A FEW days ago, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said that Singapore was enjoying a 'golden period', with good economic growth and social development.

I'd also like to propose that we may be entering a golden period for gaming as well.

Are you nuts, some might ask.

From news headlines in the past week, it looks like the videogaming industry is falling apart.

For example, Microsoft recently announced that it'll spend up to US$1.15 billion ($1.74b) to fix failing Xbox 360 game consoles.

According to a New York Times report, the company would not say how many units were affected. But Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, said there have been an 'unacceptable high number of repairs'.

The Xbox 360's arch-rival, the Sony PlayStation 3 console, isn't having an easy time either.

To boost lacklustre sales due to high prices and a limited game choice, Sony recently announced that it would be cutting the US price of the console by US$100, bringing it down to US$499.

It'll also introduce a PS3 model with a larger hard drive (80GB) and bundled with the MotorStorm game at US$599.

You could blame the current console problems on engineering issues, poor marketing or a whole host of other market factors, but let's look on the bright side.

When two major players stumble in the beginning of this race, it'll quickly shake away any complacency left over from previous successes with older consoles.

Having sold over 120 million PS2s, Sony was unable to keep the momentum with its PS3.

Already, it has announced it'll beef up its PS3 software library with 100 new titles in this fiscal year.

However, gamers and analysts are waiting to see if these new titles are actually worth playing.

Microsoft made a difficult but right decision to come clean with its gargantuan repair bill.

Did it run into technical issues because it rushed into its Xbox360 production? We wouldn't know, since Microsoft is keeping mum on actual technical details.

RETURN OF THE CONSOLE

But by coming into the market one year earlier than its rivals, Microsoft paved the way for the current generation of consoles to gain mainstream appeal quickly.

I even bought my Samsung HDTV just to play my Xbox 360 games in all their visual glory.

Nintendo's Wii, though less powerful in terms of computing horsepower, has reminded rivals that it's casual and innovative gameplay (using motion sensing in its case) that attracts the average Joe, not hardcore gameplay.

Things are looking up on the software side too.

Recently, John Riccitiello, the new chief executive of Electronic Arts (or EA, the world's biggest game publisher), said what's been on many gamers' mind: 'We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.'

He added: 'For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There are many products that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before.'

That's a powerful statement, considering that EA is also largely responsible for churning out many sequels itself.

My point is this - the big boys in gaming are coming clean with their faults (which is never easy to do) and they know the stakes are high if they fail to deliver this time.

After all, young people and adults increasingly play more games than they watch movies or television.

Judging from the latest happenings over the past week involving Sony, Microsoft and EA, there are strong indicators that the real fight for our gaming dollars is just around the corner.

And when the gloves come off, that's when we'll really get swamped with great console titles and better, more affordable consoles.

Less hype, better games. I hope.

(Picture: AP/ Reuters)