Après des rumeurs et du teasing, Valve Software vient d'annoncer officiellement l'arrivée de Steam ainsi que tous ses jeux utilisant le Source Engine sur Mac. Le client sera donc accompagné de Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal et les jeux de la licence Half-Life ; le tout pour une sortie prévue en avril prochain.

Au niveau de la technologie, Valve précise qu'il ne s'agit pas d'une émulation, mais bel et bien d'un développement à part entière avec l'introduction de WebKit dans Steam et d'OpenGL au Source Engine. Le client Mac ne sera pas une sous-version, vu qu'il s'agit de la version actuellement en phase de bêta test sous Windows.
Steamworks pour Mac supporte toutes les applications de Steamworks, et en ajoute même une nouvelle baptisé « Steam Play », qui permet aux clients d'acheter un jeu sur Max ou Windows et d'y jouer sur l'une ou l'autre plateforme gratuitement. Par exemple, Steam Play couplé avec Steam Cloud, permet de jouer sur un PC puis de jouer au même jeu sur Mac et de le reprendre à l'endroit arrêté.

Par ailleurs, tous les prochains jeux du développeur sortiront en simultané sur PC, Mac et Xbox 360. Bien évidemment, les patchs pour Mac seront disponibles en même temps que celles pour Windows.

[privatejoke]Ah, et n'oubliez pas d'aller récupérer votre bière chez Jean-Charles. [/privatejoke]

Le communiqué complet se trouve dans la suite de la nouvelle.

VALVE TO DELIVER STEAM & SOURCE ON MAC

Leading Gaming Service Expands to Mac Platform

March 8, 2010 - Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac.

Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. 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. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. 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. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."