Christopher Hartmann, boss of 2K Games, has made a bold statement regarding emotions in video games. He said video games lack emotions without photorealistic graphics, so until characters, in future games are able to look almost exactly like me and you, crying our eyeballs over a 3D character won't be happening any time soon.

Hartmann spoke to Gameindustry.biz and had this to say:

"Recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions like Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country... It will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies. Until games are photorealistic, it'll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now."

"To dramatically change the industry to where we can insert a whole range of emotions, I feel it will only happen when we reach the point that games are photorealistic; then we will have reached an endpoint and that might be the final console."

We completely understand where Hartmann is getting at here, but drawing emotions from players does not require photorealistic graphics. If we look back in the days at Final Fantasy VII, a game that is not known for its graphics but for the story and characters it brings, many would realize what Hartmann is saying is far from the truth.

Since 2K Games is looking for photorealistic graphics to kick off a spree of games to tap into our sensitivity, can the Xbox 720, aka Durango, deliver what the developer needs? We've heard the rumors, and seen the leaks, so can Microsoft's next success do the trick, we'll just have to wait and see what happens when 2013 pops up on us like a thief in the night.