How often will you be gaming? If a console like xbox just will not satisfy your needs, a mac probably will not either. Look at
http://www.macupdate.com, http://www.versiontacker.com and
http://www.downlaod.com and see if there are enough games for you. As for school work, macs are great. Most laptops I see in my classes are ibooks. Go to CompUSA and/or an Apple store and see what games they sell and try out a mac for yourself. They work for me and they have better resale values when compared to other brands of PCs.