How about you do your own search! Everytime I enter into this same argument with ignorant people, they always ask me to link them a cheap gaming PC, ALWAYS! If I have to look up things for them then what do they use their internet for?!

Nvidia's 7900 plays everything at 1050p/DX9 just fine except Crysis. I try every game I buy on my older system just to see how well it does and excluding Crysis it plays everything better than 360/PS3.

a 360 will never even compare to a bottom end PC. Somebody trying to throw out "a 360 can do 1080P", maybe so, but the games look like complete ass in comparison to a PC doing the same game at 1280x1024. Most 360 games are 720P anyways, and thats usually upscaled. Just because you have an HD cable in the back of your 360 doesn't mean your game is 1080p :P

I think there's a PC forum somewhere on this site.

You can easily build a PC that is vastly superior to the 360 for the cost of the 360 elite (about 400 dollars). It will have 8x the hard drive space, free online play, cheaper games and better graphics (plus full functionality like...say...a working browser).

You can get a 1TB drive for 60 bucks, a quality graphics card like the 9800 or 8800 for about 80, a solid core 2 duo for around 120 bucks, a case for 40 dollars, a DVD drive for 30 bucks (hell a blu ray can be had for 70) and a decent motherboard for 70. Even if you don't shop around and pay a bit more for the components you'll make up even a 100 dollar difference in less then a year between saving 10 dollars or more per game and 50 dollars for online play.

Also pretty much every 360 game thats any good will run on the PC and if you compare the 360 exclusive library with the PC exclusive library the PC will win every time. You can even use Xbox live (well called Windows live on the PC) if you're so inclined, achievements and all.

Also when you upgrade you don't have to pay the full cost, you can sell the old part and buy the new. It isn't like the 360 is upgrade free, everyone who bought a formerly high end 20GB 360 now has a hard drive far too small to hold all the new content (especially installing games to the 360 HD) which means a 1st party upgrade to a tiny 120GB drive for the huge cost of 129.99. I could upgrade both the graphics card and get a 500GB hard drive for the same cost as upgrading just the 360 hard drive to 120GB.

That the 360 is the cost effective option is a myth. They sell it cheap up front then nickel and dime you with the online play charges, the expensive 1st party upgrades (99 dollars for wireless? please) and all the rest.

In terms of PC's a good PC will always give you a superior gaming experience (from a solely tech perspective) then a console. Price really isn't as much of an issue as people make out. My PC is over 3 yrs old now with a budget dual core CPU, 2Gb RAM and a 8800GTS 320Mb and it manages to run Crysis on Med-High and most cross platform games look better on my PC then the console counterparts (CoD4 & WaW and Mirror's Edge w/ PhysX on are the most obvious). It cost me about £700 just over 3 yrs ago and still manages to play these games no problem. I probably won't upgrade until the next batch of consoles come out.

OT: The 360 is too much of a closed system to really be considered even close to a PC. Of all the consoles only PS3 is close to being a PC due to linux installations, web browser, laptop HDD and use of USB keyboard & mice. But then it's also the most expensive.

How about we just stop arguing about the 360 being a PC and face facts that the PS3 actually is. The ability to install Linux as standard makes the PS3 the most PC based "games" console, so how about you pickup your soap box Shio and go pester the Sony discussion boards?

Whilst I agree with the rest of your post, this is probably not the best comparison to make as Windows Live is quite plainly... crap! There are better services out there (Steam).

I'm sorry but you are wrong.  The scaling capabilities built into consoles is much greater than that in an LCD TV.  Oh and good luck getting your LCD TV to upscale your computer's image.

It is because I already know there is no $500 retail PC that can game on the same levels as the 360/PS3.

The reason you haven't linked one is you can't find one.  And by retail I mean Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.

Good luck.