I've just been listening to Aoife Wilson and Julia Hardy's debrief on the conferences they've been to...
 
I have to say I am mainly disheartened by what I am hearing.  Microsoft is supposedly really trying to push kinnect forwards and get people to put down their controllers, I believe the exact quote was, 'If you like your controller... Well, tough luck! '
 
I want to be 100% clear about this I genuinely hate Kinnect, with a vengence.  I suppose I can see the reason for it - pressure on the games industry for making kids fat, ho hum, well fair enough... I can't see why kids can't go and play outside for a bit, then have a game before bed?  Or when it's raining?  This idea that everyone should be firing up their console, then leaping about the living room knocking ornaments and drinks off causing havoc every time they want to game - I find frankly stupid.  Due to time constraints, I currently tend to find my game time is restricted to 'the witching hour' when wife and two kids are fast asleep and I feel like chancing the fact that my 2 month old son might wake me up in only 2 hours time...
 
I like to sit down in front of the XBOX 360 with a glass of beer, and sit quietly with my headphones on... And I can do that!  What I couldn't do was start throwing myself around the living room, leaping over the coffee table and waking the entire house up!  I also have serious reservations about the accessibility of Kinnect.   The trouble with Kinnect is you need a lot of space to play it.  Okay, games have moved from the bedroom into the living room, but anyone living in a terraced house will only have a 12' x 12' living room... I built my own house and the living room is about 11' x 19' and I don't think there's really enough room to play Kinnect in my living room... So is gaming going to become a luxury for people who can strip a room of furniture and make it into a gaming room or who have 15' x 24' living rooms?  I can see Kinnect might be popular with some people, kids, non-gamers, casual gamers... But I suspect many of these people will eventually want to progress to a gaming with more substance and depth - and at the moment that isn't something covered by Kinnect, and I'd like to think I'll still be able to sit down at night for a game in 5 years time... These elements of the gaming demographic may also get to a stage when the kids have gone to bed, and there's nothing on the television, so they feel like a game - if all that's available is Kinnect games then that might not be possible.
 
So what do I do make the switch and go Sony?  Thanks, but no thanks, this idea that everything has to be 3D is stupid... I really think it needs re-thinking.  I don't want to put some stupid glasses is on to play a game, 3D environments is fine for me... I don't want to have to take two Nurofen before every gaming session to pre-emptively attack the bouts of headaches and nausea...
 
I'm all for innovation and experimentation, but these things can go too far - who can remember the runaway success of the Nintendo Power Glove and Virtual Boy? 
 
What happened to sitting down and making a cracking game?  That's it - no stupid, pointless bizarre way of controlling the action, no really clever new way of presenting the graphics (Anyone remember those Virtual Reality Arcade Games that popped in the 90's?  They stood the test of time...) just a damn good game, with decent graphics, an absorbing story and interesting and solid core mechanics?
 
I suppose it could be that the big companies are going where the money is, or where they percieve it to be.  However I think that's a dangerous move.  The casual gamer, doesn't want to spend part of their regular incomes on games, it's more likely the hobby or hardcore gamer who will pre-order a new release during the middle of the year because they're excited about it - the casual gamer will tend to wait for Christmas or a Birthday, and if they don't get drawn into gaming so they evolve into something of a hobby gamer - then interest tends to wane.  Alot of the casual games and innovation control systems seem to rely on the novelty factor, and novelty wears off.
 
I used to like the SNES, but I really don't like the direction Nintendo took, it followed the money I suppose... And did very well out of it - but I still don't think it's sustainable... Unless I'm wrong and that is the direction that gaming can go in - but it feels like the big three are getting ready to shove us there whether we want it or not.  As the casual game model rises in popularity, complex, in depth lengthy games might become less commercially viable, and where will we be left then?  And sometimes, chasing the money can alienate your customerbase so much it kills your product.
 
I've brought it up time and time again, but I think this is partly what happened with the original Star Wars Galaxies, they wanted the success of WoW (World of Warcraft), they thought they should have more subscribers so they WoW'ified the game.  Nobody left WoW to play Star Wars Galaxies, all that happened was a lot of people left Star Wars Galaxies to play WoW.  How Sony Online Entertainment thought this would work is beyond me, to rush out a more or less entire new game using the old games graphics in six weeks or so - to try and take on a game which was developed over a period of over two years by a company (Blizzard) who basically only release something if it's polished, bug-free and guarunteed to get a metascore of over 85%... 

So I've ranted and bitched about what the big three are doing, what I haven't done is offered an alternative.   I could say I'd like bigger, more complex games with more depth and with branching and fold-back narrative structures - but these are going to be more time-consuming to develop than some stupid 3 screen, motion controlled bowling simulator that is less accurate than telling the time by licking your finger and holding it in the air... But both games will retail at £39.99... If you were developing a game which do you think would be easier to make money with?
 
Really, I'd like to see Video Games seen as a serious art form, and they can be to a degree, Limbo by Playdead is a work of art, you might even argue games like Modern Warfare or LA Noire constitute art in a different way.  
 
Something like 'Kinnect Rafting Adventures' is NOT art... It's a stupid interractive exercise routine that you might enjoy if you are five or don't have all your faculties...
 
We'll see how the rest of the show shapes up, it's my birthday later this week, and I suspect I'm getting LA Noire and Duke Nukem Forever so I should have a good taste of where the games industry is at from that... I'm particularly interested in DNF for the fact that it took so long to develop and it has been ported across about six different 3D engines... LA Noire, I think represents Rockstar maturing and taking things to a new level, at least from what I know about the game - I'm really excited to play both of these titles.... What I'm not excited about is finding out about the latest releases for Kinnect or Wii, if I wanted to jump around the living room,  flailing my arms and legs about, I'd take a few Ecstacy tabs and some LSD, then put some Techno on in the living room and get someone to flick the lightswitch off and on really quickly... And that'd probably be a 'more fun' option...

Don't buy a kinect then.

Okay, forgoing the usual 'too long, didn't read' and 'wall of text' i skimmed this and you're so far off mark it's actually kind of strange considering you're on giantbomb at all!

I don't mean that malicously, just that your concepts are very far off mark.

Motion control isn't going to replace the controller, sony, microsoft and even nintendo have said this. Thats the first point.

Stereoscopic 3D is never going to be anything other than a tacked on fad, the reason sony pimps it so hard is because they like to sell TVs. Thats the second point done.

Nintendo innovates in unusual ways, thats what they've always done and be grateful for it because they've (sometimes accidently) created amazing works, some of the best the industry has ever seen. They still make mario games for those of us that grew up with them and they're still awesome.

Also duke nukem forever won't be good i'd say hold off on that but by all means play L.A. Noire.

I think what you should do is play some old classics, some modern greats and think less about the politics and theory. Gaming at it's most fundamental level hasn't changed since the atari 2600 and it's not likely to any time soon. Everything else that has come along, analog control, HD graphics, motion controls, internet connectivity, voice communication has only added to the experience. not changed it in a way we can no longer get behind.

Have a little faith.

Okay, forgoing the usual 'too long, didn't read' and 'wall of text' i skimmed this and you're so far off mark it's actually kind of strange considering you're on giantbomb at all!

I don't mean that malicously, just that your concepts are very far off mark.

Motion control isn't going to replace the controller, sony, microsoft and even nintendo have said this. Thats the first point.

Stereoscopic 3D is never going to be anything other than a tacked on fad, the reason sony pimps it so hard is because they like to sell TVs. Thats the second point done.

Nintendo innovates in unusual ways, thats what they've always done and be grateful for it because they've (sometimes accidently) created amazing works, some of the best the industry has ever seen. They still make mario games for those of us that grew up with them and they're still awesome.

Also duke nukem forever won't be good i'd say hold off on that but by all means play L.A. Noire.

I think what you should do is play some old classics, some modern greats and think less about the politics and theory. Gaming at it's most fundamental level hasn't changed since the atari 2600 and it's not likely to any time soon. Everything else that has come along, analog control, HD graphics, motion controls, internet connectivity, voice communication has only added to the experience. not changed it in a way we can no longer get behind.

Have a little faith.

@smokemare: I'm actually pretty convinced you're trolling me pretty hard now. If i intended to be offensive i would have written 'too long, didn't read' and moved on. My criticism was thought out and polite.

Whats more, everything i said is true, all these things are just add-ons to the larger experience, the fundamentals don't change. They never will. None of us want to get up from our sofas and flail in front of a high-tech camera or wave plastic controllers around. I hate doing that just with sixaxis let alone something that was designed to do that.

As for your reference, yes, i saw it in it's entirety as i've seen just about everything on E3 today. (I thought it was one of the best E3 days in years!) You don't have to agree with me, i didn't think you would, i just stood to convey an alternate opinion. Not be lambasted by your provocations.

I also believe you're putting too much credit into the words of men and women being paid to drum up storms about these kind of events. But thats besides the point.

Your concern about casual gaming being the downfall of hardcores (aka: Us.) I would have taken seriously back in around 2008 when the Wii was dominating and the DS was in the hands of everybody that could figure out how to articulately wield a stylus. But Nintendo did us all a favor, they showed that the casual market isn't a good one to exploit long term as your only market. The problem is they buy your console and maybe one or two games and then it sits in your lounge and gathers dust.

Where as the attachment rate for the xbox 360 and playstation 3 is factors higher than that of the Wii. Nintendo can't exploit that market primarily again and they know it, i strongly suspect their media briefing (or is it press conference? :p) will show that tomorrow.

As for faith, if you won't have any, nobody will make you, but you're still a slave to the system i'm afraid, as are we all. We all have to hope that microsoft, sony, nintendo, activision, EA, ubisoft and everyone else gives us what we want because that's all we really can do.

Either that or bitch about how they're not doing it right. :p

Alright, I'm sorry, I didn't intend to troll you, we're probably of more or less the same mindset on how we want gaming to develop.
 
But polite?  ' i skimmed this and you're so far off mark it's actually kind of strange considering you're on giantbomb at all!

I don't mean that malicously, just that your concepts are very far off mark. '
 
Firstly this isn't a polite comment, secondly you're accusing me being so far off the mark I shouldn't even be on Giant Bomb?  Even though I was actually commenting a press-report rather than a deep seated opinion!
 
I hope you're right about the over sensational reporting of the press conferences.  Even if you are not right it's not a fore-gone conclusion of course that we're all going to be shepherded into motion control and casual gaming... But long term, surely it's a concern?  We don't know where gaming is going, of course we don't - but we have a right to be concerned about the direction it's taking?
 
I hope you're right about Ninendo - we'll only see after their press-conference I suppose.  I really don't want any hostiliy with anyone, but surely you can see why I found your comment offensive and provocative?  
 
If my writing was misleading, then for that I apologise, I genuinely tried to make it clear what I was referring to and why.

This E3 so far has been the most depressing E3 in years. Seriously Halo 4 the only high profile game Microsoft could show off after spending 99% of their conference on the Kinect? Sony started out strong with Uncharted 3 then everything went to crap but they brought it back with the NGP demo and price announcement.  Microsoft and Sony need to scrap motion controls. Nintendo is already abandoning it with their next console. They (especially Microsoft) also need to stop targeting families and dudebros audiences. It's ruining gaming.

This E3 so far has been the most depressing E3 in years. Seriously Halo 4 the only high profile game Microsoft could show off after spending 99% of their conference on the Kinect? Sony started out strong with Uncharted 3 then everything went to crap but they brought it back with the NGP demo and price announcement.  Microsoft and Sony need to scrap motion controls. Nintendo is already abandoning it with their next console. They (especially Microsoft) also need to stop targeting families and dudebros audiences. It's ruining gaming.