Apparently. Personally, paying three times as much for only twice the performance (if that) sounds like a good way to spend more money - sure, it'll last longer as a competent machine, but not three times longer. You pay a lot for 3-6 months of bleeding-edge-ness.
My AU$1100 box is still going strong after 18 months, and I imagine will be for another 18 months - I play quite a few mainstream graphic-heavy games, and I've never needed to push the settings below High, except in Crysis and STALKER, to maintain 40+ FPS.
There are some PS3 games (say, half of the 10 total
) that have quite impressive graphics, really taking advantage of the hardware - but nothing an AU$170 9800gt can't do. A recent example is Fallout 3 - they had to cut some fidelity when porting it to the Playstation. I can run it maxed at 1680x1050 on an old 8800gts.
Gaming machines aren't expensive unless you want them to be. I probably spend twice as much money on hardware over time as someone who buys each generation of PS or xbox, but it's well worth it considering the advantages an open platform gives you.
Then again, every time someone buys a 360, Microsoft loses money. Get everyone to buy the hardware and no games, and you could have a nice evil plan.