Budget Dilemna

[pyr0]

Hey.

So recently my half sister asked me to build a gaming PC for my nephew for £250. I accepted and started to throw together a rough plan of the system. (i5, around a gtx 670-290x)

 

However, when recently talking to her, I found out that at Christmas (Around the time I am giving my nephew the computer, possibly earlier than the PC will be ready) He is also getting an Xbox One.

 

I am concerned that she is wasting her money getting my nephew a PC too powerful for his needs. I get the feeling that he is going to fall victim to what I like to call the 'Ease Bake Effect', where someone goes with an objectively worse product because the superior product requires you to learn some of it's quirks. I get the feeling that steam is going to sit unused, with a few free to play games with ~10 mins play time on each in the library.

 

I get the feeling that this Gaming PC she asked me to build is overkill and that my nephew would be better served by a £50 homework box. Although the PC is superior, I get the feeling he won't invest the necessary time if the Xbox is sitting there, and I can't ask them to simply pile the Xbox budget on top of the PC budget for one more powerful PC as they have already bought the Xbox One.

 

This is made all the more frustrating by the fact that his friends aren't even on Xbox, the Xbox exclusives are on PC, and you can play with people on Xbox on a PC anyway.

 

Am I over reacting, or should I advise my half sister that a cheap low power homework box would better serve my nephews needs and save her money?

 

It saddens me to even consider recommending gaming on a console exclusively, but I would hate to see good hardware go to waste, and the 'Easy Bake Effect' is a bitch.

 

Thanks for reading this rant, and any advice is appreciated.

[Energycore]

Probably can convince him to use the Xbox One budget for a better computer, he can still game with controllers on a PC.

[stealth80]

2 hours ago, pyr0 said:

-snip-

Xbox exclusives aren't on PC, that's why theyre "Xbox Exclusives", its only windows store/Microsoft specific that are released for the 2 and are cross platform. I know this cause I have PS4 and PC and there are some XBOX games I fancy playing ..... but aint buying XBO!

 

As for your issue, probably an over reaction. I made my daughter a PC last xmas admittedly shes 11, but its had a fair amount of use, but no where near as much as her phone

[pyr0]

Just now, Energycore said:

Probably can convince him to use the Xbox One budget for a better computer, he can still game with controllers on a PC.

My half sister has already bought the Xbox One, and I can't really tell her to sell it

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, pyr0 said:

My half sister has already bought the Xbox One, and I can't really tell her to sell it

Ah I see. I would do the homework box then honestly. If nephew is really young he won't take full advantage of the options a computer gives, probably. If he shows interest in computing, have him build it himself

[pyr0]

1 minute ago, stealth80 said:

Xbox exclusives aren't on PC, that's why theyre "Xbox Exclusives", its only windows store/Microsoft specific that are released for the 2 and are cross platform. I know this cause I have PS4 and PC and there are some XBOX games I fancy playing ..... but aint buying XBO!

 

As for your issue, probably an over reaction. I made my daughter a PC last xmas admittedly shes 11, but its had a fair amount of use, but no where near as much as her phone

The key concern is that my nephew has a very short attention span, so he wouldn't really invest enough time to learn how to game on a PC when the Xbox one is sitting there, as much as the PC is better. Your daughter was probably able to sit down and figure it out without getting distracted and wandering off to do something else.

He would be able to do this if the PC was his only way to game, but the Xbox one kind of throws a spanner in the works

[SLAYR]

It isn't like the kid will be scarred for life by playing on an xbox, and that they will then never touch a pc again. Sounds like a bit of an over reaction, and a 290x/gtx 680 is a bit overkill, do you expect them to play AAA titles which are mostly M rated at 200fps.

 

I would say just get the cheap homwwork computer, consoles are flat out easier to use then a pc especially for a 7 year old kid, you won't have to worry about updating drivers, and consoles will have less bugs and an easier UI, for this use case a console would be better then a pc.

[MrDynamicMan]

He's seven, right? Go for the console. There's no way he's gonna use the PC to the full potential, and it doesn't matter to him anyway. All that'll end up happening is that he'll try get "free minerals hacks" or something, and brick it.