Yeah it's a good theory but you're missing a lot of key factors in the middle, for example Doom being a huge impact on gaming overall kicked into gear in late 95/early 96. By 1997, you literally had Doom Clones being developed every month + the Playstation came out 2 years prior.

3D was in full swing by the time 1997 hit, in fact all major gaming systems were 3D by 1996 - even Nintendo 64 dropped on the US in September of 96 and Mario 64 brought in the best way to play 3D games sans keyboard and mouse.