Nope, it demonstrates that this industry has been invaded completely by the cancer it started on the PS era, people that played videogames because they became "cool" thanks to the CGI.
Outside of a few indie titles, I don't think investing in innovative or well designed gameplay mechanichs is worth it anymore.
Once you have:
1. Graphics
2. Plot
3. Graphics
4. Graphics
Covered, you can forget about everything else. It's a bit what happened on the cinema industry when the CG effects appeared and tons of people wanted that at any cost, but with the difference that the cinema was something cool way before the appearance of the CG effects, and cinema critics were always aware that good CG is something that won't make a movie good.
The difference is that besides 4 or 5 "frikis" videogames were always considered like a regular toy and they weren't considered "mainstream entertainment" until the CGI arrived.
The "videogame critics" are, most of them, a product of this massification, so unlike with what happened with the cinematographic industry, that always had a renowned and recognised expert crowd that always had on mind what make a good film good, on the videogame industry those who care about playability and those things are not only a minority, but also the ones being considered "frikis" or "not cool" by the mainstream.
I eventually will get a PS4 when it has GAMES that are worth it, but this "consumer fever" for mediocre games with "next-gen" graphics demonstrates that this trend is unavoidable.
How many media will give The Last of Us their GOTY 2013? Can anyone tell me what has The Last of Us in terms of gameplay design, or even scenario design, to make it a GOTY? I'll answer that, absolutely nothing.
But it has the best graphics ever made on a PS3 and one of the best plots of the videogame history, and that's more than enough.
This is what I was saying. The WiiU is being sold at a lost right now, but instead of focusing on the chipset, it tried to evolve gaming with a gamepad that that allowed for asymetrical gameplay or other UI innovations.
Why isn't it a "great console"? Because as I said, nothing matters besides polygons to the "mainstream".
I've been saying that for years, the only difference between my aunt who plays Wii-Fit to lose some kilos and the poster I've quoted is that my aunt it's pretty conscious that she doesn't know anything about videogaming and she won't try to influence the industry to go towards a direction where everything are Wii-Fits and the likes.
