Will We See a Total Mainstream Shift in Gaming in the Future?

[theRepublic]

Mr Khan said:

theRepublic said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

This transformation from niche to mainstream has already started: FPS games now pretty much always have rechargeable health (L4D is one exception), it is now impossible to get stuck in Zelda games,  Dead Space got rid of its core element since it supposedly scared away the masses, Banjo-Kazooie turned into a racer in a weak attempt to broader its audience, losing all your extra lives in Mario games is impossible (maybe that's just me though), Halo 4 was made more fast paced than previous entries to mimic Call of Duty, single player games in general are adding (often) lazy and unneeded multiplayer features, etc., etc.

The future is already here.

I would say that is just you.  And me.  And other dedicated gamers.

On the other-hand, when I try to play NSMB Wii with one of my friends or my niece, they can't even make it out of World 1 before they are out of lives.

It's not even about skill required, it's about the ability to *appeal.* Crossword puzzles often require a good bit of skill, but the appeal is nigh-universal. The educational software that Nintendo and Ubisoft picked up for DS, like Cooking Navi or My Word Coach, that was some real expanded market stuff. Wii Relax, if Nintendo had managed to get the Vitality Sensor working right, could have been gargantuan.

Sony and Microsoft have glimmerings of the right idea too. A working version of Milo, Wonderbook, and the works of Quantic Dream, each in a different way. I do dearly wish that Quantic Dream had more gameplay orientation, but their idea is out there to the degree that they're really acheiving something unique.

Sorry, I wasn't really responding to the broader point.  Just the idea that Mario games have gotten easier.  For seasoned gamers in the genre, sure it fairly easy.  For inexperienced gamers, or like some of my friends that just play mostly sports games, they are still difficult.