With the next gen rapidly approaching (and arguably already here), it seems like game developers are trying to figure out what will happen to the evolution of gaming and are trying to adjust accorsingly.

Taking everything you can into consideration, which way is gaming heading in terms of innovation? Profit? Anything else?

Too much emphasis on cashing in rather than making games that have passion and quality.

I think the industry could be 4 times the size it is today.

Bad games hurt the Industry. and theres alot of bad games.

I see eventual stagnation unless Sony and Microsoft change their attitudes. It seems not even Nintendo knows where to go from here, let alone those two, though.

Propably not the next gen, but the future of gaming has a lot of growth popential with countries like China and India getting into gaming. The western shooter might not be so popular anymore but I'm very curious to see what kind of games come out of those countries, serving 2.5 billion people combined.

Indie games have a bright future too with better and easier to use development tools.

Blockbuster games will continue to struggle along for a bit, but there will always be demand for the latest and greatest. The games industry is still growing, a lot of people that grew up with games still occasionally play them. With more mature games that market segment will grow as well. More mature adventure games like heavy rain should help.

And those 'older' games with jobs and kids are usually fine with a 6 hour game. If I tell my friends that a game lasts 15 hours they'll pass by default, no time. It would be nice if games also have a short/normal/extended mode next to difficulty modes. I'm sure my friends would love Mass Effect if there was an option to condense the game into 6 hours, cut all the fluff, cut the shooter sections in half. They did buy Heavy rain, but never finished it, too long, no time, forgot where I was, etc.

Speech recognition and natural language processing will be the next greatest innovation in gaming. Together with language construction and natural sounding voice engines. No more 10.000 sentences of prerecorded speech but an unlimited range of responses. Next gen is probably still too early for that. However adventure games and rpgs where you can talk to the characters and simply point where they have to go kinect style will get a whole lot of people interested in gaming. I miss the old adventures where you type commands and talk to characters. Most of the magic was lost when that mechanic was replaced with the mouse. That reminds me I should boot up starship titanic again and have another conversation with the elevator about the universe.

I see Sony charging for PSN access, which automatically makes the future of gaming worse in every aspect.

Chinese and Korean MMOs on the Lenovo !Phone.

let me start by saying this isn't what i want but what i expect .. but i think apple is winning

1. large development budgets in combination of the greater internet access/distribution and the hacker/piracy influence will make the games nintendo/sony/ms develop non-profitable and therefore non-existant.

2. proprietary consoles will fall out of favor due to being less integrated with the larger picture.

3. the mass market still doesn't give a fuck about gaming and they will never will.  it will always carry the stigma of being childish.

from this i expect apple to very well with their free/throw-away app strategy.  sony has shown via xperia they are at least willing to adapt but frankly they move too slow and are likely to be left in the dust.  i'm not sure about MS, i think they'll at least stick around.  nintendo is likely the worst off as they have shown exteeme resistence towards emerging trends.  they will likely try to distrupt those trends which is great when you win but devistating when you lose.  as the 3DS has shown ... it is a difficult proposition to bottle lightning.

There are PC games with Gamecube graphics that are still critically acclaimed so I suspect graphical improvements are nearing their appex.  There may be a few games that raise the bar but for the most part, the games will look like slightly better versions of current games.  AI should improve, as well as physics.

Every console should launch with an improved variation of the Wii-Remote/Kinect since motion controls have come a long way since this gen and most people seem to enjoy them when they're done right.  Give every console the ability to play with motion controls, right out of the box, and there should be better support and more innovation.  Voice control and gesture controls are already being discussed in the world of televisions and video games tend to pave the way in things like that.  I expect at least one console to have such a feature already built into the box.

I saw a girl playing a crude soccer game in the mall a few weeks ago.  It was a projection of a soccer field onto the floor.  She kicked the ball that wasn't there.  Of course, it's gimmicky but it's just the sort of thing that the media goes ga-ga over.  Potential for a console add-on, right there.  Then the Kinect owners will be able to say, "Oh, that is SO casual!" as they play their hardcore Kinectimals 2/Pokemon games (Pokemon should be released for Kinect, btw!  It would be awesome!!).

I'm a console gamer by nature but I hope the days of individual boxes are coming to an end.  I wouldn't mind if they copied the PC market where games were at least playable on every console and different bells and whistles determine which console people buy (Blu Ray, Wi Fi, HDD Space, peripherals) with upgrading being quick and painless (if more expensive). 

I would also like to see custom displays like the 3DS adopted to the next gen of consoles.  Right now, I'm posting on a laptop that's plugged into my HDTV.  All I have to do is unplug the VGA cable and I've got a laptop with its own screen.  Plug it up and I've got a huge LED TV to play with.  Imagine if the laptop had a "3DS Style" display and allowed for 3D graphics that we all thought the 3DS would provide.  At the same time, it could connect to a TV with a cable and to the net with Wi Fi.  It's how my laptop is set up right now (without the 3D, of course) and I must admit that it is pretty sweet!

Throw in your extra social media content, improved integration, the ability to access your console and content to some degree via cell phone/pda, and bring back R.O.B. the Video Robot and you have my vision of the future.  Of course, I'm high on paint fumes right now.......

The future of gaming is here: 

Linear Walkway ---> cutscene ---> Linear Walkway ---> Cutscene ----> gameover 

The main big games industry are currently sucking up to holywood so bad that they are making games more like movies, then games. 

in all seriouness, if people dont get over graphics and focus more on AI, then the future of games is pretty bleak.