I think this generation overall was ok, it wasn't the best but it wasn't something to forget. I think this generation had made strong strides in he popularity of online gaming and pretty good graphics overall. What really surprised this generation is the overall success of the Wii console and Kinect. The only disappointment i have with this generation is with the gamers. Who for the most part seem so selfish and in the past of games that they fail to see the brilliance that are still apparent of current games, Just because you like a series as much as you use to, might have to do with the fact that you are no longer a kid anymore. But overall a pretty decent generation.

Portables (both DS and PSP) far exceeded my expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if Mario Kart DS and NSMB are among my top 5 longest played games this/last generation.


Home consoles, on the other hand, did not. After sixth gen I kept thinking "if this generation can be this awesome with current specs (keeping Halo:CE, Halo 2, Star Wars Battlefront 2, F-Zero GX, Star Fox Adventures, Wind Waker etc, etc. in mind), next generation will blow this one away!". Now, however, we all remember having short campaigns, DLC and, in Nintendo's case, games that hardly looked or played better than their sequels. Well, at least they played differently......


I hope this will be worth the wait (3DS is awesome so far though, so whatever happens I can't complain too much).

It exceeded my expectations. To me, there's never been a generation with this many absolutely brilliant games. I'm especially happy with Nintendo this generation, and their games alone put it up to comparison with the 6th generation. And then there's the ton of brilliant PC, Ps3 and X360 games, which just blow it straight past the 4th and 5th generation too, putting it as my by far favourite generation.

The DS was absolutely brilliant - everything else was OK

Blew 'em away. I didn't even want to buy a console this generation. I figured I'd end it all with Zelda on the Gamecube. Fast forward to the present and I own every console currently on the market (first time that's ever happened--usually, there's an obvious winner and a loser) and support each one with a ton of games. I'm totally satisfied with this generation and I don't want it to end, yet.

Home consoles: no. Too much guns, bald guys, blood... except in Nintendo land. The rise of the Wertern Developers... meh.

Portables: simply gave me the best console ever... surpassing even the mighty SNES. The DS is a thing of beauty... I bought it because NSMB, and it was amazing, but when I played things like Brain Age, Zelda or Picross, my jaw dropped. Crazy ideas, new ideas, all-age games... it had everything. I (among many others) used to dislike sony for its arrogance, but since 2009 so far they've changed a lot, so I gave PSP a try and it's a very nice gaming device, it has good-great games, the only thing lacking was those ingenious games the DS had.

The DS far exceeded it, the Wii and PC didn't meet it.

Didn't really have too much of an interest in any of the others.

This gen brought about huge improvements in online functionality, and graphics. Sadly due to that being the focus of this gen, actual gameplay, combat, ai, changing enviornments, didn't really improve much over last gen.

I'm hoping standard graphics become photoreal soon, not because I necessarily care about that, but because the sooner developers stop trying to oneup each other through graphics alone, the sooner they will focus on the other more important aspects of games that will actually make them more fun to play.

Only the DS stood out this gen. It had a huge amount of quality titles both new and old ips. And since it couldn't compete in the graphics department, the focus of the good games was clearly to make them as innovative and fun as possible.

I think generally yes.
And I hope next generation will be good too.

But when I'm trying to imagine future I realize that I really can't stand totally digital distribution / cloud gaming (I used to really own most of things that I own) and totally motion controlling. I hope it will never happen.

Yes and no. Some of the games released have been top quality and I've been nicely surprised by some of the new IPs and franchises to come out of this gen: Dragon Age, The Witcher, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crysis, Left 4 Dead, Portal and Assassins Creed among others. Established franchises have produced a mixed bag. Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil have been relatively disappointing. On the flip side, Deus Ex was a return to form, Bethesda have produced some top Elder Scrolls/Fallout games, and Half-Life 2's episodes were sublime.

This console gen has also seen some decent hand-held title for the DS and PSP and the meteoric rise of casual mobile games on smart phones and tablets. Furthermore, casual players on Facebook and other browser/social media forms have brought more people playing than ever before. This is before even considerring the phenomenon and audiences the Wii has brought to gaming.

However, this gen has unfortunately also seen the rise in the milking (and general piss taking) of consumers. Day 1 DLC, charging for small map packs that could be done by a teenage modder, charging for "horse armor", horrible DRM and very buggy console games. So yeah, both yes and no.