BioWare: Mac version of Star Wars: The Old Republic is something it's 'looking at next'

BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk are quite dedicated to their fans. At least that's a recurring theme for them when talking about their company's moves in new directions, to which both repeatedly referred during a recent interview in midtown Manhattan. "We know there's a big Mac audience of BioWare fans ... we know that's an important and large audience. And we want to serve that audience," Muzyka told me when asked about a potential Mac version of the his company's latest major release, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"I'd say 'not yet,'" Zeschuk assured me when I told him that, as a BioWare fan, I'm unable to play The Old Republic on my less than two-year-old MacBook. Though Muzyka was quick to remind me that I can technically play the game on a Windows partition, he also admitted that it wasn't an ideal situation. "We've done a lot of Mac ports before of our games. We haven't announced any details yet for The Old Republic, but we know that's an important and large audience."

Neither would offer a strict timetable on the Mac version, but Zeschuk did note, "That's definitely one of the things we're looking at next. We want to get this launch under our belt and everything stabilized and happy, and then we'll look at other platforms, and that's obviously one of the first ones."

Reader Comments (75)

@Riseyra You can use Bootcamp, however, the drivers Apple provides are old and sometimes incompatible with patches/updates. This occurs on the Mac as well but the developers are generally more cognizant of this issue and tend to build around these issues.

There is also a huge group of Mac owners who simply don't know about Bootcamp or how to install/use it (despite the ease-of-use).

@Riseyra

Yes, this Mac user already plays SWTOR, too -- but using a PC laptop. Frankly, I have been unimpressed with playing any PC game on a Mac using Boot Camp. The performance is sub-par and glitchy at best.

My days of trying to use Boot Camp for PC games are over. It's just too much of a PITA, imo, and the end results are not worth the effort.

I love my Mac for 95% of what I do and I really dislike using PCs/Windows 7 generally but, for gaming purposes, PCs just rule.

WoW, of course, is the one huge exception to that general observation. Even if Bioware does make a conversion to Mac for SWTOR, however, I'll be very wary of it, since I doubt it will work as well or be as well supported as the PC version.

@Tom in VA I've only had one problem with playing games on boot camp and that's with the first Max Payne. I don't get audio during the cut scenes but other than that I haven't had a problem, not to mention TOR plays very nice.

@Tom in VA Bootcamp works fine for me. Not glitchy at all. And I can get up to date drivers direct from AMD. No issues.

In fact on this imac I get better performance in WoW in windows than I do in OSX.

@(Unverified) Actually, bootcamp isn't the only option. The game runs quite well using an emulated version of Windows, like using Parallels Desktop.

That should really be the killer for all arguments that Macs can't run games: I run Windows 7, on top of a running OSX, and I can run SWTOR at max resolution (2560x1440), max all settings except shadow and I run at 45 fps.

Mac's are terrible for gaming..I don't care what Mac you have it's a garbage gaming rig.

Secondly, FIX THE GAME YOU HAVE OUT RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU THINK OF EXPANDING.

@Traptz

You should read the last paragraph of the article again.

@Traptz Your first point shows you don't know what you're talking about and the second shows you didn't read the article.

@Traptz

What exactly about the game is broken? Personally, I'm loving it and have zero complaints.

I think this is quite difficult to do, as a target architecture it shouldn't be too difficult to port and compile the code, many macs have already intel chips. assets are of no concern at all, they're just binary data. where I see problems is the graphics department. It's never said but practically ALL games use DirectX and I don't see that running well on a Mac, which is notoriously a closed Microsoft technology.
Maybe if they port the client's graphics to OpenGL first... but I don't think this is even feasible, considering the high impact on quality this would have.

Really, that's the only "true" blocking tech I can come up with: DirectX.

@pid Actually, there are some DirectX ports for Mac (Wine et al.) but for a commercial native product that should not run on an emulator? It's a different thing... it's not that obvious I'd say.

Doesn't seem like that great of an idea. Gamers don't buy macs for gaming. The same hardware gets you lower fps, so why bother? ToR already sucks up a lot of power for its graphics quality.

@tehixe most people don't want 2 computers, one just for gaming. If you have a mac for all the things you love them for, why not be able to run games on it as well?

It will come down to a commercial decision in the end won't it. Either they will believe the market is there and think it worthwhile porting it or it's not.

Personally I believe it is. Yes I might have to suffer lower fps, but not necessarily

@nevin Why not be able to run games on your Mac? Because macs are not good for games, neither their hardware nor their OS are good at it. If you cared at all about PC gaming and didn't want 2 PCs, you wouldn't have a mac at all. Obviously it will come down to the commercial side of things. But the whole premise of owning a mac and expecting to be able to play hardcore games on it, seems silly to me. It' just not what Macs are designed for, nor what they're good at.

It's been done with other games before using Cider (I play WAR on my mac). While I'd prefer a native client, I'd take a Cider port over nothing.

"Macs aren't computers" Jesus, what a comment.

Mac support? This will add what, 5 new subscribers? A smarter move would be 360 port, game plays the same as the other kotr games on xbox 1 basically so it would work perfectly. I'm on pc anyways so whatevz

@emperorzeroxx Macs account for 23% of the PC market. That is nearly 1 out of 4 computer users. Not all are gaming capable, but people tend to forget most PCs aren't either. That is a large market that is growing at an incredible rate (read any Mac sales forecast and you'd be hard pressed not to agree).

@(Unverified) Where are you getting your market share numbers? The highest I've seen was a peak of 14%.
The line between smart phone, tablet, and laptop is getting pretty blurry these days for most functions, even gaming. However, if we are just talking about the kind of devices that could run SWTOR, Apple's share is pretty small. MacBooks just aren't as popular as Iphones or Ipads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutCFMc5khY

@(Unverified)

ER? Macs have less than 5% of the market share.

http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/18/report-macs-now-have-5-of-global-market-share/

http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/17/mac-passes-five-percent-global-market-share-iphone-dethrones-blackberry-among-workforce-in-ipass-study/

Previous 20 Comments | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

BioWare: Mac version of Star Wars: The Old Republic is something it's 'looking at next'

Reader Comments (75)

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 2:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 2:57PM Tom in VA said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 4:20PM The angry pro consumer gaming ga said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 4:22PM archer75 said

Posted: Jan 3rd 2012 7:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:08PM Traptz said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:22PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:29PM nevin said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 5:08PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:08PM pid said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:10PM pid said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:11PM tehixe said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:21PM nevin said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 10:58PM tehixe said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:16PM nevin said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:25PM jpkustra said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:30PM emperorzeroxx said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 1:56PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 2:37PM Furdinand said

Posted: Jan 2nd 2012 2:39PM (Unverified) said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Dragon's Prophet blasts beta doors open on May 30th

Featured Stories

Massively's Dragon's Prophet first impressions

Jukebox Heroes: Character select music

Flameseeker Chronicles: Catching crabs in Guild Wars 2

Engadget

Joystiq

WoW

TUAW