Well, the upside of PCs is that you can keep on upgrading just parts of it, whilst console upgrading is generally just buy a new one, something that has become even more so around the late 00s when the upgrade cycle slowed down quite a lot, even for gaming PCs.

I think (but am not sure) that as long as you didn't aim for top of the range parts and instead used the ones just below (generally much cheaper for only a little bit less performance) all in all it was cheaper to just keep upgrading one's PC than keeping on replacing one's console with a new one as they came out.

Mind you, I've jumped out of the "keep up with the latest titles" threadmill over a decade ago since, with the notable exception of Indie titles, I don't actually find them as entertaining (they're generally very "guided" linear experiences whilst I like lots of freedom and high complexity) plus I discovered that I derive far more enjoyment from great gameplay than I do from great graphics: the latter can indeed be amazing and impressive for the first couple of hours, but it's the former that gets me back to a game again and again and again, even years later.

PCs and Patient Gaming is way cheaper than consoles, though I guess that by now there's also a lot of Patient Gaming in consoles since people keep on using the older one rather than buying the new on.

Further, upgrading one's PC or even just knowing what kind of things are better to upgrade at any one point and how to chose the right parts for upgradeability (such as enthusiast motherboards instead of just cheap ones and the kind of CPU socket that was recent enough that was likely to keep getting new CPUs for a while) requires quite a lot of technical expertise and is beyond most people. even gamers.