I didn't realise pointing out the pros of having a PC is offensive and degrading.
Just ignore any black and white comments on this topic. Because there are no absolute answers when it comes to what people like to do in their free time and how much theywish to spend to do it...it is difficult to get anywhere with black and white answers. As such, it can be a colourful topic and has got more people banned on this site than any other topic for a reason. Just to declare my affiliation up front I have all types of medium for games now as each has benefits I would rather not do without. I dont really want to open up a discussion on it, but I think I can sum up the bottom line by saying that since some PCers wish there to be more PCers for several reasons (more friends to play with and a higher industry standard for gaming in general might ensue) then they feel compelled to promote the benefits. Some are more tactful than others, but the premise is easily confused in that consolers might have lower standards, perhaps dont know what they are missing, and/or are simply to poor to get the best equipment. As you can see it easily gets confused as elitism etc. even if the intent to be superior wasnt there. Im sure there are elitist gamers out there as well although a majority are unlikely to be that bad.
You dont appear to be overly elitist, so dont take it personal. Notwithstanding, definitely do your best to NOT be condescending etc. and try to be as socratic as possible, i.e. ask questions a lot, dont tell.
Ask him what his favourite games are/were and go from there, what would he like to see?, give options.
I was out of gaming completely for about 20 years, started again when I got my son a console, got back into RPG's and then thought I would be "practical" and try out PC gaming on a laptop and not waste money on something unless it had multiple uses. Well the laptop was a gift for the wife within a few months as Witcher 2 wasnt looking as good as it could/was choppy (although I realize now that Souls games had wrecked the gameplay of other games for me a bit so it wasnt just the lower specs) and I decided to maybe get a rig. As a serious Souls fan I immediately saw the draw of 60 FPS etc. and I bought for the PC release of Dark SOuls, and depsite LOTS of wasted hours tinkering as I was/am a complete noob at PC stuff it was still worth it
becuase I was such a huge souls fan. So that might be the best shot you have...
find something he is passionate about.
I wished I would have had someone from the PC world fill me in sooner, though, as you are doing, although this friend seems not as far out of the loop as I was...I thought consoles were specificaly designed for games so they would have better graphics?!!!.Of course its not all about graphics, or even gameplay, I also just recently got into video and music editing and
there are lots of reasons why its nice to have a fast computer in the house. I like the consoles for family games, and handhelds for portability/privacy too so each are all not mutually exclusive. MIght be worth pointing out that a site like Bluestacks allows you to play all phone games at home on a bigger screen with a gamepad? Start with what he already knows.
IMO the largest factor is budget...if he is a miser and does not like to spend much on entertainment then dont be surprised if he doesnt go for it....however if he has a game he was/is passionate about, it never hurts to just put it out there that he could play it with good specs. For me, I grew up with classic games (yes I was in before pong) so it is a huge beenfit for me to be able to play oldie games (although I was able to get Rygar on the PS4 it wasnt as good graphically as on a oldie site, but had better options and controls.) Still, if he
saves money on the games themselves a larger investment might be worth considering.
One other point is that it
never hurts to gift. I asssume its not as easy to play together or online on handhelds although I realize its possible so maybe get into the habit of playing toehter on his medium first? If it is close friend you could simply start filling a steam account for him when sales are on "in case he ever decideds to buy." My brother lives far away now and he actually bought a rig solely for WOW. I didn't say much about Souls being a great game, just pointed out that we could play together on Steam with a headset and gave him Dark SOuls PC for $7.99 and bought him a $25 gamepad from Radio Shack for Christmas (as the keyboard and mouse werent optimized and I didnt know how to get the mods for mouse going.) One of the cheapest presents I ever bought him but was obviously the most fun and we spent a lot of time together with me having to be summoned in at first or he would have rage quit...he was close a few times. Met some others on steam and it was pretty good times...even had three people all talking/playing at one time. He did some stuff o his own eventually although I dont think he ever got as excited for Souls as I was. Despite being a noob myself I had figured out how to get all the mods ready for Dark souls PC and did the set up for him, including DSCfix which would increase summning potential. It was tough as he had windows 8 and I didnt and there were issues wiith 8 I hadnt dealt with, thankfully the Steam site had good links.
Another example is my daughter who likes Skylanders, all the Wii type games, and has a 3DS. I wanted to justify a Ps4 purchase for Bloodborne and could simply not justify a WiiU purchase on top ofthat so I broke down and got her skylanders on Ps4 (which acatually will cost more than WiiU but she wuold have wanted them regardless so I actually saved a little and got what I wanted as well.)
