Introduction

Some Background

In the tender memories of yesteryear there sits the Atari 2600. This was the first big-time gaming console for a lot of us, and we still remember it fondly. It allowed us to play our games at home in a social setting, one brother or sister against another in friendly competition. We would squeal with glee as we popped in the Asteroids cartridge, or even our most sacred possession: Pitfall.

Space rocks

Classic, but pixelly

Now, the world is different. Thanks to the early pioneers programming tirelessly in their dorm rooms, the hard works of Adlib and Creative Labs and the total awesomeness that was 3DFX, we were able to play some tail-kicking titles over here on the old IBM compatible Personal Computer. We've moved past the 2D scroller into the world of 3D. We've moved past the days of auto-targeting in Doom and Heretic to the days of Mouse Look and Mouse Aim. We've gotten used to high performance, high resolution games over here on the once-lowly Personal Computer.

Back From The Dead

But an interesting thing has happened on the way to gaming bliss. Consoles have made a big-time resurgence. The Sega Genesis was awesome, Nintendo rocked the house and Sony came out of nowhere to dominate the market with their original Playstation. Now we find ourselves on the edge of a new round of high profile console introductions that will have tens of millions in cash promotion behind them. It is a war for the hearts and minds of gamers across the globe and one that Microsoft is betting billions that it can win. In a time when PC gaming is so capable, can any of these consoles actually displace the PC to become the new King of Computer Gaming?