I think you've just hit on something, probably by accident, RubangB. Games primarily have only one channel of profit, their initial release onto systems. It wasn't necessarily that way all the time; a lot of classics from the 1980s and 1990s had arcade releases first, then came to home consoles. And of course, the eventual re-release of games as ports to handhelds also ensures another wave of profits for certain developers.
But with the arcade dying, and handhelds remaining as they ever have been, new games are facing more obstacles to profit than they did two decades ago. Many of them only ever do get that first release, and nothing else. No prospects for future sales for at least a decade, when the most popular portable tech catches up to what is at the moment the current tech. And that's assuming they even do get the port treatment.
The video game industry really needs another release method. Maybe something simple, accessible, perhaps something you could use from an existing console. A release medium where developers can take risks with a new idea and see if it'll sell. Oh wait, we have that, don't we? XBLA, PSN, and especially WiiWare. Now if only developers would home in on that...
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
