Graphics, graphics, graphics �that's all anyone ever seems to talk about when it comes to the next generation of console games. Gamers are obsessed with the delicate play of light in a forest; the authenticity of nuclear explosions and the minutiae of facial expressions in ridiculously-proportioned characters.

Even days after the launch of a new console, gamers become quickly tired of their new acquisitions. Friends arrive to marvel and wonder at the beauty of the latest hardware; while the man who owns it shrugs his shoulders and returns to his magazine, desperately poring over previews for a hint of the beauty to come.

All a bit shallow, really.

In reality, graphically over-powered machines have had a history of under-achieving. Examples such as the Game Boy Vs Game Gear Vs Lynx debate can be cited ad nausea �The Jaguar, the 3DO and even my beloved N64 were all graphically impressive machines that never truly lived up to the potential their polygon counts suggested.

Even in recent times, graphics have not proven to be the win-all strategy that so many people perceive them to be. Take, for example, the Playstation 2. A common complaint of gamers playing multi-format titles in recent times has been that all games are standardised for the weaker format �the PS2. And yet it is the PS2 that sells far more of these games than any other. The PS2 has succeeded in spite of its lack of power rather than by impeded by it.

One could easily say that the jump Sony achieved on the other companies has something to do with this: without a doubt it is a governing factor in its success. But still it remains phenomenally popular even when faced with the graphical marvels of the Gamecube and Xbox. There is no hard and fast rule here, and I am certainly not implying that inferior graphics combined with an early launch is a recipe for success. If that were true, my own invention the "Gamestationboxcubeplayerthing" would have been much more of a phenomenon than the one unit I sold to a confused looking Brazilian guy one rainy day in London.

The DS is another testament to the sliding importance of graphics in the debate over which console is better. Trouncing the PSP on an almost weekly basis the whole world over, Nintendo has proven that it's not a question of names, but how we play the games. Side by side, the PSP makes the DS look like an embarrassing cousin at a party: simple, heavy and very, very ugly. But porting the success of the home console to a handheld is not an easy thing and something is easily lost in translation �especially when the focus sits tightly on how impressive the game can look.

The key factor is simple: fun.

Graphics will fade as technology progresses: even the most spectacular launch games will look pale and shabby compared to second and third generation releases. The few that don't generally tend to be first party titles that have been in development throughout long ages, and they remain the benchmarks by which other games are judged.

Fun, however, rarely fades. That is why so many people still play the earlier Mario Kart games; though technically inferior to Double Dash, the cosmetic improvements of that game are ill-equipped to hide a product that is in many ways inferior to game released almost a decade previously. The last truly good FIFA game was, for example, FIFA '95. Compare that to the shiny beauty and expressive faces of more recent iterations and the sprites will win out every time. They just play better.

So now we come to the next generation, the herald of greater graphics. If the battlefield was only being contested by Sony and Microsoft on the home console front, I would surely have retired my joypad and gone on to find another hobby. Thankfully Nintendo are still in the fight �though many critics would have you believe that their number was already up.

I find no shame in admitting that I own an Xbox 360, and in ten years time when the price of the PS3 dips below the �500 mark, I will doubtless own one of those too. I think it unlikely however that I am ever going to own more than one or two titles on either console. I certainly have never had more than five games for my Xbox, and the four games that I do own for the PS2 are all of the same series.

It is the Wii, like the DS, that most intrigues me. I am not particularly interested in how good a game looks, but in how addictive, how compelling and exciting the game is. The thought of playing tennis with a virtual tennis racket, drawing freehand without a restrictive controller and parrying sword blows has me gushing with Wii.

Although I am certainly keen to see the "Old Standards" updated in the coming years, the innovation presented by the DS has been but a small taster of how games can evolve beyond the need for complex graphical devices and orchestral scores.

None of this is to deny that beautiful visuals are an important part of the gaming experience: Could you imagine playing the Legend of Zelda as a text adventure? Would Wave Race have been anywhere near as good from a top-down perspective? Improvements in graphics made such games possible �or at least, more appealing to gamers.

It is the reliance on graphics as a selling point that most saddens me; it is unfortunately a sign of the state of gaming as a whole. Every new game it seems has to have some magical bit of coding that everyone is talking about to make it good �a new way of making hair move, improved lip synch or a whole plethora of other features that drown the essential question:

Is it any good?

Iun Hockley
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