[Shivetya]

I own a M1 Mini, I do no development on PC or Mac. I use tools like editors and such but the work is all done on other boxes. So for me it is a matter of which type of machine covers the bulk of my needs.

When it comes to Apple it always has been an issue if you wanted to play games. On intel macs you could VM or Bootcamp to windows. That isn't an option on a M1 mac. Worse, while some iOS games are coming to M series systems some current developers of games that work on both PC and Mac are not creating Mac versions; the most notable is Blizzard who brought World of Warcraft to Mac but has stated the new Diablo 2 Resurrected, Diablo 4, and other titles, are not planned. Only one company has stated any intention going forward that has a large catalog and that was Feral.

All this means for those of us who like some recreation with our work and every day computer use (email/net/etc) Apple has their work cut out from them even more because now options are more limited.

[danaris]

Another perspective:

Macs can play more games now, natively, than they ever could before. I've been exclusively a Mac user my entire life (except for brief periods where I also had to use Windows for work), and I regularly play over a dozen different games, and own hundreds more, which run just fine on my 2019 MBP. Granted, I don't try to play the latest greatest AAA 6k 240FPS competitive shooters, largely because I just don't care for that type of gameplay.

Most—not all, but most—games that run today on an Intel Mac will run on an M1. There's a crowdsourced list[0] that does a decent job cataloguing them. Furthermore, for games that don't run (or don't run well) natively on the Mac, CrossOver does a shockingly good job of making them work without any need for BootCamp or a full VM.

The old saw that "Macs can't play games" is a tired one, it's never been particularly true, and it's never been less true than it is today.

[0] https://applesilicongames.com/games

[smoldesu]

This is just a list of games that boot in a VM. Compared to Windows, this list is a joke. Compared to Linux, this list is a slightly less funny joke. Unless MacOS gets support for DXVK, it won't even be in the same league as it's competitors. Installing Windows games on Linux is set&forget for 75% of the games available, with an additional 15% playable with minor tweaking. It's kinda hilarious that people think Crossover is an acceptable MacOS gaming experience...

[willcipriano]

If you ignore mobile games and games published prior to 2015 or so, that list is pretty pathetic. If your goal is to play those games from 2015 or older you can just buy a $300 pc off Ebay.

[danaris]

I have no idea where you got the idea that my games are mostly 6+ years old. It's not even slightly true.

[willcipriano]

The more I read into that list, the worse it gets. Cyberpunk 2021 is on the list because you can play it via Stadia. Clicking on the first item it says "The game can load up, but all the game text is invisible." but is marked as playable. Age of Empires II says "it runs but has hiccups every second, launcher can't display text. if you launch the game there is a 3 second freeze" but is marked playable. Six items on the list are listed as playable because of GeForce Now, Fourteen because it runs on Windows 10 ARM in a VM, and that is many of the newer games. Taking a look a Crysis(2007) it runs at about 45 frames a second, has audio issues and doesn't work for everyone as someone else said it won't even run, marked playable.

If you buy a M1 Mac for gaming I think you will be quite disappointed indeed.