Its amazing that PC gamers are on a sales website and fail to understand through social awareness the reason and cost effectiveness of going console over PC. The lack of ability to see is primarily a lack of social awareness.

-Base price is the base price and it doesn't change. PC's demand maintenance.
-Casuals do not purchase as many games as normal gamers.
-It is simple and easy and can serve as their media center just like a PC, but legitimately for the living room.
-Casuals dont generally look as much at enthusiast websites like we do for their information most of the time. They'll usually go to a gamestop or look at a review or two on IGN but thats baout it.
-Casuals like to play moderate level games, but where they feel it is more affordable and most cost effective...they don't need to know anymore than that and that is why they make the decisions that they do.

They are the ones who are keeping GTA, COD, AC and games of that ilk running without fail. 

Those who use PC's for gaming in the capacity that a core gamer does have a deeper knowledge and thus value the notion of Platform upkeep> Games vs console owners who think Games > Platform upkeep.

^This right here is why last gen PC gamers complained that console gamers were holding games back. They know console gamers and casuals are where the money is coming from but they cannot stand that their gaming experience is being a hampered.

They have to learn to deal with it or become a cash cow for publishers otherwise.

You can't really expect too much from a PC that costs as cheap as you could get a PS4 or Xbox One over the past couple of weeks.

It's just not worth your time to try to build a system for 329 or 350 when you aren't going to get decent performance on par with a PS4 AND you can get so much more for just another 200 to 300 dollars.

Basically, if you are going build a rig, you tend to get what you pay for. Don't try to get the same price as a mass produced console.

Apparently $550 is almost the same price as an Xbox One.

Someone should cut these writer's pay by 35% and see how they like getting almost the same pay.

The article was written a year ago. The Xbox One retailed for $499 back then, with the average sales tax that is just about $550. 

This really has nothing to do with what we're discussing or arguing for that fact, but I'm going to go ahead and refute some of your claims.

1) PCs do not "demand" maintenance. Once you build it, you're set until you decide to upgrade the parts years down the road. If it does indeed break down, then replacing a part generally suffices in fixing it.

2) Yes, we understand people who don't possess a comprehensive knowledge on gaming would probably just go to a store to purchase a console. That's why that market exists, but sticking to the assumption we game as a hobby (which I'm sure all of us do on this site), then this argument has gaming enthusiasts in mind.

3) This has nothing to do with being "socially aware."

We shouldn't have to "learn to deal with it." I think it's fair to demand a quality product, and we shouldn't have to settle for whatever the market gives us either.

Any online issues for me are usually early access or indie games that aren't as popular and don't have the servers required to make it more popular, I usually play a game of Contagion a few nights a week but average on 1-3 games before there's a lack of players to play with for the game modes I'd want to play, for AAA online games I've had not many issues with them apart from games that are older and thus lack the support to play online.

I've already got quite a backlog to start with on Steam, some games on the side over at GoG, games on both Uplay and Origin I've yet to play and I've got my eye on some Wii U and XB1 games I'm looking to buy in the future so I can't really say I'm facing a lack of diversity, my only issue is my lack of time to play them along with having to be in the right mood to play many games every day.

I'd probably site my main issue with gaming on PC being that I want to game on max and plenty of FPS when possible, when I can't max a game out it simply stays uninstalled in the multiple libraries until I create a new build, I've got a new build planned for Jan with the help of two friends (one giving me a new CPU free of charge and the other his recent GTX 680 since he just bought a 980) which should make this build much cheaper than my last one which didn't work so well since my ex room mate screwed me out of the proper build and money, a mere setback though for about a year and a half but I've still been able to manage most of the games I've wanted to play.

Sonys PS4 is subsidized, Microsofts XOne too.

WHY try to build a gaming rig at the SAME price? Look at what a same powered PC will cost.

Hint: its only 100-150 bucks more...

BTW: you don't get Nvidia-GSync nor AMDs FreeSync within the PS4 nor XOne. THATS a HUGE drawback as leveraging this will essentially free the PCs GPU to render 1/3 more effects per frame...

And: NEXT YEAR will give as the TRUE NEXT-GEN GPUs !!! Sorry PS4 and XOne. You're OLD, OUTDATED and OBSOLETE.

People are blinded by the Anti-Nintendo-FUD telling them the new TRUE NEXT-GEN-AMD-DESIGN will be used by Nintendo.

FACEBOOK will use it. And they need it as there is no mass-market priced PC capable to drive OCULUS !!

Yep: Expect Facebook to announce this either E3 15 or 16.

Don't be surprised if it will come with Windows "XBox-Edition"...

Same here. Which is also why I'm hesitant to start a new pc game as it always demands some form of balancing settings vs performance and configuring controls, if not having to look around for solutions to the odd problem. Both take away from actual play time. It's more attractive to boot up the ps4 and be on the track in DC within a minute.

It's the same on console. I bought DA:Inquisition (on console since I'll be playing it with a controller anyway) but am not in the mood yet to start such a big game. Anyway since nowadays I'm more time constrained than limited by money, the most time efficient solution wins. Time is worth more than money as you get older.

Give me a PC with PS4 booting time, same size, same power consumption, same cooling management, same price, same game with JRPG like FF XV, Disgaea, Idol Master, PS + free games, Game sharing , all great games that comes to PS platform, close to metal coding, optimize game.

if no one cannot, then and of discussion!!! You cannot build PC equal to PS4.

Love my computer but prefer to game on Console, always have.