I think I am no longer a console gamer.

TBH it's only Switch games and apparently Ratchet & Clank that don't get a PC release now anyway.

So if you have a sufficient PC then just that and a Switch is fine.

I've owned most of the popular consoles since the PSone (PSone, GameCube, Wii, XBox360, PS2, PS3, XBone, XBOX) and I've never been a console gamer... I realized this and never got the PS4 or PS5. Generally, there were one or two games that I liked a lot and would play and/or play with friends but, ultimately, I prefer the PC experience. Since I already have a personal home computer (and have since 1983), gaming is just another thing that I do on it. I do play a couple/few games on my phone but those are just to pass the time when I'm waiting for something (Sudoku and some arcade style games that shoot constantly and all you have to do is worry about moving your piece on the screen... maybe using a powerup occasionally or something). I'm not a big fan of mobile gaming... seems there are like 12123423423 variations of the same game and there are like 6 actually different games. My consoles, once powerful and flexible enough, really only ended up being media boxes... streaming video, YouTube, etc. MUCH more than any games.

I tried to play Fallout New Vegas, and did for a while, on a console but I eventually got a PC copy and just played it there... just seemed too confining or something on a console. I still use an XBox controller on my PC for some games (not many... Fallout '76, really, but I haven't played that in ages, either).

I'm not really a console gamer either, totally have always been a portable gamer. Usually because I've always been in a family environment (as a kid, as a grownup, as a grownup with a family of my own) where the TV was always a communal thing, no-one really got an opportunity to use it exclusively. So portables fit better, since I have my own screen I can use any time. As a wee little kid, I had a NES and Genesis, but that's because I had a brother who also gamed. But he lost interest, and so the first portable I got was the Game Boy Pocket. And ever since then, I've been sort of collecting portables. I have sooo many now, and I use the hell out of all of them. The first brand new home console I bought was the Xbox 360, then the PS3. Then I won a PS4 in a contest at work . I traded a video card for a One S back at the beginning of the pandemic. I also bought a bunch of old consoles in between the NES and Xbox 360 because I'm a retro collector. But I never really used any of these all that much. I used the 360 a ton when it launched but then online became more and more critical to gameplay, so I stopped playing because my launch version didn't have WiFi, just wired Ethernet. I played the PS3 for about a year, but gave it up to return to my PSP.

I was and still am a huge Switch user. I bought it within months of launch, a week or two before I started dating my future wife, and a year later I was married and had a kid, so it was just the perfect console at the perfect time. So many warm, nostalgic feelings towards that console because how much I was playing it during really important moments in my life.

But, a few months ago, I bought a Series X. And I use the hell out of this thing. I play on the TV when I get a chance, late at night after the kid's asleep, but mostly via in-home LAN streaming. I started with those frankenstein phone/controller mounts, but eventually bought a Logitech G Cloud. I read all the reviews before launch that shat all over the concept, but when I saw the device, I was totally sold. Decent emulation? Handheld Xbox Series X and PS4? I'm sold. And yeah, I'm the total target demographic for this device, niche as hell though it may be. I'm remote streaming on it all the time, and it's good enough for 80% of the GameCube and 70% of the PS2 library. Because it's mostly streaming, I rarely charge it. I even bought a One X in case I want to stream a game while guests are playing the Series X.

So I guess tl;dr I'm not a console gamer either, but I found a good way to end up playing consoles portably.

I'm kind of the opposite these days. I'm almost exclusively a console gamer because I just don't want to deal with the headaches of PC gaming. Things are far better and more consistent than they were 20 years ago but it's still not a pure plug-and-play, don't worry about it, situation. I have to really want something that only the PC version gets me (such as modding or significantly improved performance/graphics) to be arsed to play a game on the PC over a console.

And mobile consoles? Fugeddaboutit. It's just a squint-fest to see a modern game's details on the Switch and the only thing I've ever used that's gotten close to making me motion sick because of it. There are a few types of games that I can/will play on that (as a portable, I'll play anything when it's docked) and they're mostly older designs that have Big Friendly Pixels involved.

krimhorn said:

I just don't want to deal with the headaches of PC gaming.... it's still not a pure plug-and-play, don't worry about it, situation.

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Really? What kind of pain points we talking about (other than $$ for hardware)?

I took my first shot at building a custom gaming PC in 2015 and have built 3 more since then. They've all been pretty smooth experiences. And 2015 was when I switch from a lifetime on MacOS to Win10, so I was basically a Windows noob on top of it.

Only trouble I had was when the GTX 970 GPU started dying on my first build after 5 years of heavy gaming. I spent a week pretending it was driver problems and tried to resurrect dead hardware through software necromancy. But that was just denial.

Even supporting these PCs through a NAS (Synology D220+) and broadcasting stuff to a HTPC has been pretty easy.

I don't mind messing around with computers but I'm not anyhting more more than lazy consumer enthusiast level of knowledge and skill.

Ashe said:

True... but the point is that portability trumps all in my world now.

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That'll last until your neck and elbows start to complain, or you start, then get tired of, squinting.

This is my biggest problem with the Switch and Steam Deck. A 10" display would be much better, but until someone resurrects the PC-based Razer Edge, that's not going to happen again (though at 4.5lbs with the controller frame, the Edge had its own issues).

It's really all about where I can play games now. I have seriously toyed around with dropping 3-4K on a PC (desktop or laptop) just for games but never could truly rationalize it.

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If you game on the go, a desktop system won't suffice. A laptop may, depending on how much space you have and what power sources are nearby, but laptops have their own problems.

The Steam Deck really reinforced that decision. I chose console gaming over PC gaming and now am choosing portable gaming over both.

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While I own a Steam Deck and use it on planes and mass transit, when I'm in a stationary location I break out the Velka 3 and hook it up to a TV to use with a controller, though my travel setup includes a 17" 1080p 240hz display, controller, and keyboard/mouse.

hambone said:

Really? What kind of pain points we talking about (other than $$ for hardware)?

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That's the problem: they're game specific and you never know the game that a problem's going to hit with your particular hardware configuration. With a console if a game's broken it's a universal thing which you'd know about going in or you know that it's your console dying. A recent Tales of remaster wouldn't respond to half of the key bindings and it didn't seem that anyone else had experienced that. PCs just don't provide enough for me to have them be my default any longer. Consoles are Good Enough and I don't have the risk of a Suprise! Game No Worky headache!

Still, not everything is a problem and there are some benefits on a game-by-game basis. I'll never play the console port of Dragon Age Origins because, well, the PC interface for combat is what I like (similarly I'll play other top-down RTWP RPGs on the PC because they just don't work on well on a console). I'll probably play Starfield on the PC because of NexusMods but I also might wait until the modding scene has figured things out and gotten started.

It's just that as a default platform, I've had enough of random problems, driver errors or whatnot preventing me from enjoying my entertainment. It's absolutely better than it used to be but when the console version Just Works (and if it doesn't that's been a clear problem across the platform so I haven't chosen to try and play it in the first place) and there's a chance that the PC version won't (or will be an unoptimized mess) I'd rather default to the platform with the lowest risk of headaches.

Yeah, my wife got me a PS5 for my birthday a few months back and... it's been a really nice Blu-ray player, I guess. My console use has really dwindled, especially since a lot of console games are available on PC now as well.

For me choice of gaming device is all about the state of your lifestyle. This also determines which types of games you play:

• The more static and stable you can plan your gaming hours, the more likely you are to play complex (multiplayer) games which require blocks of time commitment. Most likely on static gaming devices like PCs or living room consoles.
• Whereas if you are at the other extreme and getting in short bursts of gaming wherever you happen to be at the time then you will favour simple pauseable single-player games and more portable gaming devices (be it gaming laptops, portable consoles or even mobile only).

I went for a long period where my main criteria for game choice was "does it have an instant pause button so I can stop immediately without losing anything?", but I could at least sit down for blocks of time behind a gaming PC or console.
I went for another period where I had no gaming PC or gaming console and limited myself to simple single player games or game streaming on a tablet/laptop. I may have been swayed by a Steam Deck should one have been available at that point in time.
I even tried exclusively tablet (iPad) gaming for a short period (that was a hopeless failure).

I have occasional periods where I enjoy console gaming and long periods where I don't touch them. In part, it's because PCs always trump console games IMO, and in part these days because the living room and hence the TV are mostly the domain of the kids, and I don't usually get to enjoy the TV for any reason till after they've gone to bed. In contrast, my PC is in a corner of my bedroom, about as far from the madding crowd as I can get without heading out the front door. That enviromental factor seems to be the chief factor in deciding when, how and therefore where I play games these days.

Will probably see more of a shift towards console gaming again this coming year, as we replace our TV finally, and get a decent surround system up and running. A new couch will be the piece de resistance. Ironically, the console I desire the most right now is another PS2... though what that's going to look like on a 65" 4K tv remains to be seen. I could just hook it up to my PC screen, of course...

Never got into portable gaming. Big hands don't like tiny controls, and I've always hated smalls screens. I own a DS (from... 2008? 09?) but never got into gaming on it. Plus I really don't want to be lugging one around. That said, the Deck is interesting and the Switch, one of which we got the kids for xmas, is wildly impressive. I think it's a brilliant concept. Just need to get a game I want to play on it...

My thing about portable gaming is that I like it to be turn based. Turn based RPGs or strategies fit nicely for me.

I bought a Series X because one was available during the crunch of the pandemic. I’ve done almost no gaming on it but use it for media.

I have a 3070ti and a 48” 4K OLED monitor so I am way more likely to spend my limited time there.

I went from consoles to PC in undergrad and now back to consoles.

I don't game enough to spend the money it takes to get a good PC. 500$ PS5 is fine even if the gfx are a quarter of what a shoebox sized 4090 will produce. I don't care cause I'll probably only play 1 or 2 games a year.

I like portables enough but again; I just don't game enough to keep this equipment around. My Switch sits unused, PC with about a bajillion games on Steam that run great; unused. PS5 is where I landed.

Ashe said:

That's the thing... I have four consoles constantly hooked up to the telly and play none of them. The Switch I will play in docked mode especially when playing Mario Kart with the family (they play handheld, I prefer the big screen for some reason).

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The vast majority of Steam titles support Cloud saves. Play on the Steam Deck, leave it online long enough at home to sync save game state to the Cloud, then pick up where you left off on a PC hooked to a TV.

That's how I game most of the time if I'm using the Steam Deck. Most of my gaming is on PC, using a controller, hooked to a TV.

It means building a PC that can sit in the room with the TV, but given the Steam Deck's specs, that's not particularly expensive if you're targeting 1080p120 instead of 4k120.

I work from home, so I'm the exact opposite. My Vita has been gathering dust for years and I have no use for a Steam Deck. I have a gaming PC in the home office, and consoles in the living room.

Ashe said:

I suppose it is not too early to start looking for a good Deck controller.

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While there’s a subjective nature to how it fits you, I doubt you’ll find much better than the Xbox Elite v2 for the Deck. The battery lasts forever, you can adjust a pile of the controls to get it to feel pretty similar to the Deck, and it can have the same number of rear paddles so you don’t lose those as you switch between controller and the Deck itself. It also includes an awesome charging/carrying case so you can toss it in your bag with the Deck and not worry about it.

Ashe said:

I have seriously toyed around with dropping 3-4K on a PC (desktop or laptop) just for games but never could truly rationalize it. The Steam Deck really reinforced that decision.

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I mean, I'm assuming you are US, but you certainly don't need to drop $3-4k on a PC. You can get by with a lot cheaper than that.

That'll last until your neck and elbows start to complain, or you start, then get tired of, squinting.

This is my biggest problem with the Switch and Steam Deck. A 10" display would be much better, but until someone resurrects the PC-based Razer Edge, that's not going to happen again (though at 4.5lbs with the controller frame, the Edge had its own issues.

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This is definitely a YMMV situation. I've never had a issue with the Deck, though my hands would certainly cramp up on the Switch. I eventually got a case/controller/grip thing which dramatically improved the situation. I, oddly enough, never had a issue with my Vita.


I'm a big Deck user because, as I've mentioned in other threads, being a stay at home dad I feel like after school I'm constantly on the move and it's perfect for getting 15-20 minutes in while waiting in the pick up line or when I'm at a practice or other after school event.

Console gaming for me is just for exclusives and sports games. I just feel more comfortable on a sofa or chair playing Madden/NBA/NHL/The Show. I did used to be more of a console gamer around 07-09. I was nearly married and we'd just hang out and play Xbox or Playstation games. Also I feel like around then there was a lot more exclusives to the consoles than there are now. I could be wrong though.

The Switch kills my hands after about 30-45 minutes or so. Definitely needs larger joy-cons at least as an aftermarket option. By N not some 3rd party trash.

Never held a Deck.

sword_9mm said:

The Switch kills my hands after about 30-45 minutes or so. Definitely needs larger joy-cons at least as an aftermarket option. By N not some 3rd party trash.

Never held a Deck.

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The Deck is, for me, pretty amazing to hold (especially if you’re comparing it to the Switch). The battery will give out long before my hands will. My other controllers feel small now that I’m used to holding the Deck as well.

sword_9mm said:

By N not some 3rd party trash.

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Nintendo's joycons are trash because they don't use Hall effect sensors.

NYXI's hall effect joycons are available for pre-order.

Never held a Deck.

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It's the same as using Windows on a 1080p display set to 150% scaling.

What surprises people the most when they first hold a Steam Deck is how light it is. It looks a lot heavier than it is.

Mhorydyn said:

The battery will give out long before my hands will

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depends what you're playing- I'm working on trails in the sky right now and that game gets an easy 6 hours! I love being able to down clock EVERYthing in the deck when a game doesn't need much power

My main game for the last few years has been Total War: Warhammer which is pc-only so really no choice. That said, I had maybe the best gaming stretch of my life when I played Breath of the Wild, then Witcher 3 (finally) and Red Dead 2 (finally) on xbox. Diablo 3--which I had beefs with--and POE worked very well for me on console.

Ironically now I've been playing Elden Ring on PC with an xbox controller.

I also don't have money (that wouldn't go toward music gear) for a gaming pc, but luckily my kids each have one. One is not home much, the other has to go to bed pretty early. Heh heh heh. "No, I don't want to use your computer, you need sleep at your age!" When I head upstairs to the bonus room my youngest says "Ah, here to infest a computer again."

I have always bought systems a bit behind the cutting edge. Our best gaming machine has a 3070 and was somewhere near $2k. This was during the time when those were hard to find too.

Ashe said:

Sure, but I tend to not make frivolous purchases like that rationally. I purchase for aspirational use cases, not actual ones

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yeeeah 3-4k is just lighting money on fire.

An rtx 4090 for 1600 + 1000 for everything else is 2600.
PC part pricing increases in cost non proportional to the benefit at the extreme end. I think my last pc was about 1400 with a 2070 super and I can still largely run everything at 1440p high visual settings 60+ fps. (I usually prefer 90-120 fps when possible).

I am the opposite, especially after I moved to the Mac and iPad for personal computing use. PS5/Switch combo meets all my gaming needs. Sure the games have updates and patches on the console but no where the hassle I used to have on the PC, especially when trying to game on the big screen with surround sound.

As a ~40 year old I've observed this with my friends. Most of them used to be casual PC gamers, mainly console, with a little mobile. Now as they have kids (we don't) - due to time constraints they pretty much all moved over to purely Mobile. Kept the consoles as the kids get older - but the days of playing together frequently for hours have gone.

I've got a younger crowd that I play with now - but we're pretty locked to "games on gamepass because they're free*".

I don't buy nearly as many collectors editions as I used to either, and am I mix of physical/digital games this and the last generation. I still our combined ~200 Xbox 360 game collection between the lady and I.

A rambling way to say "It's cool, game where you like"

Only interesting thing, going PC would be pretty solo for me, only a few of my friends have relevant gaming PC's and even they aren't fully there.

- CG

Sparkfizt said:

yeeeah 3-4k is just lighting money on fire.

An rtx 4090 for 1600 + 1000 for everything else is 2600.
PC part pricing increases in cost non proportional to the benefit at the extreme end. I think my last pc was about 1400 with a 2070 super and I can still largely run everything at 1440p high visual settings 60+ fps. (I usually prefer 90-120 fps when possible).

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The only reason to spend close to that much would be to buy a massive 4K monitor. Without that you likely don't even need a 4090 or anywhere close to it.

Handheld consoles have always been secondary to home consoles (and pc) for me. I've always liked being able to play handhelds anywhere, I just rarely actually had much use for it.

With the exception of the original Gameboy (because my parents bought it for me), I have always purchased the handhelds later on when there has been some particular exclusive game(s) to justify it.

• For GBA, it was Metroid Fusion that sold me on it.
• For DS, it was New Super Mario Bros launching alongside the nicer DS Lite model that got me hooked.
• For 3DS, it was Zelda: A Link Between Worlds that made me open my wallet.

Never had any Playstation handhelds, they just weren't all that interesting to me.

So most of my gaming time these days is on either on a docked Switch or Xbox Series X, with some gaming on the pc as well (backlog games, a few games I prefer on pc, and stuff that isn't on Xbox/Switch like Sony's games). I also have some older retro consoles that still see occasional use. If we want to generalize, my preference is home/hybrid consoles > pc > portable consoles, basically.

This is also why the Switch is so brilliant. I can leave it in the dock and just treat it like a home console 95% of the time, take it with me when needed (travel etc), and get all of Nintendo's new games on one console instead of needing both a home console and a portable.

Ashe said:

I am and have been all in on portables for longer than I care to admit. This transition took a long time to happen and truly started with the PlayStation Vita. I noticed back then that I spent more of my gaming time on it than any of the other consoles (and I purchase all major consoles at launch). Still, I put in enough time on the regular consoles that I still mentally justified owning them (although I have a huge stack of games that never left their shrink wrap). Then the Nintendo Switch launched and with it, the perfect balance was struck. It took over the majority of my gaming time (Animal Crossing, FIFA, Mario Kart) but the beauty of it was that I still docked it here and there to play on the telly so I still felt like I was a console gamer... enough that I bought both the Xbox series X and the PS5.

I guess I should have owned up and admitted that I had probably moved on from pure console gaming when it took me almost a year before I even unboxed and set up both consoles. It finally took me months of owning the Steam Deck to come to the realization that yes, I have moved on from pure console gaming. I mean, I have yet to play a single title on the PS5. I played one game on the XBX (Titanfall 2) and that was just so I can say I played a game on it. Meanwhile, since Sony is releasing some of their console titles on Steam, I've been playing them on the Steam Deck instead. I just got done with Horizon Zero Dawn on the Deck and despite a few glitches, it was glorious! I'm also almost done with The Witcher 3, a game that I started on the PS4, bought for the Switch, and then bought for the Deck. I'm about to start with the Spiderman games on the Deck and after that, Elden Ring. These are all games I have console copies of but never opened up.

I bought the Deck thinking that it would be a way for me to finally play a bunch of the PC games I have in my Steam library since I went all in on Mac a while back. Now, it turns out that it has fully liberated me from console gaming instead. What a world we live in. I will keep all the consoles on the off-chance that something comes out that lures me back to them (the PS VR2 for one) but going forward, what I will be looking forward to is the Switch 2 and the Steam Deck 2. The PS5 and the XBX I think will be the very last TV-bound consoles that I ever purchase.

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I’m trending in the opposite direction.

Like you, I prefer to use Macs for my personal computing, but unlike you, I’ve been keeping a gaming PC up to date and was primarily a PC gamer. The current specs are an i7-12700k with a near-launch RTX 3080 FE that I got lucky to score through the Best Buy lottery (all in an ITX shoebox which doesn’t exactly help to keep costs down). It was a no-brainer to game on PCs for the previous console generation, but the XBOX Series X and PS5 are pretty good specs-wise. Microsoft is good about supporting PC gaming, but the overhead to maintain Windows and the various software packages just for gaming is too high. I’d rather have a gaming appliance assuming the gaming appliances are good enough and I think the PS6 and XBox whatever are going to get there.

It certainly doesn’t help PC gaming when you can get both consoles for the price of a graphics card. At least that part is sorted out.

Besides, the less I spend on my PC, the more I can justify spending on my home theater.

Starbuck79 said:

The only reason to spend close to that much would be to buy a massive 4K monitor. Without that you likely don't even need a 4090 or anywhere close to it.

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How so? RT is very expensive and if one is sticking to PC then may as well get a better experience than a console.

Those path traced remakes eat gpus. A 4090 is definitely something one would want to look at.

I been gaming since Intellivision, if anyone remembers that old relic?

Anyways my love for gaming didn’t awaken until the Nes with the original Mario/Duck Hunt combo and later the Arcades. At this point of my young life I was in wonderland and would consider myself a console gamer I suppose.

Back then I got everything from Gameboy to Game Gear, to SNES to Sega CD. Sadly that dream would come to an end shortly after the N64/PS1 era, Dreamcast was my final farewell to console gaming.

Before then I had a taste of PC gaming with Win 95/98, and found my newfound love/interest. First It started with ports of games I already loved like FF7, Sonic and Knuckles Collection, Pandemonium and Croc. But later I discovered more PC exclusives like Pod, Duke Nukem 3D and Diablo.

The irony it didn’t stop there, I kept finding more and more games. Then there was that moment of silence, pirating was getting out of control no thanks to clients like Limewire. Finally our lord and savior Gaben came to the rescue with Steam, and the rest is history. So that’s where I find myself today.

Gaming on PC for over two decades, I can’t see myself going back, and best of all, my old games and library can still be played today. How many of you console gamers can still claim that today after so many console refreshes over the years?