I've beaten a fair few XB and PS2 games this year, and it's prompted several thoughts, usually from unexpected places.

Having just beaten Turok on the PS3, and then gone straight into Goldeneye: Rogue Agent for XB I was struck by the immediacy of access to the actual game.  I would say that I spent 8% of my time with Turok looking at a loading screen (or watching TV while it loaded).  With Goldeneye, I'm in the game almost immediately once the XB starts.  If I die, I'm back in the game within 5 seconds -- in Turok it took 30-50 seconds depending on where I was.

Just starting up the consoles is another thing.  I'm positive I've changed the settings on my 360 and PS3 to start the game if a disc is present, but both just sit there, waiting for me to wade through menus to start my game.  Then once I start the game thre is the obligatory showing of middle-ware, developer and publisher logos.  I appreciate that you guys make middleware, but you know, I'm just a fucking gamer -- I don't make purchasing decisions on what tree emulator is used in the next game I buy.

After the logos and pressing start a couple of times the game wants to check if I'm online, and if I am it wants to update the game.  I am yet to find a PS3 game that doesn't want to update.  I've yet to update a single one of them and everything has worked out fine -- so what was that about?  If my game appears broken I'll download your patch, if not, no thanks.

Menus.  I'm pretty sure last generation making the menus was the last thing any of the game developers wanted to do.  "Ah guys, this thing is going to ship in a month, can one of you make some UI for this?"  I'm sure most game menus took less than a week last gen.  Now menus are a worthy enough art that they deserve a specialized under-graduate degree and some focus testing.

Bottom line -- this shit has gotten too expensive and too damn complicated.  I want to go back to the time where 30 people could make a commercial game.  No, further, not down to 1 like in the Atari Era or 10-20 in the Playstation Era, but back when gaming was a nice little earner for some dudes who had talent and a little bit of luck.