Newest innovation in gaming

I've noticed that gaming goes through phases of innovation. Things like jumping, music, multiple endings, first-person, etc. When a game is successful at some new thing, many other games follow the same innovation. Now it seems we are in the phase of co-op. PCs have had co-op games for years. With games like WoW and Guild Wars, people have worked together to achieve a common goal. The idea of co-op is only now starting to move into consoles.

The interesting part is how co-op appears on consoles. I am going to use LittleBigPlanet as a prime example for this. Its not the fact that you can play levels with other people, that's been done before. But players have never been able to easily build their own levels (this is also done in co-op) and allow other people to play those levels.

Even though LBP's October sales were less than stellar (255,000 in the US, remember this is only for 3 days though), I think that more and more games will start to include co-op in their games.

The sad part is that eventually, it will be a requirement for all games to have co-op. Just like it became a requirement for all games (within reason) to have multiplayer. I'm worried this will lead to an explosion of the industry, but that is for a different blog.

Now, I have a question to anyone who is reading this. What's next? What is going to be the next big thing in gaming?