PC gaming is dead?

Valve just announced it have 125.000.000 'active' Steam accounts. Even taking in account duplicates and alts, this is now a massive number.

Comparing it with sales figures for PS4 (18.5M) and XBox One (11M) and WiiU (8.9M) it gives the PC market a nice market share. The only thing it is comparable to is PS2 (155M) and Nintendo DS (154M)

not bad

Take into the account that the PS2 or DS sales does not mean that they are active / in working condition. I would think Steam already has the biggest user base. I mean do you still see new games developed for the PS2 / DS? Very likely a huge percentage of these console are inactive now.

There was a DreamCast game recently that came out (Aikagi & Redux: Dark Matters)... And a new Genesis game recently came here...

You can't say any particular system is dead, it's just not likely you'll get new titles since the install base isn't guaranteed to be using it anymore... But I'm still willing to play genesis, mastersystem, and PS2 games... So why should any of the older systems with large install bases not possibly purchase something that came on hardware from 10+ years ago?

It doesn't really matter when we're talking market shares, does it? One DreamCast game released in 10 years gives the DreamCast a current market share of, what, 0.000001%?

Market share? Is this the stock market?

Unfortunately i'm having trouble trying to put into words what i'm trying to explain. Systems and games don't have to be current/next gen to be relevant. Yeah the Dreamcast has a small installbase overall, but it doesn't remove it's relevancy, unlike say: The CDi...

But it's unlikely it would be highly lucrative...

Well saying PC has overtaken to have the biggest user base is not the same with saying other system are dead.

By no means saying a huge percentage of such console are inactive equal saying such consoles are totally dead.

That's just a tiny bit more than Steam's record of 8.5M users being online concurrently O.O

This is good. It will encourage more developers to have the PC as part of their cross-platform plans, playing upon the PS4/Crossbone's architectural similarity to the PC. Good times. :)

Oh dear, 50 million more than 01/2014? Seems a bit much to me, but then again, many people get lured to steam with all the keys in cheap bundles.
Does anyone know, how many people use GoG?

That and there are quite a few 'free-to-play' games available on Steam these days including Valve's very own DotA 2 and Team Fortress 2.

My guess would be that most bundle buyers have already used Steam the first time they bought a bundle.

May have?

What does the freshmeat new service have to do with the idea that PCs have been around since the 80s?

I don't agree with this thread title at all. The PC market isn't any bigger relative to the console market than it was a decade ago. What did change is that most new PC games are now only available on a single online DRM platform.

I aggree. Using Steam as a measurement for PC gaming makes me sad.
There is still a retail market as well as some digital shops that offer direct downloads.

Two things to consider: If these numbers come straight from Valve, it's not unlikely that they're a bit exaggerated ( in example, how do they define an "active account"? ).

And aside from amount of users, the profit per user is also a factor. Console gamers still generally buy rather overpriced games ( and official controllers, HDDs and other hardware add-ons ) while many PC gamers seem to buy their software exclusively during heavy sales at Steam or other services, for a fraction of the full price. Would be interesting to see some actual total profit comparisons.

Not saying you're wrong -- I'm primarily a PC gamer too, and a greater market-share could hopefully be of benefit for us -- but I'm not sure how accurate and meaningful these numbers are.