LOL you are a comedian. Yes the graphic card costs 140$. If you add a cell processor, casing, bluray drive, hard-disc, controller, memory, WLAN, memory card reader, hdmi, Bluetooth and some other small things and all of this for 400-140=260$ then you almost have a ps3. For the 360 similar rules apply.

No, you could easily make a more powerful PC than the 360 for about $300 -- but you'd need time to watch for deals. You can get video cards more powerful than the 360's card for very cheap if you watch sites like slickdeals and you can wait a few weeks and are willing to deal with rebates.  Of course, you could build it without a hard drive, or with a ridiculously small hard drive like 120GB, but often times the really good deals on drives are for a specific size (say, 320GB) and you can't just pick and choose any given combination of hardware on those kinds of constraints.

As far as the ~30% failure rate goes, the jury is still out on the new hardware. The fact that MS is sending out refurbs that have a very high failure rate, and the fact that people have been reporting failures from consoles purchased for or after Christmas 2007 in the SA thread about broken Xbox 360s (which is only 3700 posts long right now, suggest that the failure rate is possibly better than it was in the past, but certainly still very, very bad. Almost certainly higher than 10%.  I'm not prepared to give MS the benefit of the doubt on this as they've said several times that they've fixed the Xbox 360 problems.

Let's not kid ourselves, 10% is still a ridiculous failure rate. But the 360 failure rate on new systems is much lower than the launch system, unless you think all the changes they've made have had no effect?

@TheRealMafoo,

Glad we agree on most points, as for the one we don't agree on if you take a look at the example of Shio's brother you'll see what I mean. One of my friends just recently upgraded his PC from the exact same video card Shio's bro has actually. It easily played pretty much any valve game, Bioshock, etc..Its not the best place to be as a PC gamer but you can make it work while you save up for 6 months to replace some stuff, which is exactly what he did. My brother is still happily gaming on a 3 year old PC and I asked him this past weekend when he was in town if he thought he might need an upgrade soon and he didn't think he needed it at all.

@Rainbird,

I think you missed the point. I'm not advocating PC over console. I'm saying that people need a PC in todays world anyways. Since the cost of making your standard PC into a gaming rig is cheaper than the consoles it just makes sense to do it if you actually want to play PC games.

At your points specifically, Crytek has stated they think they can run at High but they haven't stated what at what resolution. 1080p is ~2m pixels, 720p is only about 920k pixels. Thats a big difference in performance right there. The resolution I play on with a mixture of high and X-High settings is about 1.75M pixels. It really depends on what resolution they get high settings running on that determines how impressive a job they've done.

On the point of outdated hardware, consoles become outdated just as fast (if not faster than PCs). This is definitely mitigated by software designed for the platform but the PC has the option of incremental upgrades where the console does not.

On the subject of games, I won't argue which has the coolest games since it is subjective. But I will go back to my point that if you don't want to play the PC games then you shouldn't pay the extra cash. But if you do then you should..thats a simple concept that anyone should be able to grasp.

@ MrStick,

I have to agree with Shio that your experience with the PC market is a bit outdated, the market has changed significantly and prices are still moving towards the cheaper side of things meaning in 2-3 years it might even be better than it is now.

@griffin,

A 500W PSU is plenty for a rig with a 9600GT, I have been building systems for a long time, I think I know what I'm doing. As for adding in the cost of all nice keyboards and headsets: Ok fine, now add the cost of 3 extra controllers for the console and the headset as well. This works both ways, lets not play that silly game.

@therepublic,

No that really isn't a problem for the argument, if you buy a pre-built you're already paying for them to build it so you could just as easily call a local PC shop and have them build it if you're not comfortable with it. As for your last line I think it fits perfectly with what I said originally, one of the reasons I listed for not making their PC a gaming rig was ignorance, and your statement there is talking about people without basic knowledge.

@realmafoo,

Crysis on low is PS2? Really?

Here is a few comparison shots (56k Warning, they are big images): One, Two, Three

I need to go back and play my PS2 again, the graphics must've been way better than I thought

@ion-storm,

If you want to run full everything then get a gaming rig, because consoles don't run full everything. They just lock you into settings that the console can handle, and in pretty much every case they lock you in at settings lower than absolute max.

@final-fan,

Repeating this for those who can't read our PMs: You can also buy a gaming rig from the crazy 3Dmark/enthusiast crowd who upgrades constantly. So if you are ok with buying a used PC in the first place you can go straight for the kill so to speak.

As for upgrades, what kind of upgrades are you expecting to need? New OS when Vienna comes out? Typical PC owners will face the same thing so its not really an additional cost just because you game. Upgrade memory? 2GB is $40 right now, in 2-3 years? Much less. As shio and I have pointed out a PCs built in 2003-04 are still running games, just not at the greatest settings. Even then I think there is a fair argument to be made in the fact that PC games cost less and money saved there helps pay for any upgrades needed. I've already saved probably $150 this generation from being able to buy the PC version of games instead of the 360 versions. Bioshock($10), Assassins Creed($15), CoD4($10), Orange Box($15), SS:Double Agent($10), Oblivion($10), thats off the top of my head anyways.

In terms of showing you a PC that runs CoD4 for under $279, no problem. I take your non gaming rig and add $260 in parts and then you have a gaming rig that can play CoD4 at better resolutions and settings than the consoles. But if you want to sit on your couch and play it just get the console version. This single game scenarios are sort of silly when each of us can say show me a console/PC that can play (exclusive game).

@Untamoi,

Considering just about everyone has those things already I can forget them. Otherwise lets start including the HDTV price in the cost of a console..now consoles are far more expensive..but the fact that a TV is used for other things is a valid argument for the TV..but somehow not the typical PC?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Oh I do want to say that I'm not in any way trying to defend the original premise of the topic. My point is that some of you people have got your heads in a twist over the facts. If you don't want PC games then don't get a gaming PC. But if you do enjoy PC gaming then when you are buying a PC you can make it gaming capable for less than the cost of a Wii.

If you don't want it, don't buy it. If you do want it, then do buy it. Simple really.

@ Sqrl: Oh I'm perfectly aware that less than $300 in upgrades can get you to that point, but TheBigFatJ said consoles "can't compete with computers BUILT at the same price point" (emphasis mine). I took the CoD4 example from his post as well.

I could continue arguing on some of the rest, but I'm pretty sure we aren't THAT far apart. I don't want to spend that kind of time on it today anyway.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. My position is basically saying if we can ignore the cost of the HDTV for HD consoles because it has other uses then the typical PC should absolutely fall into that category. In fact what I'm doing is the equivalent of saying "Subtract out the cost of an equal sized standard def TV, and call the rest 'gaming costs'.".

I don't think PC gaming is for everyone the same way console gaming isn't for everyone. It just sort of annoys me that purist console gamers believe there are all these extra costs that only apply to the PC...truthfully they are all around in console gaming as well. We can either factor it all in or we can focus on the basics.

Personally I see PC gaming and console gaming as any other trade-off. If you are a console gamer you give up the options, versatility, and usefulness of a PC for the comfort of the couch and the peace of mind that for a set amount of time your console will play new games. Its a trade-off and one whose value is dependant on the lifestyle a person leads.

For me a PC and a Wii has proven to be an optimal arrangement. I don't presume to tell anyone else what arrangment will work for them. I've only pointed out that some folks in this thread have misconceptions about the reality of PC gaming, and that when you take the same liberties of cost ommissions with a PC that you inherantly do with a console things aren't nearly so lopsided.

In any case, I too have other stuff I could be doing so, I'll leave it at that for now. 

I know my computers are old, and outddated, but still. No one has given me a sub-$400 price of a computer from November, 2005 that can run the latest PC games.

Someone, give me that example, please. Because every time I wanted to jump in on a computer, to upgrade, I found out that, chances were, when I bought my X360, the PC I woulda got (under $600 USD) wouldn't have a snowball's chance in running World in Conflict on a meaningful setting and not DOA quickly into playing it.