I would recommend a 360. But of course both have their merits.

I'd say PC for now and pick up the 360 later down the road if affordable for you...

A couple months ago I was faced with the same decision. I decided to get a new HDTV and a 360 for what it would have cost me to build a good computer. I'm exceptionally happy with the choice I made. Later on down the line I might still build a new PC; but that's probably a couple years down the line.

Here's how I view it: everyone but the most hardcore, unemployed or picky gamers end up missing out on tons of games they want to play. Time is precious for everyone; choices have to be made. Provided you're willing to have some of those decisions made by the virtue of what sits in your living room, going console only is a great way to save both time (in terms of headaches, notwithstanding 360 failure rates) and money. You may not get to play Titan Quest, but you can afford to play Overlord with a pint of the finest beer sitting next to you.

I've been holding off upgrading my PC for over a year and am now considering just letting it die a natural death. I can certainly think of PC titles I'd like to play, there's dozens of games I haven't gotten around to playing on the consoles I do own.

I would MUCH rather have a $350 Xbox 360 AND a $1000 PC instead of a $1350 PC, any day of the week.

I find it much better to buy an inexpensive system and progressively upgrade it, rather than trying to build something all at once that's supposed to last years. A $150 video card 2-3 years from now will smoke the $400 card you get now. You can buy a $150 card now, and replace it with a $150 card later, and have a better performing card at the end of the road than you would have with the expensive card now, and for $100 less. (I'm pulling numbers outta my ass here, but you get the concept).

Do what I did and use the VGA cable to plug the 360 into your computer monitor.

I say buy the 360 and and new HD TV!!!!

It's really tough to tell you what to do without my own bias coming out. I'm a PC gamer at heart, so how could I not suggest getting a PC? I'll echo the sentiment that given the right research you would likely be able to afford a $1000 PC and a $350 360.

It all comes down to games. There are a bunch of games on 360 that interest me, and like you I feel the pang of the sports gamer who's platform has left him to rot. That being said, I find the 360 has an immense sports/shooter bias, and once I take these two genres out of the equation the only game I'm really left wanting is Mass Effect. (Which will likely be ported to PC in a year. I can wait.) To me, it's just not worth it. Your tastes may differ, which is why it's difficult to make a reccomendation.

Here's a thought: if you want to play the 360 mostly for sports games, why not get a Core? I know it's the "'tard pack", but it could serve it's purpose and give you the best of both worlds.

Now that the Core and Premium are even closer in price ($70 difference instead of $100), this makes even less sense. You still need a memory unit to save games, which is $30 for the 64MB cheapie. Now you're only $40 apart and you get no hard drive, not enough save space to take advantage of stuff like Xbox Live Arcade, and a wired controller?

It's called the "tard pack" for a reason. It's gotten even more retarded since the price drop.

Well, it's not $350 and $1000 or $1350.

It's $650 for the 360 and some games to get started. NCAA and/or Madden ($60), Tiger Woods 2K7 ($30), NBA 2K8 ($60, or $20 for 2K7), Guitar Hero ($90), Test Drive Unlimited ($40) and Viva Pinata ($30) = about $650. Then again, that's a lot of entertainment value. Not to mention other possibles like Gears of War, Marvel Alliance and some sort of fighting game.

Somehow I feel that by buying a 360, I'm cheating on my true entertainment mistress - the PC. She's been my #1 entertainment choice for over 20 years now. At the same time, with the possible exception of Hellgate, I don't see anything coming out in the next few months that really excites me. I'd mostly be buying a new PC to play older games - CoH, Titan Quest and Simcity 4.

I suppose I'm leaning towards the 360. It's less expensive and I should get a lot more new entertainment out of it. It'd be a no brainer if the 360 had a good, deep RPG on it. Oh well...whichever way I go, it won't be until next weekend since I'm too busy this week to play anything anyway.

Unless you are a hardcore RTS/MMO player then I'd say go with the 360. Remember with a console you can always rent games so that will also save you some money in the long run as well.

If you haven't played Oblivion yet then that will do nicely for your "deep RPG" needs. Should be able to find a copy of that somewhat cheap now. Also remember Fallout 3 will be coming to the 360.

I think July 07 is HDMI, 65nm chips and new heat sink. I can't remember the cutoff date for just the new heat sink.

I need to have a PC at home, so I see my PC less as a gaming machine than a machine that can play games in addition to its other jobs. (I'm also a big fan of being able to save games at any point rather than the console's tendency towards using checkpoints/save points). If you prefer strategy or hardcore RPG, the PC seems like the preeminent platform for those. There seems to be a bigger variety of types of games for the PC than the 360, too.

But I don't see buying a 360 as a bad idea if there are a bunch of games on it that you want to play. Buy the machine, then just rent the titles you like. You don't even need to sign up for LIVE if you don't care about multiplayer.

The 360 has several other failure points besides the GPU or CPU becoming unseated from their BGA sockets which aren't covered. Most common seem to be the DVD drive and video subsystem. While it is entirely possible that the new heatsink might fix these problems as well, seeing as they almost undoubtedly heat related, we won't really know until they've been out in the wild a bit longer. I'd still get the extended warranty.

Oblivion = (I have it for the PC)

Fable =

Jade Empire = (I played it on the XBox)

Fable 2 = ?

Fallout 4 =