FPS's won't ever die out as a genre. They may stop being the most dominant genre in the coming years, but that thrill we all got the first time we played Goldeneye with 3 friends doesn't dissipate that quickly. As long as there is some quality innovation in the genre they should continue to perform very well, but I personally don't think there is too much innovation that can be made, so it may slowly drift into a level of more obscurity, but never to the extent of the platformer.

shooters have been the thing since someone figured out the best way to deal with an enemy is to shoot it.

(edit) maybe this is biased towards a US point of view?

We'reall going to get bored of FPS eventually but there is always someone somwhere barely getting into FPS, it's a vicious cycle

Umm... Half Life 2!

 this is very true. remeber in the 16 bit era, every other game was a platformer. mario, sonic, earthworm jim, bubsy etc. even other games like castlevania had platforming elements. kinda like gears of war having a lot in common with fps.

as for being bored for fps, count me in. over the last 6 months ive played and completed halo3, bioshock and metroid prime 3. all great games but i aint in no rush to play orange box, call of duty 4 etc. im happier playing things like zak & wiki, buzz and mgs4 atm.

A good FPS is hard to match from an excitement point of view imo. Developers are also starting to add more elements to FPS (e.g. FPS-RPG hybrid). First Person is also a very good way of positioning a character within a world and allowing them to interact with things.

My main concern is that because FPS are so popular there are a lot of mediocre ones. I think people will eventually start to get put off by poor quality titles but there will always be a market for a new COD4 / Bioshock / Resistance2 / Gears2.

I played a lot shooters in the 90s and early 2000s, but i got bored of most fps about 4-5 years ago, new fps just concentrate on photorealism but they sacrificed the good and fun stories of the older generations.

I really loved the old shooters by Monolith Productions the Blood series was great, No one lives forever was absolute fun (the sequel was ok but not as good as the original one).

If i think back i think Max Payne 2 was one of the last shooters that i really enjoyed.

But after that stories just got more and more generic with increased focus on looks of the game, i also think it made a big difference that in many shooters you now just play a generic person with no real character.

maybe a company manages to turn it around again and delivers a good & fun story based shooter again, but if i see somewhere a new shooter gets released with new extreme graphics i just cannot get interested in it (i did not even think about trying out crysis, also one thing thats turning me away from hd consoles atm is the huge focus on shooters)

rpg elements in shooters is nothing really new, if i think back i can think of deus ex that had rpg elements 8 years ago and a few others too (system shock is over 10 years  nearly 15 years ago).

edit: just looked it up and saw system shock 1 was 1994, so i guess rpg elements in fps are nearly as old as the fps genre

I doubt FPS will ever die out (at least foreseeable future). Reasons for me are as follows:

1) Online - next to MMO's no other genre comes close online so far as I can see and people just love the competition element of playing FPS online

2) Immersion - our primary sense is sight. No other gaming perspective is as immerse as FPS. You're there. Looking around. Now I'd argue you don't always have to be shooting but that perspective is never going to get old for many people as its so natural

3) Flexibility - while there are too many copycat FPS - it's also one of the most versatile genres, particularly online. Look at Portal, look at Left 4 Dead. Look at Mirror's Edge. Anything that works as an action game could be FPS.

4) Action Film - FPS link. People love action films. And many love feeling like they're in one playing an FPS. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

Now not everyone likes FPS which is fair enough. But I really doubt the genre is going anywhere anytime soon.

Never!
I love them more then 15 years and never ever get bored of them.