future of games,3d games on internet

I recently visited one of the game stores in US , to my surprise found the PC games section to be a real tiny rack in a corner of the store. I glanced through the shop to have a second look and found that console games had actually sidetracked PC games. Then it made me wonder what would happen to PC games another 5 years down the lane… Scary !!

• PC hardware requires frequent upgrades compared to the console, who would want to upgrade their hardware just to play a new high end game ?

• Gamers want a change from the same old single/third person shooting/killing games.

• The gamers community has evolved , as in the gaming community no more comprises of geeks ! people dont wanna spend hours to understand how to play the game, but rather want to ease out their hectic life with fun to play games. Thats were Nintendo WII has captured a huge market share recently.

• With introduction of handheld,consoles, more of the world is mobile ( imagine packing up your PC when you visit your friend or family

• Life can be a drag watching someone play single person game on a PC, and you staring at the monitor, with consoles and internet gaming ,you can actually jump into the action.Thats were these online gaming websites are churning out huge revenues.

• Consoles are easier to upgrade compared to PC and consoles have a shelf life of minimum of 3-4 years compared to 1-2 years of PC.

• The total market for online games will double between 2004 and 2007

• Pay-per-play gaming is expected to grow at a compound rate of 40% between now and 2007

• Browser and browser plug-in online games

• Adobe Flash stands tall in online browser gaming when it somes to 2/2.5 d games ( makes use of flash player and Flash authoring )

• Java based games ( though very slow compared to flash )

• Adobe Shockwave3D games ( makes use of Adobe Shockwave player and Director Authoring Application )

• Other scripting languages php,perl,python, javascript etc making use of Opengl as the underlying core rendering API.

Looking at all the advancements in the last decade or so and the reach on the internet, my safest bet would be to go online with browser gaming as it increases your grasp on the non elite gamers ( believe me, is a huge number !! ) , also these games would cost fewer resources and less production time , making it a great domain for individuals/startups and also create a healthy competition benefiting the end gamers !