spot on again - I have a lot of friends who just love Wii Fit. many also enjoy 360 and PS3 and a lot of us have multiple gaming platforms

In fact at the Galleria the other day the only business I found who has gone up 20% this last year in our economy was Gamestop

Gaming is not in death throes - quite the opposite

hmm.. very valid points. I'll admit that I was apart of the initial bunch that saw Nintendo's extreme success in exploiting the casual gaming demographic as the beginning of a trend that M$ and Sony fall line line with, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that maybe gaming as a whole needed to be toned down a bit. I believe developers felt pressured into growing up with the Mario generation.. basically trying to keep up with the growing maturation of gaming's core fanbase. What resulted was a bloated and often misguided industry that seemed to be losing the spirit that made gamers begin playing in the first place. I'm not always a fan of Nintendo's business practices, but I do appreciate the youthful joy it has reintroduced into the industry via the Wii. The more mature games will always have its place, but at its heart gaming will always be a child's pastime.. and I don't feel there is anything wrong with that.

I agree with your points.

Traditional gaming is not going away, and it can co-exist with casual gaming, even on the same hardware. Just ask Phil Harrison.

But don't think that Sony and Microsoft will continue on the same path after this hardware generation either. Sir Howard Stringer, Sony CEO, said, "Nintendo may have the better business model," or something to that effect, and complaints from developers and publishers about increasing game development budgets are sure to force Microsoft to do something similar.

The PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable 2, Xbox 361 and whatever Microsoft has planned for Zune/Sidekick/Hiptop will not be giant leaps in technology over the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360, respectively. They will be modest advances, similar to the Wii over the GameCube. Also like the Wii, "alternative" control methods and unique features will be standard to attract demographics and psychographics beyond "core" gamers. The casual gaming market is too big for Sony and Microsoft to ignore.

PlayStation Home, the New Xbox Experience and games like Buzz and You're in the Movies are early tastes of what to expect from Sony and Microsoft on their next game consoles and portables.

But, again, this does not mean that Killzone and Gears of War are going to disappear. The PS2 in Europe showed that a game console can successfully appeal to a variety of psychographics.