Sadly, the game publisher have some ground in regards to piracy. It's probably impossible to determine an actual number, but with patented guess-timations, I would be surprised if there wasn't at least 1 pirated copy in use for each copy sold.
Most people that I know who pirate games use the same old arguments "I just want to try it out" or "I don't want to pay for this, it's not worth my money". This angers me greatly.
Like everything else in life, PC game pirates exists because there is a demande for them. Modern DRM appeared in response to that.
It's sad really, but your idea is crazy enough that it might be true - game publisher trying to push people towards consoles, where piracy is very low due to the technical knowledge needed to do it.
Either way, people disapoint me. I like my PC and I like my PC games, but I fear we'll be driven underground soon enough by the masses of idiots who don't understand that not paying for something is the very deffinition of stealing.
As a side note, I'm up to about 20 hours in GTA4 on the PC and I haven't had a single crash, hang up, or problem.
(sorry for the spelling)
Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die. -- C.S. Lewis