Why you should only have to buy your game once

[thranx]

Rainbird said:

Aprisaiden said:

It is difficult to sell a copy of a game that works on multiple platforms as the hardware manufactures get a cut per game sold and therefore either game prices would go up or SONY/M$/Nintendo would see there profit margins shrink. 

The only risk is that the pricing on PC generally is lower than consoles and so you could see people buying games on Steam to play them on consoles. But you still have many retail stores that are competetive in pricing with Steam (at least where I live), so people's buying habits shouldn't really change.

The difference comes from people being able to play their game on another platform, something they couldn't do before without buying another copy of the game, but since there doesn't seem to be a lot of people rebuying the same games for different platforms, the platform holders shouldn't be feeling a meaningful difference.

Maybe allowing people to play a game on several platforms will attract more people to gaming and actually increase revenue? 

Just a thought, but Valve may be pioneering this already. if you buy the PS3 portal you get it on steam also to play. Onley game I know of that you only have to buy once to play on 2 systems