My 8-yr old is due a new computer. She’s made do with my old 2015 13" MBP, but it’s struggling. She likes her Roblox and Minecraft, and the fans run hard all the time. It’s impossible to run another app alongside. She is also starting to become interested in learning to edit video, which I want to encourage. Obv Macs are the way to go for that.
Our budget stretches to a base model Mac Mini (M4, 16GB, 256GB), or spend the same amount on a Windows gaming PC. I have zero interest to maintain a Windows computer in our house, to run the antivirus, relearn Windows troubleshooting, pay again for apps, and so on. But she’s very taken with the ‘aesthetic’ of a gaming box, and it’d be her first choice.
So – would there be any reason that an M4 Mac Mini is a bad choice, especially for light gaming? She mostly plays Roblox and Minecraft (we do actually have an xBox in the houes in case she want to explore other games).
Frankly, if we buy her an M4 I’d be rather envious myself! I still use a work-issued M1 MBP, partner runs a M1 MBA. With the M4 she’d be the best-equipped 8-year old in the house (if not in town!). I also looked at older M-series Minis on the second hand market, but with 16GB memory you can barely get it cheaper than the base-level new M4 (I get the edu discount).
Anyway – anyone has any cause to talk me out of the Mac Mini?
I don’t know anything about Roblox, but Minecraft will be more than fine. And I agree with you 100% about going with a new Mac rather than used, for specs. The standard advice of “check the Apple refurb site” (Certified Refurbished Products - Apple) applies, although the Mini doesn’t show up there much.
The thing I’d call out is that if she’s inclined to go download things from Steam in the future, there’s a fair bit of that stuff that’s not going to run on the Mac. At that point it’s not as much about whether the game is “light” or “heavy” (the Mac is more than fine for light Steam games), but about whether the software even exists for the Mac. In my experience the Mac is, generally-speaking, more likely to have popular games that have been out for awhile. And it’s unlikely to have bleeding-edge new releases, especially from small indies.
I game on the PC and Mac. My main collections is on Steam. I’d say 1/3 of my games have a Mac version but whether they will play well or not depends on what type of games. If it’s heavy on graphics and 3D and require a GPU, the Mac will not fare well.
I have a M2 Pro with 32GB RAM. It’s a beast. But it cannot run a 2 year old space game I’m playing now called Everspace 2. And it boggles my mind why a game developer recently released Cyberpunk 2077, for Mac, which, even my PC struggles with.
But, having said that, I have game a lot on the Mac playing games like Civilisation, Rimworld, Slay The Spire, Disco Elysium, Balatro. So I think Minecraft and Roblox should be ok.
I occasionally gamed on m1 macbook pro, but echo above comments. Look at steam and see what is available on mac. Games like diablo/starcraft worked pretty well. There were some fun casual games as well. Almost my entire steam collection however is windows only. Also, I would check out amazing gaming (if you have prime, as they give away a ton of games and have the luna streaming if a prime member), as well as epicgames (while I’m not an epic fan, they give away full games every few days).
I have built up my back catalog of games this way, but ended up just buying a windows pc for $400 that was much more capable (ryzen with a 780m graphics, and oculink if I really wanted to upgrade) and can play everything.
For your use case, any mac mini would be great and get roblox/minecraft and the creative apps. I like your thinking and I would go that route. If you actually wanted best bang for buck only for gaming windows really is the best option unfortunately (as even some linux games won’t allow online play).
There are ways to install the Windows version of Steam. VMware Fusion is now free for personal use, and it’s often possible to pick up a legitimate copy of Windows at a steep discount (I was able to nab one through a link from PCMag not long ago).
Of course, that’s kind of a hassle, and it’ll work for some games but not others. As others have already noted, GPU can be an issue. Then there’s the question of whether the game will even run an an M/ARM chip…
Thanks all for some awesome advice. No one has talked me out of getting the M4 Mini, so that’s sorted. I’ll report back on performance. I just checked and with my edu discount the base model is a pound short of five hundred. That’s a really, really good price for a Mac that will run circles around my own MBP.
Thanks too for the ideas to port non-Mac games to Mac, and some future options. I keep my gaming strictly separate between the xBox (for some big ticket games), and my Mac that is for work. I make slight exception for the iPad where I do run a few games to fill in the odd moment (I recently discovery the quirky, wonderful games by https://www.stateofplaygames.com).
We should use this thread to talk about what type of games MPU plays in their Mac!
I current have Slay The Spire and Balatro as my casual game which I jumped into once a while.
I also have Everspace 2. It didn’t run so good in the Mac but I launched it to look at my ship loadout and to tweak it. Not for serious space faring.
