Apple direct-selling OSX games

No download store, but free shipping plus online demos and trailers

Apple has quietly added a Mac OSX games section to its online store.

While the titles are physical media-based, with no sign of a download service as yet, it is perhaps the most accommodating the firm has yet been to Mac games.

Launched without fanfare, the sub-site includes trailers and demos (where available) for the titles it sells, plus reviews and editorial.

Pricing for the 84 available titles - which so far broadly constitute older games – are largely in-line with PC retail prices, though some dramatically exceed it.

The five-year-old Age Of Empires III, for example, is £40.

The US store offers free shipping on all titles, while the UK subsidiary adds delivery charges for all orders under £78.

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Latest comments (10)

Kingman Cheng Illustrator and Animator 8 years ago

Download service should be inevitable I would say. But £40 for a copy of Age of Empires III after so many years? Hmm..

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Phil Shaw Studying Games art and design, Norwich University College of the Arts8 years ago

It's about time Apple brought themselves inline with PC gaming. It's a step in the right direction I suppose all be it with some teething/pricing issues!

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Josef Brett Animator 8 years ago

This is about 15 years too late for me.

I gave up on Apple OS (including older versions) as a gaming platform about 10 - 15 years ago and gave up on Apple as a design/animation platform when they made the move to Intel chips.

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Mark Raymond Gamer; Consumer; Blogger 8 years ago

It's strange. Apple almost seem ashamed to promote gaming on their own OS.

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Abraham Tatester Producer 8 years ago

They've been selling full-priced five-year-old games at Apple Stores for several years now. I guess the only news here is that they're selling them online with free shipping.

Hopefully developers and publishers will start taking advantage of Steam's Mac platform and tech. Still not much there for Mac gamers yet, but Valve says that will change in the next year or two.

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Dr. Chee Ming Wong , Opus Artz Ltd8 years ago

There isnt anything remotely appealing of buying full priced out of date games for teh OSX. Far better to use a steam service. Makes more value and sense until Apple wakeup

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Josef Brett Animator 8 years ago

Dr. Wong - I used Mac for 20 years before giving up on them and I didn't see any great moves towards gaming, (something I was desperate for before I had my first console). I can't see Apple 'waking up'any time soon unfortunately.

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Kevin Clark-Patterson Lecturer in Games Development, Lancaster and Morecambe College8 years ago

A step in the right direction?

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Matt Hackett Game Developer, Lost Decade Games8 years ago

I'd say a stumble in the right direction :/

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John Blackburne Programmers 8 years ago

As Abraham noted this is not really new: I've bought games from the UK Apple online store, though a few years ago. It served a valuable niche in that there were few retail outlets for such games (cross platform games like WoW excluded), as Apple had no presence on the high street then. And yes, the selection was pretty poor but that's more down to the publishers who tended only to port the top selling games, months or years after the PC release, and not feel any need to discount. Prices from Amazon were similarly high.

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