There is provided a plasma display device capable of high luminous efficacy and stable driving for displaying images at various image display load factors. The plasma display device performs the sustain discharge for a light-emission display, and is configured to apply a sustain pulse voltage between a sustain electrode pair in a respective one of the plural discharge cells to generate a sustain discharge in a respective one of the following operating modes selected based upon use of the plasma display device: (a) generating a pre-discharge and then a main discharge; (b) generating a main discharge without a pre-discharge preceding the main discharge; and (c) switching between the mode (a) and the mode (b). The sustain voltage waveforms are used which compensate for an increase in voltage drop due to an increase in discharge current when the image display load factor is excessively increased.