Once I was able to replace both my desktop and laptop with Intel Macs, I dismantled my PCs. I had no use for them anymore and since I can boot into Windows any time on my Macs, I have the best of both worlds.

Although, truth be told, I almost never boot into Windows anymore other than to check a website design in IE.

I'm not convinced by Vista at all. One of my friends was very excited to see that you can basically get OS-X - effectively running on WinXP (I don't know a lot about all of this, and don't follow it - so this may be slightly or completely wrong).

MS is slowly getting squeezed on all fronts - including from Google, Sony, Apple (and more).

The danger for MS is that PC's DO become irrelevant - although I can't imagine NOT using one at work (be really wierd if we ever all upgrade to Macs or something like that). With all these other devices out there (consoles, phones, etc..) it will become irrelevant in my home soon - pretty much the only thing I use it for is "heavy" web browsing / forum posting - and downloading. Light browsing happens on the Wii, as does gaming - media playback from my DVD player.

I'll say it again - people also seriously underestimate the iPhone. The demand for it is already so high, the initial shipments are completely sold out (and you can't get even close to buying one). A lot may depend on how many Apple can produce (no idea of the quantities...).

The next few years are going to be REALLY interesting. I predict (again) that the next Xbox will basically come with Vista on it (it WILL be a PC...).

Considering the success of Macbooks, the insane profits of Apple and the history of game development for their OS's, it's no suprise that we might see more gravitation towards Mac games. Both Simultaneous Mac/PC releases and perhaps even some Mac only games from smaller Dev's. Gaming really is the Mac's one big sore spot. I'm sure they'd be willing to put resources behind turning that around.

Oh how I miss you Bungie. You brightened my Mac Gaming days with Myth 1 and 2. And the promise of Halo was great... So great... I cry for you Bungie, you're dead to me now.

Regarding id software they program all their software using cross platform tools such as OpenGL which allow them to offer support for all 3 major Operating systems: Linux/Mac/Windows with almost no added cost to do so above what it would take to make it for just one of those.

Anyways I do not see the big deal here seeing EA's biggest selling computer games The Sims and The Sims 2 as well as many expansion packs have already been previously released for Mac. Many games that are developed using cross platform tools such as OpenGL are ported to the Mac because of the low cost to do so and I would like to one day see more developers use cross platform tools instead of locked into one OS DirectX. One of the biggest publishers to use OpenGL is Blizzard and even on Windows you can use OpenGL instead of DirectX to run their games.

Update: It appears that EA is not porting these titles over to Mac but rather using Cider to get these games working only on Intel processor enabled Macs. Cider is Transgaming's Cedega, which is a fork of wine, ported over to Mac but for developers only and so in a nut shell if it works under Cedega any of those games can also be made to work on Mac.

There are Six games to be released which are Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Madden NFL 08, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08, Need for Speed Carbon, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Battle Field 1942. You can view the games that are already supported under Cedega on the Wiki and Forums that I have linked below.

Cider - http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/

Wine - http://www.winehq.org/

Cedega Forums - http://www.cedega.com/forums

Unofficial Wiki - http://cedegawiki.sweetleafstudios.com/wiki/Main_Page

Yeah but what Apple wants is to CHANGE that. Which came first for PCs? The developer support or the gamers? Chicken or the egg? I think Apple wants to try to build a gaming population on the Mac platform (although this will take a long time).

You missed my "disclaimer" - I think that it would take 2 generations to accomplish this feat (if it's achieved at all) because said PC (Personal Computer, not Wintel) gamers already have their 2K$ Wintel rigs to game on, so at least for now they are not going to change sides right away (not to mention that it will still take time for the Mac to actually get these games, and while they're being ported/translated/reengineered/whatever Mac users still have precious little to play with compared to Wintel users).

And actually, if you go back and have a look at the games that were available for the Mac, say 15-20 years ago, they were light years ahead of DOS-equipped machines with crappy 320x200 resolutions and awful 4-color CGA graphics - compare that with Mac graphics back in the day, not to mention its sound capabilities far surpassed what DOS could do back then. They even had a very nice library of games, many of them exclusive to Macs.

So your chicken and hen question isn't nearly as relevant as to why the Mac lost its gaming support in the first place? The very same reason why developers are flocking in droves to the Wii this generation, and why they flocked in droves to the PS2 during the last generation: Volume. There is simply more money to be made on a platform that is roughly 4x larger than the nearest competitor.

You hit it on the head YM and that is why wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) was created so that anyone on a Unix based system can enjoy Windows created content without having to use Windows. In case you are wondering Intel Macs can use wine now and as such can play many Windows based games. Although this really adds more reasons to keep making content for Windows at least you can still enjoy it.

apple wants to grab any customer it can. by getting id and ea they can ensure that other developers will come over too. while they might not convince the guys with the 4k rigs to get an apple, they can convince the guy who wants os x, but likes windows games. little by little they will start competing. this announcement is disastrous for ms. if ms stops making a profit in a single quarter im placing the blame mostly on this (i consider that a good thing, we need real competition).

20 GB of textures!? WTF for?

True. Actually, I believe that apart from the PowerPC architecture running out of steam, Apple changed to Intel because "if you can't beat them, join them" - by changing to CISC they are at least architecturally much more similar to Wintels now.

However, in that regard, it still is, for the sake of argument, an "emulator" and games still need to be "ported" in the sense that not all games will work with WINE, and those that do still may run with mixed results. Additionally, games designed around DirectX need to have advanced features (e.g. pixel and vertex shaders) implemented within WINE for the game to support it in the Unix environment, which brings up the problem that the eventually by using the full set of APIs and DLLs natively (which WINE can do) you essentially have to license Windows anyhow, which a) drives up costs, and b) is kinda silly IMO since if you need to license Windows to run games on your Unix platform, why not just use Windows in the first place?

Finally, there are quite a number of games out that work with WINE nowadays, and the list will undoubtedly grow, but it is still a far cry from the plethora of games that were designed for Wintel platforms and work natively with Wintel (pun aside, Far Cry doesn't work with WINE!).

I do understand your point, however. Linux and Macs running Unix have more games now, but somehow I can't shake the feeling that a) many are old games, and many simply will never make the list, so your selection of games won't be nearly as plentiful.