I still don't understand the appeal. I've played the Orange Box and Bioshock on the Computer but I hate Keyboard and mouse. The best PC games I've ever played are still the Sims and Roller Coaster Tycool. I am a console gamer.

welcome to the fold

PC gaming is great. I love it. However, there are no games like Metroid Prime on the PC. Classifying it as a FPS is a common misconception. It's an adverture game from a first person perspective that relies heavily on puzzle solving, exploration, and enviromental immersion. It's like Zelda in first person mode, but you can turn into a ball, lol.

Still, Metroid Prime as the exception, the PC owns the First Person genre.

Issues with PC gaming are:

1. Lack of Plug and Play gaming

2. Requsite seating position requirements due to interface and screen size limitations.

3. Distinct lack of Japanese style games compared to consoles.

4. Ease of pirating software makes development on the system often less than profitable, and in some cases, can ruin a company. 

Of course, these are far outweighed by its strengths, but those reasons, many people choose to develop and play consoles more than their PC's, or perhaps exclusively, compared to their PC's.

I prefer the choices we have available, as I game on PC, and all Consoles, even last gen ones and handhelds. That way, you don't miss the good stuff, and avoid the filler.

^that's cause most devs focus on making games for the consoles - not PC

Actually, if you now where to look you can build a PC that runs Crysis minimally in about $500. I believe that's under the launch price of the PS3. As I said in another thread, if consoles keep getting more and more expensive, then I don't see the need for consoles to even exist since the PC can do everything better ( maybe not fihgting games or anything that requires anything more than 3 KBD presses at a time).

^no way a Pc can run Cry. for under 500!!!!!!!! that would be waaaaaaay to weak

^ Like i said, just gotta know where to look. Also this price doesn't include any peripherals. Just the box without a monitor or KBD or mouse.

Ah this ones a thing of the past. A good majority of TV's come with vga inputs nowadays and many video cards come with HDMI output. My monitor is a 27" 720p lcd tv which I share with my 360. My friend went nuts and bought a 42" 1080p tv for his PC/360/TV duties. the mouse is the only real drawback to couch pc gaming as you have to come up with a flat surface for it. I do most of my gaming/websurfing/tv watching from my easychair with the keyboard in my lap and a end tabel beside it for the mouse. 

Actually gamepads can be used for fighters. It would be pretty easy to do if devs would put a little work into assisting with the programming of controls and pre-build some profiles etc...

@WiiForever,

$60 - Mobo ($6.33 Shipping)
$60 - Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (Free Shipping)
$70 - eVGA 8600GT 256MB DDR3 (Free Shipping, $30 MIR included in price)
$75 - 320GB SATA HDD ($6.13 Shipping)
$23 - CD/DVD SATA Burner ($5.84 Shipping)
$7 - Floppy Drive ($4.99 Shipping)
$35 - Case ($14.99 Shipping)
$13 - *500W RAIDMAX PSU ($7.31 Shipping $25 MIR included in price)
$36 - A-DATA 2GB DDR2 800 CAS 5(Free Shipping, $10 MIR included in price)

* = Special Deal, limited time

Hardware price.........~$397.00
Shipping Costs..........~**$46.00
Total......................~$443.00

**These shipping costs are based on seperate ordering, if all parts are ordered at once you will save a fair amount. When I checked my address it saved me $16.

If you neex another XP SP2 license (which you probably don't) you can get it here.

A good LCD monitor would run you another $150-$200 or so.

That rig won't blow Crysis away but you should get a good mixture of medium and high settings out of the box. And if you've never built a PC before it could be a learning experience (one that could save you a bunch of money over the years).  But as I suggest to all people trying it for the first time you should always have someone you know who can come and help you if you get stuck.  And I'm willing to help answer questions for first timers so feel free to PM me.