Yeah, but where are the all the PC exclusive titles to take advantage of this awesome hardware?
Crysis? Not...

Did everybody think Newegg.com's profits every year come from non-gamers and non-enthusiasts? Damn right this is a tens of billions of dollar market! I'm going to drop $2000 on a Core i7 rig next month and I assure it is not a workstation. Screw consoles, I'm a computer gamer and I want top of the line! When I order my computer I'll be getting CoD5, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, and maybe one or two others.

PC Gaming is not dead and will never die. The graphics, game play, and innovative potential is too great with computer hardware to ever write off.

For the price for a top of the range gaming PC you can buy a Xbox360, PS3 and a Wii.

That said I love PC gaming I wouldn't be Left 4 Dead trying to play some games on the Xbox... and the fact the same ID can be used on both versions of Live, while obvious is nice. I don't mind the all copy protection investing my PC.

Now I can't wait for somebody from the Software community coming out and saying these figures validate their views on Piracy killing the video star.

Of course Blizzard and the Sims account for 75% of this market.

And remember that the $20 Billion on Gaming PCs is just a tiny fraction of the 300 million PCs sold in 2008.

Conservatively speaking there should be about $11 Billion made from PC games revenue this year which would bring the hardware and software number to $31 Billion.

Compare that with the 2007 hardware and software sales of $7.1 Billion for Microsoft's Entertainment Devices Division and Sony Computer Entertainment's $11.7 Billion and you can see just how much bigger PC Gaming is. But I am preaching to the choir. :)

Who wants to go play Left 4 Dead tonight?

It's funny how people have no trouble pointing out how Console sales can easily be driven by a single title (Halo, Mario, Metal Gear). But seem to ignore how this happens far more often on the PC. Doom, Half Life, Far Cry, Unreal Tournament, etc.

Hell the forums are filled with "What card for xxx game".

You can easily drop less that $100 on a video card that will give you better graphics than any console. Not to mention a game library that goes back 2 decades.

Toyed with the idea of getting a console the past few years. But Steam keeps me a loyal PC follower. After the effort of trying to get my last console (wii,) and continually being denied, I shrugged and took it as a sign. It was not meant to be.

How do the margins compare? How much capital do you have to invest into a PC game, compared to a console title? Probably will find that consoles will bring in similar money, with less money invested and quicker turnaround.

And now they realize. Good

Shorter:

Consoles are one or two major hardware purchase followed by multiple game purchases.

PCs are one or two major game purchases followed by multiple hardware purchases.

Looks like someone finally got it right. After all the talk of how awesome the console market is (or maybe it just takes less work to toss console sales figures into excel) this is quite refreshing.

Retail software figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry.

Imagine that. We--the enthusiast community--have only been saying that for years now...

I just bought a laptop to take to LANs with a 9700m GTS and really like it. ($999 at BB) Now that adequate gaming laptops are coming down below the $1k mark I bet we start seeing that niche market growing a little.

(really wish I had forked out the extra $100 for the asus with the 9800m GT tho)

so they think it will grow faster than they originally forecasted (which is a ridiculous notion in this current recession), not that it's currently larger than they anticipated.