Yes, that's right. In a Dave-centric world, there would be none of this Games for Windows crap. You would never see a game, regardless of its success, cross from the living room to the home office. Halo would stay on the Xbox, Command and Conquer would stay on the PC, and Sony would. Well. Do whatever it is Sony's doing right now. That weird blend of Xbox achievements and Miis that just reeks of idea theft.
But I digress. Surely anyone who's ever used a mouse and keyboard to waste hours upon hours in virtual ass-kickery will attest that certain games only work on certain platforms. That's it. Anything else is a heretical version of an awesome, original experience, and were it up to me, such extensions would be not only banished, but punished. I'm looking at you right now, EA. Were it up to me, the Witch-King would stay in Computer-dor, and never venture out into Middle Console.
Similarly, any adventure-themed games would immediately be relegated to consoles. Yes, they might play a little better with a mouse. But I simply cannot fight the temptation to alt-tab out to gamefaqs on my home rig whenever I'm in a trouble spot. At least having a console in the other room allows my laziness to force me into playing the game sans FAQ/walkthrough/whatnot.
So where, then, does that put the elephant in the room: first-person shooters? I'm a bit torn on this point, as my agility playing Goldeneye is akin to James Bond on elephant tranquilizers. I'm no Johnathan "THX1138-or-whatever" Wendel, but I can at least pull off quite a few headshots in Unreal Tournament. At least, until the console version comes out; then it's back to square one.
But to exclude all FPS games to the PC would be to deny the greatness that is a game like Gears of War, which partly thrives on the difficulty of an average gamer's ability to be able to pull off those uber-sweet shots with a console stick. Case in point: I've had many a shotgun-themed discussion with Will that's ended with us stupidly circle-strafing each other, firing like lunatics at a country wedding. Were we rocking the mouse-and-keyboard, though, odds are good that one of us would not make it past a second shell. The difficulties in precision targeting define the experience and -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- make the multiplayer matches a bit more exciting than trying to go up against someone who actually uses different mouse-weight things for different games.
I could go through all the game genres, but that's why The Good Lord invented lists. With that said, I present to you the ever-so-brief, "I don't want to play it if it's not on this device" selections:
THE PC
Real-Time Strategy -- Zerg rush? More like a Zerg trickle, because you simply cannot play with speed if you're using a d-pad. Impossible.
First-Person Shooters -- Two equally skilled players. Same game. A PC head-shotter will kick a console player's ass any day of the week, hands down. And if you disagree, I will fight you Ron Burgundy-style.
MMORPGs -- I don't care how fancy your keyboard add-on is for your Xbox controller. MMORPGs were made for the pc, not only for the sheer number of things you can map to a keyboard, but also because of the customizations that you can add into a PC game. Sorry, UI hackers; no console for you. Nor soup. Nor Pony.
THE CONSOLE
Sports Games -- There is no reason why you should be playing NCAA-anything on your keyboard. It worked for Techmo Super Bowl, it worked for Madden '94, it worked for Mutant League Everything -- controllers are a perfect input device. Blow the final whistle.
Party Games --Here's looking at you, Wii. And really, any game that encourages three or more people to get together, eat food, and mash greasy hands into buttons for hours on end. LAN parties are fun, but there's no way you're going to get anyone casual interested in joining your fun.
Flying/Racing/Whatever -- Simply put, if it requires some kind of joystick to operate in real life, there's no reason why you should be mashing W, S, A, or D to do so in virtual life.
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