I agree. Why move on when you don't even understand a weaker system? Maybe Nintendo did it right this time. Maybe you need to take a step backward to take step foward. Do you want to wait 2+ years for the same game that could be made with suffient graphics on the wii in 2- years? Do you want to pay 100million to make a game, only to find that, if it's not a sequel, it's not going to sell? Actually, very few games on the HD consoles are not sequels. The "tried and true" formula is being used alot this generation. Epic's meaning of "better graphics" is to add more gray and brown. Look inside the GOW1 and GOW2 comparison inside EGM. I can't see any difference other than the addition of gray and brown in the sequel screenshots.
"If it aint a sequel, it probably aint going to sell". Big developers like Ubisoft and Activision cannot learn to take a step back. Staying on the bleeding edge of technology is not always great. Does anyone really need internet connected refridgerators or Roomba? Sure, it's convienient, but is it really worth the money? Im sure that developers never squeezed the power out of the Gamecube. It's just that they have to be so close the bleeding edge of technology, it eventually hurts them. If you don't understand a concept, or a CPU archutecture, you try to optimize you efforts to get it. How can you move onto something harder if you haven't even go the basic concepts yet? Thus, the move onto Middleware engines.
Epic is living off the ignorance of developers. They cannot get enough profits to risk a new idea, and even developing a sequel costs to much to develop a new engine for. "The tried and true always works". But how can there be new ideas if they are not tried? There is a "blue ocean" of oportunities, yet developers fight in the "red ocean" of existing genres. One FPS, Z game , or racing games after another. When will people get bored? But because of the excalatiing costs of developing in HD, they cannot afford to make risks. Alas, the green ocean strategy is born.
Green Ocean: Dump gallons and gallons of factory wastes such as Dogz and RRR5000 inside the blue ocean(the wii), hoping that it will get you closer to being able to get rid of the "problem"(expensive hd games). After polluting the blue ocean with crap, they go back to their work on the land working on Sequel after sequel. Little do they know that the ocean will come back to haunt them. Sheets of paper(Wii sales reports) and syringes(success on the wii) stab them on their feet on beaches. But they are too far inside the cycle to excape. They already dumped the crap inside the ocean, and it's become green, reflecting their greed. They either clean up their mess(3rd party crap) and find better methods to deal with the problem(developing for the wii) or suffer problems that will take decades to fix. Right now, people like Ubisoft are in the dumping stage. They are hating the wii for changing their addiction of staying on the edge of technology.
Luckily, small developers such as Nnooo, High Voltage software and Bionic games are betting the boat on the wii. And none of them are sequels. On the wii, without the necesity to create expensive "HD" graphics, they can afford to take a risk on a new IP. However, that doesn't mean the game looks horrible. By FAR! Wii's graphics are sufficient enough to gamers, yet they are not too expensive for developers to implement. They will probably become very succesful with ideas that the HD consoles wouldn't allow them to create because of budget.
Conclution: Nintendo hit the right spot between upgrading and staying just the right amount below hte technology curve so that the graphics look great, yet they aren't expensive for the developers to make. The developers hate the wii and are reluctant to create games for them because it's challenging their thinking for the first time in history. However, when the Small developers become successful, and syringes start popping up on their land, they better respond. Cause otherwise, their going to be suffering, making sequel after sequel just like take2.
