But why do they insist on delaying the PC release until months after the consoles?
I'd venture that it's a combination of development time/scheduling, marketing and cost of marketing.
So, perhaps, console owners are more affected by getting something when it's absolutely new with hype in full flow, and the advertising spend for both consoles can be shared. Otherwise they would have opted for one console, then the other and then PC.
Bear in mind finance costs can be substantial. Let's say they needed an $80m loan: they could easily be paying $500k in interest every month. Now say they got $50m profit on 360/PS3 launch week: they might receive $200k credit interest a month. Even with this silly example of cheap finance and no other considerations, holding back 6 months would cost $4.2m just in bank interest.
Other factors:
- possibly get more money per console sale than PC
- Some people will buy a copy for their PC even having bought on console, especially for higher res textures etc. I doubt many would have bought on PC and then got one for console.
- Higher piracy rate on PC, some who bought on console might just have pirated for PC.
This comment was edited on Sep 13, 16:53.