_NetNomad

i wrote out a whole big thing and then my phone ate it so here’s the sparknotes: game design, both hardware and software, is a dialogue, with ideas bouncing back and forth between companies. none of your examples exist in a vacuum or were “never before seen,” nintendo just tend to be the ones who strike gold when they try something. with SEGA out of the game and sony and microsoft focusing solely on horsepower, the hardware dialogue has mostly stopped. it took a while to be noticable because consoles start developement way before they’re released, so it’s only catching up with us now. with new (sort of) entrants into gaming hardware like steam and retro handheld manufacturers entering the fray, things will likely get interesting again- but just like how we’re only feeling the drought now, it’ll take a while for existing hardware to catch up with the dialogue