• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

*** Official Video Game Thread ***

Evening all, could you help me to untangle the twisted world of consoles please?

My 9 year old currently plays Minecraft for free on an old laptop, which suits me as I am very tight.

For his birthday he would like an XBox to play Minecraft on, with 2 controllers so he can play with friends.

I see the XBox Series S is only £250 which is a bargain considering the Series X and the Playstation 5 are a lot more expensive.

I see the Series S has no CD slot so you buy games online and/or you can get a subscription to Game Pass for £11/month i.e. £132/year to get access to shedloads of games.

But he will only really want Minecraft for the next couple of years.

Should I get a Series S?
It seems you can buy Minecraft digitally from the Microsoft Store for anything ranging from £24 to £40 for the Starter or Master collection. So many effing options.

Should I just get some older model of XBox or PS4 as he really isn't into any other games. Yet.

Should I just tell him to shut up and carry on playing for free on his laptop.
 
I would get him one of the next gen consoles. They go pretty quickly from just liking Minecraft to playing all sorts of games.

The older consoles are being wound down so no new games will be developed for them in years to come. The newer consoles are not going to be changed out for at least 5 or 6 years so I’m sure it would be a good investment in the long run.

Not sure about game pass stuff as my lad just asks for the games he wants to play.
 
Thanks Dave. Would be easier if it just worked like Netflix i.e. your TV just 'works' so you just need to buy a controller and off you go. Am wary of making the wrong decision as it will be several hundred quid before the wee twerp says it is the wrong one.

Even Minecraft itself has loads of different flavours, each designed to disappoint and drain your wallet in new and subtle ways.

I might even have to go into a "shop" and talk to a teenager at this rate.
 
Bullet said:
Thanks Dave. Would be easier if it just worked like Netflix i.e. your TV just 'works' so you just need to buy a controller and off you go. Am wary of making the wrong decision as it will be several hundred quid before the wee twerp says it is the wrong one.

Even Minecraft itself has loads of different flavours, each designed to disappoint and drain your wallet in new and subtle ways.

I might even have to go into a "shop" and talk to a teenager at this rate.
Click to expand...

Funny you say that Netflix announced they are bringing Video games to their service in the future so you may be in luck.

You never know you might play the odd game on a console yourself if you do buy one. Always good fun way to kill a few hours.
 
Bullet said:
Evening all, could you help me to untangle the twisted world of consoles please?

My 9 year old currently plays Minecraft for free on an old laptop, which suits me as I am very tight.

For his birthday he would like an XBox to play Minecraft on, with 2 controllers so he can play with friends.

I see the XBox Series S is only £250 which is a bargain considering the Series X and the Playstation 5 are a lot more expensive.

I see the Series S has no CD slot so you buy games online and/or you can get a subscription to Game Pass for £11/month i.e. £132/year to get access to shedloads of games.

But he will only really want Minecraft for the next couple of years.

Should I get a Series S?
It seems you can buy Minecraft digitally from the Microsoft Store for anything ranging from £24 to £40 for the Starter or Master collection. So many effing options.

Should I just get some older model of XBox or PS4 as he really isn't into any other games. Yet.

Should I just tell him to shut up and carry on playing for free on his laptop.
Click to expand...
If he's 9 them he's likely to want to get into Minecraft coding soon. He'll need a PC for that.

I'm fairly sure there are two flavours of Minecraft, one of which has cross-platform online play. He'd be able to play that one with his friends.
 
Bullet said:
Evening all, could you help me to untangle the twisted world of consoles please?

My 9 year old currently plays Minecraft for free on an old laptop, which suits me as I am very tight.

For his birthday he would like an XBox to play Minecraft on, with 2 controllers so he can play with friends.

I see the XBox Series S is only £250 which is a bargain considering the Series X and the Playstation 5 are a lot more expensive.

I see the Series S has no CD slot so you buy games online and/or you can get a subscription to Game Pass for £11/month i.e. £132/year to get access to shedloads of games.

But he will only really want Minecraft for the next couple of years.

Should I get a Series S?
It seems you can buy Minecraft digitally from the Microsoft Store for anything ranging from £24 to £40 for the Starter or Master collection. So many effing options.

Should I just get some older model of XBox or PS4 as he really isn't into any other games. Yet.

Should I just tell him to shut up and carry on playing for free on his laptop.
Click to expand...
Get the one his mates have got, because he'll want to play online with them. If you don't now, you'll only have to do it at some point. Ask their parents what one they've got and whether they are considering buying the newer version. My boy (13) has had the S for years, and when he was offered the X for his birthday, he said he was quite happy with it as none of his mates were upgrading.
 
LemonadeMoney said:
Get the one his mates have got, because he'll want to play online with them. If you don't now, you'll only have to do it at some point. Ask their parents what one they've got and whether they are considering buying the newer version. My boy (13) has had the S for years, and when he was offered the X for his birthday, he said he was quite happy with it as none of his mates were upgrading.
Click to expand...
Thanks Lemon. Hmm, the S was released on Nov 10 last year, so I assume you mean nearly a year? If we're talking about the same thing. Good point about his mates... I will have to ask around and see what they are doing.

Scara makes an interesting point about coding or "modding" Minecraft... maybe he will have to do both i.e. XBox to play with mates and laptop to do modding. So confusing all this.
This website https://my.codakid.com/ seems to have nice courses for modding; another one of those £10/month things.
 
Bullet said:
Thanks Lemon. Hmm, the S was released on Nov 10 last year, so I assume you mean nearly a year? If we're talking about the same thing. Good point about his mates... I will have to ask around and see what they are doing.

Scara makes an interesting point about coding or "modding" Minecraft... maybe he will have to do both i.e. XBox to play with mates and laptop to do modding. So confusing all this.
This website https://my.codakid.com/ seems to have nice courses for modding; another one of those £10/month things.
Click to expand...
Sorry, you're probably right about the S, I just assumed it was a new release of the old Xbox One. My boy has had his xbox for years. But anyway, the point remains, for good or bad, game consoles are a major way kids interact these days.
 
Last edited:
LemonadeMoney said:
Sorry, you're probably right about the S, I just assumed it was a new release of the old version. My boy has had his xbox for years. But anyway, the point remains, for good or bad game consoles are a major way kids interact these days.
Click to expand...
Yep, having looked into it for a few more hours, this is what I found.

Seems like the Windows 10 PC Bedrock version and the XBox version are pretty much aligned and you can play either/or and switch between them. Maybe. Perhaps.

XBox Series S is £250 from Microsoft or Amazon or Currys or Argos
Amazon do £50x5 payments so if it goes wrong that is good I guess as I can quibble before I've paid for the thing BUT was tempted to buy from MS because they "own it" so I can moan at them... I did actually try to put it in a basket to cost things up but their website failed. Jesus Christ, I was trying to give them money and it just refused to work. This is a monolithic megacorp and they couldn't get their basket to work. No wonder people use Amazon so much.
So I talked to one of the MS customer service humanoids, allegedly called Luigi, and he was moderately helpful but seemed VERY keen to get away and talk to other people rather than help me buy products.

All controllers are wireless and take AA batteries I think, rather than being rechargeable... although they do plug in with USB-C but maybe that is for when the batteries run out rather than charging? Not sure.

Extra controller is £55 which seems very expensive for what it is...the MS site had them for £40 but as I said it wouldn't let me put them in the basket.

Game Pass is £8/month so £96 per year but that just gives you access to games, you can't connect with friends.
Game Pass Ultimate is £1 for first month then £11/month so £122 for year 1. Can switch from GPU to GP easily at any time allegedly. So they suck you into going for 'Ultimate'.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-for-console/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/friends-social-activity/friends-groups/add-friends
https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
 
Bullet said:
Edit - they have a huuuuge tutorial with a thousand steps to Mod a sword. For free. Will get the brat to do that first, see if he enjoys it or gives up after 30 minutes. https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
Click to expand...

You can buy mods for the consoles but in terms of actually adding a mod i think the majority of them only work on the pc as you have access to game files etc which is harder to do on the console. You have a java version of minecraft and a windows 10 version. I believe the java version is what the consoles use and you are limited to what you can do in terms of mods but you can play with people on pc aswell as on xbox. I own a gaming pc and my son has an xbox one s and we sometimes play minecraft together (he is also 9). It all depends on what your son wants to do with it, if he just wants to play with friends who have consoles and is happy with selected mods then the xbox series s is the way to go. If he wants to mod the brick out of it he will need the windows 10 version which should be able to run on bricky pc but limits who he can play with and what sort of mods he can use (you will need a better pc / laptop for more demanding mods).
 
Bullet said:
Yep, having looked into it for a few more hours, this is what I found.

Seems like the Windows 10 PC Bedrock version and the XBox version are pretty much aligned and you can play either/or and switch between them. Maybe. Perhaps.

XBox Series S is £250 from Microsoft or Amazon or Currys or Argos
Amazon do £50x5 payments so if it goes wrong that is good I guess as I can quibble before I've paid for the thing BUT was tempted to buy from MS because they "own it" so I can moan at them... I did actually try to put it in a basket to cost things up but their website failed. Jesus Christ, I was trying to give them money and it just refused to work. This is a monolithic megacorp and they couldn't get their basket to work. No wonder people use Amazon so much.
So I talked to one of the MS customer service humanoids, allegedly called Luigi, and he was moderately helpful but seemed VERY keen to get away and talk to other people rather than help me buy products.

All controllers are wireless and take AA batteries I think, rather than being rechargeable... although they do plug in with USB-C but maybe that is for when the batteries run out rather than charging? Not sure.

Extra controller is £55 which seems very expensive for what it is...the MS site had them for £40 but as I said it wouldn't let me put them in the basket.

Game Pass is £8/month so £96 per year but that just gives you access to games, you can't connect with friends.
Game Pass Ultimate is £1 for first month then £11/month so £122 for year 1. Can switch from GPU to GP easily at any time allegedly. So they suck you into going for 'Ultimate'.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-for-console/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/friends-social-activity/friends-groups/add-friends
https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
Click to expand...


Most of the controllers are wireless but when you put them on charge its just a wired controller. You can buy wired cheaper controllers from Argos etc for £25, these controllers also plug and play on pc / laptops.
 
Bullet said:
Yep, having looked into it for a few more hours, this is what I found.

Seems like the Windows 10 PC Bedrock version and the XBox version are pretty much aligned and you can play either/or and switch between them. Maybe. Perhaps.

XBox Series S is £250 from Microsoft or Amazon or Currys or Argos
Amazon do £50x5 payments so if it goes wrong that is good I guess as I can quibble before I've paid for the thing BUT was tempted to buy from MS because they "own it" so I can moan at them... I did actually try to put it in a basket to cost things up but their website failed. Jesus Christ, I was trying to give them money and it just refused to work. This is a monolithic megacorp and they couldn't get their basket to work. No wonder people use Amazon so much.
So I talked to one of the MS customer service humanoids, allegedly called Luigi, and he was moderately helpful but seemed VERY keen to get away and talk to other people rather than help me buy products.

All controllers are wireless and take AA batteries I think, rather than being rechargeable... although they do plug in with USB-C but maybe that is for when the batteries run out rather than charging? Not sure.

Extra controller is £55 which seems very expensive for what it is...the MS site had them for £40 but as I said it wouldn't let me put them in the basket.

Game Pass is £8/month so £96 per year but that just gives you access to games, you can't connect with friends.
Game Pass Ultimate is £1 for first month then £11/month so £122 for year 1. Can switch from GPU to GP easily at any time allegedly. So they suck you into going for 'Ultimate'.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-for-console/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/friends-social-activity/friends-groups/add-friends
https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
Click to expand...
https://www.cdkeys.com/xbox-live/me...x-live-gold-membership-xbox-one-360-eu-cd-key

Cheapest way to get one year playing with mates online.
 
Bullet said:
Yep, having looked into it for a few more hours, this is what I found.

Seems like the Windows 10 PC Bedrock version and the XBox version are pretty much aligned and you can play either/or and switch between them. Maybe. Perhaps.

XBox Series S is £250 from Microsoft or Amazon or Currys or Argos
Amazon do £50x5 payments so if it goes wrong that is good I guess as I can quibble before I've paid for the thing BUT was tempted to buy from MS because they "own it" so I can moan at them... I did actually try to put it in a basket to cost things up but their website failed. Jesus Christ, I was trying to give them money and it just refused to work. This is a monolithic megacorp and they couldn't get their basket to work. No wonder people use Amazon so much.
So I talked to one of the MS customer service humanoids, allegedly called Luigi, and he was moderately helpful but seemed VERY keen to get away and talk to other people rather than help me buy products.

All controllers are wireless and take AA batteries I think, rather than being rechargeable... although they do plug in with USB-C but maybe that is for when the batteries run out rather than charging? Not sure.

Extra controller is £55 which seems very expensive for what it is...the MS site had them for £40 but as I said it wouldn't let me put them in the basket.

Game Pass is £8/month so £96 per year but that just gives you access to games, you can't connect with friends.
Game Pass Ultimate is £1 for first month then £11/month so £122 for year 1. Can switch from GPU to GP easily at any time allegedly. So they suck you into going for 'Ultimate'.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-for-console/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/friends-social-activity/friends-groups/add-friends
https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
Click to expand...
https://www.very.co.uk/xbox-series-s-xbox-series-s-with-optional-extras/1600503630.prd

12 months interest free if you spend over £300 (so add controller etc), plus I think you get 10% off with code WELCOME.

He'll need a headset like this to talk to mates, and save you from listening to game noise
https://www.very.co.uk/turtle-beach...-ps4-switch-pc-black-amp-green/1600354547.prd

Rechargeable battery stand
https://www.very.co.uk/venom-xbox-one-twin-docking-station-with-2-battery-packs/1373270115.prd?_requestid=961927&Ntt=xbox venom

All also available in white if you want to match.
 
Last edited:
Bullet said:
Yep, having looked into it for a few more hours, this is what I found.

Seems like the Windows 10 PC Bedrock version and the XBox version are pretty much aligned and you can play either/or and switch between them. Maybe. Perhaps.

XBox Series S is £250 from Microsoft or Amazon or Currys or Argos
Amazon do £50x5 payments so if it goes wrong that is good I guess as I can quibble before I've paid for the thing BUT was tempted to buy from MS because they "own it" so I can moan at them... I did actually try to put it in a basket to cost things up but their website failed. Jesus Christ, I was trying to give them money and it just refused to work. This is a monolithic megacorp and they couldn't get their basket to work. No wonder people use Amazon so much.
So I talked to one of the MS customer service humanoids, allegedly called Luigi, and he was moderately helpful but seemed VERY keen to get away and talk to other people rather than help me buy products.

All controllers are wireless and take AA batteries I think, rather than being rechargeable... although they do plug in with USB-C but maybe that is for when the batteries run out rather than charging? Not sure.

Extra controller is £55 which seems very expensive for what it is...the MS site had them for £40 but as I said it wouldn't let me put them in the basket.

Game Pass is £8/month so £96 per year but that just gives you access to games, you can't connect with friends.
Game Pass Ultimate is £1 for first month then £11/month so £122 for year 1. Can switch from GPU to GP easily at any time allegedly. So they suck you into going for 'Ultimate'.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-for-console/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/friends-social-activity/friends-groups/add-friends
https://codakid.com/guide-to-minecraft-modding-with-java/
Click to expand...

I would recommend getting a recharge station for the controller or you will driven mad replacing batteries. The controller just sits on it and recharges when not in use. They are not too expensive and will pay for themselves in short order.

Controllers are expensive and do break. You might shoot for a deal that has 2 controllers included, or if the 2nd controller is rarely used just buy a cheap wired controller for the 2nd one (not a wireless MS one). That'll save you 40 squid.

On the xbox pass and ultimate. Watch for offers. They come up all the time. As long as one account on the xbox (set one up for yourself too) has the game pass all accounts can use it. So you can get an offer for one user, and when that expires look for an offer for another user, etc. They come around again quickly enough. You'll save yourself a packet doing this. Also remember to go on to your MS account and turn off auto-renew for the subscription as soon as you sign up to it. That way you'll avoid any nasty shocks on your card in months time.

edit: I see some similar advice above so I probably should have read the thread first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back