sure, used games are going somewhere. they don't exist on the PC, and they could get similar response from the console market by doing what they're already doing - restricting access to online content through codes. do it more, i say. as for the heavy rain thing, of course they'd have gotten more money from a better game. doesn't matter if it's shadow of the colossus or GTA whatever or the latest madden game, that's always the case. but saying that they lost more money to that than to used - considering that a game usually sells twice as many copies used as it does new - is a lie. i buy used occasionally, sure. but i buy the game when it's reached that used price if i continue to play it. i'm still supporting that developer with my money. if you don't think HR is worth 60$, great! wait till it's 40$, or 20$, and pay it then. don't pay 45$ at a game store and lie to yourself that you're not affecting the game developer, because you are. you're using their servers, and playing their game, and paying less because you didn't feel like opening a new package and spending 15$ more.
as for gaming systems, show me a computer that you could buy in 2006 when the 360 came out that still plays cutting-edge games on the high-to-ultra settings in 1080p. doesn't exist under $3k, and likely costs five times as much to run thanks to high power draw and inefficient graphics processors. as for "long term with a console"...what do you mean? are you talking about buying the games for a console vs. pirating them for pc? if you're talking about consoles taking a dive over time, don't make me pull out three-year failure rates for big-box PCs. i know that both the xbox and PS3 have had hardware issues, but once they were resolved - in both cases, by the natural process of shrinking the die, same as that issue is solved on a PC - failure rates for consoles over three years are a quarter of what PCs are in one year. you could easily buy two consoles between 2006 and today and pay less than what you would for a gaming system that's relevant today as well as back then. let's leave the computer pricing guides to me, since it's what i do =) as a guy who is trying to sell PCs, it's more cost efficient for gamers to use consoles. that's why pandering to the console market (here's looking at you, Dragon Age 2!) is so important for game makers...because there's a larger batch of people looking to buy from them, and because the lack of variable system hardware makes it way easier to design and write code for.
i can agree that there are paid websites that stream content digitally. since you don't usually have to pay for online access with a pc while you do with a 360, that's a fair cop, i guess. surprisingly enough, social features like last.fm and facebook get used in my house simply because i don't have my computer hooked up to the big flatscreen, so when i show pictures to friends i do it through my xbox. same with most of the other integrated stuff besides twitter. i realize that's not as much of a selling point, but yeah.
edit: erm, uh, moving on, i guess...just saw the other posts.