LATEST CHATTY HEADER

Because of piracy, nVidia has been able ride the high wave of overpriced "enthusiast hardware" for years now. The same goes for other manufacturers in this niche consumer space; Asus, Gigabyte, OCZ etc. who will excruciatingly find themselves in the same predicament as nvidia. Asus is pushing out motherboards that go over €300 and even it's mid-range P45 products yield in €200. Shit like this won't save PC gaming.

08 still has some great AAA+ titles in store for us, and I for one will be updating my 8800 GTX to feed my LP3065. If 09 sees the end of dumbed down corssplatform games and half-arsed PC ports, I'd say it'll be a blessing. DoW 2 and Clear Sky, and perhaps ArmA2(?) (save the MMO scene) will probably be the last great exclusives for our platform. PC gaming as we nostalgics like to reminisce it is gone, and will never come back. Blockbusters will always cater the lowest common denominator, and the core audience will find themselves sufficed with their 360's and PS3's and whatever will follow. Altho I do find my self enjoying CoD4 online on weekly basis, I can live without it. And I'm not planning to get a console, at least for now.

I'm sure that smaller devs like Stardock will still keep crafting their games for the niche market, and cover the development cost with the sails figures those titles can cut. But they certainly won't require a 1K SP monsterchips or what ever it is nVidia has in store for us next. Unless the future MMOG's can lure the current WoW gen to get higher-end hardware (a bit of a stretch) the big green may soon find it self as a 3rd party contractor for next gen consoles, and what ever integrated solutions the future desktop market will hold. High-end graphics in terms of what we have today may very well be gone... but I can still take a spin on BattleZone, BGII or HoI and enjoy my life without pay-per-use DLC and what ever crap the future may hold...

/troll