Mass Effect heading to space and did gaming on the Mac just step up?

SHOW NOTES:

Story 1:  

Gamers have been patiently awaiting the release of the third Mass Effect game, well some lucky gamer might just get their hands on a copy early, and it’s coming FROM SPACE!!!

This week EA will be launching copies of the game into space attached to weather balloons. Each copy will be attached with GPS tracking device, and gamers can go to masseffect.com and track them as they make their way back to Terra Firma. The first person that finds the game when it lands will get to keep it. 

EA will be doing this promotion in six cities: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, London, and Paris.

We have to give EA high marks for what is probably the most interesting way to promote a game we’ve ever seen. Man...I hope I get a chance to find it...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/02/mass-effect-3-becomes-true-space-oddity-/1#.Tz2O23JWpe_

Story 2:  

So, most gamers know that if you game on a computer, Apple’s Mac isn’t the first place you look. Could Apple be trying to change that?

Apple announced last week about the next update to the OS X operating system. They are bringing quite a few features over from their iOS mobile system, and a couple of them could be very useful to gamers.

The first is the announcement that Game Center would be making the move over to the Mac. This is Apple’s Xbox Live like online social and multiplayer that allows users to play against others. It also has matchmaking, chat, and achievement abilities as well. 

The Mac version will be cross platform with iOS, and allow gamers to play against each other. Apple says that they have updated the API to make it easier for developers to add Game Center functionality to their games.

The other announcement is the addition of Airplay into the Mac. Airplay currently lets people with an iPhone, iPod, or iPad wirelessly mirror their devices to any TV that has an Apple TV connected to it. What this means is that gamers can mirror their Mac screen to their TV and use it to play their games on.

These sound pretty cool, though I doubt it will be enough to supplant the PC as the non-console platform or choice.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/os-x-mountain-lion/

That will do it for your daily dose of Press Pause. You can always find all our episodes over at presspause.mevio.com. You can also check them out over at our Youtube channel: youtube.com/presspausemevio.