@cklmb, unless Moore's Law completely fails, the performance difference will get bigger. The only thing that may get smaller is observable difference, because human senses requires roughly 1/50 average difference from current condition to notice a change. (1/50 is an average over all senses, some are more sensitive, while others are less)

It isn't only technology that need to progress but also the algorithms too. While it isn't necessary to get the algorithms 'perfect' it is important to get them so humans can't tell the difference, but they are usually still extremely complex. A few months back I implemented a raytracer that rendered 3d scalar fields volumetrically*. Now while this was done in software, it was still incredibly slow given I am running close to top end hardware. The algorithms to do this are almost 20 years old and as far as my supervisor could find (my research is graphics related) there are not any significant advances on that algorithm yet.

And as your mother has pointed out, realism also comes from physics and AI too. A lot of the graphics that actually passes as 'photorealistic' is actually still shots. Once you add movement into things it becomes much more difficult and humans are very adpet to noticing subtly. The original Final Fantasy movie was a brilliant example of this. While I don't have any references I can link to, I have read about people feeling awkward about the characters in the movie because while they looked 'real' they didn't function correctly, and this made people feel uncomfortable. This doesn't occur in cartoons because people can see that the actors aren't real.

You are correct though, these things might come sooner than expected. Breakthroughs occur all the time.

@your mother, I too am also interested in PC vs Console numbers, not only in users, but piracy percentage. Just for reference, a certain private tracker I know of has Bioshock on 360 being downloaded 4200 times. To put that in perspective, the average download of 360 games on that tracker is 300-500. Piracy is definitely rampant on consoles as well as PC.

*For those that are interested, the paper is "A Rendering Algorithm for Visualizing 3D Scalar Fields" by Paolo Sabella. It was published in Siggraph, Aug '88. 

No doubt! Piracy is now the achilles heel of consoles as well.

Wii games as well as 360 games are being pirated out the wazoo. I am even willing to put hard money that a major reason for the PS3 NOT taking off this time around is because of Blu-ray's up-to-now uncrackable copy protection. No pirate is going to buy that console for that reason alone, and if we are in agreement that piracy is rampant both on PCs and on consoles, well, there must be a sizable gaming population that is simply holding out until they CAN pirate on the PS3.

As an example, the only console that had solid anti-piracy measures built-in was the Gamecube, and we all saw how that console bombed.

What makes this whole situation more amusing is how Bioshock will be distributed via Steam. In that sense, I can see far, far fewer piracy going for that specific version. I mean, who has successfully pirated a Steam game and got it to work online?

While I've heard about the easier it is to pirate for a console the more likely for it to be more sucessful, I've never actually seen anything to back that up. I would love it if someone has any number on this at all (academic papers are fine with me too since I have access to most journals). It could just be a case that the more popular a console, the more likely it is to be hacked.

As for the whole steam/onle issue, how many people that pirate a game are actually that interested in playing online? Most (if not all) games that 'require' steam have ended up being able to be pirated, albeit only the single player game has been playable.

 Video Card: You can probably get away with a GTS here, if you check out the Bioshock official forums you can find tons of info on how you can run everything at some pretty rediculous settings.  I personally plan on running it at 1680x1050 with my 8800GTS which is a $300 card right now.

 Case: You can get a nice case for $40 if you don't need to compensate for anything.

PSU: For a single 8800 you can get a PSU for $60 that is both reliable and beefy enough to handle your rig.

--saved so far with my modifications = $300 --

Motherboard: In no way do you need crazy over the top motherboard, a nice $100 board will do just fine here.  

CPU: Their quad core goodness is nice but was probably yawning from all the rest it was getting.  You can do just fine here with a 6000+ for $170.

RAM: I just bought 2 gigs of DDR2 800 Corsair HyperX for $70 so I will set this at $140 for what is probably overkill of with 4GB.

Mouse/Keyboard: $20..no seriously this is just stupid that people spend this kind of money...are you serious?

--saved so far with my modifications = $1620 --

Monitor: You can get a nice monitor for $120 but if you want a very nice monitor you can get 22" monitors with 2000:1 contrast ratio and 2ms responce times for around $200-250. Lets just call this $250.

Hard Drive: If you really need to get two and raid them get two 320GB Seagate Barracudas and you are only set back $160.  

Total savings with my modifications:  $1,910 saved

Stuff you missed: CD/DVD Burner - +$40, Floppy Drive $5

Final Cost: $1,285

The key here is the rig you spec'd out was full of places where you were paying hundreds of dollars to improve areas of the PC that were already being bottlenecked by other areas of the PC. You were literally paying for no gain.  And there are probably still some cases of that in my setup sadly.

PS - This isn't necessarily the rig I would purchase but with a similar build 6 months ago I built mine for $850. And according to the folks at the Bioshock forum I should be able to run it with max settings at 1680x1050...we shall see tonight though when I get the demo downloaded.

 I'm curious, are there any 22" monitors on the market that do 1920x1200? I can't say I've looked that much, but when I purchased my 24" screen, all the 22" monitors I looked at were only 1680x1050.

Apparently console gamers think computers cost $2000+ to build...

I'm definitely getting Bioshock for PC...my PC cost $750, and it will run Bioshock fine.

All of this 360 hype with this game, yet I don't even have to have one to play it.

Games I've played so far,

Call of Duty 2,
GRAW (so different from the console version that it probably shouldn't even count)
F.E.A.R,
Oblivion,
Prey,
maybe Bioshock as well (holding out on that PC demo)

All of these and no 360 in my possession. If 360 games like these keep ending up on the PC as well, I'd be much better off investing that money into upgrading my PC and letting my new room mates pony up for a 360.

As for the above PC spec post, don't kid yourself, only the EXTREME gamers/overclockers will be spending $3-4000 on that computer.

There aren't any 22" 1920x1200 that I can find,  but there are plenty of 24"+ if your wallet can bear the $500 price tag. But I honestly am not sure the boost in native resolution is all that worth it since 1680x1050 is fairly close to 1920x1080.

I would honestly only go past 1680x1050 if you have some sort of 8800 SLI setup, but thats just me I suppose.

I think that could be very true... as for computer games... I'll be honnest I don't buy it anymore.... I do buy my console game though... for the online gaming....

So I think it could be true that console are getting the hackers voices if it's easier.... but it is harder to get around the XBL protection that finding a way to play online on computer... private servers and else for certain games.... I do think more games are being hacked for PC than console.... why??? because I think hardcore hackers hack them on both as much but people like (and they are a lot) do DL games on PC but don't bother puting a mod chip in their console (especially XB 360 if you want your warranty for the RRoD) or any other hack... on XB I don't know if it's actually a chip or just a firmware update for DVD drive... I actually never looked into it....  

so yeah I think casual downloader do DL games for PC but less for console...because like you said I know more gamers on PC (even if lately it tend to change among my friends) most of them DL for PC but most of them don't for consoles....

but I think everybody can agree that the sales of games on console is increasing faster than the one for PC.... so for devs it's becoming more interesting financialy speaking to develope on consoles....