It's that time of year again when the parents who know I work at the National Museum of Videogames (and Film & TV too) — ACMI — ask me the inevitable “what console do I buy for the kids as Christmas present?”.
Console choices are like Mac vs PC, Holden vs Ford, Vegemite vs Peanut Butter. Someone will inevitably disagree with your choice — and definitely with my recommendations but here we are. In this article I’m looking at three popular choices — the PS4, the XBox One, and the Nintendo Switch — and I’m writing largely for parents of under 13s.
Let’s start by talking about why you’re looking at consoles in the first place?
Maybe you’re sick of the kids taking over the ‘work laptop’ and potentially ‘filling it with viruses’ and then ‘what would you tell the IT department at work’? Once it was ‘something called Minecraft’, now its ‘something called Fortnite’. Maybe you’ve become worried by all the ‘doctors with reputable sounding names and affiliations’ discussing the terrible posture and eyesight issues that come ‘from playing games on smartphones and tablets’?
So it makes sense that a console might be a better way to ‘manage screen time, eyesight, posture’? And maybe you have convinced yourself that it would let you spend more quality time ‘working at home while the kids play on the console attached to the TV’, right? After all, perhaps you have fond memories of arguing in the 80s or 90s with siblings, friends, or neighbours about the SNES or Megadrive, or if you’re really old like me, the Colecovision, Atari or Commodore 64?
Consoles are all about the games
They aren’t really about the hardware. The hardware is just a means to play a library of games. Consoles aren’t like laptops or PCs where the internal specifications actually do matter, although even there they don’t matter as much as they used to.
You should choose a console based entirely on the type of games you want your family to play. Then, if you have a 4K TV then you can debate whether to buy the Pro version of whichever console.
Right now we’re nearing the end of a console cycle.
That doesn’t mean the PS4 or Xbox One are going away — its just that in the next 2–3 years, maybe sooner, both Playstation and Xbox will release a ‘next-gen’ console. It is highly likely that the ‘next-gen’ will be weighted towards a streaming console where your gameplay and game purchases will shift to a rental model entirely dependent on the quality of your internet connection. And of course the first two years of a new model console are usually pretty rocky, and current games are unlikely to be compatible, so you’ve still got around 5 years of good life left in anything you buy today. For some perspective, Playstation 3 titles only really just started vanishing even though both the PS4 and XBox One launched in late 2013.
“Exclusives” and “indies”
Each console used to have its fandom and userbase defined by its ‘exclusives’. These were big budget franchise games that only appeared on either the Playstation or XBox or Nintendo. Fortunately, since the rise of mobile gaming, these are not as prevalent as they used to be. There are still some things that remain only playable on one platform — Nintendo’s Mario, Pokemon, Kirby and Super Smash Bros most notably — but at least between the PS4 and XBox the exclusivity is no longer what it was. On the PS4 and XBox One the ‘exclusives’ are most likely to be titles aimed at 18–30 year olds with ‘considerable free time and spare cash’ anyway.
The other significant change is that game development has become much more accessible with frameworks like Unity. Most obviously seen in the plethora of smartphone games, this blossoming of “indies” — small game studios and even solo game developers has also reached the consoles. For those of us in Melbourne, there are a vast number of different and stunning indie games being made right in this city!
Interestingly since the launch of the Nintendo Switch and its online store, a lot of indie developers have started releasing their games on the Switch. Games on the Switch can be sold at much higher prices than on iOS and Android where consumers have driven then average sale price of a game down to zero (‘freemium’ titles that trade upfront payment for constant advertising and surveillance).
Both the PS4 and XBox One also have vibrant selections of download-only indie titles and you will find that often an indie game that is availaible on PS4 and XBox One for $15 will be $25 on the Switch.
The PS4
Like it or not, the PS4 has been a massively successful console — outselling the Xbox considerably around the world. This means there are more different types of games available on the PS4, and, critically, the secondhand market for games is much larger. Also, old classic PS3 games are now being ‘remastered’ for the PS4. Games on the PS4 are regularly discounted and are widely available for borrowing from public libraries too.
The PS4 comes in two models — the PS4 and PS4Pro. The Pro supports 4K resolution for modern TVs and is slightly faster. The PS4 also comes with options for 500mb and 1TB of storage. Always go for the 1TB model. I just installed a game that immediately took up 90GB of storage — that’s 9% of the 1TB model not counting any space requirements for ‘system software’, saved games and everything else.
The PS4 requires a monthly subscription to PSPlus for online gaming and as a sweetener you get online storage of saved games and a number of free older titles each month. The quality of the free titles varies and are only accessible while you continue to pay for a subscription.
Be aware that usually the PS4 ships with only one controller so you’ll want to also pick up an extra controller when you buy.
Xbox One
The Xbox One also comes in severa models — the One S and the One X. Whilst both support 4K resolution, the X is considerably faster. Like the PS4 there are different storage sizes available 500mb, 1TB, 2TB on the One S and 1TB on the One X.
Like the PS4, an annual XBoxLive subscription is required for online play and similarly it offers a sweetener of free titles each month. Anecdotally the free titles offered are more likely to be ‘popular’ games than those offered by PSPlusbut this doesn’t always mean ‘better’.
It also ships with only one controller so you’ll want to also pick up an extra controller when you buy.
The Nintendo Switch
The Nintendo Switch is the newest ‘new thing’ and its midway between a tablet and a console and can function in both modes. Nintendo probably expected this to be far less popular than it has been — it is by far the fastest selling system of the moment. It is highly portable, comes with two controllers, and a dock for TV play. As the newest, it also has the least games, and because the games come on little memory cards rather than BluRay discs, the games are also the most expensive and least often discounted.
On paper the Switch is very underpowered. It doesn’t even support 1080p let alone 4K — but when you’re immersed in the best games on the Switch this isn’t a big deal at all. Better still, you can simply pick your Switch up from its dock and walk out the door, still playing with no interruption in gameplay! (Make sure you also buy the carry case for portability).
Nintendo also requires an annual Nintendo Switch Online subscription for online play. Unlike the others, though, it doesn’t offer free contemporary titles with this subscription — instead choosing to open up a growing library of very old NES and SNES games from the 1980s for free. There are some real classics in this offering that might trigger some intergenerational memories.
So what should you get?
Right now, my strong recommendation for parents of primary school age children is the Nintendo Switch. The best games — the Mario, Zelda, Super Smash and Splatoon franchises — although more limited, are definitely age appropriate, well made and lots of fun. And, there are plenty of great indie titles for download too along with the memories of NES and SNES classics with your Nintendo Switch Online subscription. The Switch — perhaps because it is designed to be mobile — had surprisingly good parental controls as well. And when the kids are tucked up in bed, you can load up some of the very adult games — Wolfenstein II, LA Noire, or the Doom reboot — and find they play pretty amazingly well despite the hardware limitations.
If the Switch isn’t ‘console’-like enough for you, then it comes down to the PS4/Xbox conundrum. Again, right now — with the large secondhand games market for the PS4 and the larger discounting on games — the PS4 is the one to go with. Get the Pro if you can have an fancy new 4K TV, but either way, make sure you get a 1TB storage capacity model.
And what of the Xbox One? Maybe if you also have late teens in the house then the XBox One is a decent choice, but even then I’d wager that the range of games on the PS4 still slightly edges it out.
Good luck. And yes, Fortnite is available on all three platforms.
Postscript
In response to an early draft, one parent asked “what about a dedicated gaming PC?”.
The good thing about consoles are that they only do games and they can be more easily stationed in the living room where everyone can take part playing and also keep an eye on what games are being played.
A gaming computer is an investment that will be 3–5x the upfront cost of a console and will still need upgrading over time. If the kids are really into game development, game design or programming, then they will need a laptop for high school anyway and Unity (for game making) works well on laptops these days.
Other than indie games (which are also now widely available on the Switch, Xbox and PS4 (and also work on most laptops), the only games that are going to be PC only and require a ‘gaming computer’ are likely to be for 15+ ages too. A dedicated gaming computer is more likely to become a ‘private obsession’ in a way that a console in the family living room is less likely to be. So maybe for late teens who are super interested in programming, otherwise probably not.
