Any Skyrim players?
Verifying cache is a good suggestion. Game has never failed to load on me on a fresh vanilla install, wonder what's happening. Video card drivers up to date? No errors during Windows 8.1 or Steam install?
PC games are so much cheaper than console games that any difference in price between the hardware is quickly equalled and then hugely tilted the other way, in the PC's favor.
Hardware + cost of games = pc wins and it's not even close.
Speaking of cheap PC games, how about some Morrowind in this Skyrim thread. Can be had on Steam for a couple of bucks if you catch it on sale. And why wouldn't you buy everything on sale.
Just started playing it. Here is how it looks in 2014 (on pc anyway). Not bad for a game from 2002.