Cross Platform Compatibility Confirmed
Valve have finally confirmed that Steam will be coming to Mac, after a somewhat large period of speculation. Steam will be coming to Apple's platform in April when users will have access to the full catalogue of the developer's titles including Left 4 Dead 2 and the Half Life series. Valve have also confirmed that future games will be available simultaneously on Windows and Mac, starting with the long awaited Portal 2, expected for a release this Christmas.
Jason Holtman, Valve's Business Developer also announced the introduction of 'Steam Play' which allows you buy a game once and then revisit it at any time on either Windows or Mac. He said, "For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac." He added, "We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."
John Cook, Steam's Development Director added that they will be treating the Mac platform as an entirely separate 'Tier-1' entity so it will receive simultaneous releases with no emulation required. "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates," he said.
Meanwhile, Valve has confirmed that users of both Windows and Mac versions of titles will be able to participate in cross-format multiplayer action. The first title details came for both Left 4 Dead games where it was said that you will not have to buy both versions of the same game. In essence, "If you own Left 4 Dead 2 for Windows, then you already own it for the Mac." Good news for all you Mac users out there. All we need now is the announcement of Half Life 2: Episode 3 and it will be good times all round for Valve followers.
