You are just one of the lucky ones then, been PC gaming going back to the early 90's so I have a very good knowledge of reformatting, installing windows apps and games and making them run; saying that I have lost count the amount of times I have had PC problems, hardware issues, Windows Issues, games not liking my Windows installation, reformatting and starting again etc etc etc. There are times when every one of my expansive collection of games would run then something would come out that wouldn't and I would get hard crash after crash! Fallout 3 was one of these titles and this spelt the end for my Desktop Gaming! I did EVERYTHING to get it to run, reformatted Windows just for this game, installed and tested 20 different types of video drivers, motherboard drivers, you name it, not even 5 mins in FO3 would CRASH back to the desktop and even sometimes hard crash requiring a reboot. Fast forward 5 months of frustration and I bought FO3 GOTY for my PS3... sank over 250 hours into it and only had 4 crashes in that whole time! A few weeks later my Powersupply in my Desktop blew up taking the Motherboard with it and probably CPU, that was the end for Desktop gaming for me, I had reached my limit.
This is my point, even though I am an experienced PC user even I have my limits, simply put, you put the PS3 Blu-Ray in, click Play and Whalla it works! No finicking around with Windows trying to get games to work, no mucking around reformatting, no Windows, it just works, and trust me when you have limited time to game with a new family you appreciate your time being used to game rather than with frustration trying to get game A and B to work! Oh then there is the fact that I can game in 52 inchs, Surround sound, and it is MUCH cheaper I would estimate I have spent upwards of 40k upgrading my PC's over the years, my PS3 hasn't broken once in over 4 years (touch wood) and I have the original 40GB version!
We seem to have the opposite problems I guess.
I had a videocard go out on me about 2 months ago (gtx460)….sent it in and got a new one back for free then sold it on ebay and upgraded to a gtx560 with the cash I made and spend like an extra $50 on the new card. That’s about the only issue I have had other than a window install that went a little wacky….but a clean install fixed that right up.
On the other hand the 360 failure rate is way up there…or was at one point anyway. I had to send in two of my 360s for repair….but then the one I bought last Christmas was a new model and I have had no issues since. I also had to send in my PS3 for repair because the fan would go into crazy high loud mode and sounded like a dang airplane in the house. Luckily it was under warranty and I have not had an issue since.
The point is that any hardware can fail on you. I believe to send in the PS3 if not under warranty is like $150…..that’s crazy. My video card had a lifetime warranty and I had a new one in less than 2 weeks. So you can have issues with consoles as well and 360 owners know very well about this.
With my PC if something goes out like a videocard or hard drive or RAM goes bad or whatever….I can fix it myself.
On average I spend about $150 - $300 a year on my PC (depending on what needs to be replaced) and it stays upgraded and it’s worth every cent I put into it imo.
And to be honest whatever problems I might come across are worth dealing with for the PC experience.