Call back in about a year.  That's about how long it took before it was cheaper to buy a computer off the shelf that was more powerful then a PS3/360.

Also $399?  Shouldn't that be more like...  $699, considering ~5 years of paying for online?    PS+ gets you a lot of free games sure.  So does, just owning a PC.  (Or PS4, though not nearly as many F2P will be on there.) 

Outside which, try back in about a year.  That's about how long it too to build a cheaper PC.  (Let alone waiting for the right deals on individual parts etc)

Right now, you can do it for a lot cheaper then you could of PS3 at launch.   When new hardware releases?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/14/build-a-next-gen-pc/

This of course is assuming you don't already have a PC you can caniblize for parts.  (Which you probably do.  Even if it's a beater.)

the real meat of the presentation

Funny, I left PC gaming a little after you, in 2006. Much more comfortable on consoles. I respect it, but I dunno it just felt like the right decision.

Obviously, except this excess power is never used and is just a waste of money

It's almost time for me to upgrade my rig :D.

Really? Well, yeah, there's not a lot of exclusives or variety in them but they do have multiplatforms.

You have to look at the long-term costs.

Lets break it all down.
Pay for online at $50 a year for 10 years. - $500.
Console itself. - $500
100 games at around $10 cheaper than the PC. - $1,000 (You can usually get them even cheaper than that, which brings that number up higher.)
3x Controllers. - $75
So, that's roughly at-least 2 grand.

Now, I know plenty of people who are still rocking with Core 2 Quads which launched at the start of the generation, albeit heavily overclocked to around 3.8ghz. - Throw in a couple of GPU upgrades over time and it will generally handle any game today just fine.

Then last week I built a "Gaming PC" for a mate of mine with an AMD FX 8320, 8Gb of ram, Radeon 7870 Ghz Edition all for $700 AUD. (Minus Monitor as it's being used on a TV.)
The CPU will clock to around 4.5-4.8ghz easy when the need arises, but I don't see it needing an entire rebuild anytime soon, the console CPU's are incredibly underpowered, so over the course of this next generation it will probably just be a new GPU every few years and maybe another 8Gb of ram.

PC gaming really *isn't* that much more expensive than consoles. If anything it's probably the other way around!
Sure you pay more for hardware, but everything else is cheaper or free, more DLC on the PC is free, free online... Even allot of free games.

Seems the reason that Nvidia is going all out is they don't like the fact that amd is getting publicity by being manufacturer of choice in the consoles and so they go from the president saying we love working with Sony and it's been great and benificial for both parties and we see a long term partership ,to we don't want your stinking consoles .

You can bet if they had their tech in either PS4 or XBone the tune would be very different , and a we can't meet your requirements becomes spun into we didn't want to do it , where the reality seems to be Nvidia really didn't have a design that ticked off all the directional needs of the next gen consoles to match amd's apu road map and unified memory design ,and because no one likes to look as if they couldn't compete at a certain point , even if that just comes about by not having like your opponent a x86 licence to make things easier and thus having a different focus.
So really it's Nvidia trying to tell the world it was them declining rather than any thing done better by amd that got them into the consoles.

If ya noticed, i lowered the actual price I was going against to $400, which is more of the average price from start until about 2 years ago. No, no one can buy a PC for the same price as a ps4, but my point is they have a very futureproofed system that can span 2 generations for about the same price range between the 2 consoles.  The beauty of a PC is that it can be upgraded, whereas a console is a sealed deal, minus unauthorized modding.

I can get games at discount on Steam fairly easily, sometimes for half or less compared to a console game. I really haven't been given a reason to want a home console outside of Nintendo's offerings, as I cant get the latest zelda games on my PC =)

I agree. Although its more convenient to spend 2 grand in 10 years compared to 2 grand in 4 years. Don't worry I get what you saying :P in the end it's almost the same.