As a current console gamer who will eventually get a gaming pc, I have some questions

Gaming
,
1

Hi guys, I currently am a console gamer and know that it's inevitable that I make the jump to pc gaming, if only because it seems likely that the current generation of consoles will be the last.  That's also not mentioning how both the Xbone and Ps4 have no games that aren't re-releases that I'd want currently.  I just have a few questions about gaming (both console and pc) in general.

 

First off, what do people think Nintendo will do next-gen (assuming this gen is the last)?  I'd like to imagine that they would also quit making systems, as I've always had a love-hate relationship with their systems: there were like maaybe 5 games I'd want (all first party stuff) and the rest of the console is terrible with its complete lack of third party games, completely under-powered etc, but those 3-5 games are so good that I still end up getting the system anyways.  Now the other consoles also only have like 5 exclusives at most that are worth playing, but they still get "good enough" versions of multi-plats that pad out their library.  But I read somewhere that Nintendo is a very stubborn company (some kind of sign that they're Japanese?) and would just quit the business altogether instead of only selling software.  Considering that they don't really seem to even try to compete with the other consoles in terms of offering similar features etc, do you think they're still make consoles indefinitely?  Or maybe just stick to handhelds, since they have a huuuuuge monopoly there and still sell a ton of them?

 

Second, I don't know if I should get a pc this gen or wait and see until next gen, barring a huge influx of money/time etc.  I don't play online, and only play single player games that have a storyline or some kind of progression.  For example, when I play GTA games or Fallout 3 I don't spend any time at all just messing around outside of missions/quests to see what's possible.  I also am not into the PC-only genres like RTS or simulators.  I like "indie and/or retro style" games, but not so much that they are a selling point for me. 

I also need to mention that my brother has bought both a Ps4 and an Xbone, and we both live at home currently, so for now the price of consoles really doesn't factor in since I can just buy the games for both systems I'd want.  

Currently I have a "toaster" laptop that can play games from the ps2 era or earlier, and I've played a few like the first two Fallouts, Deus Ex, and the first two Max Payne games.  I also run an emulator and like to play games mainly from the DS and older handhelds like Pokemon and some jrpgs.  I also just got a mac mini, but only to run Logic and to do music-related things, and I wanted Mac's reliability for that reason.  I also have bought quite a few games in the steam sale this year, since there's too many deals too good to pass up, but I have no problems waiting to play them until I get a PC.

Lastly, growing up I LOVED and still love "adventure" games, but not the genre LucasArts is known for.  I'm talking about all the classic Zelda, Metroid, and Rareware games, and games that Naughty Dog was known for before Uncharted.  Not necessarily platformers, but the closest I can think of is to think of the whole JRPG, "Grand adventure" feel, but without the rpg elements such as leveling up and turn based battles.  I don't consider getting more health like how Zelda or Metroid does it, or how their equipment upgrades to count against them though.  Does the PC have any games like this, or games that are on the horizon?  I know of that "Hat" game coming out, and it looks great, but that's all I can think of.  PC definitely seems to go for either the isometric-style or first person route for single player games though.

 Actually when I think about it, I think my question comes down to this:  most of my spending $$ goes towards music stuff, as that is my passion and I am trying to make a career out of it, so it takes me a little longer than most to have the money for gaming.  Should I buy a gaming pc first or get a Wii U and hold off on the PC for now?  Let me say that I am a patient gamer who just beat Fallout 3 last year and has a ton of games last gen and even older I haven't gotten around to yet but plan on it, so playing new games ASAP isn't a concern of mine.

Thanks!

2

Hooray for jumping onto the wagon of glory! Lol I'm kidding I am mainly a PC gamer but I own at least 20 consoles current of which are the PS4 and Wii U so I'd imagine I'm able to answer all of your questions.
I'll just answer while reading though your text (in retrospect some answers now seem redundant but oh well).

  1. As a huge Nintendo fan myself I can't see them not creating another home console. There are a few reasons for that but mainly because Nintendo made so much money with the Wii and now continues with the top selling 3DS, even if the Wii U turns out to be a Virtual Boy #2 they have a big enough financial pillow to support the few losses they make with the Wii U. Talking about the first party exclusives... Well isn't that why you always bought Nintendo consoles? The new big Zelda or Mario games are always great and guaranteed system sellers not talking about smash (it's great though glad I own a wii u even if it was just for that). If you go through with changing to the PC you'll notice that owning a console just for the exclusives is how it usually is. I bought a PS3 for my Japanese titles and console exclusives. It always was that way. Right now I own.... Two games on PS4 but that is bound to change with Bloodborne and Persona 5.

  2. Go build a PC right now. I'll even help you over the Internet if you want. Get the GTX 970 as your video card and you can't really do anything wrong. It's a beast, it's cheap and if you want to game now a "current gen" console doesn't make sense. Also the earlier you start learning shortcuts of, your OS and programs the better. Having a powerful, responsive PC is just a great feeling even just for normal Web browsing. PC has you covered on your games too. ESPECIALLY indie and retro. Having backwards compatibility to PC games that are older than the NES and emulators for all consoles up until the wii you can be sure that your retro hunger will be satisfied. Indie games were born on the PC (one of the oldest that comes to mind is cave story). With no proprietary system it started all as mere .exe files. Now with steam early access and kickstarter overloading the scene there just isn't even enough time to know them all. Granted most of them aren't worth your time but be sure that there will be enough that will be. Also since you already own controllers like the Xbox one, Xbox 360, PS3 or PS4 controllers you can also use them. For anything else you can get adapters. I for example have an adapter for GameCube controllers(for complete GameCube emulator immersion). Aside from that even when it's just a shitty port most AAA games do get ported to the PC so you won't be stuck playing DOTA and Star Craft all day I promise.

  3. Well Sucks to be your brother for spending money on an XBOX ONE I guess...

  4. Well not sure what to say to that aside from if you want OS X you could build yourself a hackintosh and install Windows under boot camp... Don't ask me for help though did that only once, better off going to the tonymacx86 forum for that.

  5. Yes of course I'll give you a few names of story heavy games you should definitely play. They are not always are adventure titles and most of them are well known but this is just stuff that came to mind:
    The Witcher series (the first game is PC exclusive and while the story is great the control scheme is an absolute disaster. I still recommend it especially for the second game and the upcoming third game)
    Dark Souls and Dark Souls II (they are both also available on console and the first game is a terrible console port I'd still say you'd get the best experience from it on a PC. The frame rate issues the console versions had are not there on a strong enough PC (basicly anything that is not a potato) and with a few mods the first game is actually working quite well on PC. Tge second game runs beautifully on PC native)
    The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (true adventure here in this case. Also brand new game just released and PC exclusive. I've been playing this a lot the last few weeks it's beautiful and while the puzzles are sometimes too hard because you just can't find the correct puzzle piece it's still very good)
    Gone Home (an indie game telling a very cool story from a very interesting perspective. Not hard not long but definitely an experience you should have.)
    Portal and Portal 2 (if you haven't played them yet you definitely should. Not exactly adventure and more of a puzzle game and very very well known also had console ports but I couldn't leave it out and I thought it's something different than the ones before)
    Lastly basically any console port. (it doesn't matter if it's Tomb Raider or Batman Arkham if you have a controller and it's not a ubisoft port it usually is perfectly playable with a controller if they fucked up the PC controls.)

  6. My advice as a fellow musician is the following. If you already use a mac mini for Logic or Logic Pro and are accustomed to the interface of OS X in general but you want a better gaming experience and a better user experience out of OS X go build a hackintosh. My computer runs OS X with Logic Pro on it perfectly and most small games or emulators if they do not have a dedicated OS X Version work with the virtual machine if I want to play anything that is more taxing to the system I'll just boot into Windows.

If you do not have the money and want a Wii U, are perfectly fine with what you have and and with the console games you can play do not feel obliged to get a PC because you think the consoles are dying out and many people say consoles are dying out. Right now (even if this is the last generation) there are a lot of great PS4 Wii U (and maybe even XBONE) games on the horizon that I can't wait to play. After consoles died and you have more money you can still upgrade. It comes down to your own decision. But let me tell you that as soon as I started PC gaming and having an actual powerful machine my life (especially in perspective to my intellectual life) has changed for the better because I just am much more productive.

I spent far too much time on this response as I typed this in bed on my phone but I hope it helps you with your decision.

3

wow thanks for the informative response!   I might have to re-read it a few times to get everything though haha.

4

personally, i think Nintendo was a good console, it stayed as a console like platform where it's audience is quite apparent, and their games on their consoles couldn't be ported to PC, cuz it would be pointless

 

but Sony, and Microsoft is kinda pointless, you can do less with the console, and their gaming experience is not exclusive to the console

 

for example, imagine 5 people playing super smash bros in a PC, it's ridiculous, but it's a different story with the other consoles

5

First this generation will not be the last. This is a myth that has been going on now for more than 2 decades.

2nd Yes the WiiU is worth the money even more so than the Wii when it was out. The controller although big is great and the games they released are more in line with SNES greatness than ever before.

3rd yes go to the PC. Get an SSD for at least the OS and if you want decent gaming for cheap then hit the 2nd hand market for a 770,780 or a 7950/7970 for a great GPU which doesn't cost an arm and leg to begin with and expand from there. Not only that a PC's main plus is that you can use it for a ton of things just don't rush into it and buy a complete pc from places like Amazon or another retailer. Those just suck and building one yourself isn't hard as most stuff just fits one way around ;)

6

To be fair, I'm not a big hardware guy, I fell off that bandwagon years ago but I do know some basics enough to get buy when needed and know where to look and I'm really looking to get more into PC again but cost prohibitive you can only do so much hehe.

I did get a PS4 so I know where your coming from.  I personally use my console for "Platform" style games like God of War and Assassins Creed.  The other reason I own a console is for RPGs.  They just seem to always be native to consoles which is one of the reasons I kept my PS3 because new JRPGs are still coming out for that system to this date.

-=-=-

When it comes to your choice of gaming for solo games there are plenty available, especially with indy games I would say.  Another good selling point for Playstation is the PSPlus Indy games for free.  But we are here to talk about entering the PC gaming market.  -- To be fair, nintendo will always be nintendo and you will just have to suck that up.  I just don't own a nintendo because I think 3-4 games for the lifespan of a console isn't worth the investment.

When it comes to PC gaming you may like solo games but I would honestly recommend joining a community and meeting new people via teamspeak.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend jumping into the trolling FPS market but there is plenty of options to expand your horizon.

Skyrim, Dragon Age, Witcher, Dishonored, Bioshock -- these are all PC games that are single player story driven that are amazing and honestly play better and look amazing on PC with good graphics and a solid monitor.  

PC = Moding -- take a look at these skyrim mod video's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kba2AfNRXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yr4uRW0cwY

-=-=-

"Next Gen" - Um, for PC  -- NEVER!!!

You said - "Second, I don't know if I should get a pc this gen or wait and see until next gen"

False - PCs are always evolving and hardware is always coming out, yes, there are a few times a year where hardware comes out in majority.  January, Spring and fall from what I have seen but honestly its ever changing.  Its not like and Intel i8 it coming out in 3 months or your wanting to upgrade to a PC and you were waiting for CES items to hit the shelves.

I would honestly, just build a system now with whats on the market based on your price point.  I would also recommend watching the price point PC builds that Logan did in December.  Parts may not be on sale as much but you get the idea of whats good and whats compatible and how to build around a price point and they always give you options.

And yes, quality SSD, and graphics card can make or break a system.  I'm sadly still using SATA and I hate it for load times :(

-=-=-

And finally... for the lulz

WELCOME TO THE PC GAMING MASTER RACE!!!

7

Ok, so I want to first state that I did not read all of the post on here first, simply because everyone has their own opinion and not one is better than the other.  With all of this said, I totally agree with you that this may be the last generation of consul games.  Its going to be hard for a consul to run 1080 beyond 60 fps and they will probably never have the power to run at 4k.  I do know that Ps4 and Xbone are locked at 1080 at 30fps and most games don't reach that, so anything beyond that is hard to believe.  

I do not thing that this year is the year to step up to a gaming Pc.  I would wait until next year.  Next year AMD will release their new CPU's / APU's; also Intel will be on a full "tock" where their CPU's will be a full release.  Prices will also come down on all off the new PC ram which is DDR4 memory and the CPU's will be better optimized for that.  Plus, the new GPU's will be out and will be better set for 4k monitors and tv's.  

Keep in mind that when you do decide to (BUILD NOT BUY) your gaming PC, you don't have to buy the biggest and fastest CPU.  Do your research and buy what is best for your application.  If you look most PC gamers use I5 processors and not the newest and fastest thing out their. Now if your plan on doing a lot of rendering on your pc or doing a lot of video editing Intel is the way to go.  If your going to do just gaming and daily use of internet watching then AMD is the way to go.  

In personal opinion I would NOT use an AMD APU because its over kill for a CPU and if you want to do gaming at 1080 or 4k your going to have to add a graphics card to process the graphics.  With their APU you can crossfire with a stand alone graphics card but your limited to using a graphics card that is supported by the same graphics that is built into the APU.  Most of the time this limits you to a older stand alone graphics card. There for CPU/APU is over kill.  Plus to get the most from the CPU you have to step up the memory, their APU's like fast memory, which is also a bit of over kill in comparison to a normal CPU / stand alone Graphics card gaming PC.  

So when you build a gaming pc, in my opinion use a stand alone CPU / Graphics card, and take the money you saved on CPU/APU and super fast memory and spend it on a really good graphics card.  Your better off with a cheaper CPU, slower memory and really good graphics card for gaming.  

As far a Nintendo goes, they are famous for waiting a year or tow years and then releasing their new consul after the other consuls were released by their competition.  With that said Nintendo is in the best position to become the next gen go to gaming consul.  With the innovation of Steam gaming and the use of their big picture built in streaming, Nintendo has their foot in the door and already has most of the R&D to release a hand held streaming device that will link to a home system that has the graphics power to process the newest games and then stream it to a hand held or tablet that you can play on.  Nintendo has already started this with their Wii U, and can pretty simply convert that to something that could stream with Pc and play streaming games from steam or over some other streaming service that runs on Pc.  Also, Nintendo has a history of waiting to release their new gaming consuls, and then releasing with a ton of optimized games that just work and work really really well on their platform.  With the PC you can run an emulator that will run legacy (think Mario and Zelda) Nintendo games, and then could stream all of their old consul (everything from NES to Nintendo Wii) to a new hand held gaming system.  

I think this is going to be the next wave of gaming systems, especially after looking at what Microsoft is trying to do with "Windows 10" and the Xbox live stuff.  I think they are already trying to tie everyone to a Windows environment with the xbox and Pc in hopes of moving the Xbox to more of a home entertainment system, and then streaming games over the network to the Xbox.  Also if you look at the new Playstation and even at the release of the PS3, Playstation tired marketing their system as a "home entertainment" system, also they supported steam with their system as well.  

I believe that waiting until next year for new hardware parts to be released, and either buy the new stuff or buy the year old stuff and save a ton of money, is going to be the way to go.  Then in the next 5 or 6 years when streaming and home networks start to take off more, take the money you saved and buy a better graphics card, and whatever Nintendo hand held they release, and Game On.