Well yeah, you are pretty much making the same general point I often make. I have never said games outsell their console counterparts jst because they are PC.

 Just making the point that, a superior PC game does still in fact, have a large profitable market. Shit ports of shit games obviously would not do as well as a superior version of a superior game.

 I was saying months ago that DAO sales would be "the" litmus test as to whether or not PC is truly headed toward the crapper and it seems apparent now that the PC has the theoretical viability of both core gaming consoles for AAA titles. I expect Mass Effect 2 and then BF:BC2 numbers to further prove that PC is now peaking again as a solid platform.

edit: @ Slime / others

 Also, there is no reason to belive there are 500k copies sitting on store shelves and I find it amazing that people can conjure numbers like that and still spend time bashing Shio for making things up. Even if the 500k number was accurate, going by this sites number putting X360 @ 1.32m and PS3 at .62m for a total of 1.94m then adding another .5m - that puts PC sales still at ~700k since game has shipped 3.2m to date.Which is greater than the PS3 sales.

 It is also possible they are not counting digital sales in the "shipped" numbers, but I think they are. My best guesstimate puts the number of copies on shelves much lower than 500k though, 500k is an aweful lot. I would say DAO sold 800~900k on PC thus far, with about 300k being retail PC shipments and the remainder being DD. Cant prove that 100% , yet.

FIFA 10...

Superb Sales

Listen. I was actually generous with those 500K. It's a fact - not speculation - that 2.7 mill were shipped between launch in Nov and the end of Quarter which was 31 Dec 2009. Do you believe all those 2.7 million were sold in that time, before 1 Jan 2010? Of course not. It's reasonable to assume at least 200K sitting on shelves on 1 Jan 2010. So actual sales are 2.5 mill tops for 3 versions up until 1 Jan 2010.

And we know for a fact roughly how many copies were sold after that, in the few weeks of 2010, namely 90K for the X360 version and 45K for the PS3 version in the four weeks up to 31 Jan 2010 which is the last week of data on VGC. Add a 60 or 70K for PC sales and you got roughly 200k sold in total since 1 Jan 2010, which adds to 2.7 mill.

Remember, I'm generous here.

 The current total is actually 3.2m according to EA.

200k sitting on the shelves /2nd tier distributors warehouse ( the ones who sell to small retail shops) is actually a fairly reasonable number though - yes, I could see 200k.

So yeah, total is 3.2m , sitting on the shelves is about 200k , ps360 sales around 2m , PC sales around 8-900k , margin of error about 200k that is semi-unaccounted for. Could be extras on shelves, could be untracked sales, its entirely possible PC version broke a million. (though I think 8-900k still closer to the mark)

I do not think there are a lot of unsold PC retail copies though, probably not more than 20-30k because AFAIK the only chains stocking them would be Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and even then PC games arent heavily "speculated" on, shipped PC retail copies very closely tied to preorders AFAIK due to generally weak Retail PC market. (tl;dr - everyone knows retail PC is weak so its unlikely most retails/distro bought a ton more than they could sell)

 So yeah. Unless I am missing something you ar emore or less saying the same thing I am at this point.

good to see the great sales of those awesome games

with such success for a core WRPG, I hope (dream ?) to see once again games like Planescape Torment, BG2, the original Fallout, Arcanum (...)

Dammit, I should have been even more clear with my post. U see, the total shipment until 31 Dec 2009 was 2.7 million and not a single copy more. Those extra 500k (making the total shipment 3.2 mill) that have been shipped in early 2010 have simply not been sold yet, it's impossible in just 4 weeks like VGC numbers show. That 500K shipment is meant to last for many months of retail sales.

 Under your scenario, that would mean one of two things - if not both.

 1) There was a MASSSIVE restock after the holdays, just in time to pay sales tax on for the year ( cutoff date is between feb-april I think depending on state). Considering there was no shortage pre or post X-mas and sell-through post holiday is a relative trickle I find this scenario almost impossible to fathom. Retails do not stock for the whole year, just after Xmas, except in very very specific seasonal items. It just doesnt happen. Trying to say that more than 100k of 2010 shipments went to retail boxed copies is making a wild and outrageous claim. There probably have not been any, except maybe to niche Euro countried or something.

 2) Digital Distro sales have not been counted at all. Which would be good for PC sales figures, even given a partial truth to the scenario listed in "1)" this would still put boxed PC copies at around 500k which would mean that PC sales overall were probably around 1.3 to 1.4m ... but I do not think that the case. I think the initial "shipped" numbers counted all DD pre-orders and purchases made until the day the press release was made detailing the first batch of shipped numbers.

 Digital services do not pay royalty daily. Most likely scenario is the majority of the update was DD sales that had recently been "paid" and covered at least part of December and January.

Read the article, man. Its says 2.7 mill shipped in 2009, and 3.2 mill LTD.

"Origins sold 2.7 million units in the December 2009 quarter."
and
"the BioWare RPG sold 3.2 million units since its release"

Which simply means that 500k must have been shipped this year. They're exact numbers from financial reports/earnings calls.

Great they are both amazing games.

Great to see Dragon Age do so well as a new IP.

This means Baldur's Gate 3 (Established IP, one of the greatest series' ever) would sell a lot. I demand my BG3