Yes, the death of the PC as a gaming machine that could compete with the newest consoles has been greatly exaggerated. PC game sales and game development have had their ups and downs over the past decade, no doubt, and while piracy has affected PC software sales, it has arguably hit the console industry nearly as hard. With whisperings of a future method of piracy protection in games that could be non-hackable, encryption chips, it just may be that PC gaming is on its way fully back to the top.

Despite the promise, it is true that many developers have jumped ship to consoles, game sales have widely been poorer than expected for many top PC games, and small companies in particular are finding the going rough. All of this simply forces developers to get even better and release top notch games, which is good for gamers.

An average game will simply have no chance of succeeding on PC, like it may have years ago, or could still today on consoles. Content is king, and releasing great games will see those developers get justly rewarded in most cases.

Despite facing stiff competition at the time of its release from Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, and Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis stood head and shoulders above the rest, and continues to be one of the top PC games released in the last year, with graphics that arguably still top anything released to this day.

Truly a sight to behold, with its fully destructible environments, Crysis didn’t disappoint in the game-play department either, providing play almost as beautiful as its graphics. Almost.

We recently saw the release of Mass Effect, an upgraded version of the award-winning Xbox 360 RPG, as well as Theater of War, a real-time tactical strategy game that has received some positive press. MMORPG’s continue to remain popular with the PC crowd, and many new ones are expected in the coming months.

The summer months look to be a little slower for major PC releases, though there are a number of anticipated games coming. Expect the fall and winter months to hit hard with a slew of top new PC games, by which point you may also have a computer powerful enough to go back and play Crysis.