News.blog: EA move means the Mac is back for games

When Electronic Arts and Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday that the publishing giant would be bringing a host of its biggest-name games to the Mac, it signalled that the platform is being taken increasingly seriously by the videogame industry.

EA said that it plans this summer to release hit titles like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed: Carbon, Battlefield 2142, and that later in the year, it would publish a series of sports games, including Madden NFL '08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 for the Mac.

The Mac has long been viewed -- rightly or wrongly -- by some people as a bit of an applications wasteland, and for many people who would rather use Apple's computers than Windows machines, the lack of some software has always been a major reason not to.

That's been especially true for videogames, and the absence of many of EA's franchise titles on shelves in the Mac section of stores -- though The Sims series is available -- has been particularly noticeable.

But now, EA is demonstrating that it thinks Apple is going to be enough of a player that it's in its interest to put the effort into porting some of its biggest titles to the Mac.

And if you're a Mac fan, that's a good thing. Unless your Mac-only partner or spouse is going to get lost playing one of the new games.