PC Future is in Sports?

Go shopping for a car and visit any dealer, and they’ll tell you why theirs is the best. Reading the latest “future of gaming” article from DigitalSports.com, I couldn’t help but think of the car analogy. You see, aside from it being a nice overview of the current state of PC vs. Consoles and some predicitions for the immediate future, it came to the conclusion that eventually the PC will mainly be a Sports and Racing platform. Strange coming from a sports e-zine eh? =)

On a tangent:
Well it’s possible I’ll say that. What’s really happening though? Are the consoles becoming more like computers or the computers more like consoles? Do you see evolution bringing the two into one? I do. Eventually, you’re going to have a machine that does everything a computer can do and everything a console can do and there won’t be a distinction…. That’s my prediction.

The signs for this evolutionary clash came at the very least 10 years ago, in pretty much a failed experiment. I can name at least one design of a machine that tried to do both. The Japanese “FM Towns.” It had arcade games like R-type, but was also a computer with a keyboard. Lately we have the Dreamcast with its keyboard, modem and the recently released Phantasy Star Online which is a mild success so far. Computers had a bright moment when 3dfx released the Voodoo based card in 1997, enabling polygon arcade-like games even faster than the arcades. Of course… once there is no distinction, someone will see a need for one and come out with something different, thus beginning a new process.