I understand that. But having ALL the games at the same reasonable price means they get the same share of a game that goes viral. AA/AAA games might make the bank for a _console_, though be clear not necessarily for a game studio, it will be the 'lesser' games the susstain the console.

So to be clear, focusing soley on AAA games will _NOT_ make a console healthy, diversifying will.

Yes, Price is a factor but you should realize that there are many people who are depending on gaming industry in retail games which is why it has high price compared steam digital sales which serves only three (Steam, developers and publishers). If the Console do the same then lot of people around the world will lose jobs and only Developers/Publishers will earn profits. Consoles are doing as much as they can to match digitial prices without impact on retails with their deals/sales every month.

Steam may have increased Indie sales with their deals but not many AAA sales compared to Consoles have mostly.

I'm not saying they should focus on AAA games only, but they are focusing very less now and which might be even worse in future. Consoles are made with power meant for AAA games mostly and if they don't get such games very well then its no way it will be healthy. Look at the Wii U and how its working without many AAA games even though it has many Indie games.

So Journey, The Unfinished Swan, Rime, etc. are not indie games?

Retail stores are partly at fault.
Over the years before Steam came along they constantly reduced the amount of shelf space dedicated to PC games, it actually reached a stupid state, piracy began to run rampant.
Then Steam came along and solved all of the PC gamers problems.

Besides, Brick and Mortar stores may have stopped supporting PC games, but dozens of online business's have sprung up dedicated to that target demographic, like Green Man Gaming, Gamers Gate, Good Old Games and the plethera of CD Key websites.
It's Capitalism at it's finest, if there is demand, then that demand will be met by new business's, if you neglect the demand and don't change with the market conditions and fail, then you deserve to fail, that shouldn't be something that's prevented by government bailouts or special market conditions.

Besides, the "digital" price matching is pretty laughable, you looked at a new released game on the Xbox Live Network? It's usually the same price or more expensive than the version you can find in store, digital should be cheaper by default, there is no packaging, shipping, manufacturing or other extra's like manuals, guides and such that you're getting.

As for the last line on your post, it's difficult to understand it, could you elaborate? From what I can understand you're basically saying that AAA games don't benefit which is ironic, because even AAA games on Steam have benefitted from the sales, hence why Valve is happy to discount it's own franchises which have sold millions of copies already.

Not in my opinion. I don't consider any game backed by a large publisher to be indie. For me, indie games are games developed by independent studios without the backing of huge publishers.

Edit: When I say backed, I mean being financially supported by a publisher. Heavy Rain was backed by Sony.

I understand what you are saying and I mostly agree. But I think Wii U is failling less because they aren't are able to get cutting edge AAA games but because they also can't even get AA games either. Wii U is essentially a full gen behind even if it is the best of that gen. Also, as prevously mentioned, price has role in that as well.

The AAA model of publishing is unsustainable. Not every game needs to be a $200 million dollar production that costs $60 dollars. Games made with shoe string budgets can be just as good. Look at Metro: Last Light, Minecraft, FTL, Bastion, Braid, Limbo, Outlast, and Day Z. All great games that did not follow the AAA model.

Retail games need to be sold at $20 and $40 at launch, not just $60. The AA titles will still be $60 but some smaller games need to be cheaper and get away from digital distribution only. Minecarft did extremely well in retail.I see this as great for gaming. Not every movie is a blockbuster and not every game should be AAA.

They are in between Indie and AAA like a AA game, Indie means very less budget and its an independent for publishing the games. The above games are having bugets higher than Indie and less than AAA along with its published by Sony(they game money) not by the developer himself.

This thread has been extremely informative.

I'm not an indie dev apparently :O