One of the selling points of a console is that you don't need to upgrade the hardware yourself. I assume most people who buy consoles, buy them for that reason. They can just plug it in and play, no hunting for which GPU they need, nor cpu, or motherboard, etc.....

Or you could buy a pre-built gaming PC or even have someone put it together for you, or even go to PCpartspicker.com and literally steal/copy someone's build and have it built for you.

When it comes to making/building a PC, we're not in the 90's to early 00's anymore. 

Most stores (if not all) don't have pre built gaming PCs. Plus I was talking about your average consumer who would rather just buy a game console for little jimmy than do any of the things you mentioned. 

I could buy a gaming PC but I don't see much need to do so other than to say I have one. One day perhaps. 

1. Exclusives. Nintendo and Sony will never put their mainline exclusives on the PC. Flower, and Journey are ages old games, and Indies type games to boot. Them coming to PSNow means nothing. If you take Nintendo and Sony's games out of the equation you are left with half as many good AAA games to buy/play every year. You wind up missing out on the best games every year. Even if you make a PC your main platform for gaming a PS4 or Switch to supplement your options is a must. People that only own a single platform have no idea what they are talking about when they say "my platform is the best".

2. Many games get delayed on PC by six months to a year or more. I'd rather be able to play the game day 1.

3. Compatible from the start of the gen to the end. I still remember people claiming you could build a $400 PC, that ran better than a PS4 back in 2013. Well those $400 towers would now need to be upgraded just to meet minimum system requirements to run games that the base model PS4 can still run.

4. Physical games, and a right to own what you buy. I still only pay $35 to $45 for my physical games on day one. Compare that to the $60 price tag of a digital-only version of a game sold on Steam. IMO the Steam version is a blatant rip-off.

Now don't get me wrong though. I still like my PC a lot. PC has advantages of its own such as...

1. Cheaper Indie games. Indie games get released to it sooner. Many indies that come to PC will be half as much or even less than the console version. Many Indie games come to PC, and then slowly make their way to consoles months or years later.

2. Hardware that will never die, and is 100% backwards compatible.

3. PC also has good exclusives. Sure, they are a bit fewer, but PC has almost as many good AAA exclusives from 2013 to 2019 as PS4. Almost. I've lost track, but I think the current count is 25 PS4 exclusives to 10 to 15 (depending if you count expansions) good PC exclusives.

4. If you have the money, building your own PC to max settings is a lot of fun. Watching Civ 6 run with blazing fast turn times was hilarious and great!

Stores I've been to have at least one and US based stores are picking up on it, so it's not like a wasteland, where there's one gaming PC in one thousand stores type deal.

How do you know that the average consumer always wants a console, why not a mobile or tablet, which technically forms a much higher userbase than the ones found on console?.

I dunno, a PC does much more than a console than being just one thing to lay claim of "owning".

First statement is incorrect.  Twisted Metal had a PC release.  But you also had to plug in, "mainline exclusives," because you know Journey and Flower are on PC.  With Xbox moving towards PC, I don't see why Sony wouldn't do the same.  PS now and Remote play are already on PC.  It's a bit weird to think Sony would meet us half way like that.  We already have ways to play on PC.  Just let us do it without all the button lag and 720p.

Sometimes games get released later, but the game is always better for it.  GTAV would be a much worse game on PC if it had come out during the last generation release.

Pretty sure PCs below minimum spec can run games.  Especially the type you're talking about.

The law for digital licenses works the same rather you have the digital media stored on the hard disk drive, or own it on disc.  Otherwise companies would not be able to legally get away with putting dlc on store shelves, (which has it's benefits, which is why it's done anyway.)

You mean Twisted Metal 2? That was over 20 years ago. Yes, Journey and Flower are both on PC. Nobody cares. Wake me up when a Sony developed 1st party AAA gets released to PC in the same generation that it launches in. Sony wouldn't do the same, because Sony didn't cut its console sales numbers in half this gen. Sony wouldn't do the same, because Sony's exclusives are still valued enough to be purchased for $60 on launch. MS's exclusives on the other hand have been getting horrible reviews for the past couple years. PS Now is nothing but scraps meant to squeeze the last drops of revenue out of ages old games. 

Below minimum specs means a PC can't run a game at all, or can only run it at ridiculously low FPS. Something like 10-20 FPS. 

Yeah, the law works the same. But in reality used game disks can be bought, sold, and traded to others. Digital games can't, unless you get a copy on GoG. 

This is a very vague and often misleading argument. For starters, yes; console hardware is cheaper due to the manufacturer incurring a loss on the hardware in return for a locked-in guarantee of licensing fees for any title that publishers bring to the platform. This cost isn't absorbed, it's passed onto the gaming consumers in the form of higher priced games to cover the license. Those additional costs do add up, and unless you're only buying, say, 10 games for the lifetime of the console, the manufacturers still reap plenty more over their initial loss, with a healthy profit to boot...

Fact of the matter is all the cool kids have consoles.

ok all seriousness from this point on; I just don't understand the need to downplay or convince other gamers that their choice of platform is a bad investment.

To answer the OP: I like having physical copies, my the collector's editions, and just having it sit there on the shelf is a thing of beauty. Getting it signed by the makers is even better. I even remember back in my junior, and high school days my friends and I was sharing playstation and dreamcast games. Being a kid back then and playing games that you borrowed from a friend was freakin huge because it means you didn't have to buy it to play it. (And before you can say "You can share on Steam too!" Well it's not as simple as just handing over your game, other people can only play your games when you aren't using them and, I think you have to log into Steam on that friend or family member's PC to authorize it) And why the hell do I have to explain that here? I shouldn't have to.

TLDR: It's not a negative owning a playstation console, it's more of a net gain. I can always expect Sony's first party studio to deliver high quality games that appeals to me, and that is what it really boils down to. My PC is for anything else that pushes my GPU, and MMOs.

With nearly all the points OP has laid out, he could apply the same exact reasoning for the Switch as well in comparison to streaming ... 

Why buy clunky dedicated portable gaming devices like the Switch or it's successor when streaming games to your smartphone (or anything with a display for that matter) from more powerful devices get's you a SUPERIOR technical experience AND doesn't come with technical drawbacks like maybe downgrading to a Switch ?

I'm not going to be able to get very many high quality production experiences with a Switch and there's more seamless solutions than the Switch ...

If anyone couldn't tell, I was being facetious for the most part ... 

"no big drop in performance, and good battery life, I feel like the hardware itself is good enough to justify owning it, regardless of the games" 

Only in OPs dreams would this be true and that goes especially for the last part since the WII U was within a similar tier of the Switch in terms of performance but man did that system's hardware sales cratered as a result of the drought of quality software releases. Not being able to play the vast majority of modern AAA games and a 2.5 hour battery life all without it's games must be a good one to make just about anyone laugh ...