Aldo raised a very good point. Back when you were talking about things like the jump from the Atari/Commodore to the NES era, the latter to the SNES/Genesis era, the latter to the N64/PS1 era, and (to a lesser extent) the latter to the PS2/XBox/Gamecube era, there really were substantial expanded gameplay possibilities with each new level of technology. (And, like he also said, even that doesn't always add up; as graphically primitive as Goldeneye is when compared to Halo, you're still looking at the same basic console FPS mechanic of gameplay.) Mario64, Final Fantasy VII, and Ocarina of Time are all examples of this to a certain extent. But as of the previous generation, which reached a certain plateau of graphical clarity and framerate smoothness, the real difference you can make to actual gameplay by adding more horsepower seems to drop off. Now, I'm not saying that there's no difference whatsoever; certainly, greater physics-processing abilities does allow for more varied gameplay mechanics, but when it comes down to it, you're still setting them in the same gametypes. You can't exactly re-invent the console FPS or racing game with a faster machine, after all. In a way, I think gaming innovation has become more important than ever; games like Spore really are the best things that can happen to the industry.