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EA's Mac games arrive in Apple stores

They were supposed to be out in July, and Madden '08 still isn't available, but Apple stores will soon have some new games from EA to sell alongside new iMacs.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit
2 min read

Apple's online store is now taking orders for the four games from Electronic Arts that were promised for July, and they'll soon be available in retail as well.

The four titles--Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142 and Command and Conquer 3--are the first EA games that the company has published for Mac OS X, EA said in a press release. In the past, EA has only released Windows versions of its popular games that other companies had to port over to the Mac.

Harry Potter is finally coming to the Mac. Electronic Arts

But Bing Gordon, chief creative officer for the game developer, earlier this year told Apple's developers that EA would release the four titles in July, and it would follow up those releases with the simultaneous release of Madden NFL '08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 for both Windows and Mac operating systems. EA shipped Madden '08 earlier this week to much fanfare, but the Mac version is nowhere to be found.

And it won't arrive until September or October, when the Mac version of Tiger Woods '08 will also appear, EA said in Friday's release. In response to an inquiry about the delay for Madden NFL '08, an EA representative said "we've shorted the gap between the Mac launch and other platforms to just a few weeks. This is a huge leap compared with past launches. Over time, as EA gains experience in completing and shipping Mac games, the gap will narrow." The representative did not specifically address what caused the delay, but some Mac gamers think there could be problems with the Cider technology used to port the Windows games to Mac OS.

Apple retail stores will have Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on shelves this coming Tuesday, and Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars the following Tuesday, August 28.