Are you going to *change* your platform of choice going into next-gen?

[manux]

I jumped the pc way. PC was way expensive but on the other hand I expect my new setup to last pretty good amount of time. Maybe there is some really cool stuff coming next year once oculus rift ships that takes good benefit of fairly high end hardware.

Went with intel 4670k, nvidia 780, ssd, 16GB ram + the other stuff needed to build a pc from scratch. Total damage was about 1650$ without keyboard, mouse and display.

I think my previous "gaming" pc I had long time ago had 250W power supply. This new beast I equipped with 750W power supply where maybe 600W would have been sufficient. Oh my how the times have changed.

 

[Phil]

I'm genuinely interested - to those that are abandoning the console market, how do you play on your PC?

Do you hook it up to your livingroom set-up? Or do you play in front of a PC screen in the office/bedroom? Since my argument with Joker about how PC gaming supposedly changed, I thought about this a lot and still just can't get it to fit into my picture of how I want to play my games and be entertained.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Plug it in downstairs via HDMI? Play with a controller. You can get wireless keyboards with thumbpads for navigating Windows although that's far from ideal for launching. I think the vast majority of PC gamers play at a desk just as they do when working. But it's not impossible to use a PC in place of a console, as long as you don't need KB+M. And the PC can do full media too, every format under the sun, unlike consoles.

The console with a simple UI as a media centre was a great idea, but no-one's really executed it properly yet. Then again, noone's really executed on the ideal livinig-room PC either. Steam presumably takes a step in that direction regards games.

 

[baten]

I never game on PC, but in my livingroom I have my laptop connected to my plasma (it's my work computer, as soon as I arrive home I take it out and connect it to the TV). I use a Microsoft BT keyboard and a Sony BT mouse so I can do stuff sitting on the couch. I usually use the laptop at home for movies, very rarely for something else.

 

[manux]

I'm genuinely interested - to those that are abandoning the console market, how do you play on your PC?

Do you hook it up to your livingroom set-up? Or do you play in front of a PC screen in the office/bedroom? Since my argument with Joker about how PC gaming supposedly changed, I thought about this a lot and still just can't get it to fit into my picture of how I want to play my games and be entertained.

I have a large closet like space on one side of the on living room(~12feet long, 3feet wide. I can stuff the electronics there and not worry too much about heat issues.I'll have cables coming out from closet to tv. I hope to game some with pad some with keyboard+mouse. I was also considering just gaming on my bedroom but I think the pc would be annoyingly loud there

The true attraction why I splurged so much and what really distanced pc from consoles to me was the promise of oculus vr. Another thing is the good amount of older classic titles I have never played on pc. Older classics should keep me entertained for a while. Another thing is the steam controller. If it happens to be reasonable enough that might replace keyboard+mouse for me in games where I'm not playing competitively against other people. Oh and I shouldn't forget upcoming games like star citizen, legend of grimrock2, divinity original sin which quite likely are not going to come to consoles.

edit. There is surprisingly large amount of interesting indie games on pc, like this upcoming game: http://reset-game.net/?p=409

 

[Arwin]

I have never fully stopped playing on PC, and I will probably keep playing the occasional game on PC, more so than last gen, because I have an i7 3rd gen with 8GB of RAM, and will likely throw in a new GPU at some point whereas last gen I used a PC that I was very happy with except that it only took low-profile cards and it was near impossible to find any of those that actually performed better than my console. I'm currently playing Rocksmith 2014 on PC and enjoying it, and I love that PC games can basically all be played in 3D (it's a hassle to fake my screen to be recognised as 3DVision, it's not always great looking, but more often than not and I like it).

So it will be a small shift back towards PC, but at the same time it's already clear to me that the Playstation 4 is going to be eating most of my gaming time again.

Ironically, the iPad is a big help for me here - my wife now more often watches TV shows on her laptop, or Netflix on her iPad, same with the kid, so I can reclaim the livingroom partly for gaming.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I'm genuinely interested - to those that are abandoning the console market, how do you play on your PC?

Do you hook it up to your livingroom set-up? Or do you play in front of a PC screen in the office/bedroom? Since my argument with Joker about how PC gaming supposedly changed, I thought about this a lot and still just can't get it to fit into my picture of how I want to play my games and be entertained.

I hook my PC to my living room setup just like a console, although I sometimes have a monitor plugged in somewhere too. There is no fundamental difference in how PC or consoles can be hooked. There are many different sizes of PC cases and many aesthetically pleasing ones too. New GPUs often have excellent cooling systems and in a properly designed case you really don't lose anything on any metric that is important with regards to the placement of a PC vs the consoles.

 

[Phil]

Some interesting comments here. To those that do play PC games in their livingroom, I am guessing this would probably include gaming on a gamepad for the large part, as I would figure playing with a keyboard / mouse on a couch is rather awkward... how would you play online games (like multiplayer shooters) without being eaten for breakfast by all others using a keyboard / mouse set-up? Or can this be handled in a meaningfull way by most games in that you can avoid playing against such players?

Or you just don't play these types of games or avoid playing competitively, unless actually gaming at a desk where the set-up is more convinient?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I actually have found out that I can use the KB and Mouse in more comfortable position than I can the pad. I lay on my back in a divan with upper portion of the torso only somewhat upwards, mouse on the right side and KB on the left side, super comfy. I have to be more upright, closer to a sitting position to use the pad, but it is a better fit in many games.

 

[Cjail]

Never considered using a breakfast bed tray + wireless Keyborad and mouse?!

 

[liolio]

If I get a console this gen I'll get a ps4 for the same reasons I got a 360 last gen, I see more value and potential in Sony offering.