When did FPS become the norm?

[Bark]

Wolfenstein, DOOM, Quake, Unreal, etc etc were the best games of their era. Starting with DOOM, you could frag friends or strangers on your 28.8 modem and it was the most fun you could have without having people over. Until last November, I hadn't bought a console since that point because the PC was where it was at. It was a pretty obvious choice for a lot of hardcore gamers. FPS looked horrible and played horrible on consoles. A lot of people have great memories of GoldenEye, the gameplay was fantastic, but the graphics really sucked compared to the PC equivalents of the time. PCs have the problems of frequent hardware changes, non-techy people don't know how to read systems requirements, the main PC hardware manufacturers (Dell, Compaq, etc) saved people money by using outdated/horribe video and sound cards, etc. Hypothetically speaking, if the PC was a standardized plug and play console, the Playstation and N64 would have died the day Quake II (or maybe Unreal Tournament) was released. That also leaves out the awesome real time strategy games that consoles never had. Fastforward to today and the FPS on consoles are almost as good as those on the PC. The only thing they were lacking last gen was the controls. Now the Wii remote and PS3 (allowing for a keyboard and mouse) have finally leveled the playing field. In fact most FPS get made for consoles first and then ported to the PC. So when did FPS become the norm? I would say for the PC when DOOM came out. For consoles, I'd say Halo. Halo was the first really popular FPS that anybody could pick up and play. FPS have been the most popular genre of late and unfortunately that means there are two many choices and the gameplay is starting to get stale. Perhaps platforming or RTS games will take over once again.