June 29th may be emblazoned across the Mac community’s collective consciousness, but what about June 28th? What about June 28th, you ask? That’s the day that GameTap will be launching its online gaming service for the Mac. We discussed the plan a few weeks ago, but we’ve come into plenty more details since then.
The 28th will mark the launch of GameTap’s “Lite” web-based player, which gives Mac users access to lots of older emulated offerings like Joust, Space Invaders, and other classic arcade and DOS-based games. Later on this summer, Mac users will get to reap the fruits of GameTap’s deluxe service, which also features games from the Sega Dreamcast and Saturn consoles, and enables them to play against other gamers online, including PC users. The service will not, however, allow them to play the newer PC games that GameTap offers, like Tomb Raider: Legend and Far Cry.
One catch is that, as we’ve mentioned previously, GameTap relies upon TransGaming’s Cider technology—which you may remember from Steve’s WWDC keynote last week is also behind EA’s gaming plans for the Mac. That means only Intel-based Macs will work with GameTap’s services. A bummer for PowerPC users, to be sure, but you can’t stop progress.
