Yeah but as soon as you bring in arguments about ease of use, you can counter with arguments of more functionality and greater flexibility. And since both those arguments are less easy to quantify than simply cost and performance, it's difficult to compare them directly. I agree though that they are absolutely factors that people should consider in terms of the value proposition for themselves.
It does of course have limits, but it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new PC every time. You can save on storage costs, the case, the PSU, peripherals, windows license, and you don't have to upgrade all the core components together or with the same level of frequency.
Not necessarily that fast. A motherboard socket can often run for 5 years (e.g. LGA 1151, AM4) and will offer a big improvement from start to finish. That said, since you will only need to upgrade your CPU once per console gen to maintain parity or better, you may also choose to upgrade the motherboard and memory at the same time - personally I always have.
Can do, but it can also cost you less, for more performance. It all depends on how well you time the purchase and how much you care about getting relative value compared to consoles. For example you could have picked up a 3060Ti when it first launched (assuming you were quick enough to avoid the mining craze) for less than the cost of a high end console despite having more performance. If you wait a couple of years into the generation, you should get much more performance for less cost.
I do think you'll be spending more on hardware overall, even with the well timed upgrade option if you want to stay above console performance the vast majority of time, but that's where the other savings come in to reduce the overall relative cost of ownership,
Nothing to really disagree here. Both platforms have their cons and pros. Surely you can counter one platform's pros with another's own pros.
But it is a matter of preference from that point and not which one is better overall.
You can quantify though how many people have more liking/disliking on one platforms pros/cons over the other by counting their buying habits. Again this has nothing to do with which one is better. Its all about priorities and what pros they value more. Discussing which platform is better is nonsensical.
I can bring you myself as an example. It may seem anecdotal but it can give a perspective of the practicalities involved with people's choices. When I built my newest PC it totally blew my PS4 out of the water. But I built it mainly for work. 48GB Ram, 2 SSDs (one is an M2), a fast HDD, Ryzen 1700 and a 1080ti in 2017. I paid like around €2200 to build that monster.
I had it in my office. Because when I had to be able to concentrate for serious work on 3D, I needed the right set up. The living room is not such a setup
If I enjoyed gaming on a PC monitor, it would have certainly been my choice for gaming. If my priority was gaming on that PC, I would have had it in my living room. Because of work being a priority on my PC and not liking doing my PC stuff or work in my living room, I didnt have it connected on my TV ( Although I did test it to see how great games would look there)
So a console in my living room was a very practical and convenient solution for my gaming needs because thats where (living room) I want to game and I wasnt willing to pay again that much for another PC just for gaming.
A similar reason is why most people who play on consoles in the living room own a PC as well which may or msy not be used for gaming at all.
There is a huge amount of people that value convenience over flexibility and functionality when it comes to their gaming habits. And certainly a lot arent into upgrading PC components or building hardware. PC enthusiasts are the reverse
Those former wont turn to PC, the same way PC enthusiasts wont turn over to consoles. Unless something really changes about the way these devices are designed
