3 ms·

Why would any game company be Mac first? Mac is a small slice of the pie of computers. Mac gamers would be a crumb. It's not exactly a surprise they would targe

Why would any game company be Mac first? Mac is a small slice of the pie of computers. Mac gamers would be a crumb. It's not exactly a surprise they would target a platform that has actual market share.

bluedino 8y ago
The same reason any other company develops Mac-exclusive software.
danaris 8y ago
I'm not suggesting they be Mac-first today. I'm saying that's where they got their start (when it was a much, much smaller slice!), and the first real demo of Halo was at MacWorld Expo 1999. It was running on a Mac then. But then Microsoft bought them, and they had to port the whole thing to XBox, and when it eventually came out for Mac years later, it was a port of a port. Imagine if Halo had been a Mac-exclusive when it launched. True, it wouldn't have had the full force of Microsoft's marketing machine behind it, but it still could have made a world of difference for Mac gaming, for those of us who did care about such. And then they were bought, and Mac gaming lost its chance to become remotely relevant for another decade or more.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  If Halo had remained a Mac game, then like Marathon before it, the game would have passed silently in the night unnoticed by most of the gaming world, to be read about years later. And bungie would have gone bankrupt. Getting bought by Microsoft was the best thing that could have happened to bungie at the time.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    Pretty much. My understanding is that they sold to Microsoft precisely because it was that or fold up shop. But the Mac itself still seemed under threat at that time. Having such a cool-looking game that was going to be Mac-first, if not Mac-only was a PR/morale booster. And its then being absorbed by MS, who was very much The Enemy in those days, was an equally large bummer. And not just the game: Bungie was really a darling of the Mac community. They had created and published a string of awesome games over the course of the 90s, all Mac-first. Pathways, three Marathons, Myth I and II, Oni... "Losing" them was a blow.

bluedino 8y ago

The same reason any other company develops Mac-exclusive software.

danaris 8y ago

I'm not suggesting they be Mac-first today. I'm saying that's where they got their start (when it was a much, much smaller slice!), and the first real demo of Halo was at MacWorld Expo 1999. It was running on a Mac then. But then Microsoft bought them, and they had to port the whole thing to XBox, and when it eventually came out for Mac years later, it was a port of a port. Imagine if Halo had been a Mac-exclusive when it launched. True, it wouldn't have had the full force of Microsoft's marketing machine behind it, but it still could have made a world of difference for Mac gaming, for those of us who did care about such. And then they were bought, and Mac gaming lost its chance to become remotely relevant for another decade or more.

gamblor956 8y ago
If Halo had remained a Mac game, then like Marathon before it, the game would have passed silently in the night unnoticed by most of the gaming world, to be read about years later. And bungie would have gone bankrupt. Getting bought by Microsoft was the best thing that could have happened to bungie at the time.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  Pretty much. My understanding is that they sold to Microsoft precisely because it was that or fold up shop. But the Mac itself still seemed under threat at that time. Having such a cool-looking game that was going to be Mac-first, if not Mac-only was a PR/morale booster. And its then being absorbed by MS, who was very much The Enemy in those days, was an equally large bummer. And not just the game: Bungie was really a darling of the Mac community. They had created and published a string of awesome games over the course of the 90s, all Mac-first. Pathways, three Marathons, Myth I and II, Oni... "Losing" them was a blow.