Hi, I had a 1200$ 4-year old build (lynnfield cpu, 5xxx radeon gpu) and after I OC'ed everything still played games at relatively high settings 1080p ~50-60 fps especially if I lower anti-aliasing so I would say a new 1200$ PC -I would say with a 7970 or 770 and an i5-3570k(4680k?) or FX-8350 would give you very good performance for quite a long time. It also depends on the type of games you play and you preferences, in my humble opinion fps games especially multiplayer like BF series and strategy ones like Rome, Civ, C&C NEED to be played on PC whereas consoles have the advantage of certain titles that come only there, if you are fond of them. I also had a 360 but after some time same titles where so much better on PC in comparison. So I would say that even if the console has advantages, future-proofing is not one of them. Here is a build:
PCPartPicker part list:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1usgr
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1usgr/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1usgr/benchmarks/
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($66.59 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($122.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($398.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: OCZ ZT 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($82.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $1183.48
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-21 02:42 EDT-0400)