Gaming comes back to the Mac
Back in the day when we had the Apple computers, my favorite video game was Oregon Trail. I remember sitting in 3rd grade, racing across the country getting typhoid, having my cattle stolen, and finding gold. Those were the glory days. A few years later, Myst was released for the Mac and it was one of the most beautiful games ever released (IMHO). I remember playing the puzzle game for hours upon hours…. then suddenly, something happened:
Apple left the video game space… or better yet, developers left Appe b/c it was too expensive to make games for the Macintosh (not enough sales to justify the cost).
It’s now June 11, 2007 and today, Steve Jobs has announced that Electronic Arts will be developing games for the Macintosh platform. At the World Wide Developers Conference, Bing Gordon, co-founder of Electronic Arts (ERTS) got on stage and announced a few upcoming titles for the Mac: C&C3, Battlefield 2142, NFS Carbon, and in July, Harry Potter (Phoenix).
I am extremely excited. Apple is increasing their market share (and their valuation is showing this) and has lots of room to grow. The Intel chipset has allowed them to level the playing field with Redmond (Microsoft) and really take gigantic leaps.
Apple is positioned well. They have an operating system that works, hardware that is beautiful, peripheral devices such as the iPod that have significant traction, software that is universal (iTunes), and a to-be-released phone that is estimated to grow their company, +$10B. Are their competitors this well rounded? I’d argue no… and Apple can only grow… the have tons of market share to steal.
This is Apple’s resurgence back into the market. The video game industry should take them seriously as the Apple reach is increasing quarter over quarter.
I’ll be buying a few Apple/EA games for our house… sorry Sherri, but the games are calling!