I imagine a new form factor as a part of this evolution. I can also see some mad competition between vendors to produce high-end single chip solutions that can be tailored towards gamers, and/or everyday household or bussiness users.

I think it’s up to the developers/publishers to use existing hardware and quit always pushing for that next gen look. Graphics capabilities are more than good enough right now to make amazing looking games, imho.

Seriously, name me one advancement in the PC sector that has been made since the introduction of hardware acceleration. The best one can offer is the ability to push more poly’s through pipeline “improvements”. ……PCI>AGP>AGP2X>AGP4X>AGP8X>PCI-E….all cash cows that do nothing but prolong “upgrade-itis” and, are the chief cause of the disconnect that the majority of gamers have in terms of upgrade costs when compared to the stability and safety of consoles.

Do PC’s push more poly’s now than in the past? Yes. Do the consoles? Yes again. We’ve beaten the dead horse of “why more devs choose the consoles to develope games for” a hundred times now. As long as consoles have the advantages of standard API’s and hardware, they will continue to gain ground over the myopic PC platform.

One thing that I would love to see some hard data on is how the “Hardcore PC Gamer” sector is doing these days. Especially since it’s been widely held that the hardcore market drives the casual market in the demand for games and upgrades.

Are people fed up with upgrading their PC’s and switching to consoles? There has to be some kind of “trickle down” effect going on. The best I can offer is the anecdotal evidence of observing my own friends, who havent upgraded their PC’s in quite some time now, and get their gaming fixes via the internet capabilities of their shiny new PS3′s and X-Boxes.

But consoles aren’t really evolving unless you’re talking about the Wii. These consoles just push more triangles than previous ones and have harddrives…much like PCs.

The tech is what’s killing the PC industry, the requirements of a game being so high these days and the computer lagging behind in the 3D capabilities. The console market is a very different beast and I don’t think trying to emulate that in the PC market is going to be the way. It’s much less controlled environment and it’s going to be hard to push everyone to use whatever new tech you create.

M

The second part was a good read. I think I’ll stand behind the post I made in part 1, though.

The console industry, namely Sony and MS, have got it right. They’re doing the things that the PC industry needed to do a long ass time ago. Consoles are evolving at a rate, and in a manner where Moore’s law(cough) wont ever become an issue. And that’s a good thing. The PC market is destined toward mediocrity if the song indeed remains the same.

The archetecture, the software, the designs of the machines themselves need to get out of the current dinosaur stage they’ve been in for the past..what…20 years..or more?

Mediocrity.