Games Creating the World Versus New "Advancements"

The internet has been ablaze recently with talk of map products from Google and similar plans from Microsoft. These additions are really cool to look at but do not seem to offer real value or things to do in the worlds. As an avid gamer, I was questioning, haven't we seen similar things from games in the past. Last year we saw the release of True Crimes: Streets of L.A. and The Getaway (based in London). These and others were all smaller areas. Enter E3 this year and several announcements about new expansion packs for Microsoft Flight Simulator that take the base generic world and fix it up to allow you to fly through your city the way it really looks. FSQuality is offering the flight sim expansion covering Europe and Scenery Solutions has just released products for Canada and the United States. Now, these are just simulator expansions. We will have to wait to see what developers release for the next generation of consoles.