I'm looking at this from a college perspective. Didn't think of that before, but that will change your opinion. I can walk down the hall, say "Halo?" and get a group of 4 playing Halo in 5 minutes. To get 3 other people I know to play TF2 with me at once is nearly impossible, because almost no one has the game. Other PC shooters are just as rare.

Also, Xuzi, my internet is free and faster than yours. It comes as part of my tuition in theory, but I'm not directly paying for it and MIT will never stop making it free. Heck, anyone can come to campus and use our internet if they have wifi. If you meant Live, then yes, yes you do have to pay. And guess what, it's not just the shooters you're paying for AND you can get it as low as about $3/month (which is what Josh pays I believe.) There are tons of PC games that also require monthly fees much greater than that. (Saying general, not shooter specific.)

either way, my point is a group of friends are more likely to play xbox than PC games. It's too cumbersome for PC, at least in college. High school is a different scenario because you don't all live together.

I bought three years of Live for $75, I believe. That works out to just over $2 a month.

I was close enough. $2.08.

Pay for the better experience is all. Honestly, $2/month is insignificant, even if it's a one time payment of $75. Your decision on the value of the dollar will change as you age, but that really is nothing. I made over $75/day during the summer... so, i work 8 hours for 3 YEARS of online gameplay? Woot. Either way, not really the point.

PCs > Mac.

@xuzi: Go play PS3 online. And then go play Live. Tell me which experience is better. PS3 may have free online service (for now, at least), but Live beats it by a freaking marathon in the value of the service.

Sony is actually a pretty good company and the tech world owes a shit ton to them. I'm not a huge fan of their consoles anymore (though I will admit that I still pull out my PSone from time to time to play Spyro or Crash Bandicoot or Twisted Metal), but even now they are contributing more than their share of tech advancements to the world.

And all I have to say is go see how well Assassin's Creed II fared on the PC compared to its console counterparts. Tell me which was the better experience there (hint: if you can't play the game the day you buy it, that version loses)

That is so VERY true. That's pretty much one of the only things (well, outside of partying and school....) the guys on my floor do. I'm pretty sure once the lounge for our floor is done they're going to take over it.... The second floor lounge, let's just say that there's pretty much always at least 5 guys playing some video game. Although, at my school none of the guys play Halo, I don't know which one they play, but they pretty much all play the same one. If anybody plays halo here it's pretty much guaranteed to be a girl.

Is there anything you can do on a Mac that you can't do on a PC without the help of VMware Workstation (or something similar)?

Standard rebuttal:
"There are viruses for Mac, but just not many."
"Mac viruses will grow in number in proportion to Mac software titles."
"Regardless of what operating system you’re running, there will always be an infinite amount of ways an end-user can compromise the security of their computer, most especially a networked computer."
"There just aren’t that many Mac users out there, which would make it even less likely for any given virus to spread itself enough to make it onto an AV firm’s radar."
www.securemac.com/
www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.html - 2006
antivirus.about.com/od/macintoshresource/Macintosh_Viruses_and_Mac_Virus_Resources.htm

tl;dr Welcome to reality.

I'm too tired to find Captain Picard so I will describe it: My hand, my face, they are making contact right now in what is called a facepalm.

Here you go


Anyone else care to answer my question?

For most programs there is likely to be a mac alternative. The main things mac lacks is games, though. Blizzard does a good job of releasing mac versions on the same disc as the PC versions, but its pretty rare. Hopefully with steam for mac this will change soon :-)