I have an out dated gaming pc.  Stopped playing games on the pc a while ago.  Also, you do lose optimization.  Games are optimized to run at a certain configuration, if your pc isnt good enough, you can turn off settings, but the visual result will be far less than if it had been optimized to run at those settings.  It may be playable to olay a game without most of the shaders, lighting stuff turned on, but it woukd be an inferior product to that of most console games.  

If a game was optimized to run on the high end of PC's, if you tried to play it on a mid range pc it would look way worse than what the current consoles can output because the console games are fully optimized to run at their specs.  Even though that PC would technically be better than the consoles in almost every category.  

Developers are smart enough to realize this and develop their games with the majority in mind, not the minority.  

Absolutely wrong. Once again, I don't know when you last played PC games, but the market is very different today. If you play Crisis 3 on PC on a high-end card, it blows away the console version. If you play it on medium, it still looks better than the console version. It's all the matter of how a game is optimised. You don't neccessarily optimise a game for the high-end cards per se, but for PCs in general. That way, when you lower the setting, all you do is lose out on some effects like AA or high-end textures, while still keeping a great looking game.

I do not agree with this. Its not parity its that the majority of phone games are quickly churned out garbage to make a quick buck or (in the case of failure) not lose any money.

It hink its pretty certain that the majority of "hardcore"(those that spend money on console gaming regularly)gamers dont see phones as a viable place to game. There is mountains of garbage with some hidden gems so a lot of the "hardcore" dont see it as a viable platform. The controls stink too and dedicated handhelds have much more deep gaming experiences. Its a chicken and egg example of publishers not taking chances cause they dont feel there is an audience and the audience not taking chances because there isnt any good games. I dont feel it is too different than the Wii U 3rd party problems.

Again, bad comparison.  Crysis 3 is not on current consoles, it is only on last gen consoles.  If you had a pc with the specs of a last gen console, good luck getting crysis 3 to run at all on it.  

Also, there is a reason pc games list an optimal specs required and a minimum.  The games are optimized at certain specs, but you can play a gimped minimal requirement if you want.  If they werent optimized for a specific spec, they wouldnt list it.  

Anyway, we can go round and round all day, so Im just going to end the conversation by saying it is smart for developers to make pc games optimized for lower specs.  It is much easier to find your audience that way.  I mean look at Blizzard, most successful pc developer there is and none of their games are optimized for high end PC's.  Just some food for thought for you. 

Responsible financial decisions for sustaining the company > omg graphix

This seems to make more sense to me.

Probably right, I was just throwing out a conservative number.

I agree, even great games are crippled on mobile due to the woeful controls. JAZZ: Trump's Journey was a really promising iOS/Android game that was ruined by touch screen controls for me. It has been ported to Vita and released this week and wow, it's a fantastic little 2D platformer.

Parity overall is desirable to some extent, as in you want the core experience to be the same. You only need to look back to the 80s to see just how bad a huge disparity between games on different formats was to see why some level of parity is required. However full technical parity will always be for the lowest common denominator which is not good for the superior hardware.

It does, if you aren't a PC gamer. PC games aren't optimised for high-end graphic per se, but for PC in general. The entire argument is flawed.

Trust me, the current consoles are already far outpaced by PCs and it's just going to get worse from here, so the Crisis comparison is very accurate.

Yes, there is a reason they list optimal specs. That's what I'm saying. You will always have the option of playing a lower-quality version of a game on PC if your hardware can't run it. Doesn't mean that the high-end option needs to be held back at all, so I don't see your point.

And I agree that Blizzard sells a lot, but their most iconic game (World of Warcraft) is very old, so of course it will run on low-specced PCs. Also, their second best-selling franchise is a hack-and-slash up-view RPG, a genre that was never taxing in the first place. You chose a poor developer to mention. Why not RSI, who have a high-end game that has already raise $45 million from crowd funding alone? Or the Witcher series, which has consistently pushed out amazing visuals on PC? Both games push out incredible visuals, regardless of whether you play ultra or medium. 

That's being optimised for PC.

I never see any number about those games

The source about  98% of mobile games revenues is f2p:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/23/google-play-growing-growing-growing-downloads-up-1-5x-revenue-up-2-5x/