I really just want the consumers to get fed up with all this HD/HDMI/720p/1820p/broadband/firmware update/tech talk and say "This shit is all too complicated, I'm just going to stick with my PS2" and then have the gaming industry crash for five or six years and then to lick its wounds and hopefully come back humbled and actually willing to make GOOD product instead of glitchy, badly designed systems (360's failures, PS3 and the Sixaxis signal) and gimmicky crap (Wii, DS Lite).
The gimmicky crap is the only saving it from a crash. It's not really gimmicky. It's closer to what videogames are about than what we have had. This si why I sticky by Nintendo and I TRRRRRY to explain it to others.
Nintendo is a videogame company, they rely on videogames to survive.
All the companies are looking to feed their pocket.
But since Nintendo is the last videogame company int he console race, they're the only ones left wanting to feed their pocket in a way that has to due solely with the gaming industry. They aren't asking me to go broadband, pay for internet services, buy an HDTV, a bigger sound system, for music licenses that they already own, for all this other non-gaming product that they either own or have partnerships with.
Take Live for example, it's considered a success. or at least the service part is. The problem is, I still have little interest in it because the gaming side, THE GAMES, still are offering nothing new to me. It's the same multiplayer I was playing before, but this time I can't punch a guy in the nuts if he cheats. This is the seperation of gaming pursuits from MS and Sony pursuits. Of course, Nintendo hasn't offered anything new in online either, but it was never their interest.
Consumers might have actually got tired of what was happening with MS and Sony. Plus, both companies were stretching the dollar of an already overplundered demographic. Eventually MS and Sony would cause a crash, because they kept stretching it out. If it crashed, they had other business pursuits to stay alive.
If consumers were just tired of videogames in general, then your PS2 scenario would be what we're seeing. People would have stick with GBA and ps2, but that's not what we're seeing. The DS and Wii are selling when others are not. I think the gaming world doesn't get it, because some are use to PC gaming and constantly investing hundreds into their rig every other year to basically play an updated version of the same game. The majority don't want that, and that is where Sony and MS were headed.
