Hardware & Technical Do you think Frontier would adapt Planet Zoo, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and future sim management games with Mac support?

Pixelated Sparkster

Pixelated Sparkster
In recent years, since the launch of the silicon chips in 2020, I noticed Apple is planning to focus on supporting games more on their platforms with hardware and operating system features that benefit gaming, such as the new M3 line of Macs that support better specs, dynamic caching, and ray tracing support, in addition to OSX having a "Game Mode" feature and a Game porting toolkit.

I am currently using a 2018 Macbook Pro with an i9 for work, and I plan to make the jump from intel to Silicon with the new M3 Max Macbook Pro to help me tackle more demanding work. While my PS5 is the go-to game machine, I was looking over reviews of the M3 Mac, and seeing reviewers play games on the new machine made me want to get into playing sim management games on my desktop again thanks to the potential jump in performance and desktop setup. I am looking to try out games like Parkitect, Two Point Hospital + Campus, The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Sim City 4, and Cities Skylines. Sim games I would play on the side if work is light that day.

I am also excited to try out Planet Coaster on my Mac, as I did enjoy playing it on the PS5 but I want to try it again on the Mac without having to worry about building limitations and trying it out with a mouse and keyboard setup. If the experience is much smoother and enjoyable on the new Mac, I will be interested in playing Jurassic World Evolution 2 and Planet Zoo on Mac if it ever comes to the OSX platform as it scratches the Zoo-focused sim management itch.

Do you think there is a likelihood that Frontier may port those two games to work on Mac? And may future sim management games come to the platform? Sim management games are a guilty pleasure I like dipping into from time to time, and I would love to see more of Frontier's games come to Mac if the Apple ecosystem is capable of running such demanding games.
 

willisit

willisit
Considering ED used to be on Mac and development ended, I would suggest that its time on that platform is done for good. Even with new(er) development platforms available, ED is coming close to 10 years in the field.
I couldn't comment on the other games, but depending on their age, I suspect a similar story.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Pixelated Sparkster said:
Do you think there is a likelihood that Frontier may port those two games to work on Mac? And may future sim management games come to the platform?
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No and no. Market is too small and Frontier is likely disinclined to gamble.

For the foreseeable future, if you want to run most games on an ARM based Mac, you're looking at using an emulator/translator like Rosetta 2, Parallels, or Crossover, which often have high overhead and issues with cutting edge titles.
 

Pixelated Sparkster

Pixelated Sparkster
willisit said:
Considering ED used to be on Mac and development ended, I would suggest that its time on that platform is done for good. Even with new(er) development platforms available, ED is coming close to 10 years in the field.
I couldn't comment on the other games, but depending on their age, I suspect a similar story.
Click to expand...
I did read into that, ED has no longer been playable on Mac since the 2nd of November. I was surprised to read about it ending 2 weeks before writing this thread, I thought it simply ended with consoles last year due to technical limitations of 8th-generation hardware. I am curious if

Morbad said:
No and no. Market is too small and Frontier is likely disinclined to gamble.

For the foreseeable future, if you want to run most games on an ARM based Mac, you're looking at using an emulator/translator like Rosetta 2, Parallels, or Crossover, which often have high overhead and issues with cutting edge titles.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Mac has been very niche as a gaming platform. I recalled how little gaming I did on it due to the fact it does not support a tempting library of games, especially when Apple decided to abandon 32bit support I believe in 2018, here's hoping their investments to cultivate more game developers to their platform may pay off and make any venture to the platform a profitable one.

Yeah, Parallels is my saving grace if I want to play PC games on a Mac. I currently use it to run Windows 8.1 to play some retro games I had on my ancient HP laptop like Zoo Tycoon, Sims 1+2, and the occasional Microsoft exclusive programs. Once my M3 Mac arrives, I plan to upgrade my Parallels to version 19 with Windows 11, you could effectively play any PC game that does not utilize Directx12, which I hope does get support on Parallels. I have some games on Steam I could fire up then and see if it is worth using it as a stable means to play games not available on consoles (or Mac).

amigacooke {macOS} said:
No likelihood Frontier will, but Aspyr might. If it follows the Planet Coaster template. they'll wait until all the development, including DLCs, is done.

MrMacRight is an interesting source on Apple gaming.
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Aspyre has done a notable job porting over a bunch of PC games to run on a modern Mac like what you mentioned with Planet Coaster. I could imagine it being a possibility once support ends with Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution 2 and if the Mac platform looks worthwhile to port over by then. It looks to be much better porting over a complete package that would no longer get new content.
 

amigacooke {macOS}

amigacooke {macOS}
Pixelated Sparkster said:
I did read into that, ED has no longer been playable on Mac since the 2nd of November. I was surprised to read about it ending 2 weeks before writing this thread, I thought it simply ended with consoles last year due to technical limitations of 8th-generation hardware.
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The macOS client was disconnected from ED in 2018.
 
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