Even though this is industry related, I still feel it should be moved to the gaming forum.
As far as the continuous rants about gameplay over graphics, I always have the same response:
Try playing the game with the TV screen off.
It's a bit extreme of an example, but the main point is that the images on the screen are integral to the gameplay.
The one game I'm happy with in the new Xbox 360 lineup is the boxing game Fight Night 3, which is absolutely incredible, I've played the demo for hours.
One important part of the game is the fact that the game doesn't need a healthbar, a feature related entirely to its graphics engine. In lieu of a health bar, the players gauge the looks on their boxer's faces, realize that one boxer had a cut open up over his eyes, and watch how much they grimace when they are hit.
Without good graphics, this would've been a failure.
Also, games like Half Life, Metroid Prime, etc. have a main draw through their immersion. Without their incredible graphics, the player just wouldn't feel like they were part of the experience at all.
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Is the gaming industry losing it's touch? Do you think they are focusing a bit too much of hack&slash and graphics? Give your input my fellow nerds.
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I think this is an incredibly selfish way of looking at the video game industry.
Clearly, the video game industry is appealing to a wider and wider audience, is innovating incredibly much, etc. Holding it to virtues it once had would be like a guy from the 20s insisting that movies should've stayed silent.
The only issue is that there are more games coming out now than ever before. If 1 good game came out a month back in the late 80s, that would be almost all of them. If 1 good game comes out a month now, that's 1 in 30-40 games being good.
Even on the NES, there were bad games.
The way history works out though, we only retain the good games from history. Even though tons of movies were getting churned out in the 40s and 50s, we only really remember the classics.