In some cases that doesn't help. I mean I've had a few games where I put it on hard, and it didn't really do much. Or you put it on hard and the game is so clunky it simply becomes more frustrating than anything.

That's the thing though. Generally speaking, games across the board have gotten exponentially easier than what they used to be. Games today have auto checkpoints, regenerative health, a wealth of ammo, etc. I think this is the reason that developers began to add difficulties like Dante Must Die mode, Insane mode, God Mode, Crushing. The entry level has lowered, so they had to add a harder difficulty than hard for the real challenge. You look at a game like Demon's Souls that retains all the old school elements that I mentioned, and you can understand the difference between that and most other games.

My problem with those difficulty levels sometimes is that I really don't feel like they get play tested. Instead, they just up the enemy damage and lower yours, and leave it as is. What happens with that is some points in the game don't become though because it's genuinely a challenge, but because it becomes broken with what are now cheap enemies.

Doesn't work like that.

If the game is going to be fun as a difficult game, it needs to be designed as a difficult game from the start, and base the easier modes around that.

You can't just ramp up the enemies damage and call it a day, you need to have game balance getting progressively more complex.

EX: Ninja Gaiden. You may take a lot of damage easily, but you have blocks, parries, rolls, etc. As time goes on the player has to find more ways to avoid the damage other than "Hide behind cover more often".

I know controls have 'opened up' a lot more options for us, as far as ways to attack a situation/enemy, but that's not the whole story. Like I said above, games back then didn't have regenerating health and cover, among other things. There's really a lot of reasons why games are easier today, and in a lot of cases, the actual design of the game is the main culprit.

I see what you are saying, but I have to disagree. The controls were fine. The only major recent evolution in game design is the 3d camera (in regards to actual controls). If anything it requires more work to do something in a 3d world as opposed to a 2d world like Mario. Games were simply more challenging back then, to say the controls were bad I think is saying that you are not good at those types of games and you need an excuse to not be good at them. That's like saying soccer sucks because my feet are not coordinated enough to hit the ball and run at the same time. No, games have gotten easy and it's all because of gaming becoming "mainstream" and "accepted" in society. Earthworm Jim had tight controls and was an awesome, but was still a hard game. I think you are too young to comment about things you never actually experienced.

Games today really aren't challenging though for the most part. Hell, even Gears 3 practically plays itself on Normal mode. Why? Because gaming has gone mainstream, and people feel entitled to see the ending for their $60 instead of earning it.

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Let me be clear. This is sarcasm