For the most part I agree with Tom when it comes to the actual games. I actually don't think today's games are all that different from what we were playing in previous generations, at least not due to hardware. Almost none of the game types popular this generation are things that coudln't have been done before. PS3 shooters don't control more smoothly than PS2 shooters because of the hardware, but becuase developers kept iterating. The control interface is exactly the same, so most of today's gameplay was probably possible last gen. I'm not convinced that more powerful hardware with the same controls (except motion control and the Wii-U tablet) will inspire new kinds of gameplay on its own.

The only thing that's changed in terms of the actual game content has been the shift of western developers to consoles, and most of what they are bringing to the table was inspired by previous games. Gears was derived from a combination of Resident Evil 4 and the N64 game Winback. Many other western console games are directly descended from 15-year-old PC games (some of which are still better). The only PC game I see with gameplay that probably isn't possible on current consoles is ArmA 2. The only current console game I've seen that couldn't have been done on earlier systems is LittleBigPlanet, and that's purely because of the online service it offers.

That's the real difference between the curernt genreation and the last generation - the service behind how you buy, play, and experience your games. I also think this is really the only interesting thing about the prospect of new consoles - new services for the console manufacturers to provide.

I really want to see if Microsoft can get their Windows app store off of the ground and integrate it into the next Xbox. They've already seen that multi-purpose devices with games on them are probably the future. What we're likely gonna get is an Xbox and PlayStation with a ton of apps - hopefully before Apple releases an Apple TV with the app store on it and eventually games of its own.

The increase in quality, and especially controls, is 100% directly related to the more powerful hardware. If it was possible for games to control as well as they do today last generation, they would have. There is a reason everything is more polished and feels better in your hands, powerful new hardware demands innovation.

The seeds were planted last generation, but they didn't grow until the Xbox 360 and PS3 came out. That is why Winback and Killswitch don't control as well as Gears of War. The technology just wasn't there. A shooter on the PS2 is going to feel a hell of a lot better than a shooter on the N64. A shooter on te Xbox 360 or PS3 is going to feel a hell of a lot better than a shooter on the PS2.

Seriously, go back and play Half Life, No One Lives Forever or any number of FPS's on the PS2. And all the innovations we have today that we take for granted are because of the more powerful hardware. With it, developers bring innovation. Goldeneye was a revolution in console FPS's because it simply wasn't possible on any other console.

RE4 was a revolution on the PS2, simply because it wasn't possible on any other console. Gears of War and Uncharted were revolutions on current gen consoles simply because they couldn't be done on any other system. The PS2 couldn't handle the complicated geomotry, AI, scripting, set-pieces, etc that Gears of War and Uncharted have.

This isn't to say the PS2 was weak or anything, it offered us games like God of War. However, even God of War was held back compared to what they were able to do with God of War 3.

I honestly don't see how better controls can be related to hardware - just the controller, skillful coding, and framerate - the rules we've had since teh beginning. The only thing I'll give you in regarsd to shooters is the jump from 2D to 3D, or the addition of analog sticks, so of course GoldenEye wasn't possible on earlier hardware.

Gears of War however controlled better than KillSwitch and Winback because it had those games to work off of and learn from. If they didn't have better hardware they probably still could have achieved something that controlled just like Gears. It just wouldn't be as pretty.

It's all about developers iterating off of earlier games' ideas, not just the hardware they ran on. Modern dual analog controls have probably been possible since the PS1's dual shock controller. Developers just hadn't reached that standard because most hadn't thought of it yet.

I'll give you geometry because that's tied to graphics, and maybe set pieces depending on how big they are, but even that's just a matter of ideas eventually coming along more than the hardware. AI might not even be tied that much to hardware at all, but just skillful programming. A lot of poeple to this day argue that Half-Life 1 has better AI than most shooters today.

God of War 3 looks incredible, but the gameplay is pretty much the same except for the larget set pieces. The control systen and combos are almost the same as the PS2 and PSP games, they just thought up different moves and combos. In fact, GOW3 runs at a lower framerate than the PS2 games which probably makes its controls less responsive.

(The other reason, of course, is adding more memory. 512mb combined memory isn't enough anymore for a stationary console, and 2 gigs would not be that expensive to put into a console now.)

Developers are already entertaining the idea of sticking to 720p and 30 frames per second next gen in order to get more eye candy. 1080p next gen games will probably look like current gen games, just with better image quality. I honestly don't think the vast majority of people buying console games care as much about the difference between 720p and 1080p, at least not enough to warrant sacrificing hardware power to put twice the number of pixels on screen.

If enough people did care, we'd already be playing a lot of games this gen that look like PS2 games in 1080p. Oh, and don't expect every game to run at 60fps either.

I have been playing a decent number of games that play like PS2 games in 1080P, but that's because I play a good number of PSN titles and borderline-indie stuff like Disgaea 4. Last rebellion is another good example of this, even though the game itself was pretty mediocre.

My point though is that we have enough eye-candy in the current generation (A point that seems to be agreed by nearly everyone commenting that we shouldn't have new consoles for a few more years) but games seem a little rough to my eyes still because of the 720p. Many, many games are still running at resolutions below 720p as well then being scaled up to 720p... I would love to see all games taking advantage of the full resolution of my monitor as the PSN titles do. I really like taking Disgaea and zooming all the way out on the base map and still seeing all of the details because they utilized 1080p.

As an owner of a non-HD TV to play my games, I still say I don't give a crap about about graphics.

Can't we... go back to that era when games were just about FUN?

I'm all for games being fun and that is what ultimately drives me to play but I wouldn't mind seeing technology advance which will allow developers to do more. The current consoles are doing well but I didn't notice the massive difference until I built myself a gaming rig. Then I started noticing how far ahead the PC platform and the shortcuts developers take when it comes to the consoles.

Graphics aren't the only thing I worry about when it comes to this either. Yes there is a massive graphical jump when going from a console to a PC but playing something like Just Cause 2 on my PC over my PS3 or Batman: Arkham Asylum just blew me away how much more was going on.

One way or another new consoles are coming. There's far too many reports going around right now for them not to be in production and out on the market within the next two years. By that point I think we'll be seeing more situations like Battlefield 3 where the PC version shines above the rest simply because it has more power behind it for the developer to do exactly what they want to do.

I reject the premise of the last statement Daniel made. It makes the assumption that games today are not fun.

As someone who plays both modern games and old style games, I can say with confidance that I have way more fun with newer games than with older ones. Some of the old SNES games I have fall into the category of "Insomnia Cures" that I play laying in bed to help me fall asleep...

I'm not saying that nowadays games are not fun. I'm saying that games in the past were ALL about fun.

Yes, some/most of our older games might look boring compared to modern games, but that's not the result of better graphics, but innovation.

Read Greg Cotikyan's "Death to the Games Industry" and realize how much we've really moved on since 2005:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_8/50-Death-to-the-Games-Industry-Part-I

I like Costikyan, but I still disagree to a large extent that games are less fun now than they used to be. Doom is a good example of a fun older game, but there are many, many more examples of games where they pad them out through massive repetition, and it's not exactly fun to play the level 20 times over again because you failed at a later stage in the game. There's also a ton of games that have you fight the same dozen battles for hours to level up and fight a later boss because they don't have enough unique content to make the game last long enough otherwise. I think games today have more enjoyable content and are quite a bit more fun than many of the older games.

I frequently go back to old games just to remind myself of how good I have it now.

Honestly, the graphics can be a help or a hinderance, but I find that with improved graphics have also come improved controls. I find when I play older action games, both the graphics and the controls fail to hold up to a more modern game. It's only through the nostalgia filter that old games seem to hold up.
 

Not always the case. SNES games were a wide range of prices, from $40 up to as much as $80. PS1 game and PS2 game prices were cheaper than SNES and the same as each other. It's a combination of "what the market will bear" and "how much we have to sell it for to make our huge investment in art assets and physical media back."

I was angry as hell when Chrono Trigger cost $40. Now I know I should have bought it sooner, because each original copy is currently worth $80 on eBay. Lol.