Editor’s note: Devin is the latest member of the SG writing taskforce. He spent long enough annoying us that we figured we’d give him a shot and hey — whaddya know — he’s pretty damn good. Devin’s Gaelic for “poet” or “bard” and so we’re hoping this bodes well for the future. Be nice to him!

One year ago today all the young whippersnappers were asking for an Xbox 360 for Christmas.  PS3s were far too expensive, Wiis weren’t hip enough or hardcore enough, so everyone and their brother wanted a 360.

Today, everyone is going to be asking for Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2, and Assassins Creed 2.  This is the year of software.

Next year at this time, everyone will be adding Project Natal to their wish list.   Well, listening to a podcast the other day brought to my attention the similarities between Project Natal and the EyeToy.  One thought led to another, and well, prepare to have your mind blown.

History is doomed to repeat itself.  We’ve all heard that before.  Those of us from America may be looking at a Roman Empire-style fall from glory.  On a slightly less profound scale, videogaming seems to be going back in time, technology-wise.

I mean, I remember when the EyeToy came out, and it was pretty cool for a while.  But after a bit everyone went back to their controllers and mainstream games.  All that the EyeToy ever could’ve been was a gimmick.  Now, Natal hopes to break this mindset and remove the need of a controller for just about anything.

That’s so cool…just as cool as Fred Savage in The Wizard.  If you aren’t familiar with it, it was basically a movie with the sole purpose of advertising the Power Glove.  If you’ve never used or seen a Power Glove, imagine a Wii Remote attached to a glove that you put on your hand, with about a fifth of the precision.  Yeah.

What I’m getting at here is that we are revisiting technologies from decades ago (not that long for the Eye Toy, but for dramatics sake, let’s just say it is) and slapping on modern day improvements and selling it with the same gimmick.  There was a time when video gaming took a turn toward Virtual Reality – but that was before everyone realized that the virtual reality helmets sucked and that it wasn’t realistic enough.

I’m calling it now: the next step in video games is a few steps back to revisit virtual reality with modern technology.  Maybe we’re stuck in a massive time loop and in 50 years time everyone will become bored with their fancy immersive worlds that tap into their brain to project the image as their reality, and want to just sit down with a controller and play some CoD16 (we can only pray it won’t be another World War 2 sequel).

Maybe in the distant future, our controllers will be a technological revolution.  Call the patent companies now, reserve something for fifty years.

Game on.