[MW Forums]

Peter Cohen takes a look at what came out of last week's Macworld Expo for gamers, and what's to come with the advent of Intel Macs. more

[cseeman]

Maybe it's just me . . . apparently it is just me but I do wish there'd be good team sports games on the Mac (Baseball, Football, Hockey, etc). . . heck I'd even be happy if Strat-O-Matic brought BACK their stat based games to the Mac. Is the market for this genre of games just too small on the Mac?

[ghmetcalfe]

THere may also be a drop in game purchases due to the similarity between A-list games these days. How many variations on FPS games can the market support? When it comes to sitting down at the Mac, members of my family consider Garageband, Painter and the internet as part of the "entertainment" package. Our latest addiction is Google Earth...if you haven't checked it out you'll be amazed.
For general gaming, we all prefer the PS2 and Gamecube...we're not in front of the computer and the games work with no fuss (and they are easy to find and buy). I imagine that the computer gaming market as a whole has felt the impact of the continuing sophistication of the console market.

[Monkeypox]

Nice recap - thanks Peter.

[Peter Cohen]

In reply to:

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Is the market for this genre of games just too small on the Mac?

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At least as far as the computer is concerned (PC or Mac), the answer is yes. Sports games are huge on consoles, clearly, but fewer computer users buy them. And the cost of licensing the games is massive, as you have to deal with players associations, leagues and so on in order to license team logos, player information and likenesses and so on.

[bradleys]

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heck I'd even be happy if Strat-O-Matic brought BACK their stat based games to the Mac

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I sometimes wonder what the market is for bringing old games back to life.
I dont even expect "more real than real" graphics...heck I was over the moon when Duke Nukem was reborn thanks to the folks at icculus.org...and I am certainly thankfull to the MacMame team for reminding me why I never had any of my pocket money left as a teen /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
As for the article, as much as I would probably enjoy the new "AAA list" games, I would get no value from them because of the time required to learn them, and the even longer time to get good at them...Like many people I simply dont have that time, and that is probably the reason why I dont (and probably wont) own a console. Many of the new blockbuster games are just too big for me to even bother starting with, and I suspect that as they get bigger and bigger in the future there will be more people like me, so it is no surprise that the market for them is tending to drift away from pc's and toward specialised gaming consoles.
The gaming requirements of both myself and my partner ARE satisfied with what is available from companies like Gamehouse, Pangea and Freeverse (as well as the multitude of offerings from individuals that occasionally turn out the odd gem!). We spend probably 2 to 3 hundred dollars a year on new games in the "casual" arena, so I suppose if we are typical it is easy to see the potential market for those games, which I might add are quite often "put down" in these forums (presumably by an arrogant minority of the "hard-core" crowd).

[Peter Cohen]

In reply to:

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As for the article, as much as I would probably enjoy the new "AAA list" games, I would get no value from them because of the time required to learn them, and the even longer time to get good at them...Like many people I simply dont have that time, and that is probably the reason why I dont (and probably wont) own a console.

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Interestingly -- and perhaps a bit ironically -- one of the big successes of the Xbox 360 has been the introduction of "Xbox Live Arcade," or XLA. And the reason why? It's chock-full of nostalgic retrogames and casual titles.
So presumably we're not alone in our love for games that don't require a huge amount of time to dedicate to, or near-superhuman skills to master -- even among those gamers who've felt it prudent to shell out $300 or more for an Xbox 360.

[bradleys]

In reply to:

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Interestingly -- and perhaps a bit ironically -- one of the big successes of the Xbox 360 has been the introduction of "Xbox Live Arcade," or XLA. And the reason why? It's chock-full of nostalgic retrogames and casual titles.

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I think this is a good thing and, from Microsofts perspective, neccessary to keep a broad user base, but it would be pretty hard to justify getting a new console to exclusively play them...thatwould be like buying a V8 Chev, pulling the motor out and using it on your lawn mower!. For myself and partner, what is available on the Mac is plenty. I would rather pay for more software. But for my partners daughter & family, a console has been well worth the money. He likes "big" games, she likes casual games and their 4yo child likes anything that goes wizz and pop and moves when you use the controls (and he cant wreck their PC by using it). Their console (a previous model X-Box) is well used, although they still do play a number of games on their PC.
As with anything, it all comes down to horses for courses /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif