Gamers and the faster iMacs

@Chris...
Okay, I agree with you that the user-generated content is an enormous lack for consoles, but... That's not a problem for Apple P: It's a step that console and console game makers have to do, it's not Apple's field nor fault.
Every problem you listed is well known and perfectly solvable with zero effort.
And... Come on. User generated content? Is that the ONLY serious thing that prevents you to consider consoles the best gaming platform? The only thing that prevents you to throw away PC for gaming?
Be serious (: You're talking about the company that threw away floppy drives in the floppy drive era and the company that *just* threw away CD drives in the middle of the dvdcdblu ray era. Again, it's all a matter of rethinking computing; this is a little piece of a big puzzle.
OK, consoles may still have quirks, maybe they're not perfect for some game genres (and we could discuss for hours about this, we all know it). But it's not an oracle prediction if I say that by the time of the next generation of consoles there will not be ANY reason to use a computer for gaming other than "I already have one". It's just being a little pragmatic P:

Seriously: If your criteria for what kind of Mac you buy has to do with whether or not you can run Crysis on it in Boot Camp, then you're not in Mac's target audience. You're not in the market for what a Mac does.

I used to be the guy who built my own gaming rigs, before I switched to Mac. Now, I leave all my hardcore gaming to the Xbox 360 (GTA IV is incredibly good) and use the Mac for work and casual gaming (I can play anything from Solitaire to Half-Life 2 on my MacBook).

Honestly, I'm not seeing a lot of great PC-only games coming out these days anyway. I don't care if the mod community can make levels for Oblivion. Where's Halo 3, GTA IV, or Mass Effect for the PC? (I heard Mass Effect is coming... But it's not here yet, is it?)

PC games are dying out. No adult gamer wants to spend all day tweaking just to play a game.

I don't know why it isn't mentioned that often, but the MacBook Pro (when in Bootcamp) is a fantastic gaming laptop. So long as you get the education discount (200$), the thing is a better deal than any Windows gaming laptop, and it's really fast. TF2 runs beautifully (as do most HL2 releated games), as does Commmand and Conquer 3 and Sins of a Solar Empire. I plan on getting Starcraft 2 (I'll have to see if it runs better in Mac OSX or Windows) and Left 4 Dead and perhaps even Spore.

The current iMac already looks like an overkill to me

I only play casual 2D/3D games, so any low end Mac on the market will do just fine

I am wanting to get a new Mac soon but sadly Apple doesn't make a machine I would buy right now. I want something with specs similar to the iMac but without the monitor and with upgradeable graphics. The only machine Apple sells that is even close to that is the Mac Pro which is way out of my price range. The new high end iMac looks okay but for that price you might as well just get the stripped down Mac Pro.

I am tempted to just build a PC and put OS X on it even though keeping OS X up-to-date on those things looks like a major pain. I could easily build something with more power than the iMac for half the cost of the high end 20 inch model.

Two things about Apple I just can't figure out:

1) why they don't offer a consumer-priced tower with swappable components. They would open the door to a whole new group of buyers with a sub $1,500 Mac tower.

2) why you can't throw any off-the-shelf PC video card into a Mac Pro. I thought the Intel transition was supposed to give us hardware parity with the Windows world - yet we STILL have to buy a Mac-specific video card at 3X the price of the PC equivalent???

Lame, Apple. Really lame.

I would generally agree with this statement, until I tried to play CNC3 and CNC3 Kanes Wrath last night in Vmware Fusion. It played very well on the new iMac, even at 1600x1200. If it can play games this well in Vmware, I dont see a hardware problem...

{quote}But something is something -- the very fact that Apple is offering faster video cards is a sign that they're interested. {quote}

NO, it does NOT mean that in any way. It only means there is a slightly faster video card.

Keep on wishing all you want but pigs are not yet flying. There is a Spider Pig (Simpson's movie" but no flying pigs yet.

The other thing that needs working on, but is in that same some day never land, is the mythical midi mac to fill the gap between the mini & pro. For all the obvious & objective reasons where a mini is too small, the pro is too much and the iMac is an all-in-one.

Most heavy gamers I know want to be able to tinker underhood anyway, so if they were considering a Mac the iMac would be last on the list, of course, as would any all-in-one.

(by the way, I like the Audi analogy above, much better)