Came into some money and got a pay rise recently. Both me and the wife are gamers and I’m trying to persuade her to get an upgrade. Either investing in a stupidly high end machine and an oculus rift, or buying a second PS4 and a stupidly large second TV.

The PC gamers are probably staring at me like I’ve got a second head for suggesting the second option. Given that we have one machine and couch co-op is effectively dead, if we want to play together it means we're sharing the console all the time, putting up with spoilers, or watching someone play what you’ve just played.

The cons of this are two PS + subscriptions AND two copies of each game. Also not playing the Witcher 3 on maxed out settings, high frame rate and feeling very smug.

The PC route has obvious advantages and cheaper games, but we still wouldn’t be able to co-op, and in reality we would still be sharing one machine as the PS4 would likely become only used for exclusives. I could buy a XBone for the exclusives but that would just be silly.

Any thought/suggestions

Why not just buy a second PS4 and a more modestly sized TV that can be set up somewhere else to play games on?

If your wife plays, even occasionally, get PS4 and two controllers. Quality family time on sofa .. but PC is master race, which is not subject to opinion but fact.

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edit: I cant read nvm

tuco wrote:If your wife plays, even occasionally, get PS4 and two controllers. Quality family time on sofa .. but PC is master race, which is not subject to opinion but fact.

We already have a PS4, but there are almost no local co-op games these days, certainly not for major releases. I think I can count the ones we would want to play on one hand. That's why I'm seriously considering the second PS4 option.

We could get 2 gaming PC's of lesser spec, but honestly this is probably about the only time we'll be able to afford a top end rig for a good few years. The way consoles are under powered this gen, it might almost be enough to see us through the next console generation before I think of upgrading again.

electricwhiteboy wrote:We already have a PS4, but there are almost no local co-op games these days, certainly not for major releases. I think I can count the ones we would want to play on one hand. That's why I'm seriously considering the second PS4 option.

But you'd still both be able to co-op in games via being online, yes?

electricwhiteboy wrote:We could get 2 gaming PC's of lesser spec, but honestly this is probably about the only time we'll be able to afford a top end rig for a good few years. The way consoles are under powered this gen, it might almost be enough to see us through the next console generation before I think of upgrading again.

This to me seems like the best of both worlds option, in terms of splitting your time between platforms and both of you having something to play on rather than taking turns on the PS4.

electricwhiteboy wrote:

tuco wrote:If your wife plays, even occasionally, get PS4 and two controllers. Quality family time on sofa .. but PC is master race, which is not subject to opinion but fact.

We already have a PS4, but there are almost no local co-op games these days, certainly not for major releases. I think I can count the ones we would want to play on one hand. That's why I'm seriously considering the second PS4 option.

We could get 2 gaming PC's of lesser spec, but honestly this is probably about the only time we'll be able to afford a top end rig for a good few years. The way consoles are under powered this gen, it might almost be enough to see us through the next console generation before I think of upgrading again.

Yeah .. dunno how I did not see it. Well, these days everything is online, true that except stuff like Lego, racing or sports.

I tend to like gaming notebook for its versatility despite its cons. Its like console, its like PC, and its mobile.

Sendraks wrote:

electricwhiteboy wrote:We could get 2 gaming PC's of lesser spec, but honestly this is probably about the only time we'll be able to afford a top end rig for a good few years. The way consoles are under powered this gen, it might almost be enough to see us through the next console generation before I think of upgrading again.

This to me seems like the best of both worlds option, in terms of splitting your time between platforms and both of you having something to play on rather than taking turns on the PS4.

I think a lot of it is going to come down to weighing up the difference between a £500-£600 rig, and £1000- £1200 rig. Two PCs is a more difficult sell as the wife just bought a new laptop that isn't quite powerful enough to game on.

If there isn't parity between the two rigs, I know for a fact who is going to be playing on the lesser machine.

lol

electricwhiteboy wrote:I think a lot of it is going to come down to weighing up the difference between a £500-£600 rig, and £1000- £1200 rig. Two PCs is a more difficult sell as the wife just bought a new laptop that isn't quite powerful enough to game on.

Well if you want to play all the latest titles for the next 5 years, it is a no brainer in investing in the £1000 rig now. Unless, ofc, you go down the route of a cheaper rig that you can upgrade as time goes on. Saving pennies on a GPU that is good enough "for now" in a machine that will benefit from a GPU upgrade in two year's time, is not a bad way to go.

PC all the way, current gen consoles are already "obsolete"

Sendraks wrote:

electricwhiteboy wrote:I think a lot of it is going to come down to weighing up the difference between a £500-£600 rig, and £1000- £1200 rig. Two PCs is a more difficult sell as the wife just bought a new laptop that isn't quite powerful enough to game on.

Well if you want to play all the latest titles for the next 5 years, it is a no brainer in investing in the £1000 rig now. Unless, ofc, you go down the route of a cheaper rig that you can upgrade as time goes on. Saving pennies on a GPU that is good enough "for now" in a machine that will benefit from a GPU upgrade in two year's time, is not a bad way to go.

That's my thinking. We're about to start saving for a first house deposit and sinking all our wages into that. Future proofing when we've got disposable income seems a smart move, it'll be a lot harder to justify upgrades in a few years. If we go for the two machines, that'll be an upgrade each.

Actually, if you get decent PC you will be probably able to stream (over home network) to your gf notebook, though probably not at the same time as playing on it different game.

Also there's nothing to stop you upgrading a £1000 machine in 3 or 4 years time to get a bit more life out of it.

The 2 PS4 route is also highly dependant on how long this generation of console will last. As awsome as the co-op would be, and being able to invite friends round for local gaming, I doubt it would last for long.

The more I'm looking at this, the more squeezing the best rig possible out of the money seems the answer.

I haven't bought a new gen console, I've been digging my PC gaming lately. But nonetheless in your situation a 2nd PS4 setup sounds great, online gameplay with the wife sounds like a lot of fun to me - all the advantages of couch co-op and none of the drawbacks if you manage to position your TVs in a suitable fashion.

Thommo wrote:I haven't bought a new gen console, I've been digging my PC gaming lately. But nonetheless in your situation a 2nd PS4 setup sounds great, online gameplay with the wife sounds like a lot of fun to me - all the advantages of couch co-op and none of the drawbacks if you manage to position your TVs in a suitable fashion.

It's one of those things that looks amazing on paper, but would be the most costly option in the long run. Working out how many games we would both want to play co-op over the lifetime of the console is the kicker. Destiny, Dying Light, Elder Scrolls Online are all pretty good answers but is that really worth the cost of a second console.

electricwhiteboy wrote:

Thommo wrote:I haven't bought a new gen console, I've been digging my PC gaming lately. But nonetheless in your situation a 2nd PS4 setup sounds great, online gameplay with the wife sounds like a lot of fun to me - all the advantages of couch co-op and none of the drawbacks if you manage to position your TVs in a suitable fashion.

It's one of those things that looks amazing on paper, but would be the most costly option in the long run. Working out how many games we would both want to play co-op over the lifetime of the console is the kicker. Destiny, Dying Light, Elder Scrolls Online are all pretty good answers but is that really worth the cost of a second console.

That's true, I guess it does depend on your co-op playing model. If you really would play such a wide range of games the cost is going to expand dramatically, if it's 1-2 really top games a year that you duplicate for many hours of co-op fun that you can't even have if you don't double up on one system or another (or is ps4-PC co-op compatibility in the works? ) then the cost is manageable and it opens up options that simply don't exist on the other path.

Thommo wrote:

electricwhiteboy wrote:

Thommo wrote:I haven't bought a new gen console, I've been digging my PC gaming lately. But nonetheless in your situation a 2nd PS4 setup sounds great, online gameplay with the wife sounds like a lot of fun to me - all the advantages of couch co-op and none of the drawbacks if you manage to position your TVs in a suitable fashion.

It's one of those things that looks amazing on paper, but would be the most costly option in the long run. Working out how many games we would both want to play co-op over the lifetime of the console is the kicker. Destiny, Dying Light, Elder Scrolls Online are all pretty good answers but is that really worth the cost of a second console.

That's true, I guess it does depend on your co-op playing model. If you really would play such a wide range of games the cost is going to expand dramatically, if it's 1-2 really top games a year that you duplicate for many hours of co-op fun that you can't even have if you don't double up on one system or another (or is ps4-PC co-op compatibility in the works? ) then the cost is manageable and it opens up options that simply don't exist on the other path.

To the best of my knowledge cross platform multiplayer gaming is very unlikely to happen for a number of reasons. Anyone on mouse and keys would have a huge advantage over a controller user for a start.

There are rumblings of Sony streaming games to PC, but it's limited at the moment, not available in the UK, and I doubt it would support cross platform multiplayer, it would also likely kill our bandwidth.

Poor bandwidth is an issue for PC gaming advantages generally as well. I get a lot of stuff on Steam these days, but the amount of download time is frankly painful on our shit connection.

Anyway, I don't think I've anything more useful to add, but congratulations on your pay rise, since I rudely forgot to say so above.