Poll: Wii U or gaming PC?

Quirkymeister

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Hello,
I'm about to finish my exams, and I thought once they were over I'd treat myself to a new gaming platform. Now, I don't much care for the PS4 and XBox One for reasons others have elaborated on, so I figured, at some point, I'd like to own an on-par-with-current-gen PC for the big AAA stuff, and the Wii U for the reliably fun Nintendo games. My Wii broke a while ago, so I have lots of Wii games that I haven't been able to play for ages, including Xenoblade Chronicles, which I didn't finish but really really want to, and virtual console titles, and there are quite a few Wii U virtual console titles that I'm interested in playing, as well as some Wii U titles like the Wind Waker remake, the next Xenoblade game and Bayonetta 2.
However, I've got a lot of games on steam and gog as well. My current laptop can play pre-2010 games fairly comfortably on not-high settings, but if I want to play, say, the next Just Cause, that new Mad Max game, the Witcher games or XCOM 2, then it's likely I'll have to upgrade and get a proper desktop pc.

My budget won't allow for both, at least not at the same time, so it's likely one now and one for Christmas or something. So, escapist people, which would you recommend first? A better gaming PC, or a Wii U?
Thanks,
-Quirky
 

tippy2k2

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What's out for the Wii U right now and what's out for the PC right now that you want to play? For myself, I never assume greatness out of games not yet out and from your own description, you'll be able to do both, just not right away.

So to me, it would come down to what you want to/what you can play now and then pick up the remainder later. If I had to choose between the two, I'd go PC for XCOM 2 alone (...why Firaxis...why have you forsaken me!?!?) but I also have virtually zero interest in any of Nintendo's big three so that is a giant hit to their stock for my gaming needs.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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I'd get a gaming PC. Well, I'd get a PS4. But PC vs. Wii U? I'd get the PC. Better games already out, better games yet to come.
 

Zontar

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As someone who games on both a PC and a Wii U, I'd say PC just due to Steam and GoG. But it is pretty much the only argument to be had these days since the Wii U is the only current generation console actually worth owning. People knock the gimmicks, but those gimmicks are what make a console.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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WiiU. I mean, you aren't going to get a decent PC for the same price point, so by getting the WiiU, you've got your PC games, as well as getting back your old Wii games and the WiiU library. Getting the PC will only add the capability for new PC games, leaving your Wii and virtual console games to languish.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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Um, as a Wii U/PC owner, I'd say maybe get a PC now. The Wii U does have a lot more to chose from compared the the remasters and games with PC ports that are taking up the bulk of the other systems' libraries, but it seems to have a sort of weak release schedule after Splatoon. You'll have to look at what is out, what is coming out, plus what Wii games you have and compare that to what you wish to play on PC.

The Wii U also might get a price drop or storage upgrade [footnote]"Awe crap, here he goes with this line again." I just hate being burned by getting something, only to watch its price drop 2 months later[/footnote], but both are far less likely than the chances the other systems had. You might even find a good sale this fall. There's also always the option to get another new/used Wii to regain access to your own Wii games.

I'm also getting a little vigilant about how Nintendo is working Amiibo into its games. I was looking forward to a decent, if simple and very short, single player mode in Splatoon to add to its major draw of multiplayer, yet in order to get everything available at launch, you have to buy $30+ worth of figures (that are hard to find together for less than the price of the game, thanks to the crap Amiibo market). I haven't got Splatoon yet because of that. (There is a thread in this forum discussing the issue.) It might be best to let this one play out a bit before delving back into the Nintendo ecosystem.
 

cathou

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it's a odd choice i think. pc and wii u are complementary. i have a gaming pc and a wii u, so i dont have the need for an xbox or a ps4. but wtween pc and wii u.... depend on the games you like, but i would say a pc
 

Smooth Operator

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Well since you seem to be primarily into Nintendo games the answer must be WiiU, if it was any other situation I would advise anything but WiiU because you really really need to be into Nintendo for their console to make sense.
 

NPC009

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If there are some Wii (U) games you'd like to play right now (Xenoblade Chronicles?), I'd say: buy a Wii U. Then get a better PC just in time for the glorious online wintersales and enjoy.
 

Guffe

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How much are you going to play?
If you ar going to get about 3 or so hours gaming each day (of course there will be days when you won't game or somedays game more=) then I'd go for the PC now and WiiU later. If you will be gaming a little now and then, I think the WiiU might be a better option now. You'll have games, but not as many as on PC, and if you save money for christmas, then the PC is going to be better than the one getting now...
It's a though one, but I'd say you should base it on amount of playing you're going to do up until you get the second one. A lot of gaming = PC, a little everyday, but not crazyhours = WiiU.
 

JayRPG

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As much as I love my Wii U at the moment (Splatoon is addictive as fuck), I had to vote the Gaming PC.

It does depend on your needs though, really, a lot of the good PC games just aren't graphically intensive, you said you already play a slew of games on your current laptop, is there anything coming out on PC that you really, really want to play that your laptop cannot handle?

Obviously going with the Wii U would give you access to all the Wii U exclusives while still having access to a large portion of PC games with your current laptop.

There is also the cash factor, how much were you planning to spend on building a gaming PC? If your budget is that of the Wii U you probably aren't going to be able to build anything that is significantly more powerful than your current laptop. If you were going to spend a good amount on it and get some high level stuff there is always the option of 'why not have both?' - build a mid-range PC and get a Wii U as well.

If both isn't an option due to budget constraints but you still have a high enough budget to build a mid-range gaming PC then go the gaming PC. If your budget is only what the Wii U costs then get the Wii U, especially now while there are cheaper Splatoon bundles available - you've already hinted you'll likely pick up whatever you don't have right now at Christmas time, and at Christmas time the Wii U is likely to be slightly more expensive and there will be a bunch of new part options for your PC given how quickly that landscape changes.

The more I've rambled on here, the more I think you should just get the Wii U lol. It's cheaper right now; on the PC side, both graphic card manufacturers have only just released (or are gearing up to release) new stuff, which is expensive at first, there'll be a drop on all the parts that are current now by the time Christmas rolls around, and you'll probably have a little more cash to spend on building a better PC at Christmas time anyway. Meanwhile you'll still have your laptop to play most of the PC games you want to play anyway, even if they are uglier right now than they will be on your shiny new PC.

Honestly, I don't know where I'd be without either at the moment, none of my other platforms (PS4, Xbone, PS3, Vita, N3DSXL, X360, PSP etc) really get touched.
 

CrystalShadow

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I'm rather surprised you can compare these on equal terms if you're short of money...

A decent gaming PC is a massive investment compared to a Wii U.

I was very budget-conscious with my (now 5 year old) gaming PC, but even so it still cost me the best part of 700 pounds (about 1000-1200 dollars). More if you factor in that I've since needed to get a new monitor and other stuff.

A laptop for gaming purposes is even worse. I'd expect to double that price, and probably have worse performance into the bargain if I wanted a decent gaming laptop.

By comparison, a Wii U would be what, $300-400 at most?

Those really aren't comparable in price at all, so it's a bit of a strange premise to me.

Still, that aside, you'd have to judge it on what games you like, what's already out, what you already own, what's coming up soon...

The Wii U's backwards compatibility with Wii games is near flawless. The only weak point is games that have features that relied on connect24 features. (you can no longer save screenshots in Smash Bros brawl, and I know of a game that was using realtime weather data for a small area, which doesn't work because the weather app relied on connect24 functionality, and isn't even included)

You do need a wii remote for it, but if you already owned a wii that's not a huge deal really...

A Wii U seems vastly more affordable, though at the end of the day it's still almost entirely down to what you most feel like playing.
I've had both for ages... And I don't know if I'd like to be without either. Though on balance, I use my PC much more, for many various reasons. Still, you have a working laptop, so that means a new PC is largely for games only...

Tough one...
 

LaoJim

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As other are basically saying, it sounds like you would eventually benefit from both. The thing is PC components are continually getting cheaper, so why not get the Wii U now, spend six months or so catching up on its catalogue and then see where you are financially for building a new PC then?
 

BlackBark

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I'm not sure it's worth buying a PC just to meet the standards of the current gen consoles. It would still cost more than the Wii U and may get outdated too quickly.

CrystalShadow said:
I'm rather surprised you can compare these on equal terms if you're short of money...

A decent gaming PC is a massive investment compared to a Wii U.

I was very budget-conscious with my (now 5 year old) gaming PC, but even so it still cost me the best part of 700 pounds (about 1000-1200 dollars). More if you factor in that I've since needed to get a new monitor and other stuff.
Just wondering, how well does your PC cope with new games? Mine is around 5 and a half years old now too and is managing to play on medium to high settings, but I spent around 1100 pounds at the time (not including monitor, DVD ROM or HDD, which I took from my old PC). Might help the OP to decide if they know how much they have to spend and how long the PC will still be relevant.

Overall, I agree with CrystalShadow, that a PC is going to be a much larger investment and that since you already have a laptop, the PC would only be necessary for newer (AAA) games that you want to play. It sounds like you would get more use out of the Wii U, but miss out on a few titles until you are in a better financial position and can get a new PC.
 

CrystalShadow

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BlackBark said:
I'm not sure it's worth buying a PC just to meet the standards of the current gen consoles. It would still cost more than the Wii U and may get outdated too quickly.

CrystalShadow said:
I'm rather surprised you can compare these on equal terms if you're short of money...

A decent gaming PC is a massive investment compared to a Wii U.

I was very budget-conscious with my (now 5 year old) gaming PC, but even so it still cost me the best part of 700 pounds (about 1000-1200 dollars). More if you factor in that I've since needed to get a new monitor and other stuff.
Just wondering, how well does your PC cope with new games? Mine is around 5 and a half years old now too and is managing to play on medium to high settings, but I spent around 1100 pounds at the time (not including monitor, DVD ROM or HDD, which I took from my old PC). Might help the OP to decide if they know how much they have to spend and how long the PC will still be relevant.
Oh, pretty good, really. I mean, I'm tossing around the idea of a graphics card update, but I can't complain even about it's current performance.

A quad-core i5-750 + Radeon 5770 actually still puts in a respectable performance for most games.
Some don't run super-amazingly well, but I haven't come across anything at all released in the past 5 years (or now) that it won't run at moderate to high settings.
In some rare cases I have to turn down the resolution for really demanding games, and most of the time I have AA turned off completely...
But that aside, show me a game I can't run in the 20-30fps+ range with almost all the graphical effects turned up, and I'll be quite surprised.

Still... I'm probably going to upgrade some time this year. Maybe go nuts and get a 390X or something... XD
I have my reasons I suppose.

But let me put it into perspective; While it runs most actual games at what is usually an acceptable combination of quality and performance....

For the money I paid for my 5770 (most awesome AMD card in forever, by the way, if you weren't obsessed with raw performance, nothing else at the time had the combination of price/performance, and low power use. Kinda Ironic AMD now has a reputation for power-hungry cards, because this one is quite the opposite), you could now get a R9 280...

Which, to put that into some persective, will score 5x as much on a benchmark.

Shows you how low the expectations for PC games are that my system can keep up at all when the gap is already that large even for the same kind of price...
The high-end stuff is probably 10-20x faster... XD

But... It's the results that count. And my system is still going strong, relatively speaking.
 

DRTJR

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If both is an option i'd go both, since the investment for the good enough gaming rig to handle stuff like Witcher III, or DA: I will be more than the Wii U and it's best games for shore. So economicly the Wii U, but if money isn't an issue get both.
 

BeerTent

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When it comes to Nintendo, you either love Nintendo enough to justify it, or not.

Nintendo's consoles still follow the "right" way of grabbing people's attention and flocking popularity to it. By being unique, interesting, and having a boatload of exclusives. Hell, the entire Nintendo library is extremely difficult to find on other platforms if they're there at all! The Wii series of consoles also make great party machines. So if you host a lot... I know I've bothered Adam once or twice to fire that sucka up.

On the other hand... The PC. I'm horrifically biased unbelievably hard. The PC doubles as a workstation, entertainment center, and gaming console. The more you add to the PC, the more you can do in real life. Your Wii can't print resume's. It also makes for a pretty shitty TV watching experience, and games that are freely available need to be built just for the Wii.[footnote]Also, PC's are great for porn. Can't put NSFW [http://images.summitpost.org/original/35072.JPG] pictures as your Wii's desktop background.[/footnote] Furthermore, the PC has the modding scene out of the box. You can't beat that. Once your done Zelda, that's that... Once your done XCOM, there's Long War ************. Done Half-Life? There used to be a website chock full of mods. Hundreds of them.

One thing that everyone is going to tell you though? Is that PC's are expensive. They're not. Two components of your PC are going to be expensive. That's your Processor, which could go from $80-$120, and your Video card, which can go up to $250. Everything else is under $100. This is assuming that you build your own unit, which I recommend. Hey, you're on a PC now. Sweet desktop? cannibalize it. Show me the specs, and I'll tell you what you can and shouldn't keep. This'll save a significant amount of funds on your next PC. The PC will never die, and upgrades (Like my recent, expensive $150 upgrade) will skyrocket the longevity of your PC. You can't upgrade consoles. Only toss away and buy a new unit. The biggest down-side is that PC's require some know-how. But this can be bypassed by finding a good specialty shop and asking them questions. Where I live, I got these guys [https://www.mysterybyte.com/] I ask all hardware questions in person, they come through every time.

If you need any additional help with PC's, feel free to fire me a PM. I'm a Bonafide Certified Tentastic Technician! Or, well... was. Until they took my gun and badge away.
 

gorfias

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CrystalShadow said:
I'm tossing around the idea of a graphics card update, but I can't complain even about it's current performance.

A quad-core i5-750 + Radeon 5770 actually still puts in a respectable performance for most games.
You can probably triple the power of that card for under $200. Once you have more than a dual core pentium, game visual qualities come down primarily to the quality of that graphics card.

The best single investment I've made in 3 years though was an SSD for my operating system. Computer boots up lightening fast. Other than that, if you are not running out of RAM, an I5 should do fine for most games.

That written, I wish I had not voted PC over Wii U. Sounds like you can still do plenty of PC gaming. A 5770 is still pretty good (I have a 2nd rig with a similarly powered GTS 250 that still plays better than an Xbox 360). So you will not really be having a new experience with a new graphics card.

I'm a loon. I have all 3 gen 8 consoles as well. Of them, the Wii U is the most unique new gaming experience. I am happy to have it.
 

OldNewNewOld

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I would go for a Wii U since my PC can handle the new games, well, kinda handle... anyways, there aren't really any new multi-plat or PC exclusives that I'm hyped about, while I'm really interested in Splatoon and quite a few other Wii U exclusives so, yeah, that's the reason. But if you're more of a multi-plat gamer, I would suggest you go with the PC.

But it all depends on the games you like. And lets be honest, the best option would be getting both, which you said you would by the end of the year. So the choice comes down to "what system has the games that you want to play NOW, and what later?". I would, again, go with the Wii U since right now Splatoon is out and the focus of the game is online multiplayer, which is almost always the strongest when the game is just out, there are quite a few other games that you can enjoy until the winter when you will also get Steam, GoG, GMG and G2A winter sales, right on time with your PC upgrade.

And if you're a big MonHun fan, MH3U alone can give you enough enjoyment until winter.

BeerTent said:
One thing that everyone is going to tell you though? Is that PC's are expensive. They're not. Two components of your PC are going to be expensive. That's your Processor, which could go from $80-$120, and your Video card, which can go up to $250. Everything else is under $100.
Depends where you live. In the US it is maybe cheap for you, but in my country it's all so damn expensive that it takes you like 3 average monthly salaries to buy just a mediocre PC. What's $200 in the US is like +$350 in my country. A 1TB hard drive is ~$100 while it's ~$50 on amazon.com The "myth" that gaming PC's are expensive isn't really a myth since they are expensive in the biggest part of the world, which is outside the US.
 

CrystalShadow

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Gorfias said:
CrystalShadow said:
I'm tossing around the idea of a graphics card update, but I can't complain even about it's current performance.

A quad-core i5-750 + Radeon 5770 actually still puts in a respectable performance for most games.
You can probably triple the power of that card for under $200. Once you have more than a dual core pentium, game visual qualities come down primarily to the quality of that graphics card.

The best single investment I've made in 3 years though was an SSD for my operating system. Computer boots up lightening fast. Other than that, if you are not running out of RAM, an I5 should do fine for most games.

That written, I wish I had not voted PC over Wii U. Sounds like you can still do plenty of PC gaming. A 5770 is still pretty good (I have a 2nd rig with a similarly powered GTS 250 that still plays better than an Xbox 360). So you will not really be having a new experience with a new graphics card.

I'm a loon. I have all 3 gen 8 consoles as well. Of them, the Wii U is the most unique new gaming experience. I am happy to have it.
Yeah... I'd probably be a nut like that too, if I'd had more money generally... XD

I do know you can probably improve on that spec for a decent amount, but I'm looking into VR, which changes the demands somewhat.
Where 20-30fps is, perhaps not ideal, it is passable for a standard gaming system.
In VR though, if you aren't getting rock-solid 90+ fps you're going to suffer for it (nausea and other such symptoms).
Well, strictly speaking, it's latency, not framerate, but they often go hand in hand.
I mean, you might even want 100-200 fps or more, but the headsets can't actually do those kind of framerates, so it becomes a bit of a moot point. As long as you aren't getting any drops below the display refresh rate, it should be pretty solid, but even so the performance demands get pretty absurd.

Still... I've got a lot of time to consider that problem... XD