Are we waiting too long for flashy new consoles?

There's a bit been said about this console generation being a bit long, and that it's stifling the industry as a whole.

But you know what? I don't mind. Frankly it's been nice not to have to shell out over three hundred quid on a new bit of all singing all dancing hardware. My 360 is doing very nicely thank-you-very-much. The games are mostly good, and it's pumping out visuals that comparable to a lot of CG animated movies of just a few years ago. If you don't believe me, compare the looks of some of the very latest releases against movies of the same vintage as the first Ice Age film.

Yes this generation is seven years old. That should mean that developers don't have to worry about how they work within the architecture they have (they can already manipulate the hardware to the best of it's capabilities), so they should be able to focus the spared effort on getting really creative. But instead we have some of the major developers and publishers saying they need new hardware to encourage them to take risks.

The indie developers don't seem to be having that problem. If you look at any of the download services, Steam, XBLA, or SEN for instance, there's a plethora of fun and imaginative titles to chose from, yet a lot of what we get from the major Triple A publishers are macho dude-bro sequels. Now I like a good sequel as much as the next gamer, but what I like more is a new IP, and there doesn't seem to be many people out there willing to take that risk anymore.

Thankfully there are is smattering of all new stuff coming through. Even at this late point in the console cycle. Dishonored, Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us being shining examples of this. There's even a couple of exciting reboots of established names in the new Tomb Raider and DMC games on the way. And even though they're not entirely new IPs, they're taking risks with our preconceptions of what those two games should be. Reading the previews, it's looking increasingly like those risks have been entirely justified.

Here's a thought.

Technically the last generation is still soldiering on. When the Wii came out, it was derided for using last-gen hardware, and yet, discounting the shovelware, some of the best, most fun and most innovative games of the last few years have been released upon its decidedly low powered circuit boards. Games like Madworld, Smash Bros: Brawl, Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Skyward Sword and No More Heroes showed that you didn't need massive power to make awesome games. Yes, you can say that the Wii remotes add a new dimension to the way the system works, but it's still running on last-gen tech. The Kinect isn't. And it's rubbish. The Wii sets a great example of what can be done with old tech if you stop moaning about how underpowered it is and concentrate on making games that are fun and innovative instead.

We shouldn't need shiny new hardware to encourage developers to be imaginative, it should come naturally. It's just a shame everybody seems to be so risk averse these days.