That's pretty much what I meant by vigilant. Though yes we vote without our wallets, the industry is not without blame. They feed into the hype machine and manipulate the consumers. However it will catch up to them I have no doubt.

They've already started moving into the mobile game market and its appalling. Square is used to people paying lavish prices for their games and sells a 2D Final Fantasy for 16 fucking dollars and knows the hardcore will buy it but no one else. Rockstar Games on the other hand knows the reality and GTA, the 3D ones mind you, are all 5 dollars with maybe San Andreas being 7 with all that extra content. Hell even Knights of the Old Republic is only 10 bucks on ipad!

Yeah, Square needs to get their act together and quickly, they can't keep performing like they have been for the last nine or so years. Unfortunately, they made one game I've bought new from them in the last couple of years, and Nintendo published it over here at that. Like I said, it kills me to say all this.

I think Square may of lost all their great developers and the few good ones left in the company are jaded. The only auteur left in the field is Hideo Kojima........Shigeru Miyamoto is a frickin' genius but he just gets trotted out to show off the latest Nintendo thing. I don't think he has really been involved with a game since the first Pikmin and the last Zelda he really worked on was Ocarina of Time, arguably at the series highest zenith that it has never really matched.

Hideo Kojima is a person who for everything I like that he does (handling that whole Quiet thing) he does something I really don't like (I recall MGSIV was supposed to be the end, as in THE end, like the Doors song), and I like Zone of the Enders, I'd like the third one.
Shigeru Miyamoto is one of the most creative minds in the industry, but I does seem like he does not do as much as he really should. Supposedly he has been working on a new IP, but until I hear something from Nintendo less vague than "he's been really busy" I'm not going to put much stock in that.
Personally, my favorite 3D Zelda is Wind Waker, but I see exactly what you mean. After OoT, not real big changes ever really occur, they're fairly minor comparatively. Also, it feels that all post OoT Zelda games are trying to rekindle that same fuzzyy feeling that was first put there by OoT. Not that the post OoT games are bad, just not quite the mind blowers.

My all time favorite Zelda game is Link to the Past and only Between Worlds came close to me as really being great. I love most of the 3D games like Ocarina and Wind Waker but they aren't as great to me in the long run.

Metal Gear Solid IV WAS the end, V games are just more Big Boss prequels who now has WAY more games than Solid Snake. Really want him to remake the first two Metal Gear games that were in 8-bit and have David Hayter back as Solid Snake and Kiefer Sutherland as Big Boss. Nintendo is nothing near as great as they once were, still got a NES controller tattoo on my right arm that a friend of mine did for me though and I was heart broken when my gold 3DS got stolen with all its games on it.

Link to the Past is a timeless classic, I'm not even sure if the 3D games are as good as it either. 3DS is an excellent system to me and I can't express enough condolences it was stolen, bro. Link Between Worlds looks amazing, can't wait to get it. I love my Wii U and cannot wait for Mario Kart and Smash Bros (unfortunately, I just don't play it as much as I would like, but I did use it a lot over Christmas break. Also, just went through all the Witcher games, so maybe I'll get to it more... well, not if my new 3DS has anything to say.) I admit, I like the Big Boss parts of the plot a lot, it's just I kind of think the excuse that it's a prequel is a little... George Lucas-y (no offense to Hideo Kojima in the slightest, he has a thousand times more integrity than George). I kind of want a franchise with a story as involving as it is to have a definitive, respectful end. No prequels, sequels, midquels, just let it rest in peace. Although, I suppose more Metal Gear can't be such a bad thing. Being a series I respect a lot, seeing the spin off games made me lose a little of that.

Rising looks amazing, want to get that one as soon as I can. He has mined out all the Big Boss stuff so don't know what VI will be, maybe a reboot because its the biggest draw Konami has and I am saying that as a BIG BIG Castlevania fan and love me some Silent Hill too

If things keep going the way they are, it is eventually going to happen. Yes, it IS going to happen, sooner or later. Nothing lasts forever, even less any industry we know of. When it is going to happen? the answer is easy, when Apocalypse arrives.

I don't mean the 4 horses biblical Apocalypse, I mean like Fallout or the movie Soylent Green.

So basically, it's not going to happen like the 1980s crash, but because of another major disaster we humans will create.

I love Castlevania as well, and Lords of Shadow leaves me conflicted. Unfortunately, they're in serious trouble with LoS 2, I have no clue what the effects of a big game like that under performing like it has could be, but they probably are not gonna be good. On the plus side, (if you're me) Mercury Steam will probably not get to make another Castlevania; bad news is, no one else might either (that is, if a name like Castlevania can't sell a million, maybe it's done). Rondo of Blood is the best, but I'm not sure what all is left that they can do to revitalize the series.
Silent Hill looks good, never played one, though. Shattered Memories was the one I most considered getting. (probably blasphemous to real fans, but I'm also not big into horror/survival games)

Depending on how some of the bigger titles p(l)ay out I think Kickstater/Similar is a big part of at least PC gaming. Even now you already have high profile developers working on several Kickstarter titles and thus currently not available to be exploited by big publishers.

For me it is not clear why the increased focus on multi player makes a drop in sales more likely? After all multi player is very interesting for many people, can combine social elements with gaming, can deliver more capable opponents than current AI modules, can reduce piracy. I trust them that they focus on what is actually profitable.

My predictions:
- PC gaming will be further reduced compared to consoles or mobile devices.
- As long as CPUs and GPUs become more powerful and graphics effects can still be improved, devs won't care about story and will just iterate over their franchise and customers will buy it and throw money at them.

I really think we are close to going as far as we can with graphics, at least on hardware that is anywhere near affordable to consumers. I think consoles will disappear well before PC gaming does, and I say that as a devout console gamer since the NES. Even if they are marginalized more now thanks to phones and tablets, people will still need computers and there will always be games as long as there are computers to play them on. Consoles on the other hand could become obsolete easily especially since computers are way more affordable and easier to upgrade these days with much more choices. Back in its hey day, consoles were the easy worry free solution to the troublesome running of computer games. Now its easy to run even the big graphics hogging titles on modest machines and its made very understandable to any layman, and consoles need patches for their games now and you are locked onto one store front. I think micro consoles too will choke the market as we are starting to get more consoles then when we did in the 90s when every company made one.

Multi-player requires servers, maintenance, periodic patches to keep current.. which all leads to money. It has happened before where companies just couldn't keep up with demand and those games die out, because of the company not investing enough money into their product. Multiplayer gives a big boost to population at the beginning of a games life, but over time, it drops off. Of course Im talking in general terms though. WOW is the exception that proves the rule.

I pretty much agree with this. Anyone who thinks PC gaming is on it's way out doesn't understand the IT industry. The damn for PC's if far higher then it is for gaming consoles due to the fact that PC's do other things. Also mods, emulators, free open markets, indie freedom.

Consoles have turned into physical DRM and will probably be the first thing to go and be replaced with a "Steam like" service that works on Linux and smart TV's.