To the FUTURE!

I have to say that the lack of Wii in those articles I've just read was very disappointing. Only one of them seemed to acknowledge the fact that the Wii even existed. In the others it was just glossed over as if it wasn't a serious competitor.

Anyway, enough of the complaining. It seems the video games industry is becoming a lot more slick, a lot more professional and a lot harder to find your way into if you're a new developer. Money now makes the videogames industry go round and unfortunately that suppresses creativity. Publishers don't want the next innovative game, they want one that will sell. Much like Hollywood films, games are subscribing to a certain formula.

Guns or Cars + Scantily Clad women + Explosions = Financial success!

That's very very generalised. But unfortunately I've seen it happen to some of my favourite developers. Insomniac broke my heart with Ratchet and Clank 4, Ratchet: Gladiator. All the quirky humour from the third game was gone and instead replaced with dark, gritty situations. The weapons were beefed up even further and you had to play through repetitive Unreal tournament style bouts. Hard to believe that this was from the same people who created the wonderful world inhabitted by Spyro the Dragon.

So are games losing their soul? Unfortunately it seems like it. But hopefully Nintendo and the Wii will partially come to the rescue. If innovations in games themselves are being muted, Nintendo's innovation in their hardware might help by forcing developers to think differently about how people will play their games.

Innovations are coming from Sony and Microsoft too. Both are competing to be an all in one entertainment system, allowing you to play media other than games. New technology will hopefully continue to improve games and ensure that people are always interested in new consoles. The capabilities of the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3 are major selling points for many gamers, and the PS3 especially is pushing blu- ray, hoping to attract consumers with the promise of higher quality graphics and environments.

So, what am I looking forward to in all this? Obviously boosted graphics are exciting, but not really the reason I play. I look forward to following my favourite developers from one generation to the next, as well as seeing exactly how the Wii's simplicity and interactivity will be absorbed into games. I think that if Nintendo's gamble pays off we'll see a lot more research into involving the entire person in a game, rather than just their hands and eyes. Who knows, it could even stretch into virtual reality or biotechnology as mentioned in one of the articles.