Editor's Note: The debate over the future PC gaming has been ongoing since I can remember. And it seems that every few years, as a new console generation enters the fray, the cries that PC gaming will soon be dead surface. Yesterday, our very own "shaithis" concluded in his article, "The Xbox Revolution," his case for the death of PC gaming. However, our mailbag was filled with naysayers vowing to "stick crooked forks" into the man for his blasphemous words, and we know more of you might feel the same way (minus the forks of course!) So we gathered two opposing views from our freelance pool, and here's what they had to say...

Counterpoint
By - James Hills

With all the news and articles this week that are heralding the Xbox, and the impending demise of computer gaming, I thought it only fair to offer a counterpoint. At the risk of being labeled a Microsoft bashing Linux games journalist, I shall offer my assertion that the Xbox does not mean that computer gaming is dead.

From what I have been able to learn about the console, the Xbox sounds geared almost entirely towards providing the best 3D accelerated graphics possible. Based on the specs and demos, I am sure that they will accomplish that goal, and it will provide the most mind-blowing, ass kicking 3D graphics ever seen in the consumer electronics market. However, I don't see where it will be able to compete with computer games in raw CPU horsepower, and RAM intensive applications such as physics simulation, artificial intelligence, and speech processing. By the time that the Xbox is released in the fall of this year, computers with 1GHz or greater processors will be the norm and this will be the virtual peer of the Xbox's 733 MHz processor in an optimized console setting.

By the end of the following year, I expect to see dual processor machines to be more common for gamers, and with that dual processor machine 256 megs of RAM or more will not be uncommon. Only God and several game developers, who are now drooling at the prospect of all that power, know what innovations will be produced for a computer gaming system such as that. Perhaps Seamus Blackley, director of Advanced Technology and one of the heads of the Xbox project, will grant us a sequel to his amazing, but box breaking game, Trespasser, to prove my point?

Also, the Xbox does not appear to have a monitor-out port on the box. Though I am sure that someone will release one as an add-on, the lack of support for it out of the box means that Microsoft does not intend for developers to consider gamers using it on the desktop. What this means is that while you may be able to play first-person shooter games such as Unreal Tournament or Quake 3: Arena, you will not be playing them the way you normally play them on a PC today. Instead you will be playing them the way you might play the ports on the Playstation 2. For me, anyhow, playing a FPS game on a television and with a game pad is no replacement for a 19 " monitor and with a keyboard and a mouse, and I would not expect that genre of games to abandon the PC anytime soon.

When I first heard about the Xbox, I too thought, "thank God I won't have to continue upgrading my PC every year." However, as I continued to read more and with the announcements this weekend, I am positive that the Xbox will not replace my computer any time soon.

All this being said, I am looking forward to purchasing an Xbox as soon as I can. I think that it will be perhaps the best console ever released, but I do not see it being a PC gaming killer in itself.

Next: The Xbox Resistance: Lee'Mon speaks out...