From genetics to sociology, Sim City creator, Will Wright, is currently working on The Sims, which gives players close control over a small group of intelligent computer people as they eat, work, and have fun - a fascinating concept explored loosely in David Crane's CBM64 title Little Computer People, but bound to be taken to new extremes here.

Interestingly, the never-ending advancement of visual technology - which has done much to devalue innovation over the last few years - may yet be its saviour. We're now getting to the point where every game has amazingly smooth and detailed graphics - every developer has a shithot 3D engine (and if they can't make one themselves they can buy a Quake II or Unreal one to fiddle around with). There's no point in boasting about appearances anymore. Consequently, offbeat ideas are becoming fashionable again.

And there's inspirational raw material everywhere. Over the last two years, Japan has given us the artificial life genre, represented by Tamagotchi, Pokemon, etc, and the rhythm action genre, inhabited by the gloriously playable likes of Bust-A-Groove, Dance Dance Revolution and Beat Mania.

In the West, the relatively new first-person shooter and realtime strategy genres are mutating into new forms, and they're begging to be twisted and manipulated further. Meanwhile, Internet gaming is becoming more and more popular, opening new avenues to developers of multiplayer concepts, and finally, the mere fact that millions of adults are now playing games opens up whole new possibilities to the videogame industry.

And beyond the industry is real life. Ironically, The Sims provides a clue that the most innovative games of the future may not be set on a distant planet, or revolve around war: they may be set in Manchester and revolve around a love triangle. Sony called their NGPS processor 'the emotion engine' for a reason. They want their games to emotionally engage us - and try as they might (and they don't really) games like Quake, Command and Conquer, and FIFA '99 fail miserably in all but raising the adrenaline and giving us the odd fright.

In the past the majority of videogames have avoided reality because the visually and mathematically complex process of simulating it was way beyond the capabilities of technology. This is no longer the case. Perhaps the most amazing thing a designer could do now is look out of the window and write a videogame about what they see there. Stranger things have happened.