There has been alot of hype lately on how advanced/ pricey sony and microsoft's next gen consoles are going to be. Im currently stuck on xbox 360 and i am torn between waiting for next gen or just building a gaming rig. Please help! :D 

I doubt we will see a new Xbox or PS4 in 2013. Maybe in a year we may get some info about it but unless they are planning on doing a fast announcement and fast release I can't expect anything. WiiU comes out this weekend so we may hear stuff about it soon.

Overall, I always prefer a gaming rig over console games. But it really depends on what games you play :P

Yea im a HUGE battlefield fan and my buddy has it on pc and it is UNREAL how much better it is. Im also looking forward to gta V and crysis 3 :D 

As for the wii u that is complete GARBAGE lol it is essentially a 7 year old xbox/ps3. 

Well if it were me, I would just building a gaming rig. Graphics are typically better and you have Steam that has trillions of games. What more could you want?

Speaking of Steam, they also have the "Big Picture." This is where you can have steam go through your TV and play your steam games via xbox or ps3 controller. I'm not too sure on the details but here's the link so you can check it out if you haven't already. http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/

Yea i know steambig picture, but my only pet peeve with that is that you have to switch between a controller and mouse for the desktop/  & not all pc games have 360 controller support. Now if they somehow integrate smartglass with a xbox controller on pc then that would be perfect :D

Wow... Big picture looks SICK. I can't believe I haven't seen or heard of that till now!

I'm facing sort of the same Dilemma as you ChrisCross99!

Albeit my situation is a little more unique... I'm a gamer at heart, but I'm also a freshman at the U.S.  Air Force Academy... where your freshmen year your entire life is pretty regulated and you're really restricted to what you can and can't have.
So pretty much the only way to enjoy some games is on low settings on the 13inch "awesome" Fujitsu laptops we have $2200 deducted out of our paychecks for...

Unless you're willing to bend a couple rules and sneak in and hide a computer or xbox in your room.
So my little brother is an xbox gamer, meaning even if I brought my pretty darn solid gaming rig up, I wouldn't be able to game with him.
Another thing is my desktop is in a Full ATX antec 1200... so hiding that wouldn't exactly be easy like it would be with an Xbox...

After freshmen year is done I'll definitely be bringing my desktop up, but in the meantime anyone have any advice?
Is it worth it to invest in an Xbox 360 and will that be a relatively lasting investment? (Not to mention the added bonus of exclusive access to Halo 4) 

I was thinking of trying to swoop one up in a Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal, or possibly aiming for it as a Christmas wishlist item 

I'm just waiting for Steam Big Picture and $$$$ to build a nice gaming rig...throw a HDMI cord to my TV and that will be my next console 🙂...hell only reason why I own a PS3 right now is Final Fantasy and some other RPG games.

In my opinion a console will never out-perform a PC. PC tech is always a step ahead or 3.

Another benefit is you can customize your rig to reflect your personality if you have the money and a little creativity.

I'm a little biased but I say build.  No console has EVER had an impressive launch, so even if you wait a year for the next gen, you'll be waiting a second year for things to actually get rolling.  Get a budget build now with some room for expandability, have fun for 2 years, then if you really want buy a new console.  After a year the prices should be a little more reasonable.

i would rather have a high end pc over a new consol any day 🙂 it has far more options and can be used for far more then a consol. i have a 360 and the most it has done in the last year is watch netflix. though this computer im using is just old and on its last leg but hey whatever =P

Haters are going to hate...I can't wait to get my Wii U! The launch games already look as good as brand new 360/PS3 games...compared to how games looked when those consoles launched it's a step up...and it will only get better once devs have a handle on the hardware inside.

I haven't seen that big picture video. It's interesting but I don't know how many people will really use it. I guess if you are a diehard console fan it will be worth it. 

PC's are DEFINITELY preferable over a console.
PC's have all the advantages of customization and personality reflection but the advantage consoles have is their ease of simplicity and the fact it will be able to run games for about 5 years>

For someone who has never built a computer or given a go at pc gaming, designing your own build looks intimidating, and expensive with the "complications" of choosing parts and compatibility for components whose function is a mystery to most people. Consoles sort of just work, you buy them, buy the game and plug them in and it doesn't get much more difficult than that. Another big thing is the social aspect to gaming. PC gaming caters more to a single player (not because of the lack of online connectivity) because it's a common sight to see more than one person playing a game on the same console, but rarely ever do you see more than one person gaming on the same pc together. That and since a majority of people are on things like Xbox Live, there's an appeal to go the console route to join that community that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do on PC.

Just a note that personally I'm  a PC gamer at heart but have been playing games on console (disconnected from the internet) recently because of  a unique situation with where I go to school and both are enjoyable and have their pros and cons. 

The way that consoles manage to compete with computers is because when developers make games for consoles they know exactly what hardware it's going to be one and exactly what drivers its going to use etc. So because they know that they can use lower end hardware to produce higher results, while PC games have to be able to run on a wide variety of hardware from AMD and Intel processors to Nvidia and AMD GPU's. Next gen consoles are going to be able to run games at HD (probably still no higher than 1080p) and will have a lot more power for things like motion control and 3D since those are the area's with the most room for growth aside from physics in game engines but even those don't change very often (COD has been using the same engine for its last 6 game releases). Graphics in games pushed up to the next level would require higher resolution displays that are still unaffordable to most people
($25,000 4K TV's etc.) so over time the quality between consoles and PC's is going to get closer and closer.

I'll still be gaming and experimenting with both sides though haha

Yea im already a couple hundred bucks from having a kick ass rig :D 

MOBO - 990fx 

PSU - Seasonic x750 

CPU - AMD 8350 

SSD - Hyper x 120gb

Ram - 8gb G Skill 1866

Case - Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra 

All that im missing now is a xfx 7970 black , a wd caviar nd windows 8 😃 I can't wait !!