Irishman: Unfortunately, to some of these "hard core PC Windows gamers" out there, yes - that *does* mean the Mac is a "joke".
That's ok. IMHO, the only real joke is the one played on those folks, who keep shelling out multiple hundreds of bucks for new video cards every year or two, and hundreds more to water-cool whatever system they've got, plus still more for "bling" like blue LED back-lit cooling fans or plexiglass windowed cases -- all to maintain that "cool gamer" mystique when they show up at a LAN party.
Meanwhile, they rant about the state of Mac gaming, without having a single clue about why we REALLY bought Macs in the first place. I have a long background using custom-built Windows PCs, so I know their mentality REALLY well. Fact is, I got older and more mature, and realized that although I still enjoy games, I really need my computer mainly as a reliable, efficient communications tool and business machine. Instead of investing money to have the highest benchmark score for FPS or whatever else, I'd rather spend it on a computer that won't constantly need tinkering with. Those over-clocked processors or water-cooled home-built rigs are NOTHING you'd ever want to rely on for running a small business - or heck, even balancing your checkbook! And the Windows operating system itself is a big part of the problem, with its bloated registry full of problems waiting to happen, not to mention being a prime target for all manner of spyware/malware attacks.
Sure, I *can* boot into Windows on my Mac Pro and play Windows versions of games on it. Occasionally, I even do. But I dislike that option, and will ALWAYS go with a native OS X game instead, whenever possible. I don't want to have to keep rebooting! If the frame rate is high enough so the game is playable, I'm good! I'm not going to inconvenience myself by rebooting into Windows (and waiting for the 20 update patches it inevitably wants to download and apply since the last time I was using it!) just for a little more video performance.