With over 25 millions users in the PC market alone, Valve's popular digital-download Steam service is about to get a lot more popular. The developer has officially announced full support is on the way for Mac users, promising that both platforms "will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies" and more. Valve President Gabe Newell is touting the expansion, stating "the Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

Bringing the Steam service to the Mac platform will allow Apple fans to enjoy native versions of the developer's most popular titles, including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, as well as the Half-Life series. The company has also announced that the service would become available to Mac users sometime in April, but did not announce an exact date.

Perhaps most interesting will be the implementation of Steam Play, which puts dual versions of compatible releases into the Steam Cloud and allow gamers "playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac," and hopes that future projects will take advantage of such cross-platform play.

The just-announced Portal 2 will be the first simultaneous release for both Windows and Mac versions of Steam, and is set to make its digital download debut later this year. All in all, this is great news not just for the millions of Mac users looking to get in the game, but also PC users, who will soon be welcoming a new flood of potential online friends and foes alike.

Check out the full press blurb below for more detailed information on Valve's upcoming venture into the world of Mac gaming:

March 8, 2010 - Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac.  Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half- Life series will be available in April.

 

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

 

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

 

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360.

 

Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

 

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."

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