@ Tom Chiverton 1 & LuMan
First...
"can't buy a decent gaming PC for the price of a console"
This statement, that I see a lot, is one if the dumbest things console fans always say. It is a false equivalently. Of course a 'gaming PC' is going to be more expensive than a console. Duh. The same way a 'gaming PC' is going to be more expensive than a normal PC which just surfs the web. A 'gaming PC' today needs to run everything, at a minimum of 1080p and at 60 FPS. How is that ever going to be a similar price to a device that generally runs games at 720p* and at 30fps. Now a PC that just needs to run games at 720p and 30fps, that would be an interest price comparison.
Second, I reject both you suppositions that the only advantage the PC has over consoles is in graphics. This is rubbish. I agree this focus on graphics is counter productive though. If graphics hardware capabilities of the PC are supposed to be 5 times greater than consoles now, what do you think the processing power advantage is? This is CPU processing which means better AI or physics in games. The biggest thing more non graphics processing power gives you is the capability to implement original and innovative game mechanics that would not be possible otherwise.
But here again consoles are hobbling this, Games have to have mechanics that current consoles, now long in the tooth, CPU's can deal with. No one is going to develop something that does not take the console market into account even if released on PC as well. You cannot have game mechanics that scale as you can with graphics.
Hopefully if Nvidia's predictions are not just spin, maybe developers will believe they have a market for games that use that extra processing power, to deliver some new and original ideas. Games that console owners will also be able to enjoy when the next console gen comes along...
*720p being the most used native resolutions for consoles games was sourced from here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241