Going right along with Wolf here. The main point people who argue the price is about the same seem to always skew the price of the PC down, or the consoles up. As stated at the begining this isn't a which-platform-is-superior thread. It is a which-is-cheaper. Price is a pretty hard and fast thing. You can build a functioning computer for under $500USD. We can all agree on that. But you cannot realistically build a good gaming rig for much under $1000. And expect it to run games expected levels (say the level the developer would demo the game at) for more then a year. Even Wolf's machine is recycling some parts saving him about $150 (say $100 for a hard drive and $50 for the case)
Consoles, new off the self range in price from $200 to $400. I think that pretty much ends the discussion.
Paripherals should not be included. Yeah, you can drop another $200 in controlers and a camera for the PS3. Well, you can spend $1,500 on a keyboard for your computer. But on an apples to apples comparison, we are talking about a single player experiance here. If you want to talk 2 players, last time I checked the cost for a second player on the PC was... a second PC! A subscription to Xbox live should not factor in, unless you are going to count the monthly fees to World of Warcraft for a year as well, as that is a price paid for a premium subscription to game content.. not for hardware. You also can't count repair cost. Though for the record, my 360 has RRoD'd twice. First time cost me nothing, second sost me $99. My PC's motherboard shorted once. Cost me $200. If you are including theoretical costs of repairs you can make the argument a Hundai Accent is comparable in price to a New Ferrari Modena if the Hundai happens to break every 3rd week, isn't covered under warranty, and the Ferrari runs perfectly for 10 years.
Games are only barely a consideration. Yes, new games on the PC run $5 - $10 less then their console counterparts. You can't count sales. But who really has the advantage here? You can't buy PC games used, you can't rent PC games. So we should call the software a wash as there are too many variables. Even for xDarc and his unrepentant piracy, he could mod a console and still pirate games on them for less then the price differential of a PC to a console.
I think it should also be assumed that every person here has a PC already (if not... how are you posting?!). But we aren't talking netbooks or 'work' PCs. We are talking dedicated game rigs. Your game rig can do things besides play games, just like your console can do more then play games (DVD, Blu-Ray, Media center extenders, jukebox, Nexflix box, etc..)
On a pure cost basis, the PC is the more expensive option.
For the record, I have a Wii, PS3 60 gig (wanted backwards compatability), 2 Xbox 360s (20 gig and 60 gig), And an i7 920, 6gigs, Duel Radion 4850 512 Boards, 1TB (2 1TB drives mirrored) internal, 1.5TB external, Windows 7 Pro. So my credit card tells the tale quite well as to the cost of our little hobbie.
