[n8mac]

jabbe said:

how come whenever gaming on a mac comes up, people always say "just buy a console for that". console gaming and pc gaming are two totally different beasts.

Exactly. It seems many post their ideas on the subject while only being casual gamers, or not gamers at all. Almost all true gamers own at least one of each. The price point of consoles are great but what if you are say into strategy games? What about card games like solitaire?

Even if those of you who say "buy something else" don't play games, you should still be concerned because that is lost sales for Apple which indirectly effect you. I know families who considered buying a Mac but when they found out about the lack of games and hardware expansion for them, they chose a Windows box because they had a child who was a gamer. So when taking into consideration whether or not Apple should actively support gaming, one must consider not just the buyer but the whole household.

And for those who say that actively supporting gamers will cheapen Apple's image does not make sense to me because gaming rigs often are middle priced or sometimes in the high-end. And many who purchase these rigs are often adults like me and Peter.

[smax013]

n8mac said:

While I also yearn for a mini tower Mac, us 'tinkers' are not completely shut out. Just buy used Mac towers. After all great new computers make great used computers. Sure they won't be as fast as the new stuff, but they are highly customizable and rock solid. Just wait until they hit your price point and buy.

That's what I do. And yes I am a gamer. I currently have two Macs networked and as soon as I get some extra $$ I will buy a third Mac now that I have another friend into it (who actually prefers the one-button Apple pro mouse WOOT!) The alternative would be to go my friends house who has two PC's running Windows. Even though he owns similar games as I do we hardly ever play there because his computers are always having problems. Total nightmare, but they got their cheap of the shelf hardware, right?!

You may not get the latest games this way, but to me it doesn't matter. The quality of the games doesn't diminish over time. In fact they get better with updates and expansions. It's actually cheaper to buy the 'gold' version that's already patched than separate new purchases that may be full of bugs.

Of course this does not diminish the fact that Apple needs to sell a mini-tower. Actually it proves it, because Apple is not directly getting my $$ for my purchases. I even buy my OS's used.

As for my vote on Apple hardware or other hardware: I will never buy non-apple computers even if they go generic, because I've seen what cheaper than Apple hardware can do for the user experience. The problem is that most of the people who buy computers for their home doesn't know this, and Microsoft preys on this. I will give Microsoft props for one thing though: They know the value of the gaming market.

You do realize that the "problems" with Windoze systems are not all due to "cheaper" hardware, don't you?. In fact, the cost of the hardware is likely completely unrelated. A big reason why Windoze systems have a lot of problems is that Micro$oft has to deal with TONS more variation in hardware. Thus, it is MUCH harder to test compatibility and such. That is the big advantage that Apple has. Because they have such a limited product line that allows for very limited customization, it is much easier for them test and support their systems. Even the high end Mac Pro system has very limited options for something like grapihcs cards. This means that compatibility issues are much easier to deal with. So, keep in mind that if you get what you want (i.e. a mid-tower with more "options" for graphics cards), you increase the likelihood that your Mac gaming environment that you like so much due to lack of problems might just become more Windoze like with more compatiblity problems.

[mdawson]

>

Quote

Re: Apple's return-on-investment (ROI) because of, e.g., support costs: If Apple relaxed its EULA for hobbyists such that it read something like, not, "Do not install on non-Apple-branded hardware" but rather, "IF you install on non-Apple hardware, you're on your own for support." Hobbyists (or at least their consciences) would be happy and Apple could actually make more than from just the sale of OS X; as has been reported in the Frankenmac column by Rob Griffiths, updating OS X on non-Apple hardware would likely break the installation, requiring enterprising 3rd-party folks to work out a patch - hey, isn't that kind of open-source coding exactly the kind of atmosphere that fosters innovation that Apple itself could benefit from? (Think Konqueror>Safari but not as grandiose.) I'm suggesting de-coupling OS X from Apple service obligations to enable hobbyists to do what they want to do - figure things out for themselves. How does this hurt Apple?

It can hurt Apple because ultimately, just as with home built Wintel PCs, some hobbyists will take it upon themselves to build non-Macs for friends and sully the reputation that Apple has built up over the past decade for having robust systems. The average computer user is not a technophile, does not keep up on the latest tech news and trends (including regularly participating on boards such as these) and is even more ignorant of how Apple differs from other PC OEMs on almost every level. The second something goes wrong, and it will quite often on unsupported hardware, consumers will think it is an issue with Macs when it fact the issue is that they do not own a Mac.

Apple has gone through licensing the OS to other hardware OEMs and the result nearly killed the company. Apple is and has always been first and foremost a hardware company and not a software company like Microsoft. For them to offer up the piece of the puzzle that makes their hardware unique is irresponsible, period. In the mid-1990s, Apple paid the price of having made such a decision when the clone market quickly began cannibalizing Apple?s bottom line.

>

Quote

Of course this does not diminish the fact that Apple needs to sell a mini-tower. Actually it proves it, because Apple is not directly getting my $$ for my purchases. I even buy my OS's used.

Ding, ding, ding. And we have a winner. Very good point. Where the price of the Mac Pro is more of an issue, the used Mac market comes to play and Apple makes no money in that arena. At this point, the professional Macs are so powerful that for a great many prosumers at least, waiting getting a 1-? to 2+ year-old used Mac tower that is priced in their budget is a real consideration.

By offering the professional mini-tower at a lower price point Apple would profit from those already doing as you do and gain increased profits from those that ?settle? on an iMac. Realistically, there may be losses as some migrate away from the full-sized towers, but the mini-tower has the potential to attract more Switchers that think that they need an expandable system even if they really do not along with ?settlers? to balance or potentially reverse any potential losses on the extreme high-end.

>
As for my vote on Apple hardware or other hardware: I will never buy non-apple computers even if they go generic, because I've seen what cheaper than Apple hardware can do for the user experience. The problem is that most of the people who buy computers for their home doesn't know this, and Microsoft preys on this. I will give Microsoft props for one thing though: They know the value of the gaming market.

I would not go as far as to say that Microsoft knows the value of the gaming market so much as they happen to monopolize the OS market on x86-based hardware. It is in fact the PC OEMs that recognize that there is ?gold in them thar hills? and catering to the gaming market required little modification to their existing business model. Wintel PCs are generally the same cookie cutter boxes across the board, with the difference between consumer grade, business class, prosumer/professional being a simple matter of what is added or subtracted from the prefabricated motherboards in the prefabricated cases. Take a system configured for the pro market, tweak some specs and add a kiss a-- graphics card and any Wintel OEM has a gaming rig ready to sell at a premium.

Technically, Apple could have BTO options that allow the Mac Pro to be configured as a gaming rig, and to some extent they do, but the problem is ultimately the graphics card market for Macs. The (very) few higher-end OEM graphics cards available for the Mac Pro are better suited to pros that need powerful GPUs (e.g., 3D modelers, animators, CAD, etc.) than gamers. Where after market graphics cards are concerned, the selection has shrank to less than a trickle making the Mac Pros less attractive as long term gaming solutions; that is, gamers that buy a Mac Pro now with a graphics card that is good enough will be hard-pressed to find decent upgrades as there needs increase over the life of the machine. Even if Apple is not too concerned with hard-core gamers, they do need to make serious inroads into convincing the graphics card OEMs that their products should be cross-platform by default?you know like just about every other computer peripheral that you can buy.

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
I don't know if there is a market for an offering between iMac and Mac Pro. Could be... Let's be honest though, most consumers don't upgrade even the memory in a personal computer much less add PCI cards, extra hard drives, ...Even I thought that I would upgrade the GPU, ... in my Power Mac G5 back when but I always ended up putting that $$$ aside for a completely new Mac. I purchased it "off he bat" to suit my needs and it lasted me through the few years to get a totally new machine. Quite frankly, if there is a market it isn't huge.

As far as gaming is concerned, I've really jumped on the console bandwagon. I very much enjoyed games like the Diablo and Myth series, or Halo ( on the Mac )...Throw in some SImCity 2000 and voila! Some games also work best with a keyboard and mouse and not a typical game controller ( gamepad ). However, my 360 with Forza 2 Motorsports ( with wheel and pedals ) and Halo 3 plus Wii with Wii Sports, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, and Mario Galaxy give me plenty to enjoy outside of work. Consoles also allow one to play the latest and greatest games without worrying about the latest and greatest GPU, ... This, of course, leaves for games to be limited by the hardware as far as graphical quality, ... but usually it's minor. I have no regrets on the $$$ I've put into consoles in the last few years.

Now if only we can keep the preteens off XBOX Live with the poor sportsmanship and unnecessary foul and lowbrow language plus have reasonable Internet connections all around, we'd be golden. :-)

[Peter Cohen]

MS certainly understands the value of the Windows gaming market. The "X" in Xbox symbolizes DirectX, which is Windows technology, and the company's initial groundswell of development for the Xbox platform came from Windows developers. The company has created its XNA program to help support the cross-platform development of games for Xbox 360, Windows and Windows Mobile. What's more, gaming on Windows grosses close to a billion a year in sales. It would be negligent of Microsoft to ignore that.

Having said that, the PC gaming market is in decline, and has been for a number of years now as the popularity of consoles has risen. Consoles have gotten more powerful and games on consoles are harder to steal, making them an attractive option for game developers and publishers. Risk-averse publishers are generally more likely to back the efforts of a proven franchise than they are of fledgling products, so the money is more plentiful for add-ons and sequels to popular console titles, as well.

As I've said elsewhere before, in order for a graphics card market to exist on the Mac, the Mac OS X development strategy would have to undergo a sea change that I don't see any time soon: For Apple to relinquish ultimate control of Mac OS X OpenGL driver development to graphics card makers, much in the way that this happens in the PC market: ATI and Nvidia come up with new reference drivers on a regular basis, which they've created in collaboration with Microsoft, but which are ultimately tweaked and redistributed by the card makers (or simply vetted for use with their cards). The way it works now in the Mac space is very monolithic: Driver updates come from one place and one place only -- Apple -- which controls what new features and capabilities are exposed in the drivers and what hardware is supported.

This has been the bane of more than one game developer's existence, because it puts the onus squarely and uniquely on Apple to fix problems when they occur. Need to expose a more efficient path for some graphics code that can increase your game's frame rate by 30 or 40 percent, or want new pixel shading technology? You will be waiting for a point update to Mac OS X to make that happen. And you'll get little or no feedback from Apple about if or when that will happen, because they're every bit as secretive with developers as they are with the general public when it comes to "unreleased" products, even system updates that may be necessary for a developer's product to run well, or at all.

Yes, Apple's system makes sure that there's a relatively uniform level of compatibility across the operating system, but it does so at the cost of exposing features, capabilities and performance for products like games. And it chases away hardware and software developers that might otherwise support the platform and its burgeoning user base, but are totally unwilling to put up with the limitations of trying to do so competently. And really, under the circumstances, can anyone blame them? The Mac market is growing in leaps and bounds but it's still tiny compared to the PC market, especially when it comes to games.

[mdawson]

I don't know if there is a market for an offering between iMac and Mac Pro. Could be... Let's be honest though, most consumers don't upgrade even the memory in a personal computer much less add PCI cards, extra hard drives…

I would definitely agree with you about the consumer/home market. In fact, I have posted as much recently and often in the past when discussing Apple’s product lines. Apple recognizes how the consumer/home market actually works and as Apple is actually an engineering design firm that builds market specific systems from the ground up they offer consumer-level systems that a well suited to the “real” long-term needs of most home users.

That is not to say that Wintel PC OEMs do not also recognize this fact, but as they generally have a buy it, assemble it and sell it business model, actually designing a consumer-level system means undertaking a huge paradigm shift in handling the production of lower-end systems. Companies like Dell, HP, Gateway, et al., will find it hard to continue selling bargain basement systems to the home market for under $500 when they have to suddenly have to start to maintain and salary a dedicated hardware design team that does more than figure out how to strip out a tower and add cheap components to reduce the selling price.

As to the market between the iMac and Mac Pro, it is not a consumer space, but a pro space. The Mac desktop line up jumps from a high-end consumer system in the 24-inch iMac Duo to workstation class tower systems in the Mac Pro. Apple, quite frankly completely overshoots the core professional desktop market. Now I have no issue with the following the audiophiles axiom on amplifiers—you cannot have too much power—the Mac Pro is still overkill for most professional users given what contemporary systems offer.

Let’s face it, many pros may need the power that the Xeon offers, but they do not necessarily need 4 to 8 cores to get their work done in reasonable time. The Core™ 2’s are plenty powerful for many pro users, but Apple does not offer Core™ processors in the Mac Pro. Most pros definitely need a hardware expandable system, but not necessarily to the extent that the Mac Pro offers. Towers like the Mac Pro specifically offer the level of PCI-based expansion that is necessary for pros that need out-of-the-box add-on capability as well as future proofing, but most pros really only need the latter.

With current desktop drives now available in capacities up to 1 TB and 1.5 TB drives expected some time this year, only those in professions where drive space is quickly spent, few professionals need to have more than two drives internally. Now, while one could make the reverse argument that anyone can simply add external drives regardless of internal drive capacity, having one’s desk quickly fill up with external enclosures is not an attractive option. For the most part, any computer user, professionals in particular, should not need to resort to external drives except for portability of data or Tier 2 (on-site, removable) backup.

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
I'm not saying that a Core 2 Duo Mac Pro with two 3.5" bays, one 5.25" bay, one PCI Express x1 and one PCI Express x16 2.0 slot wouldn't sell. I know my brother would have interest in such. Something of a mini-Mac Pro. I'm just saying that maybe there isn't quite enough out there, or Apple's research says as much, to make it worthwhile for Apple to add such a product line ( R&D, manufacturing, support ).

As far as gaming goes, PC gaming is definitely a big ticket ( $$$ profit per unit as a gaming 'rig' needs to be professional performance ) market but it's also a very niche market. Number of true hardcore PC gamers are probably steady by now but I don't foresee their numbers growing.

[n8mac]

mdawson said:

I would not go as far as to say that Microsoft knows the value of the gaming market so much as they happen to monopolize the OS market on x86-based hardware.

(I know Peter already answered this but I just have to reply.)

So Microsoft just happened to create 2 gaming consoles along with an internet service to play online? They just happened to create a software called directX that gets constant updates and is by far faster openGL? They just happened to buy up a bunch of gaming houses that are responsible for some of the most popular games ever? They just happened to have an entire division dedicated to the market? I could go on but I will stop.

While I'm usually good for a Microsoft bashing any day I do respect what they have done in the market. And while I try hard to boycott them entirely, I gave into the Age of Empires series. I think I'm addicted to the second one.

I do agree that the hardware OEM's make their share of the profit but so do the software vendors. When I think about it though the profit margins on the hardware can't be that huge. Take the graphics card in the windows world for example. It has a processor that does some things faster than a CPU, has a decent amount of ram, heatsink, it's own board. It's almost like a computer within a computer. Sure when it's released it demands a hefty price but many wait until that price reaches sane levels anyway. Plus with so much competition the price has to come down.

[n8mac]

MacCheetah3 said:

...Super Smash Brothers Brawl...

I love that series! To me it's the best out of all consoles. Many good memories. To this day I still fire up the N64 and beat up on donkey kong with ness or kirby using nothing but bombs and pokeballs. I know this is OT but I couldn't resist.

Maccheetah3, if you are not too familiar with the series, they are very customizable - especially Brawl. I made a board that was a box with a small opening so it was hard to get out and thus hard to die. I put on special brawl with 4 cpu's. Tiny, fast, 400% health, curry, and nothing but bumpers and gooy bombs. They flew across the screen so fast, my sides still hurt!

Plus the Final destination board is GORGEOUS. Who says you need hi def to look good?

Back on topic, consoles are great but only go so far. Some in-depth games require keyboards and mice. But hey, modern consoles have USB and internet connections, right?

[Wilddragon]

Why has the gaming market become equated with high-end graphics? Has the bottom fallen out of sales for strategy games, turn-based games, etc? The games that I have most enjoyed over the years had relatively modest graphic requirements.

[Peter Cohen]

Wilddragon said:

Why has the gaming market become equated with high-end graphics? Has the bottom fallen out of sales for strategy games, turn-based games, etc? The games that I have most enjoyed over the years had relatively modest graphic requirements.

Because gamers often demand eye candy and game developers push the envelope by providing advanced visual effects that strain graphics processing power. That's as true for strategy games and turn based games as it is for first person shooters. Even games that people think of as "casual," like the Sims 2, are very graphically demanding.

[jackdawsson]

Spot on, jabbe. For those that like the genre of Total War/Age of Empires strategy-gaming, a console will never suffice. Then there's running 3D apps, etc.

To expect everyone who has need of a dedicated video card to settle for those glossy iMac screens (most people seem to either love them or hate them) or spend big money on a Mac Pro, is I think a major obstacle to more people switching.

Also, I have an iBook & have been ready to buy a Mac desktop for months now, but presently there's nothing for me short of buying refurb (I can't deal with glossy screens without feeling that I'd be making a major compromise). If Apple can't give us a consumer tower, then at least give us decent BTO video options on the new Mini (when it's finally released).

[atarikee]

"As far as gaming goes, PC gaming is definitely a big ticket ( $$$ profit per unit as a gaming 'rig' needs to be professional performance ) market but it's also a very niche market. Number of true hardcore PC gamers are probably steady by now but I don't foresee their numbers growing. "

Amen.

I take comfort in the fact that Apple will NEVER release a junk box just because a few vocal geeks with small wallets can't afford a Mac Pro.

[jackdawsson]

Just like to retract my previous concerns about the iMac's glossy screen. Bought a new 20" iMac recently (with HD 2600 PRO card) & from a gaming perspective (& otherwise), I really have no issues with it whatsoever. A slight repositioning of my desk & reflections are mostly non-existent. In fact, this thing exudes quality in all departments & will happily run all the games I want for the foreseeable future (ie. no "Crysis" for me, but instead I'm much looking forward to "Empire: Total War", etc.).


However, I'm buying Mac-native games where possible - just picked up "AOE III" & will be ordering "The War Chiefs" in next few days. So certainly no Psystar for me & I'm very pleased with the overall performance of my iMac, gaming included.