Next time you are in Best Buy, swing by the PC Games section.  In the $20 section, you will find a LOT of them.  What the DS does prove is that consoles do get adventure games for them.  It is just the PC has more.

As it is now, the PC has an abundance of titles in areas consoles generally have less, and consoles have an abundance of games that PCs generally are lacking in.

That used to be true, until crappy shooters and some more lack-luster RPGs started hitting the consoles, compare the ones out for consoles now to the depth of Baldur's Gate or NWN, ironically only BioWare's own can come as close. Now after Halo Wars a whole bunch of lackluster RTSes will start cropping up all over the place.

Fantastic post richardhutnik! bought a tear to my eye!

I am very glad someone here has bought Shio down a level as it was getting a complete joke how he always tried to put down console owners because "pc gaming is the best thing since sliced bread", it really doesn't take a lot of research to see just how much the pc gaming market is declining year on year yet you get people like Shio trying to ignore the facts and make up their own to make themselves feel better whilst putting down console gaming at the same time,

I know some people take this hobby seriously (pc/console gaming etc) but Shio really does take it to a whole new level when it really isn't needed, this is the exact reason why I didn't reply to you the other day Shio when you was trying to bait me into an argument with you, I have seen many of your posts and realise you will never change which makes it pointless for me (or anyone else) to try and bring a valid argument against you,

Yes I know my stuff about pc and console gaming, been into it long enough (just over 17 years), my brother works at Game UK head office in Hampshire and is always talking about the sales trends etc,

You can make yourself feel better all day long by saying how much better pc gaming is than console gaming but you need to face facts, you ARE in a minority, the console market is setting new records every year while the pc gaming market is trying to hang on and find a way around the huge piracy issues,

You also mention about the two fighting games coming out on pc this year, who on earth wants to sit around a pc playing SF4 with your friends (real live friends i mean) when you can sit in your living room around a big tv using proper controls on the system the game was designed for whilst having a laugh not looking like a total geek as you would on a pc?, and you also say these two fighting games are the biggest two, don't make me laugh, soul calibur 4 and tekken 6 are the heavy hitters and guess what, the pc isn't getting either of them,

I honestly don't know what you expect, you come on a videogame site and start talking rubbish trying to put console gamers down while being totally delusional about the declining "super fantastic best thing in the world pc gaming market", your sounding rather desperate and desperation is not a pretty thing......

Jeez, vlad, listening to you about PC vs. console is like listening to certain others about "HD" vs. Wii.

2. If we're talking like that, then nearly all genres are niche in some way.

3. Again, it doesn't matter if they have a publisher or not - if the game is good, then it's good.

4. The console software revenue in US is $11bn, don't add hardware/accessories revenue. And there's no 2008 figure for PC to compare to.

As I keep saying, PC is transitioning to online, the retail sales are going to digital distribution! Screw EB/Gamestop.

You know it's interesting because one can draw comparisons between the High Definition consoles of today with the gaming PC's of the 80's as much as one can draw comparisons between the Wii and the NES.

At the time the PC gamers called the NES casual and now many wouldn't consider NES casual but complain that Nintendo don't make games like they did in the NES era. The same thing is slowly happening now and in 10 years the majority of gamers that grew up playing Wii will not be able to believe that it was ever called 'the casual console.'

True, however I'm all about bashing the current PC games. They are just as bad when compared to some of the older ones. That newest two that I thoroughly enjoyed were Portal and World of Goo, and WoG was on the Wii as well. There's also audiosurf and a bunch of other "not-real-games" which are far more entertaining than most current games being currently released, PC or HD.

Gaming today on the PC, for MOST people, is something they do incidently with their PCs, because they have the devices. There is a dedicated hard core following that will be into PC gaming in a BIG way. These are usually techie geeks who do their gaming on PCs, and it is a way to prove their geeky manhood. They are like guys who own these modded sports cars they pimped out. These individuals make up probably around 20% of the total PC gaming market. Of course, you get college keeps who will play games like World of Warcraft. But, for most people, they aren't buying a power PC to play it. The game just has to work on their computer and they play.

Now consider the average person. Outside of some Flash games they find on Web, or maybe Yahoo or MSN Zone, these individuals will go to consoles for gaming. It is easier, and has less headaches. The Wii is particularly appealing to such people, because they get to do more casual stuff on it. It is a way to get friends together and play, and get some laughs.

What the PC is fighting a battle against is piracy, which kills sales, and also it being an unstable platform where you write code, and some person out there can't run it, because of issues with their PC. It is pure potlock with them. Like, how in the heck am I able to run Civ 4 for my laptop like a dream and EVERY expansion for Civ 4 on it, EXCEPT Beyond the Sword. Why? How about the disk protection doesn't work with my version of my laptop's BIOS. And you will get a shio type who tells you, "Stop being a moron. You can update your BIOS and get it to work". It is the same mentality of the people who play Madden and tell you to practice, just when you want the AI to run plays for you. In other words here, why do I have to do this, just to play games? I want to play. If it is going to be work, how about you PAY me to do it? People do stuff like this for a job.

So, it is here now. Most people will put up with less raw capabilities, and features and "coolness", if they can get something to work the first time, and work. Maybe not great, but still work. And this is why consoles show growth greater than PC gaming.

Oh, one can reach for stats of "But China is growing". Yeah, developing nations where the only chance you get to play games is in computer centers that people will pay to play. They are versions of arcades from the past, with people too poor to own their own devices. If places can run pirated games on their machines, they will. Or, they will have free online games people can play and do with, ad supported. Places like this generally fold up shop in North America, unless in a MAJOR metropolitian center. And, in North America, they also have videogame systems. Gee, what a shock!

So, you are looking for PC gaming to become an "out of sight, out of mind" subculture thing, that most people aren't going to mess with.   Even if the games are great, they will not get attention.  Oh wait, the games on the PC will serve as a proving ground for games to get released on consoles, if consoles have the interface to handle them.  If you want to see what online sales vs retail does for games, compare online XBox Live sales to those retail.  The Retail environment sells a LOT more.  So, what you are seeing now is PC gaming is becoming a subculture online, that will compete against a LOT of other areas, like Cell phone games, and other things.

And if you want to start throwing in ALL PC gaming, including subscription based models for games and massive multiplayer, XBox Live revenues can also be thrown in to.   And then, once console Massive Multiplayer games get going also, we will include those revenues into the mix also.  And you will find that PC gaming AS A PERCENTAGE of total electronic entertainment, is getting smaller.  This will be particularly true as far as revenues go from sales.  Look for more and more games attempt to go massive multiplayer and ad supported on PCs, and the industry races to the bottom in a cutthroat manner.

I used to be an extremely hardcore PC supporter. My first post on this site (You can look it up if you want) was in support of the uber awesomeness of the PC gaming empire. See, my PS3 I had at the time was merely a sideshow to the main event which was my PC.

What happened since? Well I started buying my games *gasp* and once that happened I found better value for money from consoles than the PC. When I wasn't paying a cent it was no issue for me to deal with the problems that came with PC gaming because I wasn't paying for them. I could easily look up cracks and patches and cracked patches etc to get my games up and running and that was the cost for what were essentially free games. As a paying consumer I didn't feel all too happy putting up with the issues on the PC and in the end I really only play one game on the PC now regularly which is Civ IV and I post on vgchartz at the same time. (Alt-Tab)

What I do now is completely different, I still don't buy all that many games however I rent them a LOT and I get a discount from renting games so much. But I never have issues. You know I had to get over my 'PC-gamer angst' of not being able to save every 10-15 mins because I was scared of crashes. I have thousands of hours now on the system and only 2 crashes to speak of. Just that relief is worth going console rather than PC. Console gaming, heck even owning 3 consoles for me is cheaper than owning a gaming PC. I used to be a pathalogical upgrader because I couldn't stand not being able to run games at a high frame-rate.

Has the PC gaming community lost anything? No, because I hardly ever bought a game. But the console gaming community has gained a paying consumer, and yet the PC gaming never managed to transition me to actually paying for the games in the first place. From now on, im actually more comfortable on the console than a PC. 20+ years of almost strictly PC FPS+Strategy+RPG gaming and now I feel more comfortable with a controller than the mouse+keyboard for game genres such as FPS and RPG. It took me 20 years of use to become extremely good with the mouse and it took less than a year to unlearn all of that.