Awesome thread!
Let me try to organize my thoughts...
Back in the 90's I was a graphic whore. I eagerly read the specifications of console hardware and I gave full support to Nintendo's home consoles (SNES and N64). My fanboism provided me with wonderful gaming experiences that I will treasure for all my life, but it also led me to appreciate the genious out of maximazing a hardware capability making a very good use of creativity: that was the case of the year and a half in which the SNES provided excellent gaming experiences that were more appealling than what the Saturn and the early PSX offered at the time: Donkey Kong Country series, Super Mario World: Yoshi's Island 2 and Killer Instinct are some of the games I recall.
Later, the N64 cartridge memory limitations succesfully resisted the FMV and orchestral in-game music revolution thanks to great concepts behind their games. Ok, my N64 didn't offer me Final Fantasy VII, which was beautiful and one of my favourite gaming experiences to date, but it offered me fresh beloved ones as the Pilot Wings, Star Fox, Wave Race, Blast Corps... The Marios, the Zeldas, the Golden Eye. Gran Turismo was unbelievable, but hey, Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing local multplayer was the most fun you could get out of a race.
Bottom line, though I was a graphic whore, I appreciated genious (creativity) the most.
I quit gaming for 8 years and then the Wii showed up in my life. Wow, that was a revolution alright. I knew it: the HD twins were more powerful. But the truth was that their libraries didn't seem so attractive to me. Nintendo was Nintendo, the genious of Miyamoto was still there and they were instant fun. I came back to gaming full fledged.
The thing is that though during the first year I did enjoy my Wii very much, I couldn't stop feeling there were other gaming experiences I wanted to try. I hated the fact that developers were only offering many of those in the HD consoles. I hated how they were not taking us seriously.
After some thought and thanks to a magical study visit to Japan just when the slim was lunched, I bought a PS3. Since then, I always felt I have "the best of the two worlds". I enjoy lots of wonderful games released on Wii and PS3 and I feel I am missing just too little after I bought a new PC and enjoy that wonderful experience that the Mass Effect saga is.
I think my next logical step will be a handheld console and I think that will come with the 3DS.
The gaming genres I am learning to love on this generation are WRPGs, FPS and though I didn't like GTA IV, I loved Bully: Scholarship Edition and I am having the time of my life riding my horse and making my way through life in Red Dead Redemption. The gaming genres to which I renewed my votes are JRPGs and Platformers.
