What? Call of Duty 4, GTAIV, Saint's Row 2, RB6V:2, Bad Company, Mirror's Edge, Portal, TF2, and GRID are just a few of the loving awesome games that could be classified as "Next Generation."
Games back in your "golden age" sucked ass too. Not all of them were great. It's just that you noticed that a lot of the games from back then that still exist are starting to go downhill and you're blaming everything else for it.
I didn't list shooter games or other first/thirdperson ones (not sure what GRID is) I'm more talking about the awesome Jump & Run ones that we were playing when were young and when we used to enjoy it.
They are getting awfull. There sure were some games that never should have been made but I used to enjoy mario games better when there wasn't so much detail. A level/map is just a landscape. You don't need to add some fancy shining stuff on it to make the game more enjoyable, do you? The gameplay, that's important! I can enjoy TF2 because of the gameplay while having anything on low. I don't need some extra detail for a 1second explosion.
I can enjoy it to play with a great team, being credit to that team.
To hell with detail, I want better gameplay.