I dunno about that, the rest of the cast are mostly pretty awful looking too:

I don't think we need to sound the alarms just yet, but yes... the game industry is pretty stale now. At least with regards to innovation. Back in the NES-PS2 era, you couldn't go more than a few months without something coming along that blew your mind and did things that you thought were impossible. Now? Not so much. They need to find away to get that sort of innovative, risk-taking, originality back in the industry, imo. That's what it needs.

What's wrong with these 2? Once's a pink robot in a suit? What's not to like?

They look pretty generic. The test is: can you remember them well? In a week? In a month? We still remember some characters from games that we played years ago. Master Chief, Ratchet, Jill Valentine, Chun-Li, Banjo, Mario, Lara Croft. Chances are, if you played their games you instantly had an image in your head once you read the names. Chances are you even did if you didn't play them. You might even easily recollect images for these character in different versions: orginal Jill Valentine vs. Revelations Jill Valentine for instance or original 2D Mario vs. Odyssey Mario. Interesting non-generic character design does that. I doubt you remember the pink robot in a month.

How do we find innovation?

Nintendo have had a single console for 7 years so their 'Switch 2' might have some but it was just an extension of the Wii and Wii U ideas. Will Switch 2 just be an improvement?

PS from 3 to 4 moved to more social gaming; streaming, sharing and recording gameplay but 5 is just an extension of 4's concepts in a more powerful form. It doesn't offer much in the way of new.

MS are going all out on streaming service gaming, which is great for consumers but could be potentially terrible for the industry in the long run as it devalues games, as people have mentioned and they've moved to more consolidation of the industry, meaning less competition so less innovation.

I think there is risk taking, MS streaming is a risk, TV services have barely made money really and still isn't truely cost effective. Sony are trying with VR as are a few other companies but they need to join together for some killer apps and now MS has bought 2 of the biggest publishers, they are unlikely to help and the biggest franchises not being on VR means it's hard to make an impact. As for Nintendo, we will have to see what they can offer soon.

Maybe this is what we will get now, the same 10 service games continuing on forever, with others trying and failing to compete (just like the MMO days) and each "gen" is just an upgrade to your device. Might as well just release a PC compatable with TVs that plays games and has a market place right? Kinda think that's what MS wants anyway.

I don't know what needs to be done, but think about it like this: between 1991 and 2001 (ten years), we went from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 to GTA3. From 2014 to 2024 (also ten years)? GTA5 to GTA5.

lol

What's wrong with these 2? Once's a pink robot in a suit? What's not to like?

I have to say there is something to be said about it though for GaaS games but I think only one type of consumer is effected here and even then it's a stretch cause live service gamers play single player too. They industry is competing for a finite amount of time, the more of these games they put out the more chance of failure, the more it takes away from another title. Even FF14 and WoW have the problem that they're competing with GaaS games now, ones you wouldn't expect would overlap but do like Honkai star rail and other gatcha games and silly little streamer games cause WOW and FF14 content creators diversified there content recently. Diablo and POE are competing with more than ever and now streamers are pulling up old games like Grim Dawn and causing more of a split. Hero shooters are out of style but the player base is right there playing The Last Decendant and the like. It's odd, they can't rely on the costumers in this space for anything yet they keep trying to grab lightning in a bottle, qll they are really doing is shaking around the lightening as they shift the consumers from one game to another. The one constant that remains is single player games, make them good enough and you have profit, it's just that, that profit isn't high enough apparently. Keep chasing these trends and that'll be the least of the worries. They'll tank everything and leave only indie developers until players regain faith in games when everything is a flop cause right now Fair Game$ could be an amazing game but people are going to automatically treat it with hesitation and apprehension and when that starts happening for every GaaS game that whole sub division of the industry collapses if it isn't already in the process of happening.