But yeah AAA games that try to do something really different are going to be hard to find, its way too much money invested to take any big risks. Endless sequels and small changes.
That's where first party exclusives come in to a much greater extent than games from third party publishers. Also, I'd say Destiny, for example, is a relatively big gamble.
As for BIG risks, and you seemingly implying that unless you're making sweeping changes to a genre, you're not taking a risk, I'm not sure what more you can expect, really. Game genres essentially got standardized to some extent back in the PS2 era, when we found out what works best in an FPS, TPS, platformer, whatever. At some point, where's the benefit in forgoing those standards? You're better off focusing on variations on the same standards, and making smaller, iterative changes. It's more profitable for you, and the consumer is much more likely to get a good game. Again, is that really a BAD thing? Or, for that matter, is that really so "out there". Of course people are going to play more risk-averse when there's a shit ton of money on the line.
At any rate, VR is potentially around the corner. Sony themselves have acknowledged the fact that games need to be tailored around the platform itself, instead of the platform simply playing ports. We'll probably be able to look for our sweeping innovations there.
As for that sales thing, that isn't so much a quality of PC as it is of digital sales. Consoles are going to move away from physical good at least to SOME extent this generation, that's a certainty. If those types of deep discounts over time are really advantageous to the storefront owner, to the developer, and to the publisher (which they have to be, right? Otherwise steam sales wouldn't exist, and they wouldn't be as frequent as they are), or more specifically, MORE advantageous than the way retail sales work now, then I don't see a reason why those couldn't exist on console either.
Not so sure about that. Pricing on PC is fire sale and very sticky downward on consoles for a reason. Sure the initial 6 months is huge but when one set of systems is still selling games for near launch MSRP a year later and another has fire sale a month or two down the road seems to indicate that not only do consoles have buyers still paying full price, there are enough of them that publishers see no reason to drop the price.
That's a good point as well, actually. I mean, logically speaking, Steam would rather ask full price than discount the game right? If they're discounting games on steam months after release, surely that speaks to how those games are selling.
Or perhaps they figured out the perfect trajectory for a game's price in terms of profitability, and the hype a "sale" creates causing more profit than would otherwise be made if the game is full price. I don't know, just spitballing here.
Sorry for the derail by the way, I'll add something useful: Make sure you don't pre-order Destiny on PSN, get into the beta, and cancel it afterwards. Sony reserves the right to charge you regardless of cancellation of the pre-order if you enjoyed the benefits of said pre-order, which in this case would be beta access.
http://i.imgur.com/WXgMeQQ.jpg