Actually PC's don't need to be to powerful anymore to smash consoles. My PC is 3 years old (all top quality back then though) and I can still play Crysis on High and have it be playable (30fps), and all other mentioned games run extremely well blowing my PS3 out of the water. Monitors themselves are leaps and bounds ahead of TVs in quality which is another huge factor. "HD" is only a marketing ploy on TVs to sell to the average consumer. 

It doesn't take 1000$ to build a PC competant to play games anymore, video cards are SO FAR ahead of gaming its ridiculous... actually PC's in general are now too.

First off, on the price, jsut no. You're wrong. Scan this forum and you will see why.

Your logic is absolutely horrible for the bolded however. My PC plays games designed for hardware 10 years ago, but guess what? It also plays games designed for today's hardware too! The PC that I made to be able to run BioShock very well, will be able o handle ALL games that come out for the PS3/Xbox 360 on the same level of graphics/AI/etc. At the same time, on lower settings, it will be able to play games that far surpass those as well, things that wouldn't run on a console without having it blow a fuse. Not to mention FPSes suck on consoles so they might start coming back to the PC (god I hope, I really like the genre and I don't wanna play UT2004 in 2020).

@cueil

I'll find out where you live for those SC things. And I agree Warcraft III is a better RTS than SC, but that just means SC is #2 not #1.

The balance on WC3 is no where near as close as SC, the hero system throws it off completely. Human = IMBA

I think the internet and out of control piracy has changed everything with PC gaming. I also think next generation we'll see input devices that will finally begin to rival PC ones and we'll see genres such as strategy, MMORPGs, etc, fall to consoles like other genres have before them.

Despite the fact that PC gaming has been outgrowing the console industry, PCs are so freaking cheap nowadays that right now PC gaming is much cheaper than console gaming.

There are currently more developers working on PC games than in all consoles/handhelds combined.

SC is far too rigid. A probe will always do 5 dmg, a battlecruiser always 25. Without damage ranges you get seriously retarded strategies like the 2 ealots 1probe on a ramp defending against an entire zerg rush.

Big woot , i'll still most probably be playing on consoles regardless. Sitting @ PC playing games = meh IMO, playing on PSN or XBL with friends = FTW.

Well, strictly speaking PCs never lost their graphics crown. That's more or less impossible as by the time a console spec is locked and hits the shelves the Graphics cards they contain will be weaker than the latest PC equivalents.

However, what is happening is less developers are putting big bets on PC games to use that power (or so it seems to me).

I think this is partly MMO angle - MMO's rarely push graphics - and partly the fact that most big PC titles now are actually on console too. Sure, sometimes the PC version is given proper care (CoD4) and looks way better than on a console, but often the PC title seems to be given a slight graphics upgrade from the console version and not much more or is a poor port and very buggy.

I'd rather get my ears clawed off by cats than to play on PSN or XBL and communicate to or be communicated by others. Not to mention you have ot PAY for XBL. That's absolute FAIL right there.

That rigidness and rock-paper-scissor aspect is what keeps it so balanced. In WC3 the fact they can do diff dmg each time is ridiculous and allows things that shouldn't happen to occasionally happen (more than you'd think). As for the probe / zealot thing, thats so easy to get around it isn't even an issue. A good zerg doesn't rush anyways lol seriously now.