I read on Slashdot about PC gamers angst at having to wait for games that are released first on console. As the commentator pointed out, this puts them in the same situation as Mac users who have always waited for ports of PC games. (Although delaying PC release means a longer wait for Mac users, I suspect)
This has struck home because I've been playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on my Mac a lot. I realized, reading the article, that there's no good reason now why games should come out first on the PC, or why PCs and Macs should ever even run games.
The industry's been on a big convergence kick these last few years, but the only time I really want my Mac to be a games machine is when I'm stuck for hours on the road. At home, I'd be more than happy to fire up a PS2 (it might even convince Jenine to buy me one for Christmas if I couldn't play games on my computer!) and play on a big screen that's connected to surround sound and other goodness.
If the upgrade pressure was off because computers no longer needed to be replaced every six months to ensure you had the latest nVidious nRage ProForce GeWhiz 1G video card necessary to play SimAnt Tournament 7, what would it do to the rate of change? People are a lot slower to upgrade consoles than computers. Would that change? Or would the pace of hardware speedup and graphics improvement slow down?
--Nat
