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I have had my doubts about java before. Especially in the game department. However, I recently came across a game, while not all that inventive or increadable, shows a well deployed, clean, fast running java game in action. A demo can be retrieved from their site: http://oddlabs.com/tribaltrouble.php. I am not advertising for the game, just mentioning that java seemed very sutable for this game. I use mac/win/lin, all three every day, and so for me, the fact that it is deployed easily on all three is important.

What are you talking about? Do you consider the Geforce4 MX to be the latest hardware? That's what they did the Jake2/Q2 benchmarks on (http://www.bytonic.de/html/benchmarks.html). The Geforce 4MX was introduced in 2002 based, but it's a GeForce 2 (2000) chipset with an improved memory controller. It's technology is almost 6 year old - far from cutting edge.

For another example check out Tribal Trouble (http://www.oddlabs.com/technology.php) - it's a game built entirely in Java, it's 3D and it's requirements are - 700Mhz PC with a Geforce 2 MX to achieve 40FPS.

Both of these games operate just fine on below average hardware.

I've found this thread "by accident" and i didn't know about Jake2, so there may be other Java games or similar apps to show off what's possible and what's not (which i'm very interested in). What i do know is the stuff from Puppygames, Oddlabs and Paradroidz. And now this one. Is that all there is?

On that note I'd like to mention the following:
Jake 2.
Undead Arena.

Both of which were discussed right here.

And there's an interesting commercial game called Tribal Trouble (with a demo available).

An example of a commercial game implemented in Java is Tribal Trouble by Oddlabs. Its also quite fun and you'd only know its in Java as they mention it in their FAQ.

I think the problem is the same as the problem with any popular entertainment media (movies, tv, etc) which is (with apologies to Peter Guber) "If at first you succeed, try the same thing again"

This is why there are like 12 CSIs and 24 Law & Orders on TV. If you want innovative stuff you end up on the baby networks or cable. The production quality and budget may not be good but the content is usually better.

The same goes for indie games. Sadly due to licensing strangleholds, they're unlikely to make a showing on consoles (except maybe the Revolution).

In the meantime, check out games like Tribal Trouble and the competitors of the Independent Games Festival.

You mean like Doom3, UT2004 etc. scales over a largish hardware range, dropping advanced features as needed? Why, the same way.

To be specific, I would take an open-source engine (e.g this one ) and port it to the mentioned platforms. Then I would allow effects to be switched on and off (use stencil shadows or just blobs? Viewing distance?) and use the good old trick of having two (or three) detail levels used at different distances. And so on.

Java is another possibility, though I must admit, I don't know about Java and PS2 --- but when a JVM exists for Z/OS, everything is possible.

As I said, it is not that hard And as I said, I don't buy games that are not natively running on Linux.

Sure, there's java port of Quake 2, there's Alien Flux, Tribal Trouble. But, as others already mentioned Java is mostly used for programming game logic. It's performance is constantly improving and only recently it gained enough speed to be seriously considered for writing entire game engines.