Valve Drops Mac Support for SteamVR Less Than Three Years After WWDC 2017 Announcement

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Valve on Thursday announced that SteamVR no longer supports macOS so that its team "can focus on Windows and Linux."

valve steamvr mac
As noted by UploadVR, Mac users will still be able to use SteamVR by running Windows with virtualization software like Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion. Valve says legacy builds of the virtual reality platform will also remain accessible on the Mac by right-clicking on SteamVR in Steam and selecting Properties > Betas.

Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi announced that SteamVR was coming to the Mac at WWDC 2017, but a recent Valve survey indicated that more than 95 percent of Steam users are running Windows or Linux.

Multiple reports have indicated that Apple plans to release a combination AR/VR headset by 2021 or 2022, followed by sleeker AR glasses by 2023.

Tags: SteamVR, Valve

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Top Rated Comments

DJC631 Avatar
DJC631
55 months ago
Not a surprise since Apple's support for Mac gaming is non-existent.
Score: 71 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
zorinlynx
55 months ago
This is not surprising at all. Apple has not been friendly to developers who want to write cross-platform, enduring code, doing things like deprecating OpenGL and 32-bit support and just in general constantly making it difficult for people to keep old code working. Hell, the rumors of transitioning to ARM suggests this is going to get even worse.

Meanwhile Windows can still run binaries from 20 years ago without much issue. Windows is the gold standard for keeping code working for a long time, second only to IBM zSeries (mainframes).

As much as I love MacOS, I hate that Apple has zero respect for old software. I built a gaming machine not too long ago and no longer give a hoot about gaming on MacOS.
Score: 67 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Stella Avatar
Stella
55 months ago
Not surprised, only a tiny fraction of Mac machines have the GPU required to use VR.

Also, given the fact that Mac user base is small compared to PCs... it's not worth while for Valve.

No serious gamer really uses a Mac for games, they use Windows PCs, and Consoles.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LuciusMalfoy Avatar
LuciusMalfoy
55 months ago

It is only a question or market share, Macs can be great for gaming. OS is super stable, Metal is pretty fast. Toxic comment like yours are another reason.
Toxic? It's not toxic when it's a valid criticism. I want gaming on Mac to thrive. Apple has done little on their end to bring this to reality. MacOS may be ready for prime time, but lets be real the hardware side is very lacking to take advantage of that.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
utterer Avatar
utterer
55 months ago
They should have announced they were discontinuing support at the same time they were announcing support for it. Anyone who is involved with gaming at all knew any type of realistic VR solution on Mac was a pipe dream.

Apple is stubborn in their support for the standards needed for gaming. The big game devs aren't going to rewrite their entire graphics subsystems to Metal and all of the other Apple centric API's for some piece of a 5% market share (most of that 5% of Steam Mac users are laptop users which don't have the horsepower anyway). Apple doesn't have that kind of pull in the Computer gaming ecosystem. Mobile devices sure, but Apple has no ability to get a foothold in desktop / laptop gaming.

And Steam is the computer equivalent of ADHD. They focus on something for a year or two, release a half assed version of it and if it doesn't pull Half Life, Portal, or Team Fortress numbers they kill it off. Similar to what Google does.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nt5672 Avatar
nt5672
55 months ago
Yep, had to update recently and see no need to spend any more money on macOS or any other Apple stuff outside of the iPhone. Apple just does not get it anymore. At least not for me. Their services are terrible and can go away in a heartbeat, just like Apple's software.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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