The end of Microsoft is near!

leDoOd · Post by **leDoOd** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:45 pm

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/ap ... tcamp.html

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

Basically, if you got an Intel Mac, you can now run Windoze on it!

Now us Mackies can finally play a good game of Counter Strike Source with our PC chaps.

Edit: Rats, you need to have a Winblows install disk already... there goes more munniez to microsoft.

Post by **Jeff** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:17 pm

BTW, I predicted this almost 6 years ago (as David can attest to).

Unfortunately, this is pretty much a death sentence to the Mac gaming market. Why would people wait 6 months to a year for a crappy, more expensive port of a Windows game when they can just buy the native Windows version immediately and not have to deal with any of the consequences of a port?

hdlsa · Post by **hdlsa** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:25 pm

I wish windows would do this for mac, which they never would officially.

Post by **Jeff** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:40 pm

I am sure it will be done unofficially soon.

rudel_ic · Post by **rudel_ic** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:54 pm

It already has been done unofficially, but howto's concerning this have been erased from the internet. Apple raised legal threats because of this.

There are underground sites that still host such howto's, you most likely won't find these with google.

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:45 pm

Wait. I mean... what?
Are you saying that there have been programs that can actually run a Mac game on a windows (Umm, browsers don't count), or do you mean that it is illegal to port Mac games and, information that shows the howto's to porting is also illegal? That's the craziest thing ever and, and, I just don't get what exactly the howto is for (what it is howto-ing). But I can see how if some one had created a way to play mac games on a pc, Apple would definately need to sue, or something.

Also, I also don't get what the end to the Mac gaming market really means. I mean ya, if you can play windows games, why wait for a port? But if those games aren't even original, and they're are just a bunch a expensive crappy ports of old windows games, then what really is the Mac gaming market? Wouldn't it just be game-developers who have to figure out how to port their game over? How is Mac involved with this anyways?
And if Macs are able to play windows games, how is the market going to die? Wouldn't it just grow into one big universal market where both the windows and mac users could buy from. It would be better to buy and a hell of alot easier to make, than just porting and high prices.

Oh wait, unless you mean the developers of "original Mac games" that might crash along with that market then yes. The deaths of those intuative games would truly be an unfortunate loss (then again, David learned both pretty fast, why can't they?).
Unless, maybe you mean the "spirit" of the Mac gaming market, I guess that would die too.

Ok, maybe I'm just so helplessly confused. If I butchered up your ideas with the most retarted girble garble responce, I'm sorry. I think I'll need more explanation for this, some people are just a little slow.

(Uhh, I don't think this is a great place to put 'mr. green,' but he's just so cool)

rudel_ic · Post by **rudel_ic** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:08 am

All I'm saying is that there are ways to install MacOS X on x86 platforms and that you won't find information about how to do that easily.
I just flew over what bootcamp does, but it's a way to install WinXP on the new Macs, right? Otherwise, just ignore my comment.

Fournine · Post by **Fournine** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:38 am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4880022.stm

Drives are partitioned off for "Mac Use" and "XP Use" - Bootcamp lets you chose what OS to run during startup.
Windows is worming its way into Macs - I think this would be more of a threat to Apple than Microsoft.
Microsoft gets to expand its base of users into Apple's territory. Apple justifies their action by saying, “PC users get a taste of what it’s like to run on a Mac” – yeah, right. If I’m already using a PC, I’m not going to jump for a Mac with XP on it – I’d just grab another PC.

I myself use Microsoft stuff exclusively due to my upbringing, but I like that Apple is around – at the very least, they provide healthy competition that lower Microsoft’s already exorbitant prices. This blurring of the boarders worries me.

Post by **Jeff** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:23 am

Let me try explaining a different way:

Mac users suddenly have access to the operating system. Now they can run all the Windows software they want at full speed. This will (possibly) cause a lot more sales of Mac hardware to people who are worried about not being able to play Half Life 2 or use other software that is unavailable to Mac users. However, at the same time, since Mac users will have access to Windows, fewer and fewer developers will create Mac software, since they figure that Mac users can run Windows anyways, if they really wanted the software, they would just use this boot loader. This is especially true for gamers, since ports typically take a long time to come out and are typically lower quality anyways. So, the end result is less Mac native software overall and the virtual death of commercial game ports.

My personal opinion of this is that this is going to be a poor move on Apple's part. I predict that many Mac users, while running XP (and soon Longhorn) on their Intel macs will realize that they are using OS X less and less and find themselves booting Windows more often than not, due to the massive amount of software exclusive to Windows. These Mac people are going to soon realize that Windows is not as horrid and icky as they believed it was, while they were living in their shrouded Mac world, and will ultimately switch to a full blown PC, since Macs are still around twice as expensive as PCs.

However, I doubt that Apple is going to leave the situation as is. I predict that Apple is going to create an interface, similar to their Classic support for OS 9, for Windows. In other words, they will allow you to run Windows applications seamlessly in your OS X environment, like you could with Classic applications. This would be a much less invasive way to run Windows software on your Mac than by actually booting into the Windows operating system.

Crill3 · Post by **Crill3** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:00 am

Jeff wrote: However, I doubt that Apple is going to leave the situation as is. I predict that Apple is going to create an interface, similar to their Classic support for OS 9, for Windows. In other words, they will allow you to run Windows applications seamlessly in your OS X environment, like you could with Classic applications. This would be a much less invasive way to run Windows software on your Mac than by actually booting into the Windows operating system.

Yeah... that would be much healthier for the MacOSX methinks.
I wouldn't want the MacOS to die

If I had a MacTel, I would install XP to play....guess what?
Half-Life 2 of course. Everything Source & Steam.
But everything I could do in OSX, I would do in OSX... except trivial things like internet and email (not if I weren't going to play/hadn't played Windows games of course

).

This will be a time of much newsreading I suspect.

rudel_ic · Post by **rudel_ic** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:31 am

MacOS software won't die, Mac games probably will. But there will always be independent software development

MacOS'es are so unique concerning Look-and-Feel that they will always have a market and software, I'm very sure about that.

zip · Post by **zip** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:36 am

I see this as much more of a bad thing for Apple than it is for MS.. there's nothing so special about mac hardware that people will stop buying PCs if they can run Windows on their mac.
Though it wouldn't be the end of MS anyway, since people would still be buying Windows. MS doesn't make much in the way of PC hardware..

EvolPenguin · Post by **EvolPenguin** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:12 pm

Microsoft wins, it now has another company making hardware for it's operating system, and all it is, is an software company, they can't lose hardware sales, just gain software sales.

Alex

Lugaruman100 · Post by **Lugaruman100** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:18 pm

Jeff wrote:BTW, I predicted this almost 6 years ago (as David can attest to).

We all did...

Jeff wrote: Why would people wait 6 months to a year for a crappy, more expensive port of a Windows game when they can just buy the native Windows version immediately and not have to deal with any of the consequences of a port?

There are some people, out there in the world, who used windows for 12 years and are sick of using the OS. So when those people use the mac os they also want to play games outside of the window's os itself. Others just want to play a damn game on the mac os.

Crill3 · Post by **Crill3** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:16 am

Look! Look what Smeagol found!

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/

Some reports of kernel panic and other evil stuff though.