Yep. But there are also those console fanboys who don't know what they're missing out on in PC world either. People who haven't or won't explore the various other platform seem to be the ones who get the most defensive when it comes to discussing superiority of certain features.
Each platform has its own specialty. Even if you don't enjoy certain aspects of each, I see no reason for the unwarranted disrespect to the others.

Heh I just mention those two because I hear the "Console games aren't as thoughtful as PC games!" argument all the time. Try getting through those without a brain is all I'm saying.
And the Mother Series is awesome sauce! The translation team behind the mother 3 patch did a great job imho.
...but we are talking about PC games here right?
Deep thinking PC games that you have to use your brain for...like Doom and Unreal.
heh.

It takes a lot of hard work and little sleep to make a game, and half the time we don't know if it's going to turn out good, or if the lead dev is nuts/control freak and then down the road, like clockwork, there's issues with the publisher to worry about. It's sad when everyone works hard and one person gets in the way of everything making poor choices which result in turning a good game, bad.

There was a game based on the original Hellboy movie that came out for the ps1 or ps2. It was a crap game, not very good at all. I was at a game designers convention and the subject of the game came up (Because we were talking about good/bad games and the design decisions etc.) It turns out one of the guys I met actually programmed almost the whole game by himself, after most of the team either quit or got fired.
I felt kind of bad about my comments on the game after that. I still don't think it's a good game, but I was impressed at what the gentleman did in the time he had to do it in.
So much of that kind of stuff goes on behind the scenes and the consumers have no idea. Just like in hollywood with movies: One guy said that no one ever buys a bad script, they get turned that way through the movie making process.
I think it is probably the same with games.
And just to clarify: I don't htink unreal or doom are bad games, but the idea is that PC games are "Thinking man" games as opposed to console games being dumbed down. I find that idea to be a bit funny, since you can find both experiances on any platform you choose.

Years ago they invented a machine,
with the mere flip of a switch, it develops, markets, licenses, and copyrights intellectual property, known as a PC video game.
since it's creation it has been at work non-stop in an attempt to appease us mortals. One day this machine will rise up and overthrow it's fat, unimaginative, evil oppressors.
but until that day has come, Sarah Conner, is safe..
duh-duh duh duh-duh

This made me think "Spore" :-(

Nah... I think some games benefit from a having a single creative driving force akin to movie directors. That is if the director has a very strong distinct vision for the design and tone. I feel some of the big names in gaming like the aforementioned Will Wright, Hideo Kojima, and Suda 51 to name a few, deserve to have their say in how they want things done. Sometimes things just don't always pan out in the end. Life goes on. More projects to work on in the future.
On the other hand you have Valve's cabal philosophy where everyone contributes to final vision of what the game should be. But in this case, everyone has to really have strong creative skills and be able understand the tone of the project as a group.

You can always quote a half dozen titles, but I still say that how many console gamers are going to still have their megadrive or PS1 in 15 years? Compare that to over FIVE MILLION DOSBox downloads! I am not saying they won't think fondly of them and continue buying new versions of them, I am saying they won't have the same connection as PC gamers have with the ORIGINAL game. Hence the Fallout example. When PC gamers buy a new PC, build a new PC or upgrade a PC there is a connection that is not as strong with buying a new console. You only have to see the success of G.O.G., some of the words said in this forum about older games and the wishlist to see PC gamers have much stronger connections to the history of 'PC gaming' compared to the much more generalized 'history of consoles'.

I think Sid Meier beats all the names you mentioned hands down.

I think that what makes a PC game is group of people (or one person) who believe that the PC is still a kick ass multi-media platform. One that can help the devs. realize their gaming visions. Re-read as what "types" of games are making the most amount of money right now? What will a publisher let me/us develop?
Fortunately games are more or less the same now no matter what platform you choose. All have great RPG's, Shooters, Strategies etc. and all have their debris as well.
In the past when the consoles were at the anything up to the PS1, N64 era, the PC had the clear advantage. In terms of control, graphics etc. Games that were 'ported were truncated to fit onto a console. Now that those days are over and the tech. is closer, the console gamers have something to cheer about, and some of them want to make sure that they are heard. Whether or not their chosen medium is better though is still a matter of opinion.
I think this debate will continue for a very long time, like is tea or coffee better? Do you like Coke or Pepsi more? Do you prefer Star Trek or Star Wars? People will always feel more attached or loyal, or biased to one side or another. Let the debate rage...

UK_John, the 71000 units in October that you were refering to, do you know if these numbers include just retail sales or digital download as well?

They do include some digital download. Although not Steam, as Steam don't give out sales numbers to ANYONE! Steam do however, give out their top 10 sellers. Far Cry 2 was No.1, with Fallout 3 No.2 on pre-order's only. A point and click adventure, however, was number 3, so you have to decide what all that means for sales numbers. I have always thought that if Steam was doing fantastic numbers they would release them. I mean if Steam had more downloads for Fallout 3 than there were retail sales, you would think they'd shout about how they were the future of game selling! The fact they don't and the fact that a point and click adventure can be No.3 in their chart for the month of October tells me their sales are quite low compared to retail sales.
The 71,000 definitely included some digital downloads and a lot of internet retail sales.It does include Amazon.com, for example.
If you are willing to do the math, you can see that Bethesda shipped 4.7 million units worldwide. 17% were PC (799,000 I believe) and that the U.S. market has about 1/3rd of the world PC game market, meaning approx 266,000 units were probably shipped to store retailers and internet retailers like Amazon.com. Now if you say 71,000 is about 25% of that total of 266,000, you could argue that's not bad for 3 days. You have to take account of the fact that as many as 30% of that 71,000 were pre-orders, making 'pick off the shelf' sales around the 50,000 mark. Extrapolate that out for the month of November, I would have thought that Fallout 3 on PC will sell around half a million units on PC in the North American market. Extrapolate that further and you have around 2.5 million sales on PC worldwide for November plus those 3 days in October. It wouldn't surprise me then, sometime in November, that we won't read an article saying 6 or 7 million sales including console sales. 2.5 - 3 million PC sales put's it in the STALKER, Medieval II Total War, Warhammer 40K Dawn of War, The Witcher type of numbers. It dwarfs sales numbers for Far Cry 2, Crysis, Dead Space and the like. Equally it is far from the 5+ million of both Half Life 1 and 2 (with sales ongoing).
In a strong market like the console market, it hard to see what sales might generate for any given title. But the PC games market is now so small in comparison (15-20% the size), with so few AAA title releases, that it's not too difficult to categorize them into approx 1 million, 2 million or 2 million plus sellers. Just read a few professional reviews and a couple dozen gamer reviews and you can get a pretty good idea. Fallout 3, because of the hype and clever marketing, along with the review scores and the Oblivion sales base was always likely to do the 2 million plus figure on PC. Equally, the next Total War Empires will probably do the 2 million whereas Dawn of War 2 probably won't.
It's fascinating trying to figure out what's happening to console and PC gaming, because no one survey lists all the sales numbers and so many download and internet retailers just won;t give out verifiable numbers! Certainly one of the reasons NPD doesn't take numbers from everybody is they insist the unit sales be verifiable!
Even today, for example, rumors still abound that if you sign up to Worlds of Warcraft for 30 days and then cancel. you are still counted as a subscriber until the end of Blizzards financial year! Blizzard have never commented on detailed figures, so nobody knows. Most people believe that their subscriber numbers must go up and down, but all we get is pronouncements of ever higher subscriber numbers!
It makes for a fascinating sub-hobby, this 'number chasing' - like being a detective! :)

I'm just speaking from experience, it's my profession and all that. I started in Japan and all that was fine, but when I moved here (USA) and things just changed with games and there's a lot of control freaks th at will even say the shit work vs the good work is better for who knows why that reason is other then politics, and some stuff that would be toooooo unsavory for me to write on this board. Yes, there some good studios but there's still some people in control of things they shouldn't be. I'm talking about the core development not the publisher nonsense. Although I've seen where it tied in. And I wish I could get dirty with details.. I am so ready to do that, but I won't.

A lot of people have emulators running on their pc playing megadrive, nes or snes games. I still have my original megadrive and I also have some old console game compilations to play on my psp. I only sold my Master System back in the day because i needed the cash for the megadrive and I sold my Playstation because I got a PS2. Other than those two i've kept every single console (Megadrive, GB, PS2, Xbox360, PSP and NDS)
Many adult console gamers still have fond memories of the early days and short burst of unexplainable nostalgia. The problem is while pc software kept floating around, console games disappeared when the companies went bust and the final cartridge around broke down.

yes, there is the hardware aspect with regard cartirdges. And of course, some people WILL keep all their consoles and games, but I believe for every console gamer that keeps his machine and games, there are a dozen PC collector's like me, with dozen's, if not hundred's of PC titles going back anywhere up to 20 years. I know abandonware is big, but so has ebay's PC retro section, but combine both those, plus the charity shop and boot sale purchases plus the PC gamers who still have their old games, and, of course G.O.G., and you have the main reasons DOSBox has been downloaded over 5 million times! Being conservative, I would say at least a million of those were downloaded to play 'real' PC games that people owned or bought, rather than just downloaded from an abandonware site.
I really am not trying to say PC gamers are better than console gamers or anything, I am just saying there is always going to be a difference between someone who sees himself as being a PC gamer for 15 years and someone who was a megadrive gamer then a PS1 gamer then a PS2 gamer then a PS3 or 360 gamer over that time period. PC gamers don't say, for example, that they were a '286 gamer' then a 'pentium gamer', then a '1ghz gamer', etc,they just consider themselves 'PC gamers'.