One Year of PC Gaming

It's already been a year since I got a PC!

I have always been a Mac kid. I don't really know why, to be honest! I think it was (and honestly, still is) very solid as a productivity machine. I still use my Mac Mini to make music, even.

But I felt the draw of a PC calling to me, especially as I began to stream more frequently. I have a system where if I obsess over something for longer than a week, I decide to stop deliberating and grab it, because I know my dumb ass isn't going to let it go until I do.

So I weighed my options, and finally grabbed a NZXT Streaming Plus PC - now called The Player Two, apparently. I was actually on a trip for work in Vegas when I grabbed it, so it was waiting for me the day I landed.

Since then the PC has pretty much been my main driver for games. My Switch and PS5 gather dust outside of a few exclusives. My Steam account has been the most active it's ever been, and I've overall had a pretty great experience.

Let's talk about why!

Streaming is a Lot Easier

This is good, given it's the main reason I purchased the dang thing. Streaming is sooooo much easier on a PC. Handling audio is easier, multi-tasking is easier, and I can run my streams at a higher quality at the same time. It's made it so that I barely touch my Elgato (although it doesn't help that the Elgato is trash too lol).

PC + Steam Deck Compatibility

I meant to do a review of the Steam Deck on this blog, but tl;dr: it's great and I'm a big fan. That said, one of the cool things about the PC is that there's Steam Cloud integration. So I can do a bunch of Nioh 2 on my computer, and then swap over to play some more on my Deck on the go / on my couch / in bed. It's like going from handheld to docked mode on the Switch, except when I switch to "docked" mode my specs increase by like 1000x. It's pretty neat!

PC + Xbox Compatibility

Because I have an Xbox I can kind of do the same thing here, although in a more "limited" capacity. Since games have compatible saves between the PC and the Xbox, I can play something on GamePass on my PC, and then swap over to it on my TV. It's not a huge deal, but it is nice, especially because there's good stuff on GamePass.

Hanging with the Homies

It's much, much easier to hang out with homies on the PC. We can spin up games on Discord and Guilded, and because it's my PC, I can easily use my nice mic too. It helps that most games have crossplay as well.

I can put Stickers on it

Not important. Or rather, incredibly important.