I have 2 points to add:
1) According to PC gamer there is no decline in PC gaming, in fact this will be the year of the PC. With dual core being favoured by MS and big game developers as being the breakthrough. Windows vista was made for the pc gamer. Doubt MS would throw away a lot of developing money if they thought the pc market was in decline. Although we dont see a lot of pc games on shelves, apparently the online market (legitamate one not the pirates) is booming. World of Warcraft have exceeded 8million subscribers which is bigger than many countries :p
Yes a lot of games are purely console, and tbh the type of games that they are probably deserve to be there. But there a many that never will, SH series probably one. However, as pointed out, piracy for these are also rife. Yet you dont see game developers saying not going to make any more console games due to piracy
2) As was posted previously, make the retail versions more excitable. Proper merchandise, instructions and maps etc. Make people want to buy the actual game for real. But don't spend out so much on material that the game just gets too expensive to buy. After all, piracy is here and it will stay. Don't put software protection on thats unreliable and can cause legitimate game owners PC's to crash uniformly.
btw, expecting mine after the 23rd
