I don't think consoles made PCs more popular at all. Yes, there are more console games on PC now than ever before, but no one switches platform to play the PC version of a console game. The thing that made PCs explode over the last three or four years is, basically, Steam and digital distribution in general. Nowhere is it a more viable and open market than on the PC. XBLA and PSN have marketplaces, but those are closed platforms with their own shit that you've got to navigate with a controller, and spend Microsoft funbucks, and all kinds of shit. The PC is offering digital distribution as a service. You can download Steam, browse their never diminishing library of games, pay your money and it's yours for life.
It doesn't even matter what kind of gamer you are. There's as much for your Peggle loving mom on Steam as there is for the neck-beared strategy warrior with the tattoo of Normandy on his back, as there is for the twitch shooting caffeine addict, and so on.
And then when you're tired of playing games, it's a computer.