Although it was inevitable, Microsoft first lost some of my respect (well… whatever nominal amount there was at the time) when they decided to rip off Nintendo’s Miis. Once that particular update was complete, I was staring at my tv in disbelief. “I’ve already got one of these on my Wii… one is enough. I don’t want another stupid avatar!” I still don’t want to believe anyone buys accessories for their avatars even, but the fact all that crap is still for sale is proof enough that they do. I just don’t get it.

Now, after watching that “future of gaming” video myself, pretty much whatever respect may have been left is now gone. I believe you guys have nailed it with the “unsustainable market” comments. You can only spend so much time and money copying and playing catch up with your competitors until one day ya get bit in the ass HARD. You lose the original marketshare that put you where you are, the common customers get tired of the novelty and you realize “Oh shit… that market’s all dried up now… we should have instead spent that money on R&D, we should have been innovating new and exciting ways of interacting with our old, current and future software/hardware instead of doing a quick money grab mandated by the circle jerk of detached empty-suit executive overlords that we are because we just want the bottom dollar as that’s all we were trained and brought up to believe in. Oh well. I hear X Brand competitor has some new stuff out now though, let’s just copy that. Brand loyalty! Developers developers developers are where the money’s at!!!!”

It’s like that with a good deal of companies today, and it’s sad that the video game industry is not immune. I fear a stagnant “dark ages” period of video gaming will descend upon us soon. With all the poorly developed clones, shovelware (remember Atari? Of course that’s always been an issue but it could very well happen again), and inflated and unjustified prices people keep paying, the shadow will eventually fall over the land because too many “everyman” types will buy into the hype and bullshit of blowing too much money on the flashy, the gimmicky, and most importantly, the virtual scat pumped out of the blowhard anal pores of these companies’ unimaginative dollar hounds.