Seeing what direction modern media is taking, I think the "what has better graphics" race will soon end, since there won't be space to improve left and the style and art direction of media will be more important than the quality of execution (as long as it's not, you know, shit). So I don't really care about 3D. Also, 2D art done with modern software is gorgeous.
Yeah, it's starting to get sort of scary. I need a function for this: eventually, the realism of, say, a top-quality video game's graphics will be so high that the cost to model and animate that complexity will probably far outweigh any other development costs, and probably the profit generated by it. At some point, somewhere, someone will think "It's over. We've reached the peak. Any improvement is so marginal and so ridiculously expensive and time-consuming that it's not working."
But the problem here lies not within the industry. The problem lies with the consumers. Consumers want their games to have progressively nicer graphics each generation. Consumers like the
buzz-cut preteen boys with backwards baseball caps who are perpetually obsessed with the newest "Call of Modern Halo 4". The games industry has
created this consumer. It lies dormant in a lot of people, but the games industry awakened that inner, primal desire to progressively get more for less.
I just hope this all ends in a video game renaissance where everyone's suddenly playing, buying and selling the new 2D games for every system. Then maybe we can have fun, and stop taking games so seriously.
I can hope.
I actually really like 3D. It's kinda nostalgic and cool. Buuut... I have one eye now. So while I like it I can't ever enjoy it again. Wah.
You only have one eye? :C
I guess it could be worse. You could have one eye, and be deaf. Then you wouldn't get to hear totally radnasty music.