Blizzard made sure that its first-person shooter (FPS) Overwatch reaches beyond its core PC audience, extending to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gamers.
In spite of Blizzard's tradition of porting games across platforms and ecosystems, Mac users will not be able to run Overwatch on their machines.
Jeff Kaplan, game director at Blizzard, noted that a myriad of technical problems were in store in the eventuality of an OS X installment.
"Currently with the technology behind Macs and the way Overwatch runs it's just too challenging for us at this point to support it," Kaplan declared during BlizzCon.
At Blizzard's yearly convention that took place in Anaheim, California, Kaplan added that the gaming giant puts all of its efforts into making the game run smoothly on three platforms: Windows, PlayStation4 and Xbox One.
The novel team-based shooter follows the steps of other FPSs such as Team Fortress, which relies on cooperation and synergy between the specific abilities that team-mates have.
"It was kind of a dream of ours," Kaplan described the game at the BlizzCon. He pointed out that the the title was crafted to provide a great experience for both console and PC gamers. The game director underlined that, since each platform exists in a separate ecosystem, there are no discussions about cross-play between consoles and PC.
PC gamers who look forward to playing across platforms with their friends who are Mac users can do so in Rocket League or the upcoming Street Fighter V, but not in Overwatch.
Blizzard announced that Overwatch will be ready during the spring of 2016.
Kaplan did not explain why Overwatch's porting to OX X might be tricky, but voices from the industry speculate that Apple's support for Metal and OpenGL technologies may be the culprit.
Adobe, for instance, adopted Metal early on and faced the standard issues with implementing new technologies.
For some reason, Apple fends off the latest improvements in visual engines from third parties. Users of Reddit chastised the Cupertino-based company for its refusal to adopt the latest OpenGL versions, the backbone of modern game graphics.
