Nice to see that this thread still generates a little bit of traffic now and then.
Odd how the thread has kinda gone from Games, to networks, to pc ability vs console ability and so on, but it's all good because it's all related!
Consoles used to be a 'one trick pony', they did one thing (played games) and that was it. You had a games 'cartridge' that you plugged into a hole and away it went. ( I still have a few games cartridges floating loose here )
Then CD's came along and they let consoles do several things (play games, music, movies) and *still* be better at it than most comparable priced computers, because they only did those three things.
These days you can get a 'games' console for less than $500 (australian!) that will play games, music, dvd movies (and blu-ray yet!) and allow you to connect to the Net so you can play vs other people. I'm not sure what other capabilities they have, mostly because I don't have and don't want a console.....well not yet anyway.
What it comes down to is the $$$, a game console is almost always going to be the cheaper 'alternative' to a PC, particularly if the person buying it knows they are going to use it play games and the games developers have worked that out ages ago, so there are more games coming out on console first, then being released to the smaller (?) PC market.
