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

[iBug2]

again, you could not be more wrong. Its NOT the hardware. Its the drivers. Apple provides nearly 2 year old drivers in OS 10.11.1. And Apples support of OpenGL is versions behind the industry. They simply do not care about their driver development. Run any game in OS X then run in in boot camp on the same Mac using Windows with the same hardware and you will easily get 2x the performance and a load more graphic options.

Run a game on Windows using Open GL (not many games support it) and then using DirectX. There'll be a huge difference in performance. Apple knows this, and knows that Open GL isn't the way to go. So what you are blaming Apple for is exactly what Microsoft has been doing for 20 years on Windows, supporting a private API instead of Open GL.

Now Apple comes out with Metal, which is an analogue of DirectX 12, and yes it is in its infancy for now but it'll get better, but it's the first correct step Apple has taken for gaming in the last 20 years if you ask me.

Blizzard's mac team is extremely small, and I think they have only one guy who is dealing with the engine work for all Blizzard Mac games. He may be extremely busy porting all the current engines to Metal right now, so bring in a completely new game and it won't be possible for one person to do it all.

My guess is that we'll eventually see Overwatch on OS X. It just will be the first time in many years that it won't be available on day one.

 

[Reason077]

not to mention retina display and even the dedicated chips at least in laptops are lacking given the resolution

The performance penalty of Retina resolution isn't relavent for a 3D game like Overwatch. They run full screen anyway, so it's no problem at all to just drop down to whatever resolution they need to get the best performance.

Modern Mac hardware is more than capable of playing a game like Overwatch. The problem is the software. Apple have chosen to push their own standard "Metal" for graphics acceleration in OS X and iOS, which is fine, but it's different from the standards used on PCs and consoles. It will take some time before Metal matures, developers learn how to code for it, and the industry's tools are adapted to support it.

If Overwatch is a success it will, most likely, run on Macs some day. In the mean time, you can boot camp into Windows and I'll bet it'll run just fine.

 

[Stella]

Elite: horizons won't be coming to the mac because the current implementation on OSX of OpenGL is lacking.

So blizzard isn't alone... the list will grow.

 

[Ap0ks]

They're bringing the game to the PS4, which uses a form of OpenGL, so obviously the graphics API is not the issue.

FYI - the PS4 doesn't use OpenGL at all, it has two graphics APIs that are both proprietary Sony creations, GNM which is a low level API similar to Mantle & Metal and GNMX which is a higher lever API similar to OpenGL & DirectX.

 

[vultuk]

This revelation SHOULD be as significant to Apple as the Taylor Swift issue was to Apple Music!

 

[Plutonius]

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?

total bs from a lazy and greedy company.

Blizzard is partnered with Microsoft on Overwatch so why are people surprised that it isn't being developed for OS X ?

Based on the low pc requirements, it should run well under bootcamp on most newer Macs.

 

[Jyby]

Guessing the way Blizzard develops their software, they already have the game running on Mac and probably pretty decently. In my opinion I think they just don't want to spend the dollars to support a fourth playform with the lowest return on investment. Support includes the whole product lifecycle...

This has nothing to do with any hardware or software... The graphics libraries are definitely not hardcoded into the game engine either. Thise libraries are modules... A lot of you seem to have this notion that porting for Blizzard or Mac support is so hard. Its not if you developed the game on a fundamentally crossplatform engine in the first place.

Blizzard would be stupid to have

#ifndef WINDOWS_OS
//do some os specific stuff
#endif

for every platform all over their codebase. Thats bad design.

What will happen is when Blizzard beggins to make money on the other platforms they'll work with Apple, like most AAA developers on the Mac, to bring their game to the Mac. Apple engineers are notorious for working with big game developers... When the Elder Scrolls Online was being beta tested Apple released 10.9. That added OpenGL 4.1 breaking ESO. Zenimax developers clearly worked with Apple to get that resolved. Apples support of valve is also pretty good from what Ive heard.

 

[JosephAW]

FF 17:30

We've lost Steve's vision a long time ago. :-(

 

[Jimios]

"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."

Translation: "The percentage of OS X users is so small, we won't bother making a client for it."

Stuff like that is one of the reasons I will always keep a separate Windows pc, mostly for gaming.

 

[cdm283813]

I always liked console gaming anyway, I buy a game and I know it will play on my hardware.

Console gaming stinks. I was going to buy a console until I saw that the Need for Speed developers capped the game at 30 frames per second for both the Xbox one and PS4. There is always a little compromise here and there when it comes to the consoles. If I'm playing a game I want a no compromise experience. It's the same reason why I despise certain iOS games. Why should I race cars on my iPhone when I have a full blown gaming rig with wheel not that far from me? And I don't have to worry about those damn in app purchases.
If you're serious about gaming the PC is the ultimate choice. It does not have that instant plug and play that consoles have but the results are much more satisfying. And when Oculus Rift comes next year I will be prepared.

 

[Merode]

The times when Apple was boasting how Macs are more powerful than Pentium driven PCs are long gone.

PAST: Apple was boasting about performance and design and they could compare its stuff to competitors like HP and Dell.
NOWADAYS: Apple is boasting only about design and making comparisons only to its own devices (50% faster than last year's etc.).

Intel GPUs are adequate for some not demanding games. The dGPUs they offer with better hardware are all mediocre (or even borderline low-end) except for retina 27" iMac. Even then, you should run games in 1080p because gaming in 5k would be hard even with two of these GPUs.

Overall, Apple is all about looks and mobile devices nowadays. It's fine though, money's flowing and they have strong consumer base who are extremely loyal (and rather not gamers).

TLDR: Apple's the only one to blame.

 

[Jimios]

Blizzard's mac team is extremely small, and I think they have only one guy who is dealing with the engine work for all Blizzard Mac games. He may be extremely busy porting all the current engines to Metal right now, so bring in a completely new game and it won't be possible for one person to do it all.

Well, that's not really an excuse for a multi-billion dollar company such as Blizzard. You can always hire more people if there is enough demand for what they do. I guess it's simply a matter of business decisions, and not supporting OS X for Overwatch is probably a very conscious business decision. Overwatch is most likely going to be a niche, competitive game, and the target group doesn't run OS X. Not the same as WoW for example, which is played by a very wide variety of people, including a considerable amount of people running OS X.

Edit: Apple also shares the blame for this, because if they included high-end GPUs with their desktops as well as proper driver support, they would attract a lot of gamers who currently have to stick to their Windows pcs.

 

[dstud208]

This makes me sad. Elite Dangerous is doing the same thing. The original client supported Mac, but in the expansion they are dropping Mac support due to missing technology (specifically compute shaders - beyond what metal has to offer) I'll still be able to run in boot camp, but it still makes me sad... Plus I'm tired of always needing to shower after turning on Windows

 

[Merode]

enough demand

Here are the keywords, when it comes to Macs and gaming. Why do you think Apple itself doesn't care about gaming on Mac at all?

 

[John Mcgregor]

This makes me sad. Elite Dangerous is doing the same thing. The original client supported Mac, but in the expansion they are dropping Mac support due to missing technology (specifically compute shaders - beyond what metal has to offer) I'll still be able to run in boot camp, but it still makes me sad... Plus I'm tired of always needing to shower after turning on Windows

If gameplay is a dud who cares about damn shaders.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

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.

This is a first for Blizzard, that's why. They've always had same day release for Windows and OS X, going back over 20 years. The closest they've ever come to not having same day releases was back in 2010, when StarCraft 2's beta started out Windows only, but then halfway through the beta they added OS X support and the final game released on both on the same day.

 

[cdm283813]

"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."

Translation: "The percentage of OS X users is so small, we won't bother making a client for it."

Stuff like that is one of the reasons I will always keep a separate Windows pc, mostly for gaming.

Well it's not the developers fault that Apple charges so much thus keeping market penetration stagnant. And for a person like me that has the money for a Mac I'd rather throw that same money into my current rig to make it a gaming beast. My left over parts will then be used to make a media computer. I've been doing that for the last 20 years. I even have the same case from 10 years ago that housed many builds. Makes it easier to spend $$$ on upgrades without the wife ever finding out.
Only professionals, students or people with money to burn buy Mac's. A true gamer does not buy a Mac. Apple had a golden opportunity to catch Microsoft during Windows 8 but today Windows 10 is pretty awesome.

 

[iMcLovin]

I dont know why, but only Apple seem to be using metal, and OSX is full of things that makes gpu heavy stuff slow. I dont know why but apparently Apple isn't doing enough to encourage graphic heavy productions to make a proper OSX version. I find it sad that Blizzard is abandoning OSX, it was one of the few proper developers left doing Mac games. Adobe is also not doing a banged up job making the most of their programs performance though OSX. In El capitan and with my 4.000 dollar iMac im getting lower performance in Adobe products than I get on an old Windows machine....so time to step up the game Apple and encourage some proper usage of Macs and graphics...

 

[John Mcgregor]

Well it's not the developers fault that Apple charges so much thus keeping market penetration stagnant. And for a person like me that has the money for a Mac I'd rather throw that same money into my current rig to make it a gaming beast. My left over parts will then be used to make a media computer. I've been doing that for the last 20 years. I even have the same case from 10 years ago that housed many builds. Makes it easier to spend $$$ on upgrades without the wife ever finding out.
Only professionals, students or people with money to burn buy Mac's. A true gamer does not buy a Mac. Apple had a golden opportunity to catch Microsoft during Windows 8 but today Windows 10 is pretty awesome.

Wishfull thinking. That's like saying that MSFT can somehow catch up to iOS in phones and tablets. They can't.

 

[John Mcgregor]

Blizzard is partnered with Microsoft on Overwatch so why are people surprised that it isn't being developed for OS X ?

Based on the low pc requirements, it should run well under bootcamp on most newer Macs.

Same as with Halo when the original game was available for Mac and after MSFT bought Bungie no more Mac version.

 

[Reason077]

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.

This has nothing to do with the hardware. Overwatch will run just fine on any modern mac, if you boot to Windows.

 

[cdm283813]

The times when Apple was boasting how Macs are more powerful than Pentium driven PCs are long gone.

PAST: Apple was boasting about performance and design and they could compare its stuff to competitors like HP and Dell.
NOWADAYS: Apple is boasting only about design and making comparisons only to its own devices (50% faster than last year's etc.).

Intel GPUs are adequate for some not demanding games. The dGPUs they offer with better hardware are all mediocre (or even borderline low-end) except for retina 27" iMac. Even then, you should run games in 1080p because gaming in 5k would be hard even with two of these GPUs.

Overall, Apple is all about looks and mobile devices nowadays. It's fine though, money's flowing and they have strong consumer base who are extremely loyal (and rather not gamers).

TLDR: Apple's the only one to blame.

If Intel releases a CPU that's twice as powerful compared to the previous CPU I can upgrade within a week. But for any of these Mac's it will take months before they have access to it and that normally means buying a whole computer. I've been building custom rigs for a long time and I can't see how anybody can buy a throw away computer. Even those silly all in ones with the monitors has to be the dumbest purchase yet. You're basically stuck with the same computer until you get rid of it. I've seen PC makers do that as well so I'm not entirely bashing Apple.

 

[Jimios]

Well it's not the developers fault that Apple charges so much thus keeping market penetration stagnant. And for a person like me that has the money for a Mac I'd rather throw that same money into my current rig to make it a gaming beast. My left over parts will then be used to make a media computer. I've been doing that for the last 20 years. I even have the same case from 10 years ago that housed many builds. Makes it easier to spend $$$ on upgrades without the wife ever finding out.
Only professionals, students or people with money to burn buy Mac's. A true gamer does not buy a Mac. Apple had a golden opportunity to catch Microsoft during Windows 8 but today Windows 10 is pretty awesome.

Sure, I don't blame Blizzard for not making a Mac client. I would have done the same. Apple is just not interested in the "true gamer" market segment, because frankly I think that segment is pretty small.
As for me personally, I have been building my own pcs for 20+ years, from the DOS/Win 3.1 era up to today. I'll still own a Windows pc for the foreseeable future (and yes Win 10 is pretty damn good), but as I grow older I find myself moving from "true gamer" to casual user, and my 5 year old Macbook Pro is actually enough for my daily computing needs. I fire up my Win 10 pc a couple times per month when I want to game for a couple hours.

 

[John Mcgregor]

Sure, I don't blame Blizzard for not making a Mac client. I would have done the same. Apple is just not interested in the "true gamer" market segment, because frankly I think that segment is pretty small.
As for me personally, I have been building my own pcs for 20+ years, from the DOS/Win 3.1 era up to today. I'll still own a Windows pc for the foreseeable future (and yes Win 10 is pretty damn good), but as I grow older I find myself moving from "true gamer" to casual user, and my 5 year old Macbook Pro is actually enough for my daily computing needs. I fire up my Win 10 pc a couple times per month when I want to game for a couple hours.

Here we go with true gamers.

 

[appledefenceforce]

People getting up in arms about games, on laptops, the ones that are never meant to be good for games. lololol