It's not like people are making this stuff up out of thin air. Just look at the alarming amount of consolidation and developers going bankrupt. Coupled with a recession, and skyrocketing development costs, it's easy to see why some can see a grim future for the games industry.

Will there be an all out crash reminiscent of Atari in the early 80s? Probably not, but I think we're going to see a situation where less and less full retail $60 games are released, even more companies buying eachother out and going bankrupt, and an influx in free to play/ micro cell phone type games for $1. I also think there's going to be a major decline in sales overall, as people become less interested in the same types of games, and find it increasingly difficult to justify buying yet another piece of hardware for $500-$600 just for better graphics and social networking. Not a crash, but certainly a gaming "depression" for lack of a better word.

The poor sales of Vita, Wii U, and 3DS (outside Japan) are a sign of things to come. They are not going to be the exception, but the NORM. It is no coincidence that these also happen to be the three most recent platforms.

I've complained about Nintendo's lack of variety, but that's a different beast.  I have nothing against Nintendo, and wouldn't mind having a Wii U if they end up having more RPGs this gen than the others, which looks possible.  I also don't complain about platformers existing, I have zero problem with that.  Less than zero problem, actually, because I think all genres have a right to exist and that having more types of games improves gaming as a whole.  I just don't care much for plat-formers personally but that's not the same as hating them.

So, no, not hypocritical at all.

I would be willing to bet that MS is heading in the same direction with "Durango" (as in higher specs. prettier games, easier development).  I could probably re-write this article in 2 months and replace "Sony" with "Microsoft".  I hope you would make the same comment on that article as you did in this one.

More on-topic:  The fact that Sony is making this as easy for developers as possible gives support to the fact that they will be able to be more creative since they won't need to spend their time over-coming technical hurdles.

I think you are confusing companies who are making bad decision and going bankrupt from those who are catering to their market and advancing.  A company like Take Two (record earnings, record revenue) is expanding their business, getting stronger, buying pieces to thier portfolio while not increasing cost (all without Nintendo support mind you) while THQ made mistake after mistake that eventually cost them in the end.

*groans* Jesus Christ, Rol. 

I find it hilarious that you hold up older consoles as some sort of Cambrian catalyst for risk-taking. If we're going to cherrypick individual genres as proof, I remember all the dickriding on Mario, Sonic and Street Fighter back in the 16-bit days. It seemed like everyone and their mother was putting out either a new fighter or a new platformer (particularly with an animal mascot). The trendwhoring people bitch about now was just as prevalent back when you had very small teams putting out stuff at a fraction of current AAA costs, and it's lasted in every gen since. Along with shovelware, which the Wii was no stranger to.

And do you really think content creation is still dictated solely by big publishers selling physical disks at Gamestop? That argument is rooted in a 90's mindset of how the industry has to work. With the advent of the downloadable space, developers have options for content delivery they only could've dreamed of just 10 years ago. We've seen plenty of smaller works with gameplay and visual styles Activision and EA wouldn't dare gamble on.

Sony announced efforts on that front during the conference, stating they'll be pushing for self-publishing and pricing on PSN. The Witness itself is going to be self-published; Jonathan Blow himself praised Sony's approach on that front.

Is there any guarantee it will go off without a hitch? Of course not. But it's a much more convincing appraoch for fostering diversity than hoping an underpowered system will magically promote creativity.

No it wasn't. It was using a PowerPC CPU.

And there was his strawman, that Sony's entire message was exactly that.  It wasn't, as I've pointed out.  Mark Cerny, the lead system designer, an artist who I respect far, far more than the author of the piece in question, talked extensively about making things easier for developers, taking away the roadblocks and the pitfalls of creating games on new hardware, and I'm supposed to believe that those are negative things for gaming?

The author went in with his preconceived ideas about Sony, and about hardware improving, and he heard what he wanted to hear.

As for transforming my hobby into exactly what I want, no, I don't think that way.  That would be the same as liking basketball and thus wanting all other sports to be abolished.  That's selfish and petty.

It's defintely a valid point and I understand your reasoning, but I must disagree. The Vita, Wii U and 3DS all have their own reasons to have such poor sales. I honestly don't see this as a sign that gaming is getting weaker and a  videogame "depression" is coming.

I think that Sony first party studios and some 3rd publishers, have proven that if the POWA is used right they will make awesome games.   Look Uncharted or the Last of Us, GOW3, or MGS4, MGS: Ground Zeroes, Red Dead Redemption.    Those games would not be able to be as awesome if they did not had the power of current gen consoles.     If those games were developed for the PS2, the inmersion would not be as awesome, and due to memory limitations the games would not be so "artistic", because they would look like crap.  Graphics, and power matters when making games.      It is never a bad thing, but games can be bad if the developers dont use the power with wisely (with "responsability" lol XD).    If developers just want to make a PS1 games with ultra incredible graphics the game will suck. Just like FFXIII, it is a P1.5 game (creativity wise) but with maginificent graphics, so it sucks! (to most people at least).   I have seen that most japanese developers are having this problem sadly.  They are making PS1 games with pretty graphics, and that is why most of the games suck :(.   There are very few 15 years old games that can be still be played now, but it is not the norm, and that usually happens when even while having technical constrains the developers were so creative and smart that they did some magic tricks with the device and were able to deliver an outstanding game.

If people see the evolution of games from the PS1 to the PS3, you can clearly see an amazing evolution of games, so just as I said many times, Power matters.

The author is making two, related comments. One about the Sony press conference and one about video games in general. He can only work with what he has, and that's his personal evaluation of what the press conference represented, and what that representation means for the industry. There have been dozens of such articles in the past two days, and his is no exception.

Even if his evaluation of the press conference is completely wrong -- and I don't think it is -- his argument about games in general is correct. The idea that a superpowered system will stir the creative juices of video game makers like never before is flawed.