Help, My PC Is Taking Over
Throughout my life, I have always been a PC sorta guy. From buying a second-hand 386 when I was 11 through to my current excessively expensive gaming rig, I have always been a PC gamer first and foremost. There were periods when I was in my late teens and early 20s when I switched to consoles, simply because of cost, but in my heart, I always knew that was just a stop-gap solution until I could once again afford a gaming PC. I suspect this love simply came from the fact that as a child I wasn’t allowed a console. You see, to my Dad, a console was a toy, while a PC was a work tool that happened to play games on the side. While my friends were playing Mario and Sonic, I was playing Simcity on my family computer. This early exposure has shaped my views on gaming and nothing since has really altered that.
But now more than ever I feel like my PC is not only my gaming system of choice, but it is fast taking over the entirety of my electronic entertainment needs. From the living room to the bedroom, my PC has, through a variety of ways, become the hub for my entire family. This has been a natural progression but over the last 6-12 months it has accelerated at a rapid pace. My PC (and its associated goodies), once isolated to my office area, now finds itself as a key member of the family and one that is increasingly becoming a master of all trades. How did it get there though? Well, that is what I want to look at and in doing so, I was surprised just how influential external factors were as opposed to my natural love of the platform.

Let me start with the gaming side of things. It is no surprise to anyone that PCs, at their higher end, outperform consoles at a technical level. But consoles always had a leg up through ease of use and the comfort factor of playing in a lounge room. No matter how much I love PC gaming there was always time for kicking back on the couch for some console game time. For a long time now you have been able to plug a PC or laptop into a TV and play, but it was always just a hassle for most. Recently thanks to a few developments that has changed. Streaming from your PC to your TV is now (after a long period of development) a very legitimate option if you have a good home WIFI setup.
Couple this with the rise and rise of handheld PCs like the Steamdeck and the ROG Ally and the prevalence of cheap docks that function like a Switch dock and all of a sudden PC gaming in the lounge is a legitimate option. For me, it really came to a head recently when I suffered an unfortunate medical condition that made sitting in a chair impossible. So, forced to lay on my lounge for comfort, I finally set up my ROG Ally X on the TV so I could keep reviewing the game I was currently working through. It works fantastically playing both games installed on the Ally and games streamed through Steam on my home PC. There are some negatives, sometimes there is some pixelization when streaming and Windows is an absolute dogfight to use with a controller (though that is mitigated somewhat by Steam Big Screen Mode) but overall the experience has been more than satisfactory.

Another reason that PC gaming is taking over my life is that more and more these days, there are no real console exclusives anymore, well apart from Nintendo of course. But in terms of Sony and Microsoft, the PC is getting the best version 99% of the time. Microsoft releases all of their games on the PC day-and-date with the Xbox and Sony is getting more and more bullish with their PC strategy, with the time between the PS5 version and the PC version seemingly shrinking with each release. This has led me to feel that instead of buying new consoles, I would be better served buying a small form-factor gaming PC to stick next to my TV. Should Microsoft release their promised Windows upgrades that make navigating the OS with a controller possible, I may very well do just that. Sure a gaming rig is pretty expensive, but if you take into account two consoles, plus their respective online subscription costs, the value proposition gets a lot closer.
On the entertainment side of things, well thanks to the ever-increasing greed of subscription services and their constant price rises, I finally sat down and set up a Plex media server with an old work laptop and a portable HDD. For those that don’t know, Plex allows users to set up their own home streaming service by converting DVDs and Blurays they own to a digital format and then streaming them to any screen in the house using a simple-to-use app. It was a little fiddly at first as I worked things out but now it is magic. I have a huge collection of physical media that I can now access on any screen in my house (and as I have teenagers, there are a lot of screens in my house.) This has been an option for quite several years now but without the greed of streaming services, I probably would have never even bothered with it. Now it is all up and running, I can’t imagine not having it in my house.
On top of that, music has long been controlled by a PC in my house. From the days of Winamp and MP3 collections, my PC has been my music hub. Funnily enough, that is one of the things that has gone in the opposite direction for me. My love of Vinyl has led me down that path for a lot of my music, but I still have my PC linked to my amplifier so I can play my streaming service of choice (Tidal for those who want to know, better quality music and pays the artists more) on my main or outdoor speakers.

The real takeaway from this move towards a central PC in my house is that it has entirely come about due to external factors and not my love of the PC gaming platform. I would have more than likely just kept on keeping on with no change to my habits but corporate greed, injuries and technical limitations of other platforms have pushed me in this direction. I have to say, I am glad they did because I can’t see myself ever going back to the “old way” now I have unlocked these modern conveniences.
So while I realise that PCs can be daunting to a lot of people and they are far from perfect, the real reason I write this is to perhaps encourage a few people to step outside their comfort zone and look at some PC-based alternatives to their entertainment needs. I understand there is a cost involved and that it won’t be for everyone, but it is also something that can dramatically change the way electronic entertainment functions in a household for the better. If you think you are getting a raw deal from streaming services, feel that the difference between consoles is minimal or just want an elegant solution to gaming in multiple locations around your domicile, perhaps it is time to step outside of your comfort zone and consider placing your humble PC at the heart of your house. It may just take over your home. It has for me.