...Because your dad who is an abusive jerk making an organization to prevent child abuse wouldn't be hypocritical in the least. And then him being lauded for being a great dad despite the fact he is still an abusive jerk, wouldn't come up as slightly hypocritical to you?
The US might have not ran over any of its own college students with a tank, but in the third world during the cold war it funded dictatorships that suppressed dissent and killed dissenters.
Why is it that it is considered terrible that China would kill its own citizens but yet it apparently is a "troll" to point out that the US does it to citizens of other countries?
And the US has Guantanamo bay and other "terrorist" prisons where we can essentially do the same thing because there is no oversight.
Plus, we've got military instillation all over the world also operating with virtually zero oversight.
We've given money to support various military dictatorships, tried taking over numerous sovereign countries, etc. While we don't do many atrocities to people here at home, the "third world" is open game.
When the U.S. (wrongly) detained the friend of Assange, leader of WikiLeaks, earlier this year they had to let him go. Our laws have been designed to protect human rights from abuse by even our own government. You can't say the same thing about the Chinese.
Only because there was a lot of press about it. Had this person been relatively unknown, he just would have been denied his rights or charged him with some "terrible" crime that no one would want to associate with him anymore.
Our laws have been designed to protect human rights from abuse, but that doesn't mean shit when it comes to congress or our operations outside of the US. We've passed laws blatantly ignoring the constitution (PATRIOT act, DMCA, etc.), debased our currency to worthlessness, gunned down civilians abroad, and propped up dictatorships.
The only significant difference between China and the US is that China does atrocities from within their borders and doesn't maintain an illusion of freedom. The US does atrocities from outside their borders and tries to portray that they are concerned about liberty.
And what the hell do you think the US does? We do everything that China does only because we're "the west" we aren't scared about it. See, the thing is, the US government can basically force Google to access your account. I much rather have a Chinese attack where I'm alerted about it than a US attack that happens stealthily.
Yeah, China has human rights abuses and so does the US. There are people detained by US authorities who don't even have a fucking clue why they are detained because the US won't tell them!
This idea that China is a super-villain and the US is a superhero is based off of myth, nationalism and ignorance, we are no better than the Chinese.
Consumer advocates != tech people. Early adopters always get screwed in some form or another, but for a lot of people, they'd prefer to be screwed with a shiny product than to have a lessor product.
Sure, I could get a really reasonable plan, a really reliable cell phone and decent-enough service if I really wanted it. But most geeks don't want "reliable" we want cutting edge, we don't care if it is a bit unstable, we can fix it.
The thing is, consumer advocates advocate for the bottom of the barrel for consumers. For the rest of us, there are sites like/., Engadget, Gizmodo, etc.
This isn't surprising when you have laws forbidding the possession of information and a stigma that persists if someone were to openly come against ridiculous laws simply forbidding possession of information.
I don't see any one of them dying other than Symbian. MS has a crapload of money to pump into Windows Mobile and despite every release being incredibly crappy, it still manages to be put on some phones.
WebOS I think has a future if HP actively licenses it out to other manufacturers. The problem with WebOS is that the Pre and Pixi really weren't that great of phones, the OS is nice, the hardware is mediocre.
BlackBerry I think has the greatest to lose other than Symbian, a BlackBerry is great for corporate work environments, but ends up lacking appeal other than that. Almost everyone who has a BlackBerry that doesn't need some sort of strange corporate feature can get an Android phone and have the same functionality in all the meaningful ways while still being cheap. BlackBerries have managed to gain appeal because compared with other smartphones, an older BlackBerry might only be $20 on contract compared to something like the iPhone which is $200ish.
iOS isn't going anywhere, even when Apple manages to be 100% incompetent in their handling of some basic feature, Apple has enough fanboys to keep them alive just look at the late 90s.
Android of course isn't going to fade anytime soon. Lots of apps, frequent releases, powerful phones, etc. make Android a main choice.
But Symbian, does anyone outside of tech circles even know what Symbian is? People know the iPhone, people have seen the commercial for the Droid, they know the BlackBerry, they recognize the Palm name but Symbian? Does the average person even know where to get a Symbian phone? Is there even a "flagship" phone? People can recognize the iPhone, a Droid, a BlackBerry some can even recognize a Pre, but what is the "must have" Symbian phone? No one knows that.
What I think will eventually happen is that we will have compatibility layers for the more open of the platforms. For example, a high-end RIM device might have an Android compatibility layer that lets it run Android apps, Android might have a WebOS compatibility layer that lets you run apps designed for that, etc.
Realistically, within the next 3 years, almost every (smart) phone will have a 1 Ghz or better CPU based on current trends.
Because, apparently, the core developers aren't sufficiently competent or committed to actual application and architectural security.
That is the entire point of having an open source project is that the developers don't have to be experts. Diaspora was developed not because some guys who were great at security decided one day to lunch an uber secure network, it was developed because people were tired of all the crap that FB had so they developed it. Now that the source code is out, security experts can audit the code and make improvements.
The original developers of an OSS project are like the managers, yeah, they know a little bit about the technical aspects but the main thing they have is vision then people who use it work on it to improve it. Or do you think Linus is some great wizard of security back when he wrote the very first version of Linux?
Just because the current main developers aren't that great of security doesn't mean security is compromised, actually its the opposite, they can get security advice from professionals and other people who are good at security.
Every government wants to write their laws in secrecy, hence why international "treaties" have gotten so popular. Every government's dream is to control every aspect of their citizens' lives without the citizens realizing it. Sure, the government extols the "right to free speech" in every high school classroom but dreams of a world without it. The government loves movements like the tea party that while saying they want to reduce the government's power but give the government power over subjective things like morality and things that are "un-American", any government would take a "loss" of some tax dollars to be able to control something like that (and with fiat currencies, they can just print more worthless notes).
Every government wants to make politics so "boring" that the masses ignore it. Every government wants to make a country with rights that are never exercised.
The ideal state for a government is where the people are cattle, a cow doesn't feel imprisoned, after all he can walk around this whole big pasture, and if he really wanted to he could jump the fence, but why jump when there is all this free food...
And this is why every American should pressure congress to get the US out of various international organizations because the assurances we have in the constitution don't mean shit in the international world of politics.
The constitution says
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
While international agreements puts legislative powers in unelected bureaucrats.
While I understand the point of things like the UN (to prevent something like WWII from happening again) it, along with all the other international organizations have defrauded the American people of their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Ever notice how governments actively seek to forbid citizens from actually -using- their rights? Sure, lets give them freedom of speech. What!? People are critical of the government?! How dare they not use our freedoms to only spread their love of big brother! Lets pass the Alien and Sedition Acts/McCarthyism/ACTA/etc. to stop them from using their freedom! After all, who in a free country would speak out against their government, its like people think the constitution is to protect people who dissent against the majority opinion or something!
Having worked in IT, the problems rest with the technologically-inept managers. For one thing, budgeting. Why, oh why do they base the IT budget on what they spent in previous years? I can't tell you how many IT places crippled do to weird budgeting. Yes, just because we had to spend $100,000 last year when we bought all new servers and replaced half the workstations doesn't mean we are spending $100,000 this year. Or no, we spent only $15,000 last year but we need new servers and its time to replace a lot of workstations.
Windows gets priority because management likes to send us IT people to all kinds of Windows-based conferences so half the people in IT only know Windows. Management also likes to use "buzzwords" wanting us to use the "next big" (Windows-based) thing rather than develop a real solution using OSS technologies.
Almost all the problems that IT has, are problems management has given to us, and until we get some IT people in management, it is going to remain that way.
But a corporation can be more powerful than a weak state.
More powerful, possibly, more abusive? No.
Even a weak state has powers not given to the most powerful of corporations, such as the ability to lay taxes, to imprison people, etc.
If a large enough group of people refuse to pay for the bullets the government has little choice but to except that. The problem is when the majority is OK with buying bullets to kill.
Um, no. Look back at Vietnam, there was a -huge- amount of opposition but they didn't hardly do anything about it. Look at copyright, look at marijuana legalization, etc. The idea that a powerful government would back town in the face of opposition by its people is laughable. Historically it has not happened.
Plus, remember in the age of fiat, worthless currency in essence the government doesn't need your tax dollars, it can print their own money.
Why would corporations allow that?
Because it allows them to sell products to consumers easier. If I sell a car and only 3% of the population can afford it, I'm not making a very good product. On the other hand, say I make it be well-done solar car and then 95% of the population can afford it, I'm making money and getting marketshare. The reason why we haven't seen stuff like that done is because oil is insanely abundant and moderately priced.
Corporations want to make a profit, it is in their best interest to make things beneficial to consumers. When they do that, they make a profit, consumers get quality goods at low prices and corporations gain profit.
Without government strength Wal-Mart will push all competitors out of business, either by underselling them or bringing in a company such as the Pinkerton detective agency (which had more detectives then the US regular army at one point) to bully the competition into folding. At that point your choices are to starve or shop at Wal-Mart. Also to sell your goods to Wal-Mart at the price they set.
History has shown that is exactly what corporations do with a weak government.
But what you don't seem to get is that a weak government (we are talking not about physical weakness, we are talking about a government with only two duties, protect citizens from force such as maintaining a courts system and making laws against force such as murder, rape, theft, etc. maintaining an army, etc. and protect its citizens from fraud such as maintaining a civil courts system and allowing consumers to sue corporations for misleading advertising, breaking contracts, etc. We aren't talking about a government with a cap on how big it can get at a certain number of people, but rather a government that doesn't interfere in daily life. A limited government, much like how the US was envisioned) the Pinkertons would either be stopped by the government (using force/fraud to intimidate) or by natural market forces (if Wal-Mart can sell this for $10 and make a $1 profit, I can sell it directly to consumers using mail-order/internet/etc. for only $9) plus, there is a limit to what Wal-Mart carries. For example, Wal-Mart only has a limited amount of PC hardware and video games. I need to go to Newegg or a similar specialty store to get what I really need for PC hardware and a games store to get video games. Wal-Mart can't threaten those because there is a limit to their employee's expertise.
If anything Wal-Mart stimulates an economy, for example, in my town after Wal-Mart was built there was a surge of tax revenue, more businesses opened up shop and there were no unexpected "mom and pop" shops that folded in the following years.
No the Corporation will not borrow the large amount of money to build an airport, they'll just locate at Somewheresville as it is more cost effective.
What about resources? For example, if you need to mine limestone, you have to be near a limestone quarry, if there is no limestone in Somewheresville, its silly to move there to mine it.
Because they have. Rather than having three systems of games of all sorts it has decreased to essentially two (360 and PS3). Most other generations had multiple systems to choose from, not just two. For example, both the Gamecube, Xbox and PS2 offered a wide variety of games. The GameCube in particular had some nice RPGs, shooters, adventure and platforming games that are notably absent on the Wii. Add into the fact that the PS3's game library seems to be a carbon copy of the 360's with only a handful of notable exclusives, and you have a very worrisome situation.
As opposed to the fresh ideas by American studios? Lets face it, games have been making sequels from each other ever since the days of "Space Wars". When I think of the most popular games made by American studios I think of Halo: Reach (Halo Franchise), Fallout 3 (Fallout franchise), WoW (Warcraft franchise), Generic-Sports-Game 2010 (whatever their series is), Starcraft 2 (Starcraft series), Dragon Age Origins (Essentially Baulder's Gate 2.0), Team Fortress 2 (sequel to Team Fortress), etc.
More innovation yes, but at what cost? Yeah, I'll admit that Tower Defense is good for spending a few hours playing, but after a while it becomes boring. While I can spend hour after hour playing something like Tales of Symphonia, Canabalt is only good for killing a few minutes. The fact is, the only reason why "casual" games are really even worth playing is because they are free or close to free.
When was the last title worth buying for the Wii? The last game I bought was Brawl and I haven't seen a need to buy a new Wii game since then because the "causal" market for it is so big it cannibalized all the decent games. I bought lots of games for the GameCube but hardly any for the Wii. Its gotten so bad I went out and bought an Xbox just so I could actually play some games. I don't consider myself a "hardcore" gamer, I just want games with substance and not silly control schemes like Super Mario Galaxy. I don't care if the game was decent, the fact I had to wiggle around a silly little pointer killed all the fun. Had it been playable with the Classic Controller, it would be a nice game, since it can't be, I'm not going to bother with the sequel.
The problem with that is, having the general public differentiate between crap and a good game. For example, someone who wants to get the game "Cooking Mama" for the Wii has to wade through games like "Food Network, Cooked or be Cooked" and "Order Up!" which are essentially clones of the game lacking the appeal because all have similar themes and art.
Plus, budget games aren't necessarily cheaper. I'd shell out $50 for FF XIII that would keep me busy for 40 some hours but the newest "casual" game costs the same and might only keep me entertained for 15 hours and still might cost me $50-30.
If casual games cost $10-15, yeah, I'd buy them. But without any price motivation why would I settle for a less technically pleasing game that will be playable for fewer hours.
"Casual" gaming has killed gaming. Just look at the Wii, yeah, there are some pretty good casual games out there, but the problem is, the clones simply just fail. At least a Pac-Man or Mario clones were entertaining but casual game clones just fail. I'd rather play the worst Mario clone than play the newest "Cooking Mama" or "Wii Sports" clone.
In reality, I can really only think of a handful of "good" American studios, Bungie, Valve, Blizzard and BioWare. On the other hand, I can think of a lot of good Japanese studios which consistently make quality games, Namco, Square-Enix, Nintendo, Sony, etc.
I really hope this doesn't end up with a lot more Japan-exclusive games while the west gets crap games like what happened in the 16-bit era. I don't -want- more "westernized" games. I -like- games that are different such as Katamari. I can appreciate multiple cultures, I don't -want- games dealing with "western" themes as opposed to Japanese themes. I want good, solid games. I don't want localization, I want translation, yes, but subtitles are fine. I'd rather have the Japanese voice actors and subtitles than crappy US voice actors.
There have been some brilliant games either not brought to the west or brought to the west later that would have been excellent back "in the day". For example, a lot of the Final Fantasy games were not released for the NES/SNES in the US and the entire Fire Emblem series was neglected until fairly recently.
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...Because your dad who is an abusive jerk making an organization to prevent child abuse wouldn't be hypocritical in the least. And then him being lauded for being a great dad despite the fact he is still an abusive jerk, wouldn't come up as slightly hypocritical to you?
Oh don't point out that that could happen, otherwise you get modded as a troll.
...Yet is the key point.
The US might have not ran over any of its own college students with a tank, but in the third world during the cold war it funded dictatorships that suppressed dissent and killed dissenters.
Why is it that it is considered terrible that China would kill its own citizens but yet it apparently is a "troll" to point out that the US does it to citizens of other countries?
Are you that blind that you haven't heard of Gitmo? http://civilliberty.about.com/od/lawenforcementterrorism/tp/Boumediene-v-Bush.htm Yeah, the supreme court struck it down fairly quickly but note that a single vote in the opposite direction would have kept it.
Plus, we've got military instillation all over the world also operating with virtually zero oversight.
We've given money to support various military dictatorships, tried taking over numerous sovereign countries, etc. While we don't do many atrocities to people here at home, the "third world" is open game.
When the U.S. (wrongly) detained the friend of Assange, leader of WikiLeaks, earlier this year they had to let him go. Our laws have been designed to protect human rights from abuse by even our own government. You can't say the same thing about the Chinese.
Only because there was a lot of press about it. Had this person been relatively unknown, he just would have been denied his rights or charged him with some "terrible" crime that no one would want to associate with him anymore.
Our laws have been designed to protect human rights from abuse, but that doesn't mean shit when it comes to congress or our operations outside of the US. We've passed laws blatantly ignoring the constitution (PATRIOT act, DMCA, etc.), debased our currency to worthlessness, gunned down civilians abroad, and propped up dictatorships.
The only significant difference between China and the US is that China does atrocities from within their borders and doesn't maintain an illusion of freedom. The US does atrocities from outside their borders and tries to portray that they are concerned about liberty.
And what the hell do you think the US does? We do everything that China does only because we're "the west" we aren't scared about it. See, the thing is, the US government can basically force Google to access your account. I much rather have a Chinese attack where I'm alerted about it than a US attack that happens stealthily.
Yeah, China has human rights abuses and so does the US. There are people detained by US authorities who don't even have a fucking clue why they are detained because the US won't tell them!
This idea that China is a super-villain and the US is a superhero is based off of myth, nationalism and ignorance, we are no better than the Chinese.
Consumer advocates != tech people. Early adopters always get screwed in some form or another, but for a lot of people, they'd prefer to be screwed with a shiny product than to have a lessor product.
/., Engadget, Gizmodo, etc.
Sure, I could get a really reasonable plan, a really reliable cell phone and decent-enough service if I really wanted it. But most geeks don't want "reliable" we want cutting edge, we don't care if it is a bit unstable, we can fix it.
The thing is, consumer advocates advocate for the bottom of the barrel for consumers. For the rest of us, there are sites like
This isn't surprising when you have laws forbidding the possession of information and a stigma that persists if someone were to openly come against ridiculous laws simply forbidding possession of information.
I don't see any one of them dying other than Symbian. MS has a crapload of money to pump into Windows Mobile and despite every release being incredibly crappy, it still manages to be put on some phones.
WebOS I think has a future if HP actively licenses it out to other manufacturers. The problem with WebOS is that the Pre and Pixi really weren't that great of phones, the OS is nice, the hardware is mediocre.
BlackBerry I think has the greatest to lose other than Symbian, a BlackBerry is great for corporate work environments, but ends up lacking appeal other than that. Almost everyone who has a BlackBerry that doesn't need some sort of strange corporate feature can get an Android phone and have the same functionality in all the meaningful ways while still being cheap. BlackBerries have managed to gain appeal because compared with other smartphones, an older BlackBerry might only be $20 on contract compared to something like the iPhone which is $200ish.
iOS isn't going anywhere, even when Apple manages to be 100% incompetent in their handling of some basic feature, Apple has enough fanboys to keep them alive just look at the late 90s.
Android of course isn't going to fade anytime soon. Lots of apps, frequent releases, powerful phones, etc. make Android a main choice.
But Symbian, does anyone outside of tech circles even know what Symbian is? People know the iPhone, people have seen the commercial for the Droid, they know the BlackBerry, they recognize the Palm name but Symbian? Does the average person even know where to get a Symbian phone? Is there even a "flagship" phone? People can recognize the iPhone, a Droid, a BlackBerry some can even recognize a Pre, but what is the "must have" Symbian phone? No one knows that.
What I think will eventually happen is that we will have compatibility layers for the more open of the platforms. For example, a high-end RIM device might have an Android compatibility layer that lets it run Android apps, Android might have a WebOS compatibility layer that lets you run apps designed for that, etc.
Realistically, within the next 3 years, almost every (smart) phone will have a 1 Ghz or better CPU based on current trends.
Because, apparently, the core developers aren't sufficiently competent or committed to actual application and architectural security.
That is the entire point of having an open source project is that the developers don't have to be experts. Diaspora was developed not because some guys who were great at security decided one day to lunch an uber secure network, it was developed because people were tired of all the crap that FB had so they developed it. Now that the source code is out, security experts can audit the code and make improvements.
The original developers of an OSS project are like the managers, yeah, they know a little bit about the technical aspects but the main thing they have is vision then people who use it work on it to improve it. Or do you think Linus is some great wizard of security back when he wrote the very first version of Linux?
Just because the current main developers aren't that great of security doesn't mean security is compromised, actually its the opposite, they can get security advice from professionals and other people who are good at security.
Every government wants to write their laws in secrecy, hence why international "treaties" have gotten so popular. Every government's dream is to control every aspect of their citizens' lives without the citizens realizing it. Sure, the government extols the "right to free speech" in every high school classroom but dreams of a world without it. The government loves movements like the tea party that while saying they want to reduce the government's power but give the government power over subjective things like morality and things that are "un-American", any government would take a "loss" of some tax dollars to be able to control something like that (and with fiat currencies, they can just print more worthless notes).
Every government wants to make politics so "boring" that the masses ignore it. Every government wants to make a country with rights that are never exercised.
The ideal state for a government is where the people are cattle, a cow doesn't feel imprisoned, after all he can walk around this whole big pasture, and if he really wanted to he could jump the fence, but why jump when there is all this free food...
How about just requiring that any ISP that takes public funds or uses public land must not engage in any sort of filtering or traffic redirection?
The constitution says
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
While international agreements puts legislative powers in unelected bureaucrats.
While I understand the point of things like the UN (to prevent something like WWII from happening again) it, along with all the other international organizations have defrauded the American people of their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Ever notice how governments actively seek to forbid citizens from actually -using- their rights? Sure, lets give them freedom of speech. What!? People are critical of the government?! How dare they not use our freedoms to only spread their love of big brother! Lets pass the Alien and Sedition Acts/McCarthyism/ACTA/etc. to stop them from using their freedom! After all, who in a free country would speak out against their government, its like people think the constitution is to protect people who dissent against the majority opinion or something!
Having worked in IT, the problems rest with the technologically-inept managers. For one thing, budgeting. Why, oh why do they base the IT budget on what they spent in previous years? I can't tell you how many IT places crippled do to weird budgeting. Yes, just because we had to spend $100,000 last year when we bought all new servers and replaced half the workstations doesn't mean we are spending $100,000 this year. Or no, we spent only $15,000 last year but we need new servers and its time to replace a lot of workstations.
Windows gets priority because management likes to send us IT people to all kinds of Windows-based conferences so half the people in IT only know Windows. Management also likes to use "buzzwords" wanting us to use the "next big" (Windows-based) thing rather than develop a real solution using OSS technologies.
Almost all the problems that IT has, are problems management has given to us, and until we get some IT people in management, it is going to remain that way.
But a corporation can be more powerful than a weak state.
More powerful, possibly, more abusive? No.
Even a weak state has powers not given to the most powerful of corporations, such as the ability to lay taxes, to imprison people, etc.
If a large enough group of people refuse to pay for the bullets the government has little choice but to except that. The problem is when the majority is OK with buying bullets to kill.
Um, no. Look back at Vietnam, there was a -huge- amount of opposition but they didn't hardly do anything about it. Look at copyright, look at marijuana legalization, etc. The idea that a powerful government would back town in the face of opposition by its people is laughable. Historically it has not happened.
Plus, remember in the age of fiat, worthless currency in essence the government doesn't need your tax dollars, it can print their own money.
Why would corporations allow that?
Because it allows them to sell products to consumers easier. If I sell a car and only 3% of the population can afford it, I'm not making a very good product. On the other hand, say I make it be well-done solar car and then 95% of the population can afford it, I'm making money and getting marketshare. The reason why we haven't seen stuff like that done is because oil is insanely abundant and moderately priced.
Corporations want to make a profit, it is in their best interest to make things beneficial to consumers. When they do that, they make a profit, consumers get quality goods at low prices and corporations gain profit.
Without government strength Wal-Mart will push all competitors out of business, either by underselling them or bringing in a company such as the Pinkerton detective agency (which had more detectives then the US regular army at one point) to bully the competition into folding. At that point your choices are to starve or shop at Wal-Mart. Also to sell your goods to Wal-Mart at the price they set. History has shown that is exactly what corporations do with a weak government.
But what you don't seem to get is that a weak government (we are talking not about physical weakness, we are talking about a government with only two duties, protect citizens from force such as maintaining a courts system and making laws against force such as murder, rape, theft, etc. maintaining an army, etc. and protect its citizens from fraud such as maintaining a civil courts system and allowing consumers to sue corporations for misleading advertising, breaking contracts, etc. We aren't talking about a government with a cap on how big it can get at a certain number of people, but rather a government that doesn't interfere in daily life. A limited government, much like how the US was envisioned) the Pinkertons would either be stopped by the government (using force/fraud to intimidate) or by natural market forces (if Wal-Mart can sell this for $10 and make a $1 profit, I can sell it directly to consumers using mail-order/internet/etc. for only $9) plus, there is a limit to what Wal-Mart carries. For example, Wal-Mart only has a limited amount of PC hardware and video games. I need to go to Newegg or a similar specialty store to get what I really need for PC hardware and a games store to get video games. Wal-Mart can't threaten those because there is a limit to their employee's expertise.
If anything Wal-Mart stimulates an economy, for example, in my town after Wal-Mart was built there was a surge of tax revenue, more businesses opened up shop and there were no unexpected "mom and pop" shops that folded in the following years.
No the Corporation will not borrow the large amount of money to build an airport, they'll just locate at Somewheresville as it is more cost effective.
What about resources? For example, if you need to mine limestone, you have to be near a limestone quarry, if there is no limestone in Somewheresville, its silly to move there to mine it.
Because they have. Rather than having three systems of games of all sorts it has decreased to essentially two (360 and PS3). Most other generations had multiple systems to choose from, not just two. For example, both the Gamecube, Xbox and PS2 offered a wide variety of games. The GameCube in particular had some nice RPGs, shooters, adventure and platforming games that are notably absent on the Wii. Add into the fact that the PS3's game library seems to be a carbon copy of the 360's with only a handful of notable exclusives, and you have a very worrisome situation.
As opposed to the fresh ideas by American studios? Lets face it, games have been making sequels from each other ever since the days of "Space Wars". When I think of the most popular games made by American studios I think of Halo: Reach (Halo Franchise), Fallout 3 (Fallout franchise), WoW (Warcraft franchise), Generic-Sports-Game 2010 (whatever their series is), Starcraft 2 (Starcraft series), Dragon Age Origins (Essentially Baulder's Gate 2.0), Team Fortress 2 (sequel to Team Fortress), etc.
More innovation yes, but at what cost? Yeah, I'll admit that Tower Defense is good for spending a few hours playing, but after a while it becomes boring. While I can spend hour after hour playing something like Tales of Symphonia, Canabalt is only good for killing a few minutes. The fact is, the only reason why "casual" games are really even worth playing is because they are free or close to free.
When was the last title worth buying for the Wii? The last game I bought was Brawl and I haven't seen a need to buy a new Wii game since then because the "causal" market for it is so big it cannibalized all the decent games. I bought lots of games for the GameCube but hardly any for the Wii. Its gotten so bad I went out and bought an Xbox just so I could actually play some games. I don't consider myself a "hardcore" gamer, I just want games with substance and not silly control schemes like Super Mario Galaxy. I don't care if the game was decent, the fact I had to wiggle around a silly little pointer killed all the fun. Had it been playable with the Classic Controller, it would be a nice game, since it can't be, I'm not going to bother with the sequel.
The problem with that is, having the general public differentiate between crap and a good game. For example, someone who wants to get the game "Cooking Mama" for the Wii has to wade through games like "Food Network, Cooked or be Cooked" and "Order Up!" which are essentially clones of the game lacking the appeal because all have similar themes and art.
Plus, budget games aren't necessarily cheaper. I'd shell out $50 for FF XIII that would keep me busy for 40 some hours but the newest "casual" game costs the same and might only keep me entertained for 15 hours and still might cost me $50-30.
If casual games cost $10-15, yeah, I'd buy them. But without any price motivation why would I settle for a less technically pleasing game that will be playable for fewer hours.
"Casual" gaming has killed gaming. Just look at the Wii, yeah, there are some pretty good casual games out there, but the problem is, the clones simply just fail. At least a Pac-Man or Mario clones were entertaining but casual game clones just fail. I'd rather play the worst Mario clone than play the newest "Cooking Mama" or "Wii Sports" clone.
In reality, I can really only think of a handful of "good" American studios, Bungie, Valve, Blizzard and BioWare. On the other hand, I can think of a lot of good Japanese studios which consistently make quality games, Namco, Square-Enix, Nintendo, Sony, etc.
I really hope this doesn't end up with a lot more Japan-exclusive games while the west gets crap games like what happened in the 16-bit era. I don't -want- more "westernized" games. I -like- games that are different such as Katamari. I can appreciate multiple cultures, I don't -want- games dealing with "western" themes as opposed to Japanese themes. I want good, solid games. I don't want localization, I want translation, yes, but subtitles are fine. I'd rather have the Japanese voice actors and subtitles than crappy US voice actors.
There have been some brilliant games either not brought to the west or brought to the west later that would have been excellent back "in the day". For example, a lot of the Final Fantasy games were not released for the NES/SNES in the US and the entire Fire Emblem series was neglected until fairly recently.
I don't want westernized games.