Like many kids who grew up in developed countries, gaming was a major part of my formative years. I was a teen during the peak of the Nintendo vs Sega console war, the final years of the arcade scene, the emergence and rise of Sony and Microsoft as major players, and even the first PC online gaming boom.

However, as I hit my 20s and began doing adult things, gaming became less of a priority, and by my 30s, I had almost completely quit. I say "almost" because I do have some games installed on my phones, but I only turn to them to kill time when I have nothing else to do, like on a flight. Otherwise, the last video game console I owned was the Xbox One.

But recently, Apple sent me an M3 Max MacBook Pro for review. In the same package was a Sony DualSense controller. When I asked why that was included, a spokesperson told me I "should" play games on the MacBook to "properly review" it. He even gave me a $50 App Store coupon to download a game of my choosing. Needless, to say, my gaming habit has come roaring back over the last few weeks.

Apple's push for gaming in 2023

It started at MWC, then the M3 silicon

Apple had actually begun its public push to make the Mac a relevant gaming machine a few months prior at WWDC. It announced the Mac Studio with an M2 chip, along with partnerships with Capcom and Kojima Productions, to bring over AAA console titles like Death Stranding and Resident Evil Village. It also launched the Game Porting Toolkit for developers to run Windows games on a Mac. And while I did install and briefly played Resident Evil Village during the Mac Studio review, it wasn't until I paired up this new MacBook Pro with the DualSense that I was able to get back into the hobby — and the reason is portability.

As powerful as the Mac Studio is, it is a deskbound machine, and I try not to be bound to a single desk. Taking advantage of XDA's entirely remote work structure and frequent work trips, I have become a digital nomad, working out of different cities and countries every few weeks. Obviously, the Mac Studio cannot come with me, but the MacBook Pro can. Even when I am at home, I find myself gravitating towards using a laptop much more than a desktop computer anyway; it's just a more flexible machine. I can go from the sofa to my bed and outside to the backyard on a whim. It helps that all of Apple's computers run on the same type of silicon now, so even a MacBook Air can reasonably perform similarly to a far bulkier iMac or Mac Studio.

On Apple's recommendation, I downloaded Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Lies of P, two games that have been optimized for Apple silicon, including for the M3 silicon's ray tracing. Both are graphically intensive games and ran beautifully on the MacBook Pro, hovering over 110FPS consistently even with graphic settings at maximum.

Those games are fun, but personally, I've always loved the NBA 2K series dating back to the Sega Dreamcast, and NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition (the "Arcade" refers to Apple's gaming subscription service) completely dropped my jaw. The graphics on the MacBook Pro looked almost as good as the latest console versions, or at least, what I had seen of the game in passing at video game stores.

The beauty of Apple silicon is its efficiency, and even when I am deep into an hour-long session playing Tomb Raider or NBA 2K24, my MacBook Pro didn't get beyond "a bit warm." The fan would also kick in discreetly, and it was so quiet that I didn't even know it was on at times, especially since the 16-inch MacBook Pro speakers are the best I've heard on a portable machine. More importantly, even when not plugged into power, performance only dipped slightly, mostly in terms of framerate and not enough to be jarring.

The ability to run quality games on battery power without sacrificing performance has come in handy recently. I was stuck at a Shanghai airport due to a flight delay. To kill time, I played about an hour of Tomb Raider. Yes, it did drain nearly half the battery from my MacBook, but that hour flew by. I charged the laptop a bit before boarding the flight and then played a couple hours of NBA 2K24 on the flight, too, using the XReal Air 2 AR glasses to give me a larger screen. I can't sleep on airplanes much, so I try to keep myself entertained as much as possible, and being able to play console-quality video games definitely helps.

Plus, not only does the iPad Pro use the same chips as Apple's laptops, but the iPhone's A chips are built on the same architecture. Therefore, games for Apple Arcade can run on everything from an iMac to an iPhone, and the discrepancy in performance isn't drastic. While I'd prefer not to play NBA 2K24 on a small smartphone screen, it does run on the iPhone with virtually the same level of graphics as on the MacBook Pro. The seamlessness of jumping between the same game on an iPad, an iPhone, or a MacBook is uniquely Apple.

Serious gamers might not be convinced, but Apple is eyeing a bigger demographic

Apple products have always appealed to a more mainstream audience

I know more hardcore players will complain that Apple's game selection is still puny compared to what's available for, say, Windows or the PlayStation 5. I also know the highest-configuration Windows gaming tower can still produce better graphics than the MacBook. But MacBook gaming is likely going to do what Apple products always do: win over the mainstream crowd, the so-called "casuals."

These people are not the most diehard of a particular group. They might not know all their device's technical details, nor do they have the most knowledge in that particular area, but these so-called casuals far outnumber power users, so they matter by sheer numbers alone. They certainly matter much more to many manufacturers than hardcore users.

For example, I'm a serious smartphone photographer and power user who cares about having the largest image sensor and best mobile zoom lens. For me, the best iPhone camera wouldn't even crack my top three best smartphone cameras, as Android phones like the Xiaomi 13 Ultra or Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra have better optics. But the iPhone is still a far more mainstream popular smartphone, so the best third-party camera apps and camera lens accessories are still built for the iPhones first.

The same logic applies to gaming. The MacBook may never convince hardcore PC or console gamers to switch over, but it doesn't have to. It will tap into the millions and millions of non-gamers, casuals, or somebody like me who gave up the hobby long ago and convince us to play.

There's a saying in photography that the best camera is the one that you always have on you. Well, the best gaming machine is perhaps the computer you always have with you, not the bulky box chained to a desk or television at home.