Average revenue per each of the 11.5 million wow users is 10$, that's the number Blizzard last gave.

So that must be taken into account ( seeing how the cost is actually 15$ in the western world).

Thanks Montreal/Shio... I feel more educated right before going to bed...nice feeling!

I used to play PC games, but now I upgraded to a gaming machine, the Ps3. I only ever come back to the PC to talk about consoles these days, although I might have a go of DoWII. It's been a while since there was any good games on the pc.

unlikely.

Most video game historians usually talk about the crash as 1983-84.
The change in 1976-77 was a move from dedicated systems to cartridge-based systems. It was market transformation more than market elimination.

Mike from Morgantown

Its only midway. Consoles won't crash.

ive said this many times if any of them release before 2012 there will be backlash that would most likely lead to a crash this will not only come from the general buying public, but devs, whos asset libraries will be devalued. it would not be good for the industry right now.

we are in actually a pretty good place for all three with software sales being what they are sometime next year all three should put up proffits and continue to do so till the end of the generation. sony will be the last to post profits form its game division, and depending on how many units they move form now until the cut (april earliest), software could even offset a small loss per console basis.

on top of that there currently on going major revisions in board and ram design the like of which havent been seen since the mid 90s, this shift should be more defined by 2012 with techs less risky. it also gives time for ISPs to be upgraded and allow for smoother download of full games which is something devs want to kill the resale market (though rental of the game from a download is most likely a devs wet dream rentals on music and games make fortunes)

honestly the only one that could benifit from ending early is nintendo, since they have traditionaly made a profit out of the gate, making people upgrade would just be more cash for them, but killing a cash cow (the wii) is always dangerous

PC gaming will crash very soon. GPUs power consumption and heat will do the job. We are just one step away from a single card sucking up to 500w and loading at 90 degrees, seriously, that's far from mainstream.

I'm not so sure of this. MMOs are still very popular. WoW for example does not require a beast of a machine to run and it has a huge install base. RTS games will always be popular on the PC. As far as I've seen, they really don't work very well on consoles. 

You do know that hardware's future is going to be a "fusion" between CPU and GPU, right?! Next year Intel is releasing Larrabee. Your point is irrelevant.