[BreakABone]

To me it sounds like a validation thread really. Seems that you haven't moved past your old empty points that may have actually meant something 2 weeks after Ps3 launched. Its pretty much me saying I don't like where gaming has went this gen, while you're trying to make it sound like I'm not qualified to make that judgement for one reason or another.

Trust me on this, I don't need you or anyone else on this board to validate my purchase.
The point of this thread as I stated before was to gauge a reaction to this notion that the Wii is doing more harm to the industry, you get outted because honestly you were the only one who responded directly to the question posed.

I actually don't have a problem directly with Wii, other then the fact that it represents a very broken part of the industry in my opinion. You can sit there and say a lot of work went into Wii, which it may have.. but the end result is 5 year old technology being used to make a simplistic shallow game that's nice at parties. (Granted, that's not ALL the games, just the majority of the big sellers)

In my opinion that shouldn't be rewarded.

Putting the Wii aside, I don't see how creating games that could be enjoyed at parties is necessarily a bad thing.

I agree entirely with The Game, actually. He makes a really, really good point. Nintendo (and developers for Wii games) have taken a super casual route to gaming this generation. Games are short, arcade-ish, and relatively "cheap".

Games as a whole seem to be getting shorter, not just on the Wii but as the size of the budget increases, people are trying to cram more into less time. I mean Gears of War, Halo, Portal, CoD, Batman can all be beaten in a relatively
long sitting. Hell, I saw Adam work his way through Mirror's Edge the weekend I was visiting.

I think people forget that many games were longer because they had to justify people buying it, nowadays people want shorter experiences so they can move on to the next big thrill. It may not be how many of us operate, but just check the NPDs to see how many games carry over from month to month.

The fear is not that since those games exist now, nobody will buy other games.
The fear is that since casual gaming and "safe development" does/did so well, that more companies that make games for Sony and Microsoft will take that route and move away from the epic titles for shorter, casual games. Because it's all about money.

The thing I don't get is why cant the two ideas exist together?

I mean before this generation we have always had games that reached out to a larger audience and was made with a lot less money and effort than other games. Tetris is one of the highest selling games of all-time, I'm almost certain it didn't take millions in research.

Hell look at all the games PopCap sells. Developers and publishers are people as well, they have an audience to feed, they will feed it. I don't see that changing... or we would have seen an exodus of talent and development to the Wii, but we don't.

And also, there is no proven formula for success in this industry. Look how many GTA 3 clones popped up last generation and are probably buried in some desert somewhere never to be heard from again.
Hell, the Wii has a dearth of mini-game and sports collections, you probably never heard of or saw in stores because most retailers wouldn't give it the time of day.

The fact of the matter is, software sells across the board, and I don't see developers changing their mind to go with the risky move. I mean its been 3 years since the Wii has come out and we are still getting "epic" games this fall and earlier into next year, and I'm sure years to come.

I was just talking to Bond and was gonna use a movie analogy, but hard to make since they run opposite, but here it goes.

Superhero movies for the better part of the decade have been big money, The Dark Knight is the 2nd highest grossing movie of all-time, Watchmen made money, all 3 Spiderman and X-men and Wolverine.

Does that mean every movie that comes out is now a comic book movie? No because producers and directors realize that the market can sustain other movies even though it may not make near as much.

The same will happen with video games... and always will.

At least my stance on the matter.