From a Gamepro article: It never fails. Just as new console hardware like the Xbox 360 rears it's prodigious head over the horizon, developers and designers who are creating games for the currect generation of consoles begin to make a run of great stuff. One would think that console manufacturers (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) would get their best and brightest minds up and running near top speed at the start of a system's life cycle... but it never works out that way. But the creative juices just keep flowing....
(Don't feel like typing out the rest)
The point of the article is, the moment new hardware is on the horizon, current generations of games seem to get noticibly better than they have been. Even Xbox is now brimming with games I personally want to play even though last year I wouldn't have given an Xbox purchase a single thought, since there were only four games I would buy for it anyways. Now there are about 10+. This year also marks quite a few major sequels that are anticipated to surpass the originals. I agree that this is an ongoing trend I've observed with gaming. Thoughts? Opinions?