Well, I guess in terms of "starting", I use that term rather loosely, as I have kind of done let's plays before, which ranges from years of working. However, I've had to endure numerous technical issues, glitches and hiccups which have prevented me from really being able to do them. However, I'm thinking of getting an Elgato HD60 S, and recording some gameplay for 360, PS4, Wii U, Switch and XB1 games (unfortunately I won't be able to do retro consoles with it, but I guess it'll help me catch up on current consoles!!). I'd prefer to upload the videos to YouTube, rather than being a Twitch streamer. So, I have a few questions:

- What is the support for microphones? Do USB headset mics work with Elgato?

- If I wanted to do group chat some day (not sure if I ever will), can I somehow record say a Discord voice chat, or something like that?

- How much space on the hard drive does a video generally take up?

- How is the editing software/video software that Elgato comes with? Is it easy and simple to use?

- What is some good advice to someone who's not familiar with how it works?

Thanks everyone for your help!

Sorry, I was staring at your avatar. What were you saying?

My avy is great, isn't it?

You're going to want several terrabytes for storage. Those videos take up a lot of space.
Upload everyday, or record many videos and space them out over time. Upload them all at once but keep them private and put one public every day, or however many you'd like.

Don't use the elgato edittor. It sucks.
Get adobe premier or a similar video editting software and watch a lot of videos on how to edit.

When you record over mic, elgato has several inputs. There is a computer output recording, and a seperate mic recording. You can either make these separate files (which is best, so you can edit your comments) or make them a single audio file, or even just make the video and all audio one file.

Start a twitter, and an instagram with the same name as your channel. Keep up with your content.
That's pretty much it.
After that post comments on other youtube videos, other instagram, other twitter. It's all about continuous interaction.

Well, the thing is that I'm mainly going to do this out of personal interest, rather than out of a desire for popularity, so my uploads will probably be inconsistent, and I probably won't be doing much Twitter/Instragram/cross promotion.

Just don't say the N word

Mike321 said: Just don't say the N word

Don't worry Mike, I didn't plan on doing that

Hire a girl to show her tits and talk about random stuff while you play games

If you start a series, play it all the way through, before starting a new one.
Also lets plays without commentary at the very least, can be pretty boreing.

Get the GF/Wife to do them with you, and you can sit around talking as you play.

Not gonna lie, probably doesnt hurt if shes good looking :p

I tried for a while with emulators, got bored with. I used atube catcher to capture, a usb mic and videopad for editing.