No settings to tweak, no need to make sure my drivers are up to date, no need to make sure other programs I’m running are interfering with the game, none of that.

I also do almost none of that on my PC. I do install updates, but that's pretty much in the background. Then again, I use Linux, so maybe it's different on Windows these days? I doubt it.

Most people tweak settings and whatnot because they want to, not because they need to in order to get a decent experience. I use my PC and Steam Deck largely as a console: install games then then play. That's it.

I’ve been slowly buying the Yakuza games for $10-$15 each

Steam isn't the only store for buying games on PC, so the chance that you can buy a given game on sale on a given day is quite a bit higher vs console, where there's only one store. I've picked games up on Steam, Fanatical, or Humble Bundle, and there are several others if you're interested in looking.

For example, here's Yakuza 0 price history on PC, it has been $10 somewhere for almost a year. On PlayStation, it looks like it's been $20 most of the year. I actually got it for a little under $5 about 5 years ago, and I only paid >$10 for one Yakuza game (most were $7-8).

Tons of games show up in bundles as well. I have picked up tons of games for $2-5 each (sometimes less) as part of a bundle, and that's just not really a thing on consoles.

if you have an Xbox Series X you can play any game ever released for any Xbox all the way back to the original

Interesting, that's pretty cool!

gaming-spec PC

Honestly, the difference between a "gaming spec" PC and one targeting only typical tasks is pretty minimal outside the GPU, assuming you're targeting console quality. You really don't need a high end CPU, RAM, or mobo to play games, you can match CPU perf w/ something mid-range, so $150-ish for the CPU. Likewise for the GPU, you can get comparable quality for something in the $300-400 range, probably less now since the PS5 and XBox Series consoles are kind of old.

But that's assuming you need console quality. You can get by with something a bit older if you turn the settings down a bit.

If you want to save cash, you have a lot more options on PC vs consoles. If you want to go all out, you have a lot more options on PC vs consoles for maxing out performance. PC gaming is as expensive as you make it. I used the same PC for playing games for something like 10 years before getting an upgrade (upgraded the GPU once), because it played all the games I wanted it to. If I have a console, chances are the newer games will stop supporting my older console a year or so after the new one launches, so I don't have any options once the console goes out of support outside of buying a new one.

That said, there are a ton of caveats:

• don't buy laptops for gaming, they are way too expensive and can't really be upgraded (Framework exists, sure, and I think eGPUs still do, but that's going to be expensive)
• don't buy a pre-built PC if you want to save money - if you DIY your PC, you can save a bit of cash, but more importantly, you're more likely to upgrade it vs replace it later on
• you can spend a ton on PC gaming, if you follow whatever the influencer trends are (everyone needs a top-end GPU for $2k or whatever, plus a monitor > 200 hz)
• consoles have a much better couch co-op experience

I have a Switch for the couch co-op experience, as well as ease of use for my kids to just put in a game and play, and a PC for most of my personal gaming time (I also have a Steam Deck so I can play in bed or on vacation). I have something like 20 Switch games and hundreds of PC games.