Within any given tier of gaming hardware*, the main advantage of consoles is not price, but simplicity: They're convenient and easy. They consume very little extra space (no dedicated monitor/speakers/keyboard/mouse) and require practically no technical knowledge or setup/tuning/troubleshooting effort.

But PC gamers get value for their efforts. The vastly larger pool of games and greater variety in hardware options are part of that value, but there is also the total cost of ownership: PC games tend to go on sale for lower prices, and hardware upgrades can be done incrementally (ship of theseus style). Over the course of 10 years or so, that translates to either more fun or more money left to spend on other things. Or both.

Perhaps this decade's painful rise in hardware costs is making more people willing to invest a bit of effort in exchange for a gaming PC's better long-term value compared to a console.

*(I mention hardware tiers because it doesn't make sense to compare a Nintendo Wii to a high-end Radeon or GeForce PC, of course.)