Next up for gaming: the MacBook

I'm perfectly happy having an affordable MacBook to get all my work done, and then spending an extra $350 for an Xbox 360 to play games.

No matter what they'd do, the MacBook would always lag behind a dedicated console. Why bother putting game-specific hardware in there, and then playing catch-up all the time? I left the world of building PCs for the Mac because I was SICK of being "required" to upgrade my video card, RAM, and CPU every six months because a new PC game was using the latest technology.

On the console, it's always able to run the software at the best settings. It doesn't require fighting the OS or installing new drivers or any of that junk. I pop the disc in, and play.

I don't want the complications of hardcore gaming on a Mac. That would drag the Mac down, in my opinion. It would put Apple tech support in the business of helping idiots troubleshoot their computer to make it work with this-or-that graphics card, so they can play Crysis or whatever the newest, most demanding game might be. It would be BAD for the rest of us, who have legitimate needs from our computers and don't want to be put on hold with tech support while they help some spastic gamer get his game on.

It takes away from the elegance and simplicity of Apple's hardware. It turns them into project rigs instead of all-in-one solutions. The whole point of going Mac is to avoid having to upgrade bits and pieces of your computer all the time!

If game developers want to see Mac gaming, then they need to develop for the hardware that exists NOW. It's stupid to say, "If Apple would make it with a better graphics card, we could make games for it." because that's a cop-out. That's saying, "We're crappy programmers that can't work within the parameters we're given."

The MacBook is NOT weak when it comes to processing power. The graphics aren't that bad, either. Surely, there are many worse products on the market in the PC world (HP and Dell both put out some computers with integrated graphics that are just as limited, if not more so.) -- There's NO REASON that they can't work with what's here, instead of whining about needing a better graphics card.

If you want to go hardcore and play the newest games with the highest level graphics, then Sony and MS have a console with your name on it. It will play the games consistently, and it will cost about the same as the amount Apple would charge to include a better graphic processor in the MacBook.

Just get a PS3 or Xbox 360.

I just want to run Spore on my Macbook. =[

My only other gaming on this thing consists of Quinn and Bejeweled, which are pretty awesome games in their own right.

I'm too busy to play games on my Mac.

Yeah, see, the majority of the Macbook's installed user base doesn't care about gaming. Otherwise, they'd buy a Macbook Pro, own a gaming console, or have a PC rig on the sid to game.

Sorry guys, the Macbook can't be everything to everyone. That's what the Pro is for.

I think the main issue here is OS X's drivers. YES OS X needs drivers for things to work.

The GMA 950 and the newer X3100 really aren't too bad. The great thing is that they have the ability to use more RAM towards graphics if needed - which you could do in a game. The 950 supports up to 224MB of RAM while the X3100 supports up to 384MB. Of course this won't be as fast a dedicated GDDR3, but it'd be an improvement over our current state. This is a drivers issue which should be fixed.

Gaming on the Mac will slowly come into its own... especially as games like Spore from EA set the stage for a mass user base (I agree with comments above), and companies like gametreeonline.com begin to ramp up and sell product not available before. Lets hope!

I find it strange that so many Mac users are unwilling to expand the uses of their computers, and go far to make up weird excuses for it. Apple has only one market to take shares from, the PC-market, and one of the biggest and most common excuse for not getting a Mac among PC-users is the lack of games. Why in the world would you think of games as not needed?

The day that Apple adds dedicated video to the Macbook is the day I buy one.
The day that Apple adds a decent video card to the lower-end iMac is the day...that I buy one.

On my PCs, I've always waited for sales on certain parts, bought them, and assembled it for about half retail price simply because I can't afford better. An iMac is barely within my price range(and still double what I can build a PC for), but I'm not going from a 512mb X1950 to a 128mb HD2400; that's just stupid. Apple apparently doesn't want the gamers...

Not going to happen. Come 6 months from now, it'll be iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, and that's all. If anything, people will hack the iPhone games to play on their MacBooks, but I don't see this huge surge in MacBook game development as a reult of the iPhone SDK. It's just wishful thinking.

Alot of good comments are here, so let me add mine:

Steve, it's Drake. PLEASE drop the Intel integrated graphics chips and go NVidia. The performance on Intel's chips is pitiful, and until they support OpenGL 2.x (is 3.0 out now?) they will always be lagging behind. The Mac Mini would be a perfect gaming machine if it had even a low-end NVidia Geforce 7-series in it. Everyone will understand, and Intel will get another kickstart to make their X-series GPU's work even better. So please? Nvidia across the board?

Oh, and can you get that high-end Macbook 15" up to 1680x1050? No-one but Dell seems to be doing that now...