🎮💻 4 Tips for Transitioning from Console to Desktop Gaming 🎮💻

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It's a tale as old as time, and I'm not talking about a Disney movie.

Since more or less the dawn of the era of electronic gaming, console gamers and desktop gamers have been at each as others throats – sometimes clearly playfully and sarcastically, and sometimes maybe not so much.

There are plenty of obvious benefits to each gaming platform. If you're a console gamer, for example, you typically do not have to worry about any of the "behind-the-scenes" work of keeping your machine in good condition through careful and ongoing tinkering. And you may not catch the same "nerd stigma," since consoles are seen as a more social kind of device.

Then, on the other hand, if you're a desktop gamer, you will typically have way more choice in the types of games you can play, you'll be able to continually work on upgrading and maintaining your rig, so that you are always on the cutting-edge of graphics and performance technology, you can get fully into the weird and wonderful world of modding, and more.

In other words, swings and roundabouts, really.

But what if you find yourself transitioning from being a console gamer to a desktop gamer? What If the promise of high-end graphics, and more flexibility, really sways things for you?

Well, if that's the case, here are a few tips for making the switch as manageable and straightforward as possible.

1. How about connecting your favourite console controller to your computer?

Hey, it's not as if the only devices you can plug into your desktop computer are a keyboard and mouse. Heck, once upon a time it was even pretty common to use joysticks when playing space sims.

If you're making the transition from being merely a console gamer to a desktop gamer, you can almost completely replicate the best parts of your console experience, by connecting your PS4 or Xbox One controller to your computer, as described here: https://setapp.com/how-to/connect-ps4-or-xbox-one-controller-to-mac

For certain games, you may well find that the entire experience is actually better if you are using a console controller. If you've got the right emulator set up, and are playing old SNES games, for example, using a keyboard and mouse just isn't the same.

You'll probably also get a much better gaming experience by using a console controller if you happen to be playing any racing games.

Here's one caveat, though: if you're planning to become some kind of competitive FPS gamer via your desktop PC, you are going to have a really bad day unless you stick with the good old-fashioned mouse and keyboard setup after all.

2. Accept that you're going to have to rebuy some of your favourite games – but look at it as an opportunity to re-experience them (with mods and better graphics)

It's an unfortunate, and often extremely irritating, reality that different gaming platforms are self-contained entities, and aren't going to allow you to move games back and forth between them. This is even true for different platforms on PC, that offer many of the same games as each other. GOG and Steam don't have much in the way of a "mutual exchange" going on, for example.

What this means for you, is that you need to accept that you're going to have to rebuy some of your favourite games, if you're planning to make a major platform switch, and want to keep enjoying them.

You could take the opportunity to get extremely annoyed by this, and to suspect that the whole situation just ends up being way too much of a good deal for the games developers – and, fair enough.

But, you can also choose to look at this as a great opportunity to re-experience some of your all-time favourites, potentially with even better performance, even better graphics, and a bunch of mods, if that's the way you want to go.

Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim have been some of the most popular games of all time. And, they have also been some of the most heavily modded games of all time.

You might think you know everything there is to know about a particular game world or environment until you load up your new mod and discover that there are all sorts of goblins, wolves, and werewolves where they're not meant to be.

3. Spend the costs up front to get yourself a proper gaming rig

So, this point has been made to some extent earlier in this article, but it's pretty clear that the major benefit of desktop gaming over console gaming, is that when you're playing on a desktop, you can keep your machine constantly at the cutting-edge of performance technology.

Well, close to the cutting-edge, anyway. Keeping it at the actual cutting-edge might be really expensive.

In any event, desktop gaming means not having to wait until that entire generation of technology you're playing on has become redundant, just to then shell out the money for the latest edition, in one lump sum.

If you were just going to move over to desktop gaming, without having a decent gaming computer, and without wanting to spend the money to get one, the whole thing would be pretty pointless, no?

If you want to transition into desktop gaming, spend the cost upfront to get yourself a proper gaming rig. This might be pricey, but you'll likely benefit from seriously enhanced performance and a crisper overall experience.

4. Make a wish list of games you want to play (or replay) on the new device

Since you're going to be getting yourself set up on a new platform, you may as well take advantage of this "fresh start" and indulge yourself in creating a gaming wish list for the new device.

For starters, it might be that you now have access to games that you didn't have access to before. Or, certain games might be more tempting now that you know you can run them more effectively.

Then again, it could even just be the case that the flexibility of gaming on a desktop computer means you can use the right emulators and tools to play games that haven't been run on a console for 20 or 30 years.

Either way, plan things out and enjoy developing your anticipation.