Valve Officially Announces Steam and Game Library Coming to Mac in April

[MacRumors]

Valve Software today officially announced that it is bringing its Steam game distribution platform, as well as its own library of games, to Mac OS X next month.

Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

Valve also confirmed reports that it will offer its forthcoming Portal 2 game as a simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."

Also included in the announcement is the addition of a new "Steam Play" feature for Steam, allowing purchasers of either the Mac or PC versions of Valve's games to play on the other system free of charge. Third-party game developers distributing through Steam are also widely expected to take advantage of the feature.

Valve leaked a series of teaser images hinting at its move to the Mac platform last week.

Article Link: Valve Officially Announces Steam and Game Library Coming to Mac in April

 

[Gen]

Sweet, can't wait to get rid of bootcamp.

 

[macintologist]

Does anyone NOT like this announcement??

BTW, does this mean we will finally play Half Life 1 on the Mac after it was cancelled?

 

[Zuwxiv]

And I'll get to play my games for free? No re-buying games for another platform?

Just another reason to love Steam and Valve.

 

[alent1234]

nice, now all apple has to do is sell a decent hardware configuration with no $1000 monitor included

 

[CptnJustc]

Also included in the announcement is the addition of a new "Steam Play" feature for Steam, allowing purchasers of either the Mac or PC versions of Valve's games to play on the other system free of charge. Third-party game developers distributing through Steam are also widely expected to take advantage of the feature.

For me, the biggest and best news, and something I wasn't expecting even after it seemed pretty certain Steam was coming to the Mac. Can I get a hallelujah?

 

[greg400]

nice, now all apple has to do is sell a decent hardware configuration with no $1000 monitor included

They tried that already.

Anyway, i'm ecstatic right now over this announcement.

 

[Lasse86b]

Oh, how life is beautiful. So are all the macs around the world and the beautiful people at Valve.

Of course, performance will be king. I'll have to enjoy Portal 2 on my 9400M MBP 13", so I don't feel I can afford to loose any juice gaming on mac. Any opinions on that? Can't WAIT to see the first benchmarks.

 

[olaeke]

This is great news!
I hope more developers will follow now that Valve has taken this step.

 

[jimmyjoemccrow]

Sweet! Can't wait to play HL2 on my iBook!

 

[cmaier]

I smell a sea change.

 

[JamesJa]

Yes! Best games coming our way. I might have to look into a system upgrade some time this year.

 

[Cycom]

niiiiiiiiice! hopefully more third party devs start porting their games to Mac.

 

[50548]

Sweet! Can't wait to play HL2 on my iBook!

Excellent news. This ALSO means that one of the last reasons for people to keep (unwillingly) their inferior PCs is practically vaporized now.

MS IS DEAD. AND SO IS DELL.

 

[parafish13]

I'm making a note here:

HUGE SUCCESS!

No more playing TF2 only when I'm visiting home!

 

[NAG]

I would be happy with them just making it cross platform. Throwing in the added value of playing mac or pc with one license just makes it great. Helps smooth over the drama regarding the mac version of Half Life.

 

[Tsurisuto]

Thank you Valve, now this is the kind of news that I like to read!

 

[stridemat]

Guess it's time to blitz the new graphics card on my (soon to purchase) i5

 

[K2`]

does that mean i have to re-buy all my games?


edit: nvm.. i learned how to read

 

[Sverkel]

Do I understand this the right way?

I do not have to go and buy a new version of Counter-Strike to play that on my Mac? Or Half-Life 1 for that matter?

 

[Mrbill317]

No Rebuy

I think they announced that PC buyers could play the same games on Mac for Free.
That is awesome as I switch often between Mac and PC

 

[brendon2020]

i'm curious if we buy the mac version can we still play it on our pc or if we buy it on the pc if we can play it on my mac.

 

[blizaine]

Steam Play sounds awesome

 

[pdjudd]

does that mean i have to re-buy all my games?

No. Read the OP:

Also included in the announcement is the addition of a new "Steam Play" feature for Steam, allowing purchasers of either the Mac or PC versions of Valve's games to play on the other system free of charge.

 

[Pachang]

I'm making a note here:

HUGE SUCCESS!

No more playing TF2 only when I'm visiting home!

Do you live at work and visit home sometimes?