Yeah, I still don't agree really.

PC games ARE generally cheaper than console games. You use specific exceptions but I subscribe to several "deal" sites and the current theme is always:

PS3 most expensive
Xbox slightly less expensive
PC 10-15% less expensive

Sure, you got certain platform-specific promotions and you also have games which have been released on console first and because of that, drop quicker in price, but when you look at random 2 year old releases in physical form, PC gaming is generally less expensive.

Random example: Dark Siders 2. I bought it for €7 (~£5). The cheapest I could find it on the deal sites (as in, the cheapest it has been reported) is €17.

Another random example, Saints Row 3: same thing. Bought it for €7 (~£5) but cheapest console version I could find it €18.

And these were regular sales, not ultra low digital sales. Amazon has been selling loads of games dirt cheap on their website.

Really, if you think PC games are just "sometimes" cheaper, you're not paying any attention really. At least 80% of the time, PC games are cheaper and often more than 30%.

What i find weird is that i sometimes can find cheaper physical games than digital for PC.
In my mind this doesnt seam rigth since Digital games are generally cheaper to produce.
Or maybe i havent looked hard enough....

I grant you that does, at first, seem weird (and occasionally hilarious, if I'm to be honest).

The thing is, physical goods take up space, space which could be used to store something else. So, if somewhere like Amazon or Game have fifty copies of Cyrillic MegaBiff that they just can't shift at £20, they'll drop the price to £10, or £5 just to get rid of the stock, so they can have the space for something that will sell.

Digital doesn't have that problem, which is why you see the normal, non-sale digital price for a game like 'Space Marine' is £20, whilst the cost of a physical version on Amazon is (at the time of writing) £4.59 with free postage.

I've never been convinced that Steam has "saved" PC gaming. Don't PC game sales figures suck compared to console sales figures? What could be the reasons for that?

It's complex and I don't claim to know. Did Steam manage to get pirates to start purchasing games and DLC? Did people who used to buy PC games switch to consoles in large numbers (as far as PC is concerned) during the DRM craze? I'm partial to answering "Yes" to the latter question based on my own observations with my non-digital friends.

I suppose PC could just always be a niche gaming market compared to consoles, but perhaps a telling stat could be found on what rate PC gaming grew compared to consoles over the last ten years. I'll see how good my google-fu is. Maybe I'll find that PC dudes should get their act together. Except for Blizzard's MMORPGs, but that kind of DRM is expected for those kinds of game.

I was under the impression that PC game sales overtook console sales a year or two back.

Edit: I might just be thinking of the revenue generated, which isn't necessarily related to game sales. MMO's add a lot of extra revenue to the total PC market.

No. Not by a long shot.

A lot of this bullshit comes from the fact that the major publishers like to make Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo sweat a bit by having 'unencumbered' platforms to fall back onto so that the platform holders have to work a bit harder to acquire exclusives.

PC unit sales have massively increased over the past couple of years, but actual income has either remained fairly constant or has dropped massively (depending on the company). It's often unit sales that are quoted in press releases and the like, but in the financial reports of publicly listed companies, they don't have this luxury.

The major publishers have been employing some fairly sneaky tricks of late to obscure details in their financial reports. Ubisoft and Take 2 bundle mobile sales in with its PC business as 'other'. EA doesn't provide a platform mix.

The only one I could find that still offers a discrete PC income figure is THQ, and that has been dropping consistently since 2008 while its console and handheld business has been growing.

The only one that has been seeing PC growth is Activision, and this growth has two names - World of Warcraft and Diablo 3.

Well, in any case PC gaming is still a massive market. The figure I can find says that it's in the neighborhood of around 18 billion dollars, compared to about 23 billion for consoles. So it isn't like half the console market or anything. 18 billion is substantial. PC gaming is slowly (and sadly) going away, but I don't think developers are just going to jump ship from an 18 billion dollar market over night. I think it'll depend on how good the next generation of consoles are. If they're amazing, more PC developers could make a permanent switch to consoles and accelerate the decline of PC gaming. If they're mediocre or terrible, it could extend the life of the PC for gaming for another decade. That's my guess, anyways.

A lot could depend on what is classified as "PC gaming" like jamyskis pointed out. Many things could. What most people think of are the mainstream big budget games though. Those games that are designed as multi-platform releases usually sell a lot less units on the PC compared to consoles.

PC gaming is getting a bit of a reprieve as well, right now, it's not hard to beat the performance of 2005 hardware by now and many PC games are enjoying people picking up 2 year old games by the dozen because older PCs still can play them. PC gaming sales always decline more steeply at the beginning of a new console cycle, though they get the benefit of ports of many of the new games the consoles engender.

PC gaming revenue, especially per item, is kind of in the toilet and getting worse every year as far as anyone can tell. The entire market is growing, yes, much of that is thanks to mobile and Facebook type platforms bringing in a lot of folks.

The big take-away about PC gaming, though, is that physical is dead, a shambling corpse at best, in the US. Online sales have annihilated physical.

Steam did do a lot to "save" PC gaming, by adding convenience and leading the digital charge. The reason PC sales numbers are less than combined console sales and always will be is because consoles are even more convenient and generally cheaper, hardware wise.

Price and convenience rule for consumers, always, every time. Never bet against those two factors.

People switched from piracy to Steam is large numbers because Steam is more convenient. Re-read what I said above. A lot of piracy is rooted in convenience, from games to movies to music. The easier you make it for people to pay for your content the more of them will. I buy games and MP3s by the truckload from easy to use and own shops like GOG and Amazon, but movies have no real option like that, the easiest way to watch a movie BY FAR is to download a torrent of it.

Anyway, another big factor was the Xbox luring many people away from PC gaming to console gaming. You have to remember that during the PS1 era and before PC gaming and console gaming were often VERY different things, focusing on different genres, styles and maturity levels. Xbox brought "PC style gaming" and genres to the consoles and a lot of people who were only PC gamers for those genres went to the living room.

I think Steam brought a lot of them back though, along with hardware stagnation on the console side. What happens when the new consoles launch is anyone's guess, but it should be interesting to see.

Didnt you guys hear: PC gaming is DEAD!

For me it wasn't the hardware convenience that lured me to consoles, it was not having to deal with the games' bullshit most of the time (although a few games are trying the same kind of bullshit on consoles lately).

Here's how it went for me. I upgraded my computer around 2007. Had it hooked up to my 7.1 surround system and flat screen TV as my gaming rig. Had a good solution worked out for using a mouse and a hand keyboard while on the couch. I also bought a PS3 for some of their exclusives while thinking that I don't need an Xbox 360 because most of those games would be ported or multi-platform on release and I would buy them for PC. Hitman: Blood Money was awesome. Crysis was pretty good too.

Then I bought Gears of War for PC. That was a frustrating disappointment for me. This was around the time the PC DRM craze really took off for most every big player. I was left wondering why the hell did I spend that money building an awesome setup for myself. I was still going to play PC games but be more careful with what I bought. Then my computer crapped out on me. I could have fixed it easily enough and this repair work wouldn't have bothered me, but I thought what the hell for. The main reason for it was playing games and I didn't like the way the games were treating me.

I bought a laptop instead and let the gaming rig collect dust. I played exclusively on my PS3 but got an Xbox 360 a couple years later when I started to realize that nearly all multi-platform games were better on the 360 plus it had a better controller. Fallout 3 was fun but it was still a real pain in the ass on the PS3. Would've been much better on PC. Maybe if the market hadn't shifted so much they wouldn't have put in that damn cheating VATS system.

So it wasn't the difficulty of owning and maintaining a PC that lured me to consoles, it was the games. I didn't want to deal with the PC game bullshit going on then anymore. I don't know if this was the case or not for my friends that used to game on PC but they still switched exclusively to one console or another too for whatever reasons. Could've been convenience, could've been the same reason I did. I don't ask because I don't want to preach IRL, just on a gaming forum.