Will any new game genres come along and be game changers?

[famousringo]

richardhutnik said:

famousringo said:
This is the kind of thing that's really hard to see except in retrospect. Wii Fit is the only title I see here which many people predicted would be a huge success before the game launched.

In the immediate future, I don't see any big trend setters. I'm sure something is lurking right under our noses and we can't see it.

After taking a night off to think more on this, I think it would be good to step back in and add to what I said to clarify.  What I was pondering here is if there would be some sort of game that would fly under everyone's radar, that would then go on to do such large sales, that it ends up being a game changer in regards to console sales.  Or, is the market so mature now, that you need to have a large budget to get large sales, and such means a game has to have less risk behind it, so it won't pop out particularly.  Also, if something is a serious game changer, then companies will do whatever they can to copy it, and offset it.

Well, I do think that it's notable that we haven't seen a big game changer pop up on the HD consoles yet. That would seem to support the idea that the budgets there are too big to justify the risk. I wouldn't write off the possibility of an HD game coming out of the blue and blowing people's minds, but it looks extra improbable to me.

That still leaves SD games, handhelds, and PC games as platforms where breakout hits have occurred in the last five years. There might also be room in the downloadable space. Games like Castle Crashers, World of Goo, and Braid might not be game changers, but they were massively successful and turned a few independant developers into millionaires.