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The Future of Game Licensing
Gamasutra has a writeup of an E3 event where representatives of some of the big publishers discussed the future of game licensing. Representatives from THQ, Viacom, and Marvel were there, among several others. From the article: "The perception of quality has also hit the publishers. Gioia noted that at THQ, the company has shifted to where one SKU can cost as much as 15 million dollars. 'Why would I do that unless you're dealing with a substantial license or an original IP?' She argues that you have to be narrowly focused on what will work for your target demographic; properties like The Godfather with mass-market capability are really quite rare. With that in mind, there are plenty of other game size opportunities out there for content producers looking at games; it doesn't have to be the AAA game that so many licensed games seem to be skewing towards."
The closest would be Dawn of War, Full Spectrum Warrior, and Red Faction with GameRankings scores of 87%, 83%, and 86% respectively. Their line-up in the past has been mostly Pixar, WWE, and Nickelodeon games. I think they realize that and that is why they are publishing original content like Destroy All Humans!, Company of Heroes, and Titan Quest.
Shelf keeping unit. It's sort of equivalent to a UPC code but references the product rather than the code. In gaming it is equivalent to titles if you count each platform as a separate title.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Thank you.
Don't forget about the good games by Western developers. Aladdin on Genesis (by the people who would become Shiny) was fantastic. Goldeneye on N64, by Rare, was one of the best games on the system. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (and its sequel, Judgement Rites) were excellent adventure games by Interplay. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay is also very good. Quite a unique FPS. And it's far better than the movie it's based on. Rainbow Six is an interesting case of a novel-based game series that has become more well-known than the novel it was originally based on.
On a side note, Macross has not exactly had many excellent games based upon it - it has had far more terrible games than good ones, though I did quite enjoy Do You Remember Love on Saturn.
Don't forget Darwinia and Uplink as decent indy games.