I agree with Stark that the UI is the primary factor here, after all, graphic technology has been getting diminishing returns for a while now, and I get the feeling that players are not so easily swayed by polycounts anymore.
As for the future of PC gaming, I think the main reason it will never die is availability. A PC is a multi-purpose tool that almost every household is interested in adquiring, it will not dissapear if the gaming industry moves to consoles, so there'll always be a chance for game development.
Also, since consoles are the property of specific companies, there's always the chance of them failing as a product and dissapearing (as has happened to many console systems already). If a streak of bad luck hits the console market, surviving developers will probably revert back to the PC to minimize risk to their investments, or in other words, they'll change platforms, just as they are doing now, if it suits them. It really isn't about the platform itself, but its profitability.
Stark wrote:Oskuro, if they put a trackball in place of right stick, once people got used to it it'd be fine for most mouse roles. I don't think there's much of a point, though.
Yeah, I suggested that once, if used for camera controls, losing one of the analog sticks would be acceptable, but if games are designed with gamepads in mind, it doesn't matter much.
Incidentally, I can tell if a game is a console port just because of how it controls, you really notice the difference (Example: Compare the control scheme on the PC version of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas. And I guess Vice City is a port too, but they reworked the controls properly), wich, in essence, means that a control scheme is made to work from the game's design. Mouse control will suck if the game is not properly tuned (For example, even though mouse control made headshots easier, I found myself wanting to use a controller when playing Gears on the PC, but fuck Microsoft for not making the game compatible with non-Xbox controllers).