well there's a saying "consoles are for show pc's are for pro's." point set and quite possibly match lol

Playing games may be just one of the myriad of uses for PC, but well over 70% of PC owners admit that they use their PC for type of gaming, even if that is only casual gaming of some kind. With the number of PCs in the world, that is a much larger "gamer demographic" than the entire console market.
I did say the perception is that PC gamers are a better class of gamer, I did not say that they actually are. Just like the perception is that console gamers are a bunch of retards, which can't possibly be true (I hope).
Linux users aren't a better class that Windows users, they are just smarter. :-)

human nature is that everyone is daft no exceptions

If you take out those that play Solitaire or Bejeweled from that 70% figure you're left with an amount fewer than console owners.
And, no offense to you intended, that perception is bullshit :). And it's a perception put forth by *gasp* PC gamers! Ask Joe Blow out on the street what his opinion is on PC gamers vs Console gamers and you'll get a blank stare.
And I'd agree that Linux users are more tech-savvy than Windows users as a whole. Just like PC gamers are more tech-savvy than Console gamers as a whole. But that doesn't make either a better class.
And this is ignoring the population that considers themselves both a PC gamer and a Console gamer, like myself. I've also played around with Linux, but I went back to Windows for ease-of-use and general compatability (for games and hardware).

Why would you take out those people who play casual games from the PC gamer numbers? They are just as much gamers as the casual gamers who play things like Wii Sports on consoles and you can be certain that those gamers are counted in the console gamer numbers. If we are going to remove casual gamers from the mix, then we must remove all of them and I would guess that puts the numbers back in PCs favor again.

Unfortunately, if you asked Joe Blow about Xbox 360 vs PS3, or PC vs Linux, or most gaming related comparisons, you'd probably get a blank stare.
With every generation, the number of gamers increases, but there are not necessarily the "tech-savvy" ones, just more entry-level gamers. I'd hope that they would invest in their hobby, as many of us here do.

I initially brought up PC "gamers" vs Console "gamers" to try to clarify Grog's response.
It comes down to your definition of "gamer." If it's "anybody who's played an electronic game" then yeah, PC outnumbers Console. But ultimately, who cares? :) Can we agree that we're arguing about something pointless?
My overall point is that Consoles are no more the realm of the retarded than PCs, Cars, Music, Movies or Hamburger enthusiasts. :)

Heh heh I was actually thinking whether or not it was classed as a console or not as i wrote it. God bless the pedants for where would we be whithout the finicky details. :)

I don't think that intelligence and preferred gaming platform are anything that can be linked. Even if console games are simpler (or rather were, today's console games are a lot more complex than similar previous generation games, something that I'm not entirely happy about) that doesn't necessarily say anything about the typical console gamer.
For me games are something that I play to relax and complex games, where I have to spend hours and hours learning the controls or where I constantly have to reload because the developer apparently wanted to provide a challenge to pro gamers are not what I consider enjoyable games. Real life is challenging enough for me, I don't need challenging games. Neither do I care for online gaming, which always burns down to "look, I'm better than you".
For me the biggest loss is that PC gaming is entirely taking over console gaming: Pro gamers have replaced casual gamers as the intended target audience.
A good indicator is the number of split screen games available on console games right now versus the number of online games. When I look through my collection, maybe 10% of my PS3 games have splitscreen, and I'm actually focusing on this feature when shopping.

The "I just wanna have some fun" mentality is more prevalent among console gamers - and that's not what leads to games like X-COM or Planescape: Torment being made. Better class of gamers? Don't know about that, but more dedicated seems likely. The types who invest time into fiddling with config files and patches would be the ones who won't be bothered by having to read through a hundred-page manual or fight hour-long turn-based battles. And have fun in the process.

I agree with PC gamers being more dedicated. But for me that doesn't mean that games that cater to not so dedicated gamers are worse.
Face it, we're all being thrown into one pot here. The development costs have gone up and the industry tries the one-size-doesn't-quite-fit-anybody approach: Console gamers get nearly only games that are too complex for a quick game (the Wii being the exception, but without HD it's worthless to me) and PC gamers get games that are too superficial. Everybody looses, so to speak.

The ideal that was trumpeted by those in the industry was that the increase in gamer numbers would lead to varied and higher quality products.
I find that hard to take, especially from a PC perspective.
Like many things, there are too many people aiming for the middle ground, and not enough people catering for more niche interests.

I admit it freely, I am a nitpicker extraordinaire :-D

I kinda like this definition:
PCs are mostly data-centric. Your starting points are your text files, your images, your videos, your documents, your songs, your whatever. This is where you start. Data doesn't belong exclusively to one particular application... you can use whatever you want to open it.
Consoles on the other hand are (mostly, there are some exceptions like custom music in games, but that's not the norm) application-centric. Data is tied to a specific application and only exists in the context of this application. Outside of it the data is neither visible nor accessible (yes, there is savegame management on modern consoles, but even then they are still tied to that application and cannot really be used outside of that applicaion... you only see an icon and a description, you can't access the content).

Weeeell, you won't have much use for a spreadsheet file when playing Unreal Tournament. I see what you mean, but I don't think it's the best way to describe it.
Consoles are simple. They have simple interfaces for performing simple tasks.
PCs are complicated (or versatile, if you will). They have complicated interfaces for complicated tasks.
Now, the benefit of having a complicated interface is that if the task is less complicated than what the full interface supports, you don't have to use the entire interface, thus making it a simple interface. (For those who aren't quite mind readers, I'm talking mostly about keyboards now). Add to that a simple, fast and highly accurate interface (mouse), and you've got a winner. Thus, complicated machines can perform complicated and simple tasks.
A simple interface, on the other hand, doesn't scale the other way quite so well. Which is how you end up with having to press Up-Left-Square-Triangle-Triangle-R1-Circle-Down, in order to punch the other guy in the face in a slightly different way than if you'd pressed Left-Left-X-Circle-L2-R2-Triangle.
Of course, modern consoles (or some of them) now support the PC's complicated interfaces, but they still suffer from having to also support their native, simple interfaces. Therefore, you will never get as complicated or versatile functionality out of a console as you do out of a PC. Which, in a nutshell, is the whole point. I know what I like. I'm a PC player. Always have been, always will be. But I recognize the fact that it's not a question of "which is better". PCs and consoles are different, that is all. In the end, it comes down to personal taste. My taste lies towards the complicated end of the spectrum. For others, it's the opposite.
The place where it breaks down, is when game companies try to make them the same. "Oh sure, this game is equally suited for PCs and consoles!" You know what, no, it's not. Usually, one group of players get a crappy game. These days, it's usually the PC players. You can't take a game designed for the simplified interfaces of consoles, port it straight over to the PC without any changes, and still get a good game out of it. Take Gears Of War. I bought it, installed it, played it for about 20 minutes, uninstalled it. If I'd played it on a console, I might have liked it, because it was designed for consoles. It was most definitely not designed for the PC.