This was my experience back in the day. My parents were against video games for a long time, and didn't let me get a console until I was 12. Even then, I was only allowed limited periods on the console in the living room, whereas my PC was in my room, so I could play to my heart's desire without being bothered.
I was never into FPS or RTS, and I preferred Japanese games to Western games in general (LucasArts adventures were a notable exception), so naturally I spent most of my PC gaming time on emulators and ports.
After all that bullshit, I can't tell you how satisfying it is to just stick a disc in, pick up a controller, and play. I didn't want to deal with troubleshooting when I was 10, and I don't want to now.
Also, for the longest time, there were barely any quality colorful games on PC, and you had to either resort to emulators or crappy freeware clones to get your fix of Nintendo or Capcom. I realize things have improved on the PC side since then, and things on the console side have deteriorated, so I may be coming back to PC next-gen.
But let's not pretend the PC was always this good. Look at Mario 64, and then look at Quake 1 from the same year. Most PC games used to look that drab. There's way more variety now.
But, for the most part, most major PC games still fall into the drab, wannabe-photorealistic category. Take this post, for example:
None of these games would convert me.