More Proof that Steam is Coming to Mac OS X

Late last week, we talked about some hints that Valve was dropping about a potential Apple-based Steam client, and over the course of this week, there’s been even more hints, and also an out-right confirmation to Apple site MacNN about the client, from Valve’s own marketing VP Doug Lombardi. Sure enough, Steam is en route, and Apple gamers have a lot to be excited for.

In the thread related to the earlier news post, I mentioned that for a product like Steam to be truly successful on the Mac, it needs to have game support. I alluded to the fact that it’d be great for Valve to port its Source engine over to the Mac, but to be honest, I didn’t see it happening too soon. But, I was wrong, and at this point, I realize that I was quite naive. Of course Valve is going to port over its Source engine, especially if it’s going to go through the trouble of developing a native Steam client!

I am not sure where most of these wallpapers were originally posted, but Valve has been extremely creative in getting the point across. I absolutely love the ad (found at the link below) with the very old-school Mac that shows the iconic “Hello” in a stylized writing, and then a Steam logo right below it. The parody of the popular Apple commercial from the 80’s, with the runner, isn’t a bad touch, either.

According to rumors, it seems like Half-Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 are en route to the Mac, and if I were a Mac gamer, I’d be excited as heck. Especially for Half-Life 2, which I (and countless others) consider to be one of the -best- computer games ever created. If Mac gamers haven’t had a chance to play it, hopefully this will be the last push they need to do so. What’s most interesting to me, though, is just how much of a push this will give other developers to port their own engines to Mac OS X, and hopefully for my sake, possibly Linux someday. One thing’s for sure, Valve’s to be commended for taking the leap.

By extension this suggests that Half-Life 2 and its episodic releases may be on their way, given that both Portal and TF2 were released alongside HL2: Episode Two for Windows. It is not known if the Steam gaming platform will be necessary to play, but Mac elements have been in found in the code of a recent Steam beta. A formal announcement is likely during the 2010 Game Developers Conference, scheduled for March 9th to the 13th.