Anyone else notice that Peter Cohen's monthly Game Room column is conspicuously absent from the September issue of Macworld? Has the preeminent Mac magazine abandoned gaming coverage in favor of more productive, ad-friendly content?

Let's examine the facts. Peter's column has appeared in every issue for at least the past three and a half years without skipping a beat. However, the availability of top tier Mac games has been increasingly on the thin side -- even more so than usual. In the August issue, for example, Call of Duty 2 was the featured game. But like a quality starter with a bad bullpen, the bestselling WWII shooter was backed up by Flip or Flop Home Edition, Jets'n'Guns, and Lumox 2 - not exactly chart-burning stuff in the Windows gaming lineup. There was also a re-review of Quake 4 (but recycled content doesn't count).

Macworld's Game Room web site, which includes Peter's blog, is still up and running and interestingly enough, Jason Snell's editorial in the September issue discusses the advantages of publishing online over hardcopy. Perhaps, the dearth of Mac games no longer affords the privileges of the printed page, and in the age of Boot Camp, Mac gamers must now seek sustenance in *gasp* PC Gamer. Or maybe Peter just took a much-needed vacation.

In the aftermath of AMD's acquisition of ATI, ZDnet blogger Jason O'Grady ponders Apple's next move with regards to graphics chips. While this isn't an issue for the MacBook and Mini product lines (both use the dreaded integrated graphics solution), the iMacs and MacBook Pros currently use the ATI Radeon X1600, while the Power Mac G5s ship with an Nvidia GeForce 6600.

Should Intel sever its ties with ATI, where would this leave the Intel Macs, including the forthcoming Mac Pros (rumored to be switching back to ATI)? Over the past year, it seems Mac gamers have been in an endless state of confusion with the CPU transition, Rosetta and Universal binary technologies, the introduction of Boot Camp, and now a potential GPU change.

What are your thoughts on the future of Mac gaming? Should Apple continue offering solutions from both graphics providers, and are Jobs and Co. doing enough to promote the Mac as a gaming platform?

PC World's list of top 100 tech products of the year praised our sister blog Engadget and gave Apple lots of love but the categorical winner of the list is undoubtedly gaming. The following products aren't all directly gaming related (you could use some of them to run spreadsheets) although there's a quite clear video gaming subtext underlying many of the choices. Lets just say that they're as close to being gaming technology as Uri Geller is to being locked up in an asylum.

1. Core Duo - the first chip to enable desktop level performance in games on laptop computers.
2. Athlon 64 X2 - for that ultimate gaming rig you always wanted (but couldn't, and still can't, afford).
10. Boot Camp - Apple's Mac gaming solution.
16. GeForce 7600GT - hits that price/performance sweet spot.
19. Guitar Hero - we think that this is some kind of video game.
55. Raptor X - 10,000RPM Hard Drives were invented for gaming.
58. X1900 XTX - ATI's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.
63. A8N32 mobo - it's all about the SLI, baby.
89. Xbox 360 - we've heard of this! Isn't it designed to hold your lunch?
92. GeForce 7900 GTX - nVIDIA's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.

I personally own several products identical or similar to products on this list (a MacBook with a Core Duo CPU running Windows via Boot Camp is being used to write this post - I'm off for some Eve Online in a sec). Do you agree with these choices? What's missing?

P.S. If anyone from PC World is reading this, I apologize for desecrating your logo.

[Update: "top tech," not "top ten tech". Thanks Ahms!]

Consider this a followup to our earlier post about Half-Life 2 running on an Intel Mac hacked to dual boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Now, with Apple's Boot Camp software and the official drivers bundled therein, Macs can not only run PC games (like Half-Life 2) in Windows, but can run them "shockingly well."

The test computer -- an Intel-based iMac, with an ATi Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics chip -- does indeed appear to run Half-Life 2 swimmingly.

If the embedded YouTube version is acting up, be sure to check out the higher quality Quicktime version on Cabel's site.

[Thanks, kevan]

Mac gaming website Inside Mac Games has posted a selection of Mac game developers reaction's to Apple's Boot Camp software. The overall feeling from the developers is one of cautious optimism: any loss in interest for OS X specific games could be offset by an increase in overall Mac market share from casual Windows gamers flooding to the platform. Andrew Welch, the founder of Ambrosia Software (creators of classics like the Escape Velocity series of games), doesn't "view it as a threat at all... but then again, we're not in the porting business".

Aspyr's Glenda Adams and Brad Oliver are in the porting business. Fortunately they also publish and port games for other platforms. According to Brad "if Mac sales tank, we've got enough revenue coming in from PC and console ports that it probably won't hurt the company too much and we'd just focus on the other platforms." Mac game sales will only tank if people stop buying Mac games and instead play their games in Windows but as Andrew says, "people will get sick of dual-booting, and would prefer to run native games, just like Linux users prefer native games".

Ian Lynch Smith of Freeverse points out that this may be only the first step: "Apple is pushing the intel roll out very aggressively, and now aggressively pushing dual boot (and virtualization eventually from someone)". Hopefully in the next 6 months we'll see effective virtualization of Windows games from within OS X. That's the most desirable outcome for both Mac users and developers.

[Via TUAW]

Tired of the long wait for the few games that do get ported to Mac OS X? Tired of waiting for that one favorite game to get upgraded to Universal so you can play it on your Intel Mac? Tired of playing an unaccelerated Half-Life 2 on the hacked together, unsupported version of Windows XP you managed to get running on your Mac? This morning, Apple announced an official solution: use Windows, with (almost) full hardware support.

"Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows." The download includes a driver CD with Windows XP compatible drivers for the ATi graphics chips, Intel's integrated graphics chips, ethernet, audio, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. The only unsupported items are iSight, the Apple remote, Apple's USB modem, and the MacBook Pro's backlit keyboard.

While this is great news for would be hardcore Mac gamers, whose choices have been limited by market pressures for years, it also raises doubts about the continued economic viability of porting games from Windows to Mac OS. Will companies continue to invest the resources in providing a seamless Mac experience for gamers, or expect them to pony up for XP and dual boot their boxes?

[Via TUAW]