I am considering getting Calista a new gaming platform for Christmas-- don't know if it will be a PC ps 4 or xbox -- maybe wait till ps5?

 

My vote would go PC->Xbox->PS5, but that's just my personal preference.

If can buy an already built entry gaming rig (or build one too, quite the fun learning experience for her) for about the same price as a game console. Plus she would have a functioning computer for school work and leisure. Not hard to hook it up to the TV with a long HDMI cable out of the video card and then use a wireless keyboard\mouse to run the PC and a bluetooth gaming controller for when she plays games.

If you haven't heard of the program Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/) then I would highly recommend checking that out. I've had it for over a decade and have accumulated a huge library of games (which I don't have time to play anymore ) from just shopping the sales they have all the time.

I also like Xbox, but mostly because I have quite a bit of other items tied to my Microsoft account and it's the console I've been running since college with no issues. I don't hate the Playstation, just haven't used one since the PS2.

 

Also, from a budget standpoint I would never buy the newest gaming model (Xbox\Playstation) available. Usually the graphics difference is negligible, especially if you're running an older TV or audio system. Plus the new games released are backwards-compatible with the older console (Xbox at least) so you can always re-use the game if\when you do upgrade to a newer model. Our Xbox One has quite the library of original Xbox\Xbox360 games that are over a decade old, but the boys still love to play them! It loads them into a "virtual" Xbox 360 console within the Xbox One so the programmers wouldn't have to go back and rewrite the original game code. Pretty cool!

 

I'm too old. What is Xbox, Playstation etc. My grandsons talk about Fortnight or whatever that is. It seems to be popular. Can someone enlighten me. My thumbs get tired just thinking about this stuff and are already stiff just from deleting stuff on a smart phone.

 

Surely you can relate to the Atari, right Del? Spend many hours of my childhood in front of a console TV and playing those brick-like games

Come to think of it, isn't Minecraft just an Atari game with better colors? haha

 

Justin keep in mind that I got married in 1970. Atari would be something my daughters would have played. They weren’t all that interested. When I got my first computer I was 40 years old.

 

That's true, I assumed you would have had a better chance of contact with the system (in comparison to today's games) but if your daughters weren't interested then I'm sure you wouldn't have had experience with it. No worries, you didn't miss much

 

Pinball, shuffleboard and pool were more our thing if not outside and at a tavern etc. There were no arcades etc in the area where I grew up either. I was a farM kid and hung out in small towns.

 

We used to get to go to Hastings and there was an arcade there-- I was hooked-- dumped many many quarters in Space invaders- and Pac man-- I still have most of the gaming consoles I have owned-- (comadore 64-- Magnavox- Tandy- Atari- Apple II- Saga- Nintendo ect ect ect) -- I had to quit gaming when I was overseas- To hard to keep up with the new- and it was becoming an issue with work-- Beer gaming and girls kinda took over life for awhile to where I was always hung over and wasn't doing my job to the best of my abilities-- Then one day I played a game for 13 hours-- tried to go to sleep and kept seeing the game in my head couldn't sleep-- Kinda tapered of and dropped gaming all together-- until I play some things now with Calista-- Its a friendly competition-- so we have fun :-)

They have that new hand help game-- (swift?) I might get her one of those.

 

Chad, was the arcade in the mall in Hastings? We used to go there all the time with the kids. I read the other day it is now closed. There wasn’t much there the last few years. It was a hoppin place in the 70s and 80s.

 

Yep the mall!! Crossroads mall maybe? We used to go every so often to get clothes and what not-- Eat at sirloin stock ade or if it was a special occasion Long John Silvers-- (I was a kid I loved that place) -- they even had a real McDonalds!!

 

The only arcade we had access to was Aladdin's Palace in Manhattan's mall, and boy was it the place of ultimate entertainment in my childhood! Only went a few times since we went to Manhattan about once a year for clothes shopping, but it sticks out in my memory really well. I also remember playing the N64\GameCube\PS on department store displays while my mom shopped. Such a crick in the neck, but totally worth it.

I played a lot of Atari\NES growing up in the summer since I was a town kid stuck at home with no siblings and both parents worked. Other than watching TV, it was really all I had to do. Then I hit the teens and really didn't play any systems again until after college when I got my first job, bought an Xbox 360, and started playing Halo online with some friends from work. I kinda dropped off after Mason was born, but picked it back up once he was old enough to run the controller (3 I think?) and we started playing all sorts of racing games. Now we play Minecraft as a family on the LAN (Jamie\Mason on the projector, Corbs on his tablet, me on my laptop). I really do like to play some other games (Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2 are awesome!) but my work hours and personal home obligations literally provide me about an extra 30 minutes a week of "gaming" time. Oh well, just another boring fact of life for an adult I suppose

 

Adulting sux!!!

 

I had the Atari 2600 growing up, but didn't get to play often, because it cut into Dad's TV time. I tried a Sony PlayStation.something rather in College, but all I had was Sonic the Hedgehog, and I quickly got bored of that because I didn't understand the concept. My wife bought me an Xbox 360 for an Ultimate Offroad game that was supposed to come out, but it never came to Xbox, so I never played it. Now we have the latest/greatest Xbox and I never get to use my movie theater, because the girls are on it with the Xbox. Oh well.

 

Luckily I only have to one kid and 3 tvs