A few things:

First off, jefforange hit the nail on the head when he said that it just doesnt make financial sense to just release on one platform. The bigger the company, and the larger your economy of scale the more this applies. A platform port is a fraction of the cost of a totally new AAA class game, of course you go multi.

This applies even more between Xbox and PC , if you have a decent product not releasing on both is just silly.

Secondly, I know there are some that refuse to believe (or stop saying they believe on inet forums every chance they get) that piracy is killing PC yadda yadda yadda... but just remember, consoles deal with used game market.

Oh, and Steam has been growing in leaps and bounds by revenue, and their sales charts also go by revenue, not by units. B&M PC is dying to be sure, DD PC has been exploding. Anyone who calls out Shio while ignoring that fact, is just acting silly. The evidence is pasted all over the net, it should be pretty hard not to get the memo by now.

And about the Impulse figures, Impulse "anchor" series are SoaSE and GalCiv. Just like Steams "anchor" franchise are HL, L4D etc. Impulse therefore attracts a different crowd, one that is certainly not as mainstream but still a very large audience that supports whole sub genres of strategy games that many people, especially console folks will not have heard of. Those games still sell tens or even hundreds of thousands of copies internationally.

Also :.  For those who commented in an amusing, yes uninformed fashion about how "ME2 couldn't even outsell BC2 preorder" I will kindly remind you that BC2 has been having a large and enormously popular Beta on Steam recently. If you do not see how a super popular PC franchise (Battlefield) and great game like BC2 cannot put up huge Steam preorder numbers during, and immediately after a huge and enormously popular Steam beta period..........

yes, Mass Effect 2 will have more users on PC.. about 7 million I think (around 6 million pirated)

Yes.

Only, I didn't create a whole thread about these figures...

Over 25% of ME2 piracy on one of the largest private trackers is down to the 360 version-

14,938 downloads so far for the PC version, compared to 5134 for the 360. As a comparison, the first Assassin's Creed had over 150,000 PC downloads on the same tracker.

People are buying this because it was released at the same time as the console version; it doesn't come infected with stupid DRM; anybody with a PC built in the last few years can play it; and it's fucking good. Simple as that.

The thing is, some japanese publishers are now releasing exclusive PC support, taking advantage of the size and versatility of the PC platform. For example, Square Enix just released a PC exclusive on Steam called SEASON OF MYSTERY: The Cherry Blossom Murders. Sure, it's just a small casual adventure game, but it shows that japanese devs are starting to treat PC as more than just a sideshow.

Gaming hasn't shifted to consoles - Both PC and Consoles have been growing (except consoles in 2009). The reason some thought PC was losing crowd was because of the decline of it's retail market, which is idiotic. PC has always been growing healthily, and it was only until recently that someone had the time to estimate the strength of the PC market.

This is so bogus. How the hell can you figure out how much a game has sold from sales tables?! Stalker didn't even show up in the top charts on retail in US, UK, hell even in digital charts it still only showed up strong when it was from promotions, yet it still sold over 2 millions.

PC games also have a much higher profit margin, and keep selling for years and years. And it's also cheaper to develop on PC than on Consoles. Oh, and PC devs don't need to spend near as much in marketing due to the extremely strong word-of-mouth.

And those games that are consolized end up selling less and lose sales. Look at what happened to Modern Warfare 2 and Unreal Tournament 3.

Explain to me how PC games are selling less when everything, from reports and direct info from PC companies, say that PC games are selling more than ever?

So you base your view of PC gaming's health from your friends, and not from the industry reports that show PC gaming is growing strong?!

Jesus, i'm not gonna go make 20 quotes for each point and etc, i'm only gonna say this:

It's been the subject of countless articles, lectures, comments, etc. The PC having to re-evaluate it's model and transitioning to a digital model is precisely because the consoles were kicking it's ass at retail, this is easily seen on all format retail charts everywhere.

The industry reports are showing MMO growth, not retail growth. Furthermore, 99% of those MMOs are PC exclusive. I'd also go as far as , judging from the usual PC charts, a ton of PC sales are from MMOs, Blizzard games, and The Sims, there's been entire years that a new title enters the charts for a month, and disappears, and WoW/Warcraft/The Sims/Starcraft/Spore makes up the rest of the charts for all eternity (lol).

PC games have a higher margin, but also sell for much less, like I said and you ignored they get discounted heavily early on, much earlier than consoles titles, which are already more expensive by default, so it cancels out the higher margin. The success of Steam is because of dirt cheap prices, they might sell but they yeld lower revenue.

Word of mouth is equally important, if I don't judge the state of gaming from everyone I know, i'm just reading stuff off the web without judging it first hand. They actually agree, like I said and again you seemed to have ignored, my friends pay for MMOs, everything else they either pirate or buy a console. That just confirms the current PC sales trends. The truth is PC retail is skewed by 4-6 insanely evergreen titles like WoW or The Sims, while DD isn't big enough yet.

I also work in the industry and know what people talk, what I hear. It really depends on what you're talking about, if you're talking about casual EA or Blizzard, then yeah they sell tons. Everything else? Not so much. Heck, everyone likes to say MMOs are huge, when WoW is half of the entire MMO space.

Finally, I really, really wish people stopped with the Steam excuse. Yes, DD is growing, Steam is growing. It's also not the second coming of christ and is still dwarfed by retail.

PC is in transition, but there's zero doubt that it lost ground in areas it was strong in, and is currently redefining itself with DD. Consoles have become huge and sell to both former PC guys, and newer gamers who can't or won't game on PC.

That was THE weirdest conversation I have ever seen on VgChartz. I mean mother of pearl!

OT:I kinda want to see the actual numbers.

I said this before and personally I think it's very impressive that Call of Duty:MW2 is still selling and is on top steam seller since release.

Dude, PC has not lost ANY ground!! The retail market is SHIFTING to digital distribution. And if you add both current retail + DD, they're crushing the PC retail market when it was at it's peak. For all purposes, Digital Distribution IS retail without the cut from retailers and manufacturing - it's the evolution of retail.

You're lying when you say that industry reports only show MMO growth. The only PC Gaming industry report available is the Horizons Report (and the occasional DFC press release), which clearly said that ALL forms of business methods on PC games increased except retail. And even then, the traditional venue of PC games increased (Retail + DD), which is exactly my point.

Again, Retail and Digital Distribution are considered TRADITIONAL business, and both work exactly the same. The digital distribution services work like retail stores, and Steam is the world's Gamestop!

Your problem in your reasoning is that you don't consider Digital Distribution the same as Retail, when essentially they're the same. Publishers and Developers certainly see DD services as stores.

This part proves you don't know much of how the industry works. Those extra $10 of console games are eaten by the fees and royalties that console manufacturers enforce on devs/publishers. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo force publishers to cough up $10 to be able to release the games on their consoles.

Console manufacturers eat $10 for each copy of a game that is on their consoles (Ninty only gets $7 I think), which is why Consoles games are more expensiave from the start, and have much worse profit margins than PC games.

You are judging PC gaming's health from a bunch of people instead of the hundreds of millions of PC titles sold every year. That's like saying "The Automobile industry is dying because my friends don't have cars and only take the bus". You seriously don't see where you're wrong?

And for your information, Digital Distribution IS BIGGER than the Retail market, as the next Horizons Report will prove it.

Unless you're a market analyst of the gaming Industry, yours and other people's opinions are irrelevant. Just because you're a Rally driver doesn't mean you know how much cars are being sold.

Dude, I will say this one last time, DD IS BIGGER THAN RETAIL ON PC, AND TRADITIONAL PC GAMES ARE SELLING BETTER THAN EVER!

Looks like pc gaming is alive.