Electronic Arts has finally made good on one of its promises as it announced that four EA titles are now available for Mac users to play and enjoy. EA's offering includes the following four titles:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Need for Speed: Carbon
• Battlefield 2142
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The four titles listed above are the first games ever published by the company for Mac OS X. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 and Madden NFL 08 are also being readied for release sometime in the next two months.

Here's hoping that this trend continues and that more and more developers and publishers give Mac gamers some much-needed love. All of these games are now available for purchase at the Apple Store.

Soon, Apple fans waiting for months on end to see big PC games get ported to their platform will be a thing of the past. Electronic Arts, the world's biggest game publisher is cooperating hand in hand with Apple to make porting that much faster.

EA COO Bing Gordon was with Apple CEO Steve Jobs as the two announced this exciting development at the Worldwide Developer's Conference hosted by Apple in San Francisco.  Big EA game franchises Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be the first to ship on the Mac OS X platform followed by Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

To make the porting process easier, an engine called Cider developed by TransGames will be put into use. This will cut the development time significantly and keep Apple units in stride with their Windows counterparts.

TransGaming CEO Vikas Gupta says "traditionally Mac users had to wait to play the latest blockbuster games. "We're thrilled that TransGaming's Cider engine will dramatically decrease the time it will take to bring EA's hit portfolio of games to a thirsty Mac market."

International Cyber Marketing Inc. has just revealed the final roster of games that players will be able to compete in at the upcoming World Cyber Games 2007 to be held in Seattle this October. Last month, we gave you a brief update on three more games that were added to the list of playable games, namely FIFA 07 Soccer, Age of Empires III, and Age of Empires III: the War Chiefs.

So with no further ado, here's the full list of games to be featured in the upcoming WCG 2007:

PC:

• WarCraft III: Frozen Throne
• StarCraft: Brood War
• Half-Life: Counter-Strike
• FIFA Soccer 07
• Need For Speed: Carbon
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs

Xbox360:

• Gears of War
• Dead or Alive 4
• Project Gotham Racing 3
• Tony Hawk's Project 8
  

Admit it, you have the feeling that business analysts make their numbers up. But nobody doubts an Irish bookie, so we'll look at Paddy Power's numbers instead. Yup, bookmaker Paddy Power (PaddyPower.com) has predictions for which games will sell well this Christmas:

• Need for Speed: Carbon 8 - 13
• FIFA 07 4 - 1
• Gears of War 10 - 1
• Eragon 10 - 1
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 10 - 1
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 11 - 1
• Tony Hawk Project 8 14 - 1
• Superman Returns 16 - 1
• WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 16 - 1
• Call of Duty 3 20 - 1
• Pro Evolution Soccer 6 20 - 1
• The Sims 2: Pets 20 - 1
• Happy Feet 22 - 1
• Guitar Hero 2 25 - 1
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories 33 - 1
• Bratz: Forever Diamonds 80 - 1
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Party Edition 250 - 1

It's another NFS year. Need for Speed: Carbon is the favourite with odds of 8/13. NFS: Most Wanted took the number one spot last year, while NFS: Underground 2 was the favorite the year before that. Then again, cross-platform games would tend to sell more titles than the single-platform games. (Does that explain why Eragon is up there - we don't know; only a few of us bought the book, and quite a number of us did not buy the game.)

Twilight Princess is up there duking it out with the Xbox 360's Gears of War. Oh. That's a tough one to call right now. If you're a gambling man, you might wanna make a bet, but we won't just yet.

The engines start roaring, and the beads of sweat start forming on your forehead. You grip the wheel more tightly with breathless anticipation - wrong move, buddy. Relax. Take a deep breath. Take in the road. Take in the competition. These are the last ten seconds of the countdown before all of that becomes a blur, and the only thing you have to worry about now are the road ahead of you, the cars around you, and first place.

Tomorrow*, Electronic Arts puts the pedal to the metal with Need for Speed: Carbon rolling into stores for the Xbox 360 and the PC, with the PS3 and Wii versions punching the nitrous on their respective launch days this November. Starting tomorrow, the flag goes down and the rubber heats up. But today? You racers can take that deep breath. Look back to see if you've missed anything in our coverage.

And enjoy this last** pre-release, pure gameplay trailer of Carbon from EA and GameVideos. Before the flag goes down, the tires heat up, and the only thing you have to worry about is first place.

* = as advertised by the trailer. Weird that GameVideos would list its release date as "December 1st."
** = for the PC and Xbox 360, anyway. Any chance for PS3 and Wii-version trailers?

Pre-Order: [NFS: Carbon (Windows XP)]
Pre-Order: [NFS: Carbon (Xbox 360)]
Pre-Order: [NFS: Carbon (PS3)]
Pre-Order: [NFS: Carbon (Wii)]