You're thinking modern. Back in the 90s and early-mid 2000s PC dominated the shooting scene, and absolutely was the trend setter.
Of course PC FPS were initially the trend setters, because there has to be a starting point somewhere. But as you pointed out yourself, console FPS at the time didn't sell very well. Not until they morphed into the modern FPS as we know them today, at which point they vastly outsold PC FPS.
Again, do you really think it's a coincidence shooters adopted these traits the moment they became primarily designed for consoles?
No, I'm not absolving these developers from making the shitty design decisions they did. I'm saying the modern FPS is as much a result of selling out as it is a tacit admission that playing a fast-paced shooter with a controller isn't exactly ideal.
What are you trying to prove
I'm saying that Gears of War derived its gameplay mechanics (cover system, restrictive over-the-shoulder-view, slow movement speed) from previously released console games, and these gameplay mechanics are what facilitated its slow-paced gameplay. Furthermore, these gameplay mechanics came from Japanese games, an entirely separate branch of game design, yet they ultimately arrived at the same conclusion as the modern FPS: slower-paced gameplay, with a strong separation between moving and shooting. This is coming from someone who enjoyed Resident Evil 4 and despises Gears, but it's important to recognize the evolutionary chain here.
Furthermore, the idea that Gears of War popularized the cover shooter is revisionist history. Take a look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_system
In 2005,
CT Special Forces: Fire for Effect featured a cover system inspired by
Kill Switch.
[15] Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, released in 2007, also began development that year,
[16] and took inspiration from
Kill Switch for its cover system.
[17] In 2006, several shooters featured
Kill Switch-inspired cover systems, including
Rogue Trooper, a
third-person shooter released in May based on the eponymous comic book series by
2000 AD,
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas,
[18] a
first person shooter released in November that switched to a third-person over-the-shoulder view when initiating cover,
[19] and
Killzone: Liberation, a third-person action game released in October.
[1] Other third-person shooters to feature a cover system that same year include
WinBack 2: Project Poseidon, released in April,
[20] and
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.
[21]
The cover shooter exploded in popularity in 2006 and 2007. Gears of War came out in november 2006. Games obviously take several years to develop. It's next to impossible for Gears of Wars to have meaningfully influenced games that came out less than a year after it, and it's even less possible for Gears of Wars to have meaningfully influenced games that came out before it. In fact, most of the cover shooters mentioned here came out before Gears. This was a design trend the industry was already headed towards long before Gears of Wars came out.
Sigh. What dumb shit are you trying to argue that it is proof of?
It's not a coincidence, no: that shit caters to the mass market. You do realise it does the exact same on PC too? it is dominating, no shortage of PC tards eating it all up. Selling more than Duke Nukem and Quake ever did. Shit modern games get no shortage of sales on steam. They're all over the charts, silly. Ya know why? Mouse and keyboard simply HAS to have regenerating health etc hurr durr. /s :roll of the eyes:
What on earth gave you the idea that Steam was some bastion of retro gaming? Most people, regardless of platform, primarily play whatever is recent and popular. Modern FPS design has reigned supreme for over a decade, so long that most gamers barely even realize other types of shooters exist.
This argument would only be convincing if triple-A developers were still making games reminiscent of 90's shooters, and they were selling significantly less than the modern FPS. But they don't make the former type of game anymore, so we don't have anything to compare things to.