@Khuutra

That and that most PC's run on inane intel integrated graphics architecture.. hell my "discrete graphics nvidia" laptop can display 720p but can barely run quake 4 at 640*480

I'm fairly sure that when they say PC gaming machines, they don't include the ones with integrated graphics, but only the ones with something with significantly more oomph.

The PS3 and Wii came out in November 2006, and the Xbox 360 was introduced in May 2005  november 2005, so the 74.7 million is over several years around 3 yrs( 50 million units in 2 yrs if you discount the xbox).

From Q3 2005 till Q3 2008, 196 million gaming PCs shipped, and 10 million of them were in the Mainstream Enthusiast class—and if we include mainstream desktop and High-end high-end notebook, we could add another 187 million units—now that really is a lot.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13654

U.S. PC Game Sales Up 48% So Far In 2007

According to data from research firm NPD Group, sales of PC games have risen by 48 percent on the previous year, during the first two months of 2007, with sales lead by the success of Blizzard’s World of WarCraft and its expansion The Burning Crusade.

Speaking in a feature by The New York Times, NPD’s Anita Frazier indicated that U.S. retails sales of PC games have risen to $203 million, from $136.8 million a year earlier. These figures do not include online sales or online subscriptions to massively multiplayer online (MMO) games such as World of WarCraft.

Frazier identified MMOs as the key source of the increase, in particular the January release of The Burning Crusade. During January and February role-playing game sales rose by 43 percent on the PC, largely due to the release of the expansion.

“The robust performance we’re seeing in PC game sales can be tied to several key titles across several genres,” said Frazier. “But we’d be remiss not to address the continued success of World of WarCraft.”

Overall, PC game sales increased by only 1 percent over the whole of 2006 to $970 million, from a figure of $953 million in 2005. This in turn was a fall of 14 percent from 2004’s total of $1.1 billion in revenues.

The feature offers a contrast with console game sales, which reached $4.8 billion in 2006 for the U.S., rising to $6.5 billion if portable console sales are included.

PC gamers must be a real tight lot with their wallets? coz i doubt someone would spend thousand(s) on their gaming rig and then not use it for playing games.. unless ofcourse its just for vista :)

L4D, Fallout 3, GTA 4, Dead Space etc.

All these games sell better on consoles. By a lot. All the power of the PC matters for nothing when games are being designed to run on consoles from the ground up.

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

Wanna bet on that? I also hate to break it to you but L4D was released on the console as an afterthought.

While GTAIV was released first on consoles, I don't know how much it was made for them given how horribily it runs on them.

Well, for the % sales of Fallout 3, we don't even have the online sales factored in. Steam can make a huge chunk if you don't overlook it.

What's interesting is the fact he mentions no software figures. Kind of looses validity when they aren't attempting to talk about sales figures in an apples vs. apples environment.

1.º You are basing your opinion in a single console-centric market. That is hardly fair, and you can't even extrapolate those figures to represent europe because PC dominates nearly all the other european countries.

2.º PC games aren't very frontloaded, and usually keep selling for years. Bioshock, for example, didn't have sell much in it's release but is still selling on PC, appearing in PC top 10 weekly chart in Germany, and often sneaks into Steam's and D2D's top 10 sellers.

3.º Those figures aren't taking into account the sales from Digital Distribution. Fallout 3 is currently 4th on Steam, 6th on D2D and came out today on Gamersgate.

1. And how many other big markets for Fallout 3 are going to have similar, console-heavy sales? I don't think one or two PC-heavy countries that don't game much in general such as Germany are really going to tip the balance - not when you have the heavy hitters if America, UK and Japan being big on console games.

2. Depending on the console game, they aren't very frontloaded either. Nintendo games, anyone? Halo 3?

3. Oh wow, Fallout 3 is 3th on steam! It's getting beat out by World At War for PC! </Sarcasm

The issue with the PC market is that it's multifaceted. The DD markets are new, and are doing well, but nowhere near retail sales. Browser base, and adver-gaming is another new, different market, as well as MMOs. All are competing for space. I am sure that PC gaming is doing incredibly well when you merge the different ones together, but it's very doubtful that taking major games such as GTAIV, Mass Effect, and other games that are 'big' on Consoles, are competing very well with the console game sales.