Gaming is taking a downward turn in general, infact nintys spinoffs is on a list of games i look forward to that is rather thin. Also everyone expects a lot more then they used to I think. For example for some reason people expected Mario Galaxy to somehow clearly show it's better then what is often considered the greatest 3d plat-former of all times... and are now disappointed it's only a little bit better but more of the same. Current technology really doesn't have all that much to add to gameplay, the gameplay ideas that worked now could've been implemented then or before. Why expect new ideas to stem from the same basic medium at a rate higher then they actually came back then?