Come on guys, where's the fresh tech?

[phreak97]

I got talking with another adelaide member, and we were wondering why the forums had dropped off so much.
Surely there are still new discoveries being made? Where are the posts? Or perhaps like myself, work has taken over hobby time:(

[kendrick]

Have you noticed that the majority of the new content has been for old 8-bit and 16-bit systems? For the gamers who grew up with those devices, gaming was much more expensive and much less common. There's a lot more motivation to tinker with that hardware and enhance the experience of play.

By contrast, newer systems were more numerous and had less impact, relatively speaking. Gaming is no longer a fringe activity, but a regular occurrence and one that's tied to more options. There's less of a need to add video output options to an Xbox 360, since it supports so many of them out of the box already. There's no need to hack alternative controllers for a PS3 since it accepts any USB HID. If it is that new discoveries aren't being made, it's largely because there are actually fewer things to discover.

I view that as a good thing. Game consoles should be more like appliances, and less like 1970s cars. The less we have to open them up and fix them, the more time there is for actual play.