I ran across an interesting quote tonight in PC Gamer's State of the PC Union address. The unidentified author talks about a number of issues, including the loss of great developers like Looking Glass and the intensifying PC vs. console debate.

Vis-a-vis, Looking Glass, a beloved PC developer, just kicked the bucket, and many others are in perilous condition. Publishers churn out press releases singing the praises of the profits to come from console publishing, while cutting back on PC development. Hang tough and hang proud. The only thing we have to fear is a year or two of consoles hogging the limelight with splashy launches. In the meantime, the best computer games in history are coming down the pipeline. As are technological leaps that will forever change the way the world plays games. The PC ain't going nowhere. A guy named Ed Fries told me something one time, and it's worth relaying to you. Fries is Microsoft's point man on gaming - PC or console. He's what you would call a guru, and a very highly paid one. And what he says is this (I paraphrase, but it's pretty much verbatim): Any console platform is just a snapshot of where PC technology is at any given moment. It then holds at a plateau for three to four years, until the next console shakeout. In that time, the PC continues its constant, Moore's Law-driven evolution, quickly (if not immediately) eclipsing a console's capabilities. The curve slopes to the PC. It can't help it. PCs change, consoles don't. Anything they can do, we can do better six months from now. And the things we can do in two years, they can't even conceive.

The Xbox is not a PC, really... the structure of the system is different, and the use of tried and true off-the-shelf components helps to cut costs and avoid later unexpected bug issues. However, I did think the quote was interesting enough to pass on to you because Microsoft has been so determined to dissuage consumers from making product judgements from its PC components. They've even gone so far as to distance themselves from any current possibility for keyboard and mouse devices for the Xbox. Guess we'll have to rely upon third parties if we want such things.