I don't care if it reaches the success of DVD, as long as it stays a mainstream format. However if it goes down to Laserdisc levels I'll still be buying. I'm waiting for 4K blu-ray. There will always be movie collectors and people willing to pay for the best quality, and that won't be digital for a long time. I can almost download one 4K movie a month with my internet bandwidth cap.

My brother has a bunch of Laserdiscs, there's something so freaking cool about a rainbow/silver disc the size of a record... XD

I still have a moving box full of them. Those things are freaking heavy. I miss the album art the most. Especially the multi disc ones that fold open like a book and greet you with awesome stills from the movie. My player broke 7 years ago, it might need a new belt. The laserdiscs themselves might have suffered the dreadful disc rot too by now.

I have replaced most of my laserdiscs with dvd and blu-ray. Laserdisc could keep up with early DVD quality but looks quite ugly on LCD tvs. It was a great time with a CRT projector, but I don't miss the distortions you get with CRT, especially in high contrast scenes.


RIP 1978-2002. They make good wall ornaments nowadays.

I'm not sure if we're still discussing the OP, but I find this overrall "panic" about the "lack of excitement" of gen 8 pretty ridiculous.
To this day, every single generation took at least one year to really pick up. I just wanna remind you that the fifth gen only began in 1996, a full two years after its beginning. Try to remember a great game from back then, I assure you it's not from 94 or 95.

And yet, the 8th gen needs to be awesome a mere 5 months after its beginning. Fascinating. Gamers have a really short memory.

8th gen's been going for 17 months.

Wii U competed with the wall for 2012 and 2013. We all know the 8th gen only began in 2013 (much like the 7th gen began in 2006, not 2005).

Wii U's still an 8th gen console that has been out for 17 months. 

And even 5 months after Wii came out, we already had the paradigm-shifting Wii Sports and the epic dark Zelda fans had been longing for since the 6th gen began in Twilight Princess. PS3/360 may have had weak starts like PS4/Xbone/Wii U, but by this point in the 7th gen we already had two titles more exciting than anything the 8th gen has produced to date.

Nobody but me remembers how awesome Call of Duty 2 was in 2005?

Alright.

Wii Sports is a very, VERY specific case. And God forbid if every generation doesn't have a PARADIGM-SHIFTING game right off the bat. Wii Sports really became old after a while anyway. Twilight Princess was being developed as a Game Cube game for years, was ready six months before the beginning of the 7th gen, and only got delayed so it could be a launch title. It's, for all intents and purposes, a 6th gen game.

And the Wii U has zero third-party support, because of Nintendo's mistakes. But Jesus, look at the first-party. It's pretty solid already.

And with "all" these examples, you've failed to mention anything exciting on the PS360 on a 5 months period. I stand corrected, becoming desperate or disappointed that 8th gen still doesn't have something really exciting is a double standard and a clear example of short memory. Again, the 4th gen - a favorite among many people - only received truly good games in 1996. Games like Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country only came out in 1995, Jesus. For recent examples, check out Gears of War, Super Mario Galaxy or Uncharted - a year after their respective console's launch.

Wii Sports still made the 7th gen feel fresh and exciting, because it was something altogether new.

And Zelda launched on Wii first, with the Gamecube version added later, so it debuted as a 7th gen launch title.

PS3/360 did indeed have dull beginnings, much like PS4/Xbone/Wii U, but the Wii was there to pick up the slack.

As someone who started gaming in the 4th gen, every prior generational transition I've lived through felt like a giant leap forward; 3D in the 5th gen, vastly more complex worlds in the 6th gen, motion gaming in the 7th. This one just feels like a shinier verson of last gen, minus the innovation.