This upcoming gen - most pointless gen ever?

Honestly, the PS3 and 360 are doing nothing to improve the experience of this generation, outside of improving the visuals and making systems more powerful.

The early gen created gaming.

NES/SMS revived it, expanded it.

Genesis/SNES expanded it even more.

Saturn/PSX/N64 brought 3D, expanded it.

DC/PS2/XB/GC vastly improved the 3D.

This gen, I wouldn't say vastly improved it, and the only reason I would say it expanded the industry is because of the Revolution.

If these visuals I've seen are the best that these systems can be done, the systems have no reason to exist. Sony and MS would do better to just work on bringing out the best in the PS2 and Xbox instead of demanding $400/$500 for new visuals and better hardware - not a new gaming experience.

>>35
how much of what you talked about is mostly graphical?

okay, maybe there are some things that can't quite be done yet, but the examples you state are to nitpick detail.

even so my statement could stand a little rephrasing.

"tech has come to the point where what systems can't do is no longer the main limit." that is to say, the limits of the tech are giving way, and it's near if not at, a point where it's becoming impractacal to use the system to it's full power.

look at xbox 360, sweating players, real jersy textures, neat, but the camera has to be zoomed in for you to even see those details. there's going to be a turning point, and i think soon.

maybe these games with impressive graphical effects will start getting washed out with the advent of small cheap downloadable games on consoles, maybe developers will stop trying to squeeze out more detail as some players start to complain about time spent on sperficial effects that could have put in more levels.

how long on average, does the same buisness model work for a company before change is needed?

you can't just look at things as they are now and assume things will continue on the current path, you could have done that about 10 years ago and come out with the prediction that today sega would have for a couple years had the edge over nintendo, considering how much better genesis did than thier previous system.

or as a possibly better example, that mentality would give you predictions like: so, growing at this rate, this puppy will in a matter of years grow in size until it's wagging tail wipes out new york.