@wwlettsome First I will acknowledge that I am, indeed, a bit of a Nintendo fanboy, though not one that denounces Microsoft or Sony quite as adamantly as others might. Second, I want to make clear that I respect the opinions of others except those who refuse to respect my own. (i.e. unless you go crazy on me, I'll respect your opinion) That said, I'd like to counter a couple of your arguments. (I apologize in advance because I tend to be very long winded and this will likely be a wall of text. I would appreciate it if you would read it all before responding.) 1) When I hear people who are so obviously not casual gamers talking about how to appeal to them, I flinch at the arrogance it suggests. No, I'm not saying those conclusions are wrong, but I find it hard to believe that hardcore gamers are not tainted by what THEY want when they suggest what would be best for the industry or for the more casual crowd. Who are we to say what is best for them? Shouldn't that be THEIR decision? Ergo, I don't think any of us are in any position to say what hardware manufacturers should do to compete for casual gaming dollars. In fact, your suggestions sound like they're something hardcore gamers would find more appealing than casual gamers. (TBC)

@cashkilla_basic With respect, I wholeheartedly disagree when you say the Dreamcast was "a small step up from current gen." Far as I'm concerned, it looked at LEAST twice as good as N64 graphics. @bub166 I'm happy to hear someone not equating "gimmick" with "bad," but I am wondering how exactly you think a hardware developer or software developer is supposed to know if something IS a bad gimmick before they take it to market and find out, after which they get in trouble for creating a "bad gimmick." Not trying to be confrontational; I'm just asking.

TIME FOR AN OVERBLOWN ANALOGY: "Make it sexy please!" Sure, because being sexy is a lot more important than having a good personality. God forbid you should actually choose to stick it out with a girl because she's actually nice instead of being good in bed. Heck, the minute she develops a wrinkle, just dump her for someone prettier! There's nothing wrong with that at all! Wait, how about you learn to control your lust for other women and remember why you married this one in the first place: a better personality? Is it really too much of a sacrifice that the one that ISN'T your wife has ONE LESS WRINKLE? For me, the Wii is the ugly duckling, but with a more interesting personality; the PS3 is the sexy chick with very few brains; the 360 is a fairly comfortable middle ground. Not saying I don't like hanging with my PS3 once in a while, but most of my "lust" can be handled by the 360, and most of my deeper needs can be handled by the Wii. "Damn do beautiful things look ugly!" Yeah. That's why you learn to look past the surface. LOL Yeah, that was so overblown it wound up in Slovakia! (Hmm...that name sounds familiar...) :)

(continued) I'm curious, has anyone noticed that when a company innovates and it doesn't work as well as we want it to, we suddenly call it a "gimmick" or "experiment"? Almost like we want to pretend there's a distinct difference between "innovating" and "creating gimmicks"? Well there isn't one. That's why it's called "taking a risk," because it won't always work. The day gimmicks die--as Mr. Mogrino seems to want them to--is the day developers stop innovating altogether. Nintendo created the Wii because it knows graphics are going to hit a wall at some point, and when they do, what next? Sorry. I got a little extreme. I just feel like these complaints and concerns are so generic, and I'm sick of them.

(continued) I'm not saying Nintendo doesn't need a generation leap, but it looks like their console is coming out first, and for all the talk about how graphics are so important, has anyone bothered to see which consoles usually win the war? Here's a hint: earlier release dates. Here's another: early release dates tend to coincide with weaker processing power. NES beat Master System, SNES tied with Genesis (both about equal in power), PS beat N64, and PS2 beat GCN/Xbox. In every instance there, the weakest option won the war. And why? They got to market first--giving developers more time to harness the power--and the weakest processors tend to be the easiest to develop with anyway. The only generation that hasn't adhered to that rule is this one, and even then, sales-wise, it IS the weakest offering (Wii) that is winning. I'm also really tired of listening to people complain about gimmicks. I am personally excited for Nintendo's new controller, though to be fair, I'm hoping they find a way to make it function in both ways (traditional and motion-sensing) to avoid alienating anyone. (TBC)

Do we really still have people complaining about graphics around here? Seriously, I play ALL my games on standard definition TVs. The differences are so miniscule that if we're still complaining about them, it's just a matter of time before our standards become so friggin' high and increase so **** fast that developers just give up trying to make them look good at all. Mr. Magrino, I respectfully believe you're getting all of this wrong. You don't even have the generation number correct. (This IS the seventh generation according to Wikipedia.) When we went from PS2 to 360 in graphics, I actually started off saying, "That's it?!" and then I started saying, "Cool." That is not even close to the same thing as "Holy &%*!" which is what I was saying when PS jumped to PS2. Far as I'm concerned, anyone expecting a jump like that to happen again is going to need a big fat reality check. HOW do you expect things to look more real than...uh...REAL, which is what they basically look like now. (TBC)

Yet another article from a critical establishment talking about how video games aren't what they used to be, this time in the guise of villainy becoming a "lost art form." 'Sigh' Seriously people, has anyone stopped to consider that maybe WE have changed, and THAT'S the reason why the industry "sucks" or "is losing it's 'art'"? Has anyone actually bothered to analyze the "Humanity" of Sephiroth? Cause frankly, I see almost none in him. He started off as an extraordinarily powerful fighter with noble intentions, then one day realizes something rather shocking and uses it as an excuse to convince himself he's destined to be a ruler and destroy the planet. After that, he's just another bad guy with virtually no motive I can see. And what of Ganondorf, who I'm sure someone is going to claim deserves a spot on the list of greatest villains? HE'S less human than Sephiroth, has no clear motive, and no real personality that I can see. He's just a guy with some presence that apparently compensates for his paper-thinness in the eyes of most players. I'm not saying there isn't any legitimacy at all to people liking Sephiroth as a villain or to some of the claims being made here as to what makes a good villain, but I see virtually NO evidence these traits cannot be found in modern day games, making one of the key points--it's a lost art form--an opinion at best and completely false at worst.