Empire Total War, Arma 2, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, FEAR 2, need I go on.
PC's are not the main gaming platform for one very simple reason: People.
People are cheap, and people are stupid. Gaming PC's that can run any game flawlessly with literally no possible doubt (something no console can do) are in the same price range as GM's sedan and coupe vehicles (If you buy them from Dellienware [don't ask if you don't understand the amalgam]) . You can build a computer yourself for pretty cheap that will run most games fine with decent graphics, but people are stupid. Even software engineers, mostly BECAUSE they're software engineers and not tech support people, can't even build and set up a computer properly in most cases. Even assuming that you make a totally quiet gaming powerhouse, how many entertainment centers are sized with the intention of fitting a mid-tower of full-tower case in addition to all the other peripherals you would need to make a gaming pc viable with an HDTV: HDMI cables, 7,1 surround, wireless mouse and keyboard, wireless router and cable modem in the same room (I wouldn't put a PC more than 10 feet from a router if it was wirelessly networked. Frankly, I wouldn't wirelessly network any PC, my laptops are the exception.)
It's a hassle and most people are too stupid and/or lazy to deal with it, the same reason companies like Dell and Gateway and HP still exist for sales other than large-scale corporate computer supply.
Xbox's and PS3s and Wiis are more affordable than a gaming PC, assuming you already have an HDTV, and people, mostly Americans and Europeans because we are the ones who have done the most as consumers to maintain the gaming industry (I don't know the sales by heart but I do believe console sales in europe and america obviously are larger than in Japan, especially for the Xbox) want something affordable and easier to use.
Example:
I lived with 4 roommates and we had a PS3, a Wii, a 360, a SNES, 64, Gamecube, Xbox, PS2, PS1, and every single person in the house had a minimum of 1 PC, myself having three, meaning six of seven computers could play games. We used our PC's almost exclusively for WoW because although they could play any game, we didn't care, it was more fun to communally play console games, even if it was a single player game like fallout or fable 2. And we're talking three Computer Science - Software Engineering students, we're not too lazy to use our computers.
It was just easier to plop down on the couch, grab a 360 controller and turn that shyte on. Straight to the game or menu without even pressing anything [Obviously when comparing ease of use and accessibility, a wireless mouse and keyboard are equally as easy if you have your comp hooked up to the HDTV, though if you don't have it on sleep and instead have it turned off, it will take a little bit longer. And of course with Games for Windows Live the interface is exactly the same as the Xbox Dashboard so the games are just as easily accessible. Even more so if you are using a wireless 360 controller to play the games on your comp] Also, I think the fact that we had a 1080p projector with HDMI inputs and surround sound hookup had a lot to do with it; why bother using your computer to play Fallout 3, for instance (even despite being able to cheat and mod it merciless), when you can plug that [xbox] into a projector (not that you couldn't, and not that I didn't plug my laptop into it sometimes. But who moves a computer, honestly? I'm 23, I don't LAN anymore with my desktops. Screw unplugging and plugging things in) and watch Super Mutant brains fly literally to the other side of the room, as you are almost deafened by the sound of slow motion mutant screams and hunting rifle gunpowder exploding louder than if you actually were in the situation in real life? As a sidenote, we literally never once plugged in our PS33 the entire time we all lived there. The PS3 and X360 have mostly the same games and the only time we ever played PS3 is when our friend brought his over and plugged it in because he's a Sony fanboy.
For clarification I only refer to HDTVs and HDMI because anything less than HD is absolutely unacceptable. I'm sure you all agree when it comes to playing games or watching stuff at this point in time. I for one literally can't watch anything that isn;t on Bluray or at least HD DVD and on either a HD computer LCD or a flat panel LCD/Plasma hdtv. Unfortunately for the past 20 years the technology hasn't existed so if you want to enjoy truly brilliant and awesome video games or computer games the visual quality is less than stunning, but it will still be on a high def TV at least. (I don't even own a damn HDTV, I want one so bad. I got a new laptop to replace my broken one for a graduation present and honestly I would rather have a TV and suffer not having my laptop.)
Especially in a recession as bad as this, people are going to go for what's safe, what's familiar, what's cheap and, most influentially, what has the most referential support in their lives; for example, if their friends have Xbox's and their friends enjoy using it and through both first-hand experience playing their friends Xboxes as well as word of mouth about how reliable and awesome the entire Microsoft Xbox, or Sony Playstation, or Nintendo Wii experience is (including game selection, price, peripherals, online features, customer and technical support, not to mention the longevity and backwards compatibility of each console), these real people are in many circumstances going to go with what their friends suggest and what they think is best, either through experience or unfortunately, in some cases, fanboyism, or plain ignorance. In pretty much every case, the decision they make is not going to be the one that involves buying a PC.
People still view computers as a big deal, even as we near 2010, as hard as it may be for people like myself to empathize. When computers first became commercially available for home use, they were uber-expensive, and for the most part, computers are still uber-expensive when it comes to buying them retail. The impending downfall of PC gaming is undeniably contingent upon, among other things, the consumer conception of computing technology. As of 2008 there were 2 billion computers in the world, and somewhere above 1 billion of them in actual personal use. You would think in 2009, a point at which there are over 2 billion computers and going on 7 billion people in the world, the computer would be, as some people claim, the most common household appliance. Going by that assumption, computers should be just as familiar to people as TVs and ovens and microwaves and dvd players and cellphones and all the honestly useless technology that we use. That isn't the case. People don't view computers as gaming machines, why exactly I don't know, despite what should be common knowledge by now that electronic gaming was invented and sustained entirely on computers until the first home consoles came out. This is in my opinion the single biggest barrier standing between the "personal computer" and utter dominion over all gaming life as we know it.
Second, and in my opinion just as significant if not even more so, of the difficulties facing the success of the computer as a commercial gaming machine is the IT industry itself. In several different ways, the various companies that make up not only the electronic entertainment industry but also the computing industry have operated in ways and done a lot of things that have not only made business more difficult for themselves but have often created difficulties between the various different companies themselves, turning the entire computer industry into one big failucopia. A buffet of fail if you will. For instance, the success and ubiquity of simple and easy to design flash games on the internet have persuaded some companies to pursue the development and support of "casual gaming", a habit which reportedly strikes the vast majority of personal computer users, as well as consoles. The rise of the casual gaming era can be seen easily in any of hundreds of sites like kongregate.com, or in the success of the games on the Xbox Live Arcade. Many of these games offer unexpected depth and complexity, while not necessarily requiring an investment in a very powerful computer, or a large sum of money. Combine that with so many different things happening in gaming, such as the evolution of Steam from a complete piece of garbage into an inescapable Megalodon of gaming death, or the mergers of Activision and Blizzard, or the purchasing of Id software by Zenimax Media, and the gaming industry is in a state of great potential, which could easily ruin, or revolutionize gaming as we know it.'
Sorry I won't go on. Maybe I'll turn this into a full article on my blog since apparently I won't shut up and accidentally wrote a paper. But you see my point.
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