Tom

I am in my late 50's. I have been playing games a long time. I find that I am playing fewer games because of 1) other things that require my time, 2) there are fewer games that I am willing to take a chance on, having been burned numerous times, 3) I do not seem to find the really good game as often as I used to, or enjoy them in general as much as I used to.
I like story lines that make sense. AI that makes sense, games that make sense even if it is fantasy. I like mature games that are not geared to teenagers. As a result, I am much more picky about what games I choose given the cost of each. The industry should wake up and develope product for the entire audience, not just teenage boys. If there were more "flavors" available, there would be more people doing the gaming. Why should really younger kids, females of any age and older gamers all like or even put up with game selection geared only for teenage boys?
I have been told that my new XBox 360 is ready for me to go down and pick up. I have had real second thoughts about even getting the thing. Few recent games have given me the joy and satisfaction of the earlier titles that I played years ago. I am afraid of it being more of the same-o, same-o.
I also think part of the problem is that for as far back as I can remember there have been the promises of "just wait, the games one day will be awsome, we just need more processing power". What we have gotten with our quantum leap in processing power over the years is buggier games, huge memory requirements and not much real improvement other than "eye candy". So basically, we are tired of waiting for the promises to be fulfilled. This industry could learn something from the phrase "under promise and over deliver" as opposed to the other way around which is what we have now.