I've been saying this for years, and it's part of one of the game ideas I've been working on for a long while now (a game that, essentially, is Ultima 3 + Starflight, because there's not enough of either type of game coming out). Many of the genres I enjoy most are certainly not popular enough to warrant big or frequent releases, and many of the franchises I've enjoyed have been casual'd and altered to something unmistakeably foreign (FFXIII is a fantastic, if commonly cited, version of that... even if people think it'd good, it's very difficult to argue it provides the same challenges and rewards as earlier titles. The other three big ones are titles where the "main" feeling is relegated to the handheld games, and the newer, seemingly unrelated titles get the big budgets and the big releases: Castlevania, Sonic, and Legend of Zelda (To be fair, C:HD, Colours, and the announced LoZ4 are good starts to remedying these, and I'm aware of them, but, well, I still say it's too early to call)).
More and more, I find myself drawn to the PC-titles and indie games. In itself, I don't see this as a bad thing, but it's no longer the "Quality for quirk" tradeoff it once was, and I don't think enough people appreciate that yet, so I feel like this bullshit is detracting from superior games for no reason, but I can't think of a way to fix it.
Regardless, awesome ep, Jim, and it's given rhetoric to ideas I've had for a long while, so thank you for that.
Also, the word pasta is now meaningless, thanks.