Prediction: Consoles will be getting a lot bigger in Europe than PC and Mobile in this generation

[Pemalite]

Lawlight said:

Not sure where you got 70% from. Care to provide a link? And even then, a game has to sell multiple times over to make up what they would get on consoles. Here's an example:

http://www.seaven-studio.com/ethan-meteor-hunter-the-loosy-indie-platformer-who-sold-100-000-units/

PS3 sales: 4 050 units

PSV sales: 2 763 units

PC sales: 105 754 units

Revenue:

PC 57%

PS3 26%

Vita 17%

*cough* Activision.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/119977/Kotick_70_Of_Activision_Operating_Profit_Comes_From_NonConsoleBased_Games.php

70% of Activisions Operating Profit comes outside of the console market.

Publishers like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Valve, CD Projekt Red... Do NOT have to pay the Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo Tax on PC.
You think releasing on a console is free? It's not, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo take a chunk of cash for each game sold.

Of course platform owners have special deals for Indies and such which can make it a good decision, which makes your example an exception rather than the vast majority rule.


And here you go. Although I was unsure on the exact profit margins... Seems I was right anyway.
And I quote: "On Steam publishers earn a gross margin of 70 per cent, compared to the 30 per cent offered at retail stores. "

http://www.techspot.com/news/42447-valve-were-more-profitable-per-employee-than-google-apple.html
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newell-videogames-valve-online-mayhem.html
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/02/14/valve-more-profitable-per-head-than-google/

Lawlight said:

 

Many PC games sell better on PC than consoles and you list Diablo 3? You're telling me that a series that originated on PC and that got released 16 months earlier on PC than on consoles sold more on PC? Shocker.

As for Star Citizen (has it been released yet?), it's obviously an exception rather than the rule. How many games have got that much support on kickstarter?

 

It was an example... So here is another.

Let's take Minecraft.
It has sold more copies on PC than any single console platform. (Excluding the dumbed-down PE edition for mobile.)
With 21,290,468 copies sold.

This may interest you: http://www.dsogaming.com/news/report-a-vast-number-of-multi-platform-games-sell-better-on-the-pc-than-on-xbox-one/

And this: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/companies/2014/04/28/pc-games-are-now-outselling-console-games-worldwide-says-report

And here is this: http://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys
Remove the $7 Royalty, $7 returns and in many cases the $15 retailer margin... And there is a 50% profit advantage for a PC sale over a console sale for many publishers/developers.

This also might help explain and put things into perspective for you: http://www.thegamersblog.com/understanding-the-numbers-pc-vs-console-sales-figures/


Star citizen has had modules released. 

Lawlight said:

Yes, I'm sure PC has more games, exclusives and gamers but then again, there's what 1.4B people in China so there is a big market there.

Indeed.  But if you are implying that all PC gamers are chinese... And thus all our games are Chinese... Then you would be sadly mistaken.
You should really buy a high-end PC, whack Steam onto it and find out for yourself. You just may walk away pleasently surprised, heck you might even learn something new.

PC gaming companies still make the bulk of their sales in the Western world.

We have exclusives like Civilization, The Settlers, Heroes of Might and Magic, StarCraft, Company of Heroes, Arma, Men of War, Red Orchestra, Sim City, The Sims, X3 and many many more.
Some of the best games of all time actually... And I havent even mentioned games like League of Legends, Dota 2, StarWars the old republic, Mechwarrior Online and many many more.