HappySqurriel said:
It depends on what you mean by "good graphics" ... In many ways, the jump from the N64 to the Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube/XBox was a major improvement that gamers in general were looking for; characters became far more expressive due to skeletal and facial animation, environments became far more densely populated and really started to resemble real world environments, and (in general) the richness of the game experience was greatly improved. You can't make the same claims about the jump from the XBox to the XBox 360, because even the best games (Halo, Bioshock) are remarkably similar to games that were released nearly a decade ago; the XBox could support very similar gameplay and environment richness at the expense of the advanced shaders. |
You are 100% correct, when I was young (8-bit era) and wanted to play games with my parents they'd say "which one am I" or "where do I go" the abstraction from green chunky blob to red chunky blob was a barrier they found hard to overcome.
With the previous generation 3D environments became understandable by the brain, it's obvious what was tree, river and tank... The only problem was control, hand either of my parents a standard controller and they'd cause the character to spin in a circle gazing at the floor.
Wii put that bit into place, now they can play tennis and know which character they are (thanks again to the Mii) and control what that character is doing... Now they are having fun and participating on a level playing field.
