EA's Origin Game Distribution Service Lands on Mac

It's a tossup between Linux and Mac as to which is the red-headed stepchild of computer gaming, though things are improving on both platforms. As it pertains to the latter, Electronic Arts announced the official launch of its Origin game distribution service to Mac, giving Apple users access to many of the same features found on Origin for Windows, including cloud storage to save/continue games and social connectivity via a friends list.

"One new feature will be of particular interest for gamers who play on both PC and Mac machines: dual-platform play. For select EA games (that are available on both PC and Mac), you can buy a title once on Origin, and when you log into Origin on either Mac or PC, that same game will appear in your newly unified (Mac/PC) My Games library," EA said in a blog post.


That's a pretty gnarly feature, but what will the Mac games catalog look like? EA says it will include titles both from itself and from its publishing partners (like Warner Brothers and Sega). Dragon Age 2, Batman: Arkham City GOTY Edition, LEGO Harry Potter, and The Sims 3 are available via Origin on Mac.

In order to use the service on a Mac, you'll need at least an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and OS X 10.6.8 or later, EA says.