My guess is licensing... The games are built on the PC first, and there is no licensing cost for releasing a game for the PC. Yet Sony and Microsoft will Surely charge Bethesda an "entrance fee" (royalties by any other name) to allow the game to be released on their platform.

They are just passing the royalty fees onto us.

Makes sense. But really, who cares?! So the best version of the game is the cheapest - GREAT !

It's the same reason a pair of trousers made by a fashion label costs more than an 'own brand' pair of trousers from a supermarket, when they both come from the same Indian sweat shop.

Console gamers will pay more so they do; you're paying for the name on the box.

I own a PC and an Xbox; there are pros and cons to both and I would rate them as equal over all.

They will always point the finger at development issues and legal stuff, but the fashion labels used to do the same with ponting the finger at better materials and production until it was proven they make most their stuff in the same sweat shops as any other.

Because steam is a distribution network, not a publisher. They don't set the price, they just provide the infrastructure to shove the data around. Steam is very unrestricted, both for publishers and users - for the publishers, this is a good thing, and a good chunk of why many use it (They can even use additional DRM with it if they want), for the users it's less of a good thing, but the other advantages outweigh it.

RE: A "Steam tax", steam already take a cut of every sale. They're a shop, that's what they do. They're not going to take an additional cut because their popularity comes from being convenient, and at least not more expensive than physical stores - if they break either of those, they're breaking their own business model. They don't have so many fantastic sales because they're nice people, they do it because the additional people buying far outstrips the profit lost per item. Their system works, they don't need to start charging more.

RE: Console vs PC, it is indeed the additional costs that MS and Sony take to subsidise the console hardware being cheaper. Whether a PC or a Console is cheaper in the long run depends on how many games you buy, and whether you're happy with "High" graphics, or must have "Very High".

sony and microsoft control the price points on new games

Closed per OP request.