I feel like the only "they" that's ever said this was people making and selling consoles. It’s propaganda and articles like this do more to propagate it than combat it. Stop it.
If I recall correctly, Tim Sweeny said you needed a +900$ for a PC to equal the power of a 500$ PS5. Which wasn't true even when he said it... and it was time when the ps5 just launched and covid-19 era chip shortage hit the gpu market the most (the ps5 is a SoC with unified ram and underpowered CPU, you could buy the usual second hand Optiplex for ~50$ and spend the remaining 450$ for a GPU/PSU that surclassed PS5)
I remember people saying this with pretty much every console generation.
Why have a pc when consoles can produce similar or better graphics and are way cheaper.
It basically boils down to PCs being useful for way more than games. Many people are more willing to invest in a good pc that can do all those things over a gaming specific device.
If I compare how Hogwarts Legacy runs on my 1070Ti vs an XBox Series S I would state that consoles are nowhere near close to pc's, nor will they ever be. Only thing to be said for the Series S is that it is cheaper.
I wonder how much the cost is worth the extra value though. A single PC part (the most important one for gaming) can cost double what an entire console costs. PCs are useful for more than games but is it worth it at that much of a price difference? If you’re not doing heavy video editing or running a dozen VMs, a console + cheap laptop is probably a more sensible setup for most people.
But for me it’s the infinite backwards compatibility and emulation possibilities when the console makers drop the ball in that regard. Got burned pretty hard when none of my massive PS3, 2, or 1 library worked on my PS4. That’s when I started investing in PC gaming. I spent a small fortune for that and it’s hard to say right now if it was worth it, but the peace of mind from knowing that the games I buy for it aren’t going to be useless coasters in 10 years is what made me go this route.
/1. PC is short for personal computer, if it has a motherboard and can be used outside of a commercial setting then it’s a PC
/2. Whether you are using a closed source OS like Windows/Xbox/Mac/PlayStation/Switch on your device or an open source one like Linux it doesn’t change the device
So if your argument is that a console is a console because the user hasn’t installed Linux yet then why use the term PC instead of calling it a Linux device?
I was just looking in the switch shop and saw Cities Skyline 1. There are a lot of really good looking switch games and ports... but I just can't imagine that game transferred well.
Or people are just comfortable with what they have and don't always want the latest, greatest thing that usually costs hundreds of even thousands of dollars these days. I'm perfectly comfortable just playing minecraft on my PC once in a while on my own on a ten year old system that I bought and built myself for about $500 and pay for a $20 game title.
I really don't care if someone tells me or shows me their $5,000 rig (that they'll upgrade in a year) that is streaming the latest multiplayer game they spend hundreds of dollars on every year to level up and hopefully become a world reknowned gamer online.