A few years ago, Apple launched the first MacBooks using its own ARM processors, officially marking the homegrown semiconductor revolution for the Mac line, and at the same time cutting ties with Intel.
A few years ago, Apple released its first MacBooks with its own ARM processors, officially marking the homegrown semiconductor revolution for the Mac line and cutting ties with Intel. These M-series chips were well received, and many developers were able to optimize their apps for ARM relatively quickly—but not Valve.
Now, Valve is ready to release a native Steam app for macOS. The latest Steam Beta update is finally optimized for Apple Silicon, meaning the app no longer relies on Rosetta 2, Apple's translation layer that emulates x86 apps on ARM chips.
It's no surprise that Valve took five years to optimize the Steam client for Apple Silicon, given how low macOS's market share on Steam is. Valve's monthly Hardware & Software Survey shows that macOS accounts for just 1.85% of all users on the platform – hardly a priority.
In recent years, Apple Silicon has made huge strides in graphics performance, making the Mac a better gaming platform than ever before. Apple has also continued to make gaming on the Mac more appealing. Every macOS release introduces new tools for developers and gamers (the recently announced macOS 26 includes a new 'Gaming' center). Unfortunately for Apple, Macs are still not popular for gaming, and the fact that it took Valve five years to optimize Steam for Apple Silicon shows just how difficult it is to convince people that 'Macs can play games too.'
In addition to native support for Apple Silicon, the latest Steam Client Beta also introduces improvements to Steam Chat, In-Game Overlay, and SteamOS. The full changelog is available on the official Steam Community page.