DirectX 10

The Rub
This article confirms PC gamers nightmares. DirectX 10 will only be available for Windows new OS Vista. This means no more major DirectX driver updates for XP. Sure there may be some minor updates, but sadly its in Microsoft's court. And their gonna want you to buy Vista.

My Prediction
There is no way developers are going to create games strickly for Vista. They would loose huges sums of cash due to low sales. Most people are happy with their stable XP and see no reason to perform the upgrade. So, for the first year, only Microsoft games will be Vista only. Perhaps after 2 years, we'll see the Developer community warm up and make the shift as consumers make the shift.

Alternatives
Could we be going back to the days when Developers had their own copy of DirectX like software per game? Or could we see the open source community step up, and create a type of DirectX 10 for XP. My pipe dream is that LINUX finds a way to play DirectX 10 games.