Choosing the right machine - questions

Hello everyone!

My first post on Lemmy after long time lurker.

I will buy a new mac in the next week. I’m quite torn between 2 models.

My use case: General computing (web, documents, media consimption) Occasionally: programming + spinning VMs + some gaming

Although I won’t be gaming all the time, I plan to do it ocasionally. Games like Skyrim, witcher3 + MMOs (wow, ff14 or guild wars) DOTA/LOL or similar stuff.

The contenders would be: A) MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro 10 core CPU / 16 core GPU - 16GB RAM - 1TB SSD

• better cooling?
• better SSD speeds and bigger capacity Price = 2450€

B) MacBook Pro 14 M2 pro 10 core CPU / 16 core GPU - 16GB RAM - 512GB SSD

• better GPU, but marginal gain? Price = 2499€

Alternatively, I could look at the MacBook Air m2 with 16GB/512GB at 1990€ since it seems it handles this games moderately . However, summer here is hot

Any advice? Furthermore, stocks seem to be low, some models no longer exist and there seems to be no deals

Thanks in advance!!! Looking forward to discussion