I finished with my video game reservations and pre-orders for the rest of the year: LittleBigPlanet, BioShock, Dead Space, Prince of Persia and Mirror's Edge.

What do these titles have in common?

They are all PlayStation 3 games.

My PlayStation 3 is not my only video game system. I own a Wii and a DS Lite too, but it has been a while since I have seen games for those systems that interest me.

A long while.

I have not purchased a Wii game since purchasing my Wii in April. It has been longer since I last bought a DS game. So long that I cannot remember when it was, probably at least a year.

My Wii activity for the last several months has been to turn the console on every Monday, watch the new videos and view the list of downloadable DS demos on the Nintendo Channel to see if anything interests me (there isn't), switch to the Wii Shop Channel to see if there are any new downloadable WiiWare or Virtual Console games that I feel are worth paying for (there aren't), check for and (if available) download a firmware update and turn the console off.

Nothing about playing video games in there.

And if it weren't for my Picross DS addiction, my DS Lite would be under layers of dust.

What attracted me to the Wii and DS were their abilities, thanks to their unique control schemes, to allow for games (and non-games) unlike anything available for previous home game hardware. After years of buying and playing too many video games that were too similar to video games that I had already played, I was becoming jaded and wanted games that were different.

Most of my DS and Wii games, except for the Virtual Console downloads, were breaths of fresh air. What made them different made them fun.

You could make a game that looks like WarioWare: Smooth Moves on any game console released in the last decade, but it would be dull without the Wii's motion controls. Kirby: Canvas Curse looks no better than an early Super NES game, but attempting to play it with a directional pad and buttons instead of a stylus on a touch screen would be a frustrating experience. And while it is an option, no one plays Meteos with button controls because it is not a viable option. (I am morbidly curious about how the upcoming Meteos Wars for the Xbox 360, with its required button controls, will turn out.) Even games like Picross DS and Planet Puzzle League, which are follow-ups to games with traditional, button-based control schemes, "feel" different and better with touch screen controls. A stylus allows these games to be sped up significantly without making them frustrating.

But as much as I try, I have not been able to get excited about a new Wii or DS game for some time.

If they had been released a year ago, I would have been all over titles like BlastWorks, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, N+, de Blob and Soul Bubbles. These are unique video games, and, according to many reviews, are pretty good.

Now I can't care about them.

I do not understand this. I was beginning to think that this is because I get stimulated visually--no, not like that--more than any other way, and that the DS and Wii's weak hardware made for visually unimpressive video games, but that cannot be the reason. Many of the DS and Wii games that I have no interest in that I should have interest in are artistically brilliant.

The PlayStation 3 is a fine game console, but the problem with it is that it is an evolution, not a revolution. We get better looking, better sounding games with more realistic physics, intelligent artificial intelligence and superior online experiences. These allow for improvements upon existing video games, not truly original video games. Not even the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controls do much to differentiate it from the competition and past home game hardware. Unlike the Wii's motion-sensitive controls, the PlayStation 3's are not versatile enough to be used exclusively or primarily in video games; they work best when used to complement traditional gameplay concepts, such as flicking your wrists upward to take the ids of enemies in Folklore.

Mirror's Edge and Prince of Persia (2008 ) are the latest evolutions of puzzle-based platformers, going back to the original Prince of Persia (1989). BioShock and Dead Space are both System Shock 3 spiritually. And for all the hype that LittleBigPlanet gets for making user-created mods easy to, well, create, it has been done before; LittleBigPlanet is merely the first time that this concept has gotten a good amount of publicity.

Which are apparently what I want from my video games now, as much as I try to convince myself otherwise.