Is The New Mac Mini Apple’s Answer To Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation?

Apple Inc., last week, released the all-new Mac mini, which packs the M4 and M4 Pro chips into a compact form of just 5 x 5 inches. The new chips boast one of the fastest CPU cores around, and a powerful GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing comes to the Mac mini for the first time, meaning a far smoother 3D rendering, more realistic graphics, and much improved gaming experience.

In tests conducted by Apple in September and October 2024, the Mac mini with M4 delivered “up to 13.3 times faster gaming performance in World of Warcraft: The War Within,” compared to the Mac mini with Intel Core i7, Apple wrote on its website.

Considering that Apple hasn’t really lived up to the expectations of gaming enthusiasts and fans of Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, could it get a foothold in the gaming market on the back of the new Mac mini? Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman thinks so.

In one of his latest articles, Gurman wrote that in the new Mac mini, Apple “finally has a device that could become a respectable gaming machine.” Because of the Mac mini’s compact size, powerful processor, and ease of connecting to a TV setup, Apple has what it takes to make a new push into the gaming arena.

The Mac mini—which starts at $599—has a CPU and GPU with 10 cores each. Price-wise, this places the mini roughly on par with an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5. To further enhance the Mac mini's gaming capabilities, Apple also provides ray tracing for graphics and a minimum of 16GB of memory.

Apple is expected to add ray tracing to the Mac Pro in 2025, along with a chip that will likely have up to 32 CPU and 80 GPU cores. When this happens, users will have “one of the most powerful mainstream computer systems” ever, wrote Gurman.

Additionally, with a combination of upgraded Metal graphics software, macOS graphics technologies, new game porting software, and App Store integration, Apple has another shot in the arm in gaming software.

However, Gurman noted that the relative dearth of video games continues to be Apple's largest obstacle, and the Mac gaming library lags far behind that of Microsoft and Sony.