Originally Posted by
Drageuth
Graphics have always been a factor in gaming, ever since the early days, like Ray pointed out. Hell, half of the reason why most people bought a Super Nintendo was because of how sexy the games look in comparison to the Nintendo NES. And again, one of the big arguments for getting a Genesis was because it was 16 bit graphics rather than the 8-bit of the NES. The games themselves hardly factored into those kinds of decisions. What I've always seen is a plethora of good looking, but not necessarily fun, games during launch, then a year of somewhat decent but nothing exciting games, then a couple of great games that pushed the hardware a little more, then a year or so of somewhat decent games working around the concepts presented in previous successful game, and if you were really lucky, a couple of freaking awesome games towards the tail end of the system's life.
The gameplay is what keeps people coming back to play the games more often, but it's usually the graphics and/or word of mouth that actually sells the games. Or being build into an incredibly successful franchise, like Call of Duty/Halo/Final Fantasy/Zelda/etc/etc/etc...
(Also, flashback to the first commercial for the Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo NES:
Nerdy Kid With Huge Glasses: "Look at those awesome graphics!")