If those spare cycles can be put to good use, that actually better serve gamers' needs, it seems that consoles would be disrupted. I guess a big issue is insta

If those spare cycles can be put to good use, that actually better serve gamers' needs, it seems that consoles would be disrupted. I guess a big issue is install base: lots of consoles, and few people with expensive, upmarket PCs. Also, piracy. And a single hardware target. And perhaps console game quality is "good enough" for most gamers. Perhaps having many people to play FPS against is more important than graphics (or AI). Even worse, as silicon gets cheaper, instead of those PCs becoming affordable, I predict most people will buy even cheaper PCs (or phones+HDMI+kb; or iPads; or a new ARM-based PC form-factor). i.e. PCs getting disrupted, as workstations, minicomputers and mainframes were. Worst case: it's possible that consoles will never improve from where they are now. The only hope I see is that someone comes up with something sensational, that everybody wants, that requires that extra processing power. Life-like AI might do it... but we already have real people to play against. Though I think cinematic graphics is probably the best bet.