You know maybe I am a sinner for watching television...but have you seen what it on? Its all stupid junk. Unless you have cable...which then takes away from my poor college status to buy games.
I don't know how far away we are from actually maxing out the graphics department to where people can't tell the difference between the generations. Some say we are almost there, but I think we are probably 10 years from that point. And it will be over 10 years before we have some sort of unified format, because Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't want to give up their hardware position that they make money on. Nintendo specially, because they have always made money on their hardware and they have a market of diehard Nintendo fans that will buy their systems and their games no matter what happens in the future.
If we do develop a single format for games I think this would be a very bad precedent for gaming. Visionaries and creativity minds might end up being staffled because they have to fit their ideas in a box. However, with competition of systems the visionaries get to throw their ideas to the hardware designers every few years, and hardware becomes available to support those ideas. Examples of this are: Nintendo 64's analog joystick, the rumble pack, SNES mouse, DS touchscreen, Nintendo 64's and Dreamcasts Microphone adapters. With a single format, you may have some of these hardware features come out, but who would risk designing a game around a hardware device that may be used by 1/10 the market. But when it is built in you have less risk. This was Nintendo's entire design philosophy with the DS. Put everything you can into a single unit.
The DS has huge potential to be a primary system for someone. Specially someone like me, who is an older gamer that continues to play not because of the future games and their potential, but because of the memories of the great classic games and great classic design of games.
I do believe the next evolution in gaming is a mixed home/portable system combo. But I fear Nintendo won't do it because it would not be able to keep two markets that it makes money in, and will only have that combined market. I also do not think Sony will do it either for the same reason. If they succeed with PSP, then it will not want to halt its profits either.
In the end, it becomes a choose. For many they can't afford multiple systems. I can't. I have a hard time saying no to games I can't get on the Gamecube. I have a budget, and if I had to split my resources with 3 systems I am in trouble. I do however have a gameboy advanced, and I love it. I still only buy like one or two games a year for it. I may try switching my priorities and buy more DS games than Gamecube. If I do I will let you know how it goes. See if I miss anything or not.