PC and Gaming Consoles have few similarities, rather they have more differences then anything else currently. They have much different designs and form factors. The PC and Console can play games, music and movies.
Many games that come out to the market are often made for many platforms, such as the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Certain games are exclusive for a variety of consoles, like God of War for the Play Station and Halo for the Xbox. As for the PC, a lot of games are exclusive for PC; mostly from the Indie Developers that have more access on the hardware level. These platforms are very game worthy at different price points.
Another point of similarity is PC and Consoles make great a great media center for movies, music and more; however they also have many differences along the way. The Xbox 360 for the media center capabilities are very limited. The size of the hard drive might be limited pending on what model you get. The first Xbox 360 has a proprietary hard drive if you wanted to put a bigger hard drive in, you would have to pay a hefty price for a higher capacity hard drive. The Xbox 360 has another limitation, it can't play Blu-ray discs, many people have Blu-ray movies but can't play them with the Xbox 360's. This is where the PS3 might be a good option, you can just by a Laptop SATA drive to expand at a lower cost and play Blu-rays, but again you are limited on storage. The PS3 can only support a 1 Terabyte Hard Drive. The PC can really out go in the Media Center field. The PC is capable of playing Blu-Rays (provided that you bought a Blu-Ray Optical Drive) and have lots of storage pending on the size hard drives you buy. Having a Media Center PC doesn’t have to break the bank, you can easily spend $350 on a Media Center PC and still have lots of storage and a Blu-Ray Optical Drive. Just might have to really cheap out on the case and power supply. PC is also more versatile in terms of playing many formats of music/movies, and viewing different pictures.
When it comes to selecting a PC or Console, you need to consider what you want to play, or watch. Whether to build, buy an off the shelf PC or a buying a Console, pricing and looks are some of the factors of what you want to buy. First off, building a computer gives you a feeling of achievement and gives you the ability to pick and choose what you want; while with consoles you can only get what is there on the shelf. There is also the option of buying an off the shelf computer, which has a much wider selection in terms of styles and prices. In the networking terms, consoles are very limited. You'll have to go through few options to be able to stream from your NAS or media server; on the good note; whether if you are using MAC, PC or Linux. Map the network drive and you are off to watch, listen or view your media.
Productivity is one of the major aspect where PC will fully hand the consoles their butts. PC's are very capable of doing many tasks such as creating video games, whether it would be for Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and many more. PC is there to get those games out there so people like me can enjoy them. Video editing is where the consoles epically fail; the hardware is very weak for video editing.... there isn't and video editing software for consoles (I don't think).
The graphics in many cross platform games are usually the same because of the limitations that consoles have. Consoles I have noticed have a lot of jaggy edges when on large TV's, but that is because the game makers have very limited resources for that game. Consoles are designed to be lag free, which I have to disagree with. I notice lag in some areas of games when there is a lot of fire fights, fires, and much more; when all that comes into one area is there the lag really happens. The lag for PC usually varies depending on the hardware is powering that system, must gaming PC's usually have a quad core CPU around the 3.2 Ghz barrier, a mid range to high end graphics card, high speed ram 4+ Gigabytes and either a Solid State Drive and/or a large capacity hard drive. A typical $500 gaming PC will out perform current gen consoles by a long shot, even a $350 gaming PC will out go the consoles; from that alone makes it possible to game on a PC and yet have a fair amount of power to amp up the graphics settings and play at higher resolutions making the jagged edges less.
Deciding between a style of controller can make it or break it for a console and/or PC. Just think, if you hated using a controller that you are forced to use for a console; the PC would open up a huge array of options for controllers. When being forced to use a certain controller for a console can sometimes get very frustrating when your hands either won't fit properly or your hands are too small. There is always an option for controllers on all platforms. That being said, you can shop around for different controllers through 3rd party companies like Game Elements, MADCATZ, Saitek, Logitech and many more companies that make game controllers. PC has all options open in terms of controllers, but sometimes you have to do a little bit of research on hacks to get certain proprietary controllers to work for PC.
Overall both PC and Consoles are designed for games. They have different hardware configurations, exclusive games and designs. They are all good machines to use. For me, I would stick with PC gaming due to the fact I can mod my games like crazy (such as skyrim). Everyone has their own opinion, likes and dislikes.
I don't want fanboyism here...... Just sharing my essay