Because gaming is social. If I play FIFA 2013 then some of my friends will likely play with me, just because I buy used doesn't mean every buddy will. And as my income grows, my brand loyalty to EA's franchises has been increased, so I start to buy new. At first just my favorite titles, later on, I might be the buyer that buys all new and feeds back into the used market.

I'm sure the models are a lot more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea (as I understand it) of why it's good to increase your brand even among those who aren't directly buying from you right now.
Comparing the primary people acquire games on each platform makes a lot of sense, though I can see why it's off-putting. DD has annihilated boxed retail in PC gaming and there's literally very little reason to consider it as an overall market at this point. Disk based gaming is still the primary way that titles are accessed on console.

Huuh? How does that work exactly? As far as I recall Online Passes and Digital Distribution (and other DRM "you need to register online") is a fairly new phenomenon. And the price of new games has always been more or less constant in Europe and the USA. Despite of a much bigger second hand market than now.
In Poland the price of a new PC title has pretty much risen by half, and in some cases doubled, within the last 10 years or so.

And that's still half the price of a console release.

You clearly didn't buy Baldur's Gate and Age of Empires for 199 PLN or even more.

When salaries were around 1000 PLN.

btw. C&C collection and ME3 Trilogy was just released, and it's already -50% on origin.
And just yesterday, you could buy Max Payne 3 for 25 PLN (6 EUR) in Polish store.

If you stick to DRM free gaming on PC, then yes, I honestly find Steam and Origin far more annoying and restrictive than my XBox 360, just one example is that I can hand one of my games to my daughter to go play on her XBox 360 in her room, while I play another game. You can't exactly do that with your Steam account. You both need Steam accounts and you both need a copy of the game, even if you're not playing the same game at the same time.

I can't say I'm a fan of disk swapping on my console, or how every fucking company's new online social site has invaded my in game menuing system on console (this used to be a PC only unpleasantness). There's some things not to like, for sure. With the rise of Steam, though, yeah, Steam seems to have its hand up our skirts more than MS or Sony every would have dared. Somehow gamers love them for it, too...

Actually I did buy the first release of BG2 athough I think it was 159PLN when I got it ;)
And yes, I agree that this is a definite change, but it's not because of online registration and DD. Games became much cheaper because of the fast development of the market.

The average price for a new release was 70-80PLN long before online passes and digital distribution were a thing. Currently it's 120-150. Although, I'd attribute that to foregin publishers trying to minimize the regional differences in prices.

Stiill outside of promotions games in DD cost the same as in retail.

I don't recall 70 PLN premiere games but 99 I do. And you are right - prices went up because of international publishers Blizzard/Ubisoft/EA.

But for example Alan Wake was published for 50 PLN or 100 PLN for collector's edition, that was amazing deal.

But on Digital Distribution - second market is non existent, so are the costs of storage, so prices are way lower than in retail. (on promos - regular prices are high, because why not :P) Oh, and distributor cut, of course.

Even if you limit second hand market via online passes, you can't jump through shopkeepers / wholesale cuts and storage costs.

True. And what's interesting, in Poland PC market is stronger than console market. It's still the major market for Polish distributors.

Usually, games on consoles sell in riddiculously low quantities. But even here, digital distrib. grows stronger. We already have 2 local DD stores (yay!)

On Amazon right now

Borderlands 2
Xbox: $34.99
PS3: $34.99
PC Download: $29.99

Need for Speed: Most Wanted
PS3: $59.86
Xbox: $29.99
PC Download: $$19.99

Prices go up and down all the time, so there's no point pointing to conclusions on a snapshot of some store. Furthermore I don't see a point comparing prices of physical media for consoles and digital downloads for PC.
Either compare them all in the digital download or physical form.

Yea, it is true that you can't run anything else that is the least bit system demanding when playing the latest games. When I need to do something else with my computer when I also want to game (which is quite often) I just a cheapo laptop that was gifted to me (yes, it was so bad that it could just be given away ;)... in 08). It does what it has to do though.
I've not had much of an issue getting games to run on this old thing though. I just lower the graphics quality to low/turn off motion blur, AA, DoF and so on, and it will urn just fine. Drivers are (almost) being kept up to date (I say almost, as the latest Nvidia drivers caused Killing Floor to run at a snails pace, to I had to downgrade)

I do think that everyone should take the effort to learn how to properly use a computer though. In today's society (at least in Sweden), you are getting left behind if you are not comfortable with computers. We are seeing a noticeable gap between those who know how to use a computer and those who don't.
I'm of course not saying that everyone needs to know everything about modern hardware, or know every little trick to get the most out of your software, but unless you know enough to properly maintain your computer, you are in trouble.
And as for building your own computer, I just asked a friend for help with what hardware to get. I take it that almost everyone knows at least someone who knows enough about computers to be able to at least help with it.

All the console guys are trying to come up with a palettable way of killing the used game market. They will probably come up with some type of new game authentication and once you used the activation key, then its tied to your account and the physical disc has no value to anyone else but you.

Well provided it works, you can use offline mode to run a Steam game on one machine while running something else on another. Still that isn't close to a sure thing like the actual disc is. Also with my 360, I ended up with twice as many XBLA games than disc games since I bought one. Having all the games on the console was a big appeal as the old 360 dvd drives sound like wind tunnels. More XBLA games appealed to me, and being cheaper helped too. The indle games are a bit more annoying from needing online to get past the ESRB requirements, but for a dollar, I can let that slide.

Also regarding your original post, I realize this isn't a typical case, but my cousin would have been better off with a gaming PC than a console.

He bought a 360, RROD a couple times, warranty expires, he gets mad and trades in everything he can for a PS3. Fast forward a year, that PS3 got the YLOD, now he is out fighting the crazies on black friday to get a console for $200.

For all the money he spent on consoles, and re-buying games from switching platforms he could have had a decent PC with access to cheap games that would go with him from machine to machine.

Hey, I can't bring my A-game every day (*pulls excuse out of hat*), you guys would get bored!
As much as I hate to give credit to Valve, Steam's Linux-console-ish thing plus Ouya very well may force that issue in the consumer's favor.

Such a disgusting, groan inducing sale happy device! >_<

Doesn't that also have to do with bandwidth caps? I know those are more common in Europe.