First, your Thirdly is your opinion and your entitled to it but I think that xbox live is better than steam, and I think in the developers eyes xbox live is better because it comes with advertising that reaches a lot of potential buyers. Also Steam is not required for most Non-valve game, even if it is on steam. Xbox Live is. (obviously this is not good for you or me but for developers it is because it keeps users on their advertising). Also I would like to point out Steam is not free for the game manufacturers, The reason why steam is not required for most games.
Also I do realize more people play PC games, but I am talking Profit wise in a game by game basis. Meaning There are most likely more legal paying players in a game that is available for both consoles and pcs, on consoles.
Also Even Valve games get pirated just search "CSS torrent" in google and look at the third one, it looks legit, and it is 100% free to the player and 100% no profit for Valve. I will never Pirate any games for pc, one becuase i don't actually own a pc(Yes with crossover I can play pc only games thats why I bought it) And two because i don't game on my computer too much, Its mostly a school/work computer.
If you think Xbox live has more subscribers than Steam alone your are wrong. Xbox live has 9 million paid subscibers. Steam has well over that. Secondly, steam is a better advertising model because anyone who uses steam visits the home page any time they run it. Also, hundreds of full titles can be bought on steam. If you included other services like Impulse and Battle.net well.........
And Valve admittedly does not lose a significant amount of income to pirating.
Also, the claim that not that many good games come out for console is an opinion, but it is a well founded one.
So if you are console gamer you have to chose between which one to buy.
Therefore, you are automatically cut off from playing 2/3 of the good games for the entire console population.
Also, list 5 good games that have come out for each console that have not been released on the PC in this current generation. I think you may find it difficult. And I am talking actual GOOD games. aka Madden doesnt count.
And the most important point is that you said game developers make more on a game by game basis on cosole!!! You forget that the developers have to share their profits with the console owners and distributors.
PC devs don't have a console owner to pay and ,for the most part, use DRM now which largely limits their costs.
Look at the tax reported incomes of companies like Valve, Blizzard, Stardock, CCP, Codemasters or any other PC developer. Their yearly revenue per person in their company will astound you.
They are doing fine despite the bad economy...
But have you looked at the stock market lately? Look how Microsoft, Gamestop, Electronic Arts, and ESPECIALLy sony have done this year. Their companies have not done well at all. EA has lost about 75% of its value from 2 years ago. Nintendo is even doing poorly despite the millions of wii consoles out there.
For instance, the studio that made Halo wars was completely obbliterated from existance by Microsoft days after the release of that game.... it couldn't have done that well....
