The problem with consoles...

[glo]

... Is that they hinder PC gaming.

So with the announcement of GTA V, it's looking like the current gen consoles will be around for another 2~ years at least. If Sony and Microsoft had plans to release a console next year, Rockstar would definitely had held off to take advantage of having a release title and more horsepower to work with.

This brings me to the following points:

1. Current consoles clearly are dated by quite a large margin. Most titles have issues pushing past 30fps, have poor lighting, and absolutely no AA. All of those features are pushed aside so developers can squeeze as much performance as possible while still keeping things somewhat acceptable to look at.

2. Current consoles are using vastly outdated engines due to hardware constraints. This is typically most notable with how poor physics are rendered in any current gen game compared to lets say, the source engine.

3. All PC games which also have a console port, are based on the console version. PC gamers, no matter how awesome the system get the same watered down, poorly textured, low poly, poor lighting, and ancient engine'd games.

My question is this:

Judging by the numbers, there are almost 1.5x the amount of modern PC game sales compared to console game sales, and nearly 2 times the amount of gaming grade video card sales compared to console sales. So why are developers holding PC gaming evolution back? Why isn't more time dedicated to PC ports when there's nearly 2x the audience?

[Edge-]

Consoles themselves don't hinder anything. Companies will almost always develop a game for as little as possible, and try to reach the broadest market. You reach a broader audience at a cheaper cost if you develop a game for current consoles and then port it to PC.

It's businesses and companies that are what's holding it back. Look at Crytek. For YEARS they were the beacon of hope for PC gamers. Crysis is still one of the most impressive games around on PC and they were extremely vocal about how consoles were holding PC back ect. Then they go and release Crysis 2, a blatant console port (computers don't have a start button to press).

If you want to point out a problem, point to giant publishers that refuse to do anything but create safe games. Granted there is a legitimate reason why (games are expensive as hell so a flop will put you in the hole tens of millions), but seeing franchises that last much longer than they should, or new IP's that are just reskinning other games is depressing.