Is Steam Coming To The Mac?

10:00AM February 25, 2010 | Michael McWhertor

Yesterday’s announced update to Valve’s Steam digital distribution service came with a surprise – hints that the Half-Life developer may be planning to add Mac OS X support to the currently Windows-only platform.

Steam forum members dug through newly released files from the recently launched open beta and dug up a handful of Mac OS X-specific graphics, like the open, maximise and minimise jewel icons that are used in the operating system’s windows. While that could be chalked up to Steam’s change to a WebKit-based interface – Valve has moved away from a reliance on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the service – there are a few other Mac-specific graphics buried within. That includes system dock graphics and a handful of text files.

We’ve reached out to Valve to see why the developer has added OS X graphics to Steam, but have not yet heard back.

Mac OS X Support! [Steam Forums]

Comments

  • Justin Robson

    February 25, 2010 at 11:34 AM

    YES PLEASE.

    That’d be amazing if I could play Half Life 2, Garry’s Mod and stuff like that without having to boot into Windoze. It’d also be pretty sweet if they’d port/emulate their development tools so I could map in OS X as well… I just hope I wouldn’t have to re buy/re download games.

  • Jo

    February 25, 2010 at 1:33 PM

    Good in theory I guess but most games will still need windows.

    • womble

      February 25, 2010 at 1:56 PM

      Yes, games still have to be ported to Mac OS X. A very time consuming, very expensive process, undertaken by each developer.

      • mambodog

        February 25, 2010 at 7:08 PM

        or they could just package each game up with a custom version of crossover games or cedega, tweaked for that particular game. the performance would be decent.

  • 706

    February 25, 2010 at 2:02 PM

    If it does go to Mac would Windows and Mac gamers be able to play together online? I have a friend whom got a Mac that often wants to LAN and it would be cool if we could network steam games.

  • Templar737

    February 25, 2010 at 3:44 PM

    You can run steam and quite a few games already using Crossover for Games.

    http://www.codeweavers.com/

    I use it to run games a fair bit. It’s not perfect but good enough if this steam for Mac doesn’t happen

  • bleach1st

    February 25, 2010 at 7:15 PM

    Saturation of the viable PC market? I use a Mac and would love to see the service on Mac’s, even if there are near to no games currently available for the platform…

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