I guess you predicted 2007 to be great year for gaming. With gaming being such a large, increasing and maybe now essential part of life, its only natural you should think it should evolve and produce improved goodness each year, right?. Well history shows its not quite that smooth straight line we all expect to see on that graph. It can get bad, really bad. However 2006 gave record profits and growth, despite conventional wisdom of what a console transition year is like in the industry. So with a console launch year, it was always on the cards for 2007 to be great, but how great?...

Consoles
Every four to five years, we get a special year in gaming, the year of the console wars. However, not only is this a console launch year, its probably the best(I promise not to say best anymore). Three quality systems, each original and strong enough to stand side by side and produce some greatness. I wouldn't be surprised if I bought one, two or even all three consoles at some point over the next two years.


Super Console
Who knows, maybe I'll just stick with my super console, err PC, its already more powerful and more capable than the best of the "next gen" consoles. Its not that the consoles aren't powerful or not capable, because they are, they are indeed. The PC has never looked so tasty, especially during a console launch year. Hardware has taken a leap with its Core2 CPU's and 8000series GPU's. The average PC is becoming very affordable and much more is still to come. If you prefer PC gaming to consoles, then fear not, the PC will stay superior for another four years at least.

The Games
Of course, every year a decent percentage of the best games turn out to be the unknowns or dark horses. There's guaranteed to be some nice surprises awaiting in 2007. Nevertheless here are my top picks:

Released
(360)Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
(PC)Burning Crusade: WoW, (already sold over 3 million)

Top 10 most anticipated games: PC (in order)
10. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl
9. Q4 1.4 patch / Severity demo
8. Bioshock*
7. Spore
6. Half-Life 2: Episode Two including Portal and Team Fortress 2*
5. Supreme Commander (Feb 20th)
4. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars* (Mar 28th)
3. Crysis
2. Enemy Territory: Quakewars
1. Unreal Tournament 3*
[ * = Available on Console ]

Top 10 most anticipated games: Console (in order)
10. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2*
9. Assassin’s Creed*
8. Motorstorm
7. Resistance: Fall of Man
6. Heavenly Sword
5. Killzone
4. Super Mario Galaxy
3. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
2. Grand Theft Auto: 4*
1. Halo 3
[ * = Available on PC ]


Summary
Part of the reason why 2007 will be such a great year for PC games is because a few games have delayed or initially planned their release for Vista and also its DirectX10 capabilities. Though its worth noting Vista is currently terrible performance wise for games, around 30/40% worse than XP. That's why you jews may be sitting there on XP after getting a score of 95,000 on 3DMark and thinking, what now, hmm, lets play some BF2 on 400fps. The PS3 is far from reaching its potential, the Xbox 360 may be going strong and the Wii will entertain you and your family, but if you're looking for the true "next generation" in 2007, the chances are that it's been staring you in the face as you read this article.