growing marketshare, to not support the Mac on a new title may come back to bite them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac, iPaintCode, nvmls and 21 others
Pakaku

Pakaku

macrumors 68040
Aug 29, 2009
3,138
4,454
SmileyDude said:
Because for Blizzard, Overwatch *is* the odd one. They've been releasing Mac versions on the same day as the PC version for a while now, going back to at least WarCraft III back in 2002.
Click to expand...
But they still have to port code over to be able to run under OSX technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually still learning Metal, and they're not ready to immediately release an unfinished port of a beta.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac and jamesnajera
M

MacLC

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2013
414
272
locust76 said:
To everyone in this thread: this has nothing to do with OpenGL or Metal, as is so ignorantly stated in the article. They're bringing the game to the PS4, which uses a form of OpenGL, so obviously the graphics API is not the issue.

This clearly has everything to do with the graphics hardware available in Macs. Intel Graphics is just too weak. The guy posting the emoji middle finger should take a look at benchmarks pitting low to mid-level discreet AMD and Nvidia PC graphics hardware against Intel's integrated graphics and then reevaluate his position.
Click to expand...

Thumbs up because you're right that Apple has no excuse for their current offerings, BUT by the time the game ships and has a couple of patches to be actually usable, currently shipping Macs will be faster... hopefully.

Still, being a fan of the old PM 7500 with its ultra fast 50mhz bus, removable CPU, and 3 expansion ports. Even the 7200 got a jury rigged CPU daughter card upgrade eventually, and all the Macs from then on that cost at least $1300 (other than the iMac) had expansion ports for graphics cards. Even the original Rev. A/B iMacs had the mezzanine slot for a Voodoo2 card.

Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to Apple. Trying to max out margins will cost sales in the long run. No major developer has ever been as faithful to Apple as Blizzard. Well, Bungie was before Microsoft bought them. Blizzard jumping ship is as significant in the gaming world as Adobe jumping ship would be in the DTP world.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac, LePPe, Oblivious.Robot and 6 others
SmileyDude

SmileyDude

macrumors regular
Jul 24, 2002
194
61
MA
Pakaku said:
But they still have to port code over to be able to run under OSX technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually still learning Metal, and they're not ready to immediately release an unfinished port of a beta.
Click to expand...

Given how they've rolled out Metal on their other games (i.e, not at all), I don't think that's what holding them up here. Plus Metal would limit them to only El Capitan machines (granted, less of an issue in the era of free OS X updates, but still a concern).

As far as Macs having outdated GPUs that would cause a problem running this game, here are the requirements for the PC side:

Screen Shot 2015-11-07 at 1.58.26 AM.png


I'm struggling to think of a recent Mac that doesn't meet those specs (other than OS). Even the lowly MacBook has enough GPU power for this game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac, Samuelsan2001, rhett7660 and 6 others
Garsun

Garsun

macrumors regular
Oct 20, 2009
181
183
I look at this as a blessing, I've wasted way too much of my life on WOW, I won't be able to if they don't support OS X.
Sort of like Starbucks running out of coffee......
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki and Benjamin Frost
Hastings101

Hastings101

macrumors 68020
Jun 22, 2010
2,340
1,461
K
Don't really blame them, Apple's not exactly encouraging gaming on the Mac anymore with their... interesting hardware choices and insane resolutions. Metal probably cuts off a significant portion of the OS X user base too, so that's not very encouraging either.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sd70mac, Gnawbert, hfletcher and 3 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom