Dark my main man, when is the last time you used SLI? It's far from perfect, but it is perfectly useable on just about all major releases and with some tweaks, can work with older stuff.
SLI is the only way to get 60fps at my resolution, 2560x1600 and I haven't had any problems. 580 SLI setup, and a 690.
I just tried this shit with another 580 a few months ago. It's improved for sure but it still doesn't produce the kind of 60 fps I expect. It looked 'off' to my eyes and I yanked it out quickly. The numbers it produced were awesome, but it just didn't deliver the fluidity I wanted.
Again, I'm not sure that "rule" was consistent with each generation. I honestly don't recall the PlayStation or N64 outdoing the PC in any way shape or form at launch. Same for the SNES/Genesis.
Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Gamcube and Xbox were the first time (barring resolution) that I can remember consoles offering games that didn't quite have a match on the PC. Soul Caliber, Tekken Tag, Rogue Squadron, Dead or Alive 3 were absolute show stoppers.
Sure they did.
The SNES and Genesis absolutely smoked the PC when it came to tile based 2D games. Those systems could render loads of parallax layers and plenty of sprites at a smooth 60 fps back then. PC platformers from that era (right up until 1994 and 1995) struggled to deliver performance that fast as a result of how PCs handled 2D content. This is also why some systems (like the 3DO) failed to match those older consoles at 2d performance.
Now, the PC obviously had more memory and better processors capable of delivering things like Doom but they were massively outclassed when it came to high performance 2D.
When PSX and Saturn came around I would argue they were also quite superior. They too could deliver perfect 2D visuals but, more importantly, they were able to push polygons around at a smooth framerate. A lot of PSX to PC ports required very high-end PCs at the time and even then often suffered. This was all before 3D cards, of course.
Then we had Nintendo 64 which introduced actual texture filtering and other features common to 3D cards. When N64 first launched, there wasn't anything on the PC that could match it. That changed pretty quickly, though, when 3DFX took off (earlier 3D cards were much slower outside of, perhaps, the Rendition cards). PCs caught up quickly during this generation but consoles definitely lead the way.
The PS2 generation is where things really flipped in favor of consoles for quite a while. It wasn't until 2003 or so that PCs finally started to exceed consoles again.
With 360 and PS3 I'd say they weren't too far ahead of PCs at time of launch and were surpassed quickly. That'll probably happen again this time around.
PC gamers are currently enjoying console ports that aren't severely taxing their rigs. With the wave of new Direct X11 only games... That will surely change.
Yeah, I don't expect people will be pushing 60 fps at higher than 1080p resolution with SGSSAA with UE4 titles.
What will make it seem as if consoles have an advantage is the change in the way games are developed. As it stands, most games are still targeted for PS3/360 and so the PC has little difficulty delivering smoother, cleaner versions of those games. If the game development fundamentally changes and targets a new hardware spec things will change.