[Crito]

The only way I see Linux gaming becoming "the thing" is if it cannibalizes Windows gaming. I think that even if all new games have first-class Linux editions, that will still be a difficult future to realize since you will still have legacy games that are Windows only (and wine will never become anything but a rounding error in that regard. Not in the next few years anyway, maybe 10+ years out playing games in Windows VMs on Linux will become reasonable...)

[Glide]

Look at the stuff Parallels has been doing with getting direct X running Virtualized in OS X. It's definitely possible to do. Heck, if it was possible to run OS X on custom hardware and have drivers that supported SLI, it would run respectably as well.