I agree that some inovations of this generation are futile, like the tablet-like controller of the WiiU and caring to much about High Definition, but more than this, what is making video gaming different than it was in the past, in my opnion, are the costs to produce a game. I think that the cost lie not in the algoritms itself (AI like and so), but in the production of High Definitions graphics, what, in my opinon, are useless. Too much companies are caring too much about its video game look like reality, they have to spend much money to create such graphics and to profit they have to sold more video games than ever was sold in the History. Look back in the ages of SNES, PSX and PS2, they have not much graphics, video games sold less and, even so, there was too much games in the shelfs. Look in the Nintendo DS, low graphics, too much (good) games, good profit.
Gamers do not always want graphics, what we want are fun, good stories and good gameplay. Some inovations are dispensable, like the 3D of the 3DS, but it may be somehow fun, if used in the right way. Like was said, XboxOne and PS4 are just "more High Definition graphics to what we already saw in the previous generation". So, why not remain in the past generation, but make better games? Even the WiiU have not much to add but the HD graphics; nobody cares about its coltroller tablet appearance.
Mobile gaming are another "cash-making, few time of fun" (nobody's playing Flappy Bird anymore) that can be compared to DLC based games, like music and dance games (beside, in my opinion, Wii's Just Dance are more fun than mobile gaming). These kind of game will never be compared to the horde of classics the 1st-4th generation had, and its games must had be hard to produce back then, but sold less than the best selling games of this decade, became classics and made money. Not because it look like reality, but because they were, basically, fun in much ways: it was fun to play, had fun stories and so on. Nowadays games just care about being reality-like, has no story we care about and make we compete online for useless achievements. I beliece games can be good as they were in the past, they just have to learn with its predecessors.
