1. HARDWARE
Game consoles are a steal at their < $350 price points these days (at least that's what I paid for both the PS4 and Xbox One, individually mind you. $298 for a PS4 thanks to Amazon screwing up, $350 - xbox trade-in - 5% = $254 on the Xbox One with 2 games (A Creed BF + Unity)). PC Hardware, however, has come down greatly in cost. You used to need a $400 graphic card to be competitive with a recently launched game console, now you can do it with a $110 one (though obviously prices go up to $1000-plus). PC gaming is still more expensive initially since you also need a HDD ($50), CPU ($100 - $300), Mobo ($30 - $300), RAM ($20 - $200), Case ($10 - $200), PSU ($10 - $200) and OS (Free - $105). To note, I also received Assassin Creed BF when it was brand new with my graphics card last year (and Splinter Cell) so the pack-ins are nothing exclusive to console gaming.
PERFORMANCE
Console games are generally more optimized since they have direct hardware requirements, but with the games coming out recently, we're seeing fixed resolutions with horrible framerates (Ryse) or other massive inconsistencies. PCs still have the ability to scale and as you said, you can upgrade if you aren't happy. PCs do have a big perk in being perpetually backwards compatible. I play a lot of Wii games on mine that look a lot better than they do on their namesake console, Crysis 3 maxed out still looks better than anything on the next-gen consoles, and Far Cry 3 exists with a stable framerate -- amazed that hasn't been re-released yet.
CONSUMER TYPE
PC Gamers know they have a little more work ahead of them, but Steam Big Picture mode takes 99% of the trouble out. Mixed that with all the games that have built-in Xbox 360 controller support and the excellent Wireless dongle and frankly PCs are basically consoles these days. Also PC drivers have improved greatly over the last decade, you no longer have to tweak and modify things to get them to work right -- things have a tendency to just work, especially in Windows 7 and 8.
Don't want to use your computer as a dedicated console? Wireless HDMI or Steam Stream work beautifully as well. I find fans of all platforms tend to be pretty annoying, the console wars are always flat out pathetic, and the whole PC MASTER RACE crap is silly as hell. The one thing I do like is having keyboard communication instead of forcing voice chat, which I often disable -- that stuff in intolerable on most consoles.
