Question Gaming console Advise for kids

[eddyjohns]

Hi. I am a total noob to gaming consoles.

We are thinking of buying something for the kids.

We don't want to spend a lot of money. Kids are 5 and 8 and thinking games like Just Dance and maybe the Band/singing type games will be what they are into .

There seems to be a lot of options out there. We haven't done much research yet but are there any out there that are better than others or any to steer clear from ?

 

[TheELF]

Get a nintendo switch and a second controller, get a couple for you parents as well, it connects to your big screen TV with its hub.
It has a lot of party games that you can play as a whole family, also nintendo is well known for having more kiddy style games even though most of them are also great for adults.

Mario kart alone should keep the kids happy for a very long time but it also has just dance and many rhythm games.

 

[kev.pow27]

Nintendo switch sounds like just the perfect option. It’s got great collection of games that’s good for kids. The Mario games, just dance, animal crossing are some of the great options. My sons are 8 and 11 and they enjoy playing games on Nintendo switch. Highly recommended! As a side note, consider getting an insurance plan too. With kids you never know, I personally went ahead and took HP ultimate gaming coverage plan. Cheers!

 

[daveybrat]

Nintendo switch sounds like just the perfect option. It’s got great collection of games that’s good for kids. The Mario games, just dance, animal crossing are some of the great options. My sons are 8 and 11 and they enjoy playing games on Nintendo switch. Highly recommended! As a side note, consider getting an insurance plan too. With kids you never know, I personally went ahead and took HP ultimate gaming coverage plan. Cheers!

Really?? So you bought a $19.99 a month warranty that'll come to almost $240.00 a year for a Switch?

 

[igor_kavinski]

PC gaming is best.

Wanna know why?

To use a PC, you need to stress your neurons and learn your way around an OS. It also expands your horizon more than the closed and limited nature of a console would permit. Your kids can game, learn to type stuff in MS Word, do some simple math calculations in Excel, create something cool in MS Paint and so many other things. The possibilities are endless. All they need is a PC.

A console would just turn them into gaming addicts. A PC could give them a career.

 

[sze5003]

Personally when I was growing up I wasn't allowed to play video games so I was about 13-14 when I was gifted a super Nintendo. Thanks to foreign parents lol.

I'd say if you absolutely want a console you can't go wrong with a switch. A PC is good also if you want to introduce them to programming languages later but I'm sure as they go through school they will be exposed to computers and at that point they will want a PC too as they get into their late teen years.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Benefit of a PC is that there is a possibility that a kid might be waiting for just such a thing to unleash their inner genius. Lots of exceptional white hat hackers and coders got exposed to PCs at an early age.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I set my kids up with a gaming HTPC and while it didn't turn them into white hat hackers it did make them more competent when doing basic troubleshooting for Windows etc.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

PC gaming is best.

Wanna know why?

To use a PC, you need to stress your neurons and learn your way around an OS. It also expands your horizon more than the closed and limited nature of a console would permit. Your kids can game, learn to type stuff in MS Word, do some simple math calculations in Excel, create something cool in MS Paint and so many other things. The possibilities are endless. All they need is a PC.

A console would just turn them into gaming addicts. A PC could give them a career.

You forgot about your kids going on pornhub for DV DP videos tbh

 

[purbeast0]

PC gaming is best.

Wanna know why?

To use a PC, you need to stress your neurons and learn your way around an OS. It also expands your horizon more than the closed and limited nature of a console would permit. Your kids can game, learn to type stuff in MS Word, do some simple math calculations in Excel, create something cool in MS Paint and so many other things. The possibilities are endless. All they need is a PC.

A console would just turn them into gaming addicts. A PC could give them a career.

This is one of the dumbest hot takes I've ever read lol.

Honestly can't tell if it's sarcasm or not.

 

[igor_kavinski]

This is one of the dumbest hot takes I've ever read lol.

Honestly can't tell if it's sarcasm or not.

I enjoy doing the productive stuff a lot more than I do gaming. PC is a perfect vehicle for someone's curious mind.

Early on, I vaguely remember I prevented my brother from running his favorite game on our 386 PC by renaming the .COM or .EXE to something else. He would go inside, type the name of the game and it wouldn't run. I think even my dad couldn't figure out what went wrong. I got to spend more time on the PC

 

[purbeast0]

I enjoy doing the productive stuff a lot more than I do gaming. PC is a perfect vehicle for someone's curious mind.

Early on, I vaguely remember I prevented my brother from running his favorite game on our 386 PC by renaming the .COM or .EXE to something else. He would go inside, type the name of the game and it wouldn't run. I think even my dad couldn't figure out what went wrong. I got to spend more time on the PC

You are talking as though they are mutually exclusive.

They're not.

 

[DaaQ]

Yea, the switches have decent parental controls.

PC yea I could and am working on setting up a local account for my granddaughter that will not let her on YouTube, pornhub, just flat out inappropriate stuff on my laptop I bought and used for a few years. Ryzen 2400g btw.

I made the mistake many years ago of not policing my sons' plural, PC activities, looking back it was a big mistake. IE I now have custody of my 2 granddaughters.

We got them Switch Lites for xmas last year. At the time 5 and 7 yr old. But I have the ability to suspend software remotely at any time, change their total play hours per day on the fly, set hours each day of the week. See what they spend the most time on per week or day. And turn a they cannot run the software between hours a-b.

The one gripe I have with the Switch parental controls, is the amount of playtime per day, it could be more fine tuned. It is currently only x amount of hours a day I believe in half hour increments up to 6 hours total. Weekends at minimum should have a slightly higher allotment, IMO.

@eddyjohns bolded Italicized is for you mainly.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I now have custody of my 2 granddaughters.

Woah. What about their mom?

 

[DaaQ]

Woah. What about their mom?

What about her? Last I seen her in person was 2018. Her 2 now out of highschool kids want nothing to do with her.

Their temporary stepmother was cut out like the cancer she is/was, after what we were told by the oldest grandaughter.

 

[RPD]

Yea, the switches have decent parental controls.

PC yea I could and am working on setting up a local account for my granddaughter that will not let her on YouTube, pornhub, just flat out inappropriate stuff on my laptop I bought and used for a few years. Ryzen 2400g btw.

I made the mistake many years ago of not policing my sons' plural, PC activities, looking back it was a big mistake. IE I now have custody of my 2 granddaughters.

We got them Switch Lites for xmas last year. At the time 5 and 7 yr old. But I have the ability to suspend software remotely at any time, change their total play hours per day on the fly, set hours each day of the week. See what they spend the most time on per week or day. And turn a they cannot run the software between hours a-b.

The one gripe I have with the Switch parental controls, is the amount of playtime per day, it could be more fine tuned. It is currently only x amount of hours a day I believe in half hour increments up to 6 hours total. Weekends at minimum should have a slightly higher allotment, IMO.

@eddyjohns bolded Italicized is for you mainly.

I hate the Switch parental controls because if you had a child account, THEY control what games they can or can't play. E.g. my 11 year old could not play Diablo2 remastered due to the rating on the game. I had to work through customer service to get a refund on the digital game because it was so stupid. If it was just a damn physical cartridge game he could have played it.

 

[DaaQ]

I hate the Switch parental controls because if you had a child account, THEY control what games they can or can't play. E.g. my 11 year old could not play Diablo2 remastered due to the rating on the game. I had to work through customer service to get a refund on the digital game because it was so stupid. If it was just a damn physical cartridge game he could have played it.

I cannot recall any game ratings, been almost a year. I said they were decent. Not great.

The play time limit is 6 hours period. Controlled each day.

Now there is an option on the app to disable controls temporarily. You can also suspend software at anytime through the app.

Example, I can disable or suspend while I am at work if requested by wife.

They can really do better than they have though, with multiple switches, digital DL are a real PITA.

 

[RPD]

I cannot recall any game ratings, been almost a year. I said they were decent. Not great.

The play time limit is 6 hours period. Controlled each day.

Now there is an option on the app to disable controls temporarily. You can also suspend software at anytime through the app.

Example, I can disable or suspend while I am at work if requested by wife.

They can really do better than they have though, with multiple switches, digital DL are a real PITA.

I wasn't disagreeing with your statement, merely adding my own experiences with it. D2R has I believe a M rating, but Nintendo feels they should get the last say on what children can or can't play based on ratings for digital games. It made zero sense, given the potential work around.

 

[quikah]

I wasn't disagreeing with your statement, merely adding my own experiences with it. D2R has I believe a M rating, but Nintendo feels they should get the last say on what children can or can't play based on ratings for digital games. It made zero sense, given the potential work around.

I don't know how it works on switch, but AFAIK you need a blizzard account for Diablo 2R. Blizzard has a minimum age of 13 to make an account.

 

[RPD]

I don't know how it works on switch, but AFAIK you need a blizzard account for Diablo 2R. Blizzard has a minimum age of 13 to make an account.

They had a blizzard account, with several hundreds of hours on D3 logged.

 

[quikah]

They had a blizzard account, with several hundreds of hours on D3 logged.

Oh, it is just weird conflicts with different age limits on child accounts. I have my son as a child on his Xbox account, as a result he cannot play Overwatch on their since he can't make a Blizzard account due to the age limit. Companies just protecting themselves from frivolous lawsuits. I wish they gave complete control to the parent.

 

[DaaQ]

I wasn't disagreeing with your statement, merely adding my own experiences with it. D2R has I believe a M rating, but Nintendo feels they should get the last say on what children can or can't play based on ratings for digital games. It made zero sense, given the potential work around.

Yea, just like Fortnight is accessible which is ridiculous imo.
Have the same issue with Netflix and Disneys PC. I have to allow a rating of no rating on the 8yr olds profile or there are a lot of cartoon shows missing.

And kids messenger is frustrating beyond belief. Took me almost 4 months to get their dad's new account added to hers. And a month to get hers reconnected to the same authorized device she was using when she accidentally "logged out".

 

[RPD]

Oh, it is just weird conflicts with different age limits on child accounts. I have my son as a child on his Xbox account, as a result he cannot play Overwatch on their since he can't make a Blizzard account due to the age limit. Companies just protecting themselves from frivolous lawsuits. I wish they gave complete control to the parent.

Yea its confusing as all get out, I can not STAND the entire MS sandbox when it came to Minecraft and other stuff, unbelievably frustating. What is so dumb is if D2R had a physical copy of the game, my son could have played it with zero issues, but because it was only digital it was a no go. I would have had to de-activate or ditch the current account (along with games purchased) make a new account, fake the age, then tie D2R to that account and then he could have played it. So I said fuck it and bought it for him on PS4 with no issues.

 

[simas]

Hi. I am a total noob to gaming consoles.

We are thinking of buying something for the kids.

We don't want to spend a lot of money. Kids are 5 and 8 and thinking games like Just Dance and maybe the Band/singing type games will be what they are into .

There seems to be a lot of options out there. We haven't done much research yet but are there any out there that are better than others or any to steer clear from ?

what is your budget? if you want easy once and done -> nintendo switch. if they are getting more curious about other games, then something like Steam Deck would be awesome. My 8 year old got into other games she plays on computer itself and loves it (they are not out on switch and may never be) . I got both so they play with both and switch is collecting dust more and more once they are through some big releases (zelda, pokemon ,etc)

 

[jpiniero]

Hi, I also recommend the perfect switch for children.

Too easy.