I'm not sure if you meant buying the part for or buying a pre-built gaming PC. Because you should NEVER BUY A PRE-BUILT GAMING PC!!! Evil corporations like Alienware charge ridiculously HIGH PRICES for gaming desktops. The hardware that they contain only sell for about $700, yet they have the guts to try to sell it to you for MORE THAN DOUBLE THAT PRICE! And worse of all, they always SKIMP ON THE GRAPHICS CARD!!! The most IMPORTANT part of a gaming PC and they don't even put a good one in. So that $1400 PC you bought WON'T EVEN RUN NEW GAMES ON MEDIUM SETTINGS because the graphics card is MISMATCHED for the hardware, while a CUSTOM-BUILT SYSTEM for $700 can run the game on MAX SETTINGS! You should ALWAYS BUILD FOR SCRATCH as it costs half as much for the same hardware.
Alienware and other overpriced gaming PC manufactures, you're a DISGRACE TO GAMING!!!
Obtaining parts isn't
too expensive (only around $300 more than the Wii U Deluxe really)...but I'm also very lazy. That and if I DO get a PC, it's likely not for building but for looking up information for school and stuff like that. Gaming on a PC just isn't my thing because of disabilities, general dislike of the game communities that I'm "part of", and the fact that I can ill afford $600 for something I'm rarely going to use. If/when I DO get a gaming PC, it won't be to enjoy graphics of a game, modding capabilties, or anything like that. It'll be solely for emulation and MMORPGs, and even then I'm likely to be playing very few games and only on mid-to-low settings.
As for pre-built PCs, I don't trust Alienware/most PC builders for three reasons:
1) They're too flashy...
2) I don't like their brand logo
3) Price is too high, don't care about the innards but the price is daunting.
Yeah I know those reasons are really shallow but that's just me.
Although I remember visiting this site whose name I forget that would build your PC for you, not sure if they shipped it in pieces or prebuilt for you though.
Not sure that matters. My 360 has lasted me since 2006. Some people were unlucky, but PS3s were just as likely to brick. And even Wiis.
PS3s and Wiis had a MUCH lower failure rate than 360s...I don't have the stat sheet with me, but this was some of the news that blew out from '06 through to '10. RRODs pretty much everywhere. YLODs weren't OMEGA RARE but they happened a LOT less than RRODs. Really though, that's irrelevant information. What I want to know is what sort of hardware failures we might experience with PS4 and XONE. Will we have anothe RROD/YLOD fiasco again? Or will they make their consoles with quality materials this time around?