Mario, Master Chief, and the Generation Gap

Lawrence Sonntag writes: Being a sucker for spectacle, I trekked out to the local Gamestop on the midnight of Halo 3’s release. In the line, kids were bragging about being a Halo fan since the original, which is totally not a big deal by the way. Now something similar is happening. We’re days away from Super Mario Galaxy 2, a release that by all accounts should be a huge deal for gaming, yet the Halo Reach beta is the hot topic on everyone’s lips (and keyboards). This is neither bad nor good, it’s merely the emergence of a generation gap in gaming.