The main problem I see here is generational use.

This winter, I offered my son the choice of a new MBA or his mother’s hand-me-down end 2009 edition core2 duo 13"MBP. He chose the used MBP without so much as a second’s pause (granted the kid just turned 17y, but he’s quite tech savvy), and my wife preferred and took the MBA.

Why did the kid go with the Pro? The optical drive. He wants to be able to play games, many of which require the DVD, during his off time. He could not do that with the MBA without the add on superdrive, and believed the MBP’s performance was superior in that area.

If rumours are true, and the Pros too are to lose the optical drives, then game makers need to respond with DVD-minimal solutions.

The optical drive is needless weight, most people nowadays don’t ever put a DVD in their laptop, Apple know this from the diagnostics reports. Maybe he didn’t know you can download pretty much all games nowadays at least as a DMG and that appears in the Finder the exact same way as putting a disc in the drive. The Mac is new to games but it is way ahead of the PC in digital distribution, maybe the kid had some PC related presumptions?

Maybe he didn’t know you can download pretty much all games nowadays at least as a DMG and that appears in the Finder the exact same way as putting a disc in the drive.

You’re right, zebrum; you can with many if not most games, but not all. Actually, the lad is quite savvy, as I mentioned above. We are a Mac family, so he has grown up around Macs only. Indeed, he has numerous downloaded games for both OS X and iOS. He and his international cohort of gamers (mostly in the UK, but also Asia) still play certain games that require a DVD.

My point was not the lad and his technical prowess, but that Apple, having likely signalled an end to optical drive inclusion, has put the gaming developer community on notice to get these remaining games off-disc.

@zebrum:

Further note of clarification. The lad just told me that there is only one remaining game (Rome Total War) for which he needs the disc - which now he says he seldom plays. He mainly wanted the MBP because he thought it was a more powerful machine, and to be able to watch movies on DVD when he needs to.