I was never much of a video-game player, although I did have a brief infatuation with Missile Command. (It ended when a pal proceeded to stomp me every time we went head to head.) I must be one of the few: Video games are reckoned to be a $20 billion-a-year industry and revenues now outpace movie-ticket sales
Some 100 million game consoles have been sold in Japan, the United States and Europe. In Japan, 50 percent of households have one; in the U.S., the penetration ratio is 33 percent, and it's 20 percent in Britain.
Those are impressive statistics. Yet if you're a computer maker, you are -- or at least ought to be -- worried. The personal computer is a dinosaur, and no matter how many innovations Steve Jobs crams into the next iMac, the beast is wobbling. The big issue for the industry is what will replace the PC as the door to cyberspace.