I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I don't mind unoriginality. I'm very excited for Pokemon Black & White even though the formula hasn't changed at all because all of the details I'm reading about it make it sound like a very good step forward without changing the core. I bought Monster Hunter Tri the first day it came out because I loved MHFU on the PSP and knew it'd be more of the same. I bought Mega Mans 9 and 10 on the Wii Store because I knew what they'd be and I knew I'd like it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with producing more of the same if your formula works and you tweak it with each installment to bring something new while keeping it familiar.

On the other, I think there's a trend toward pushing out more of the same to consumers and tacking on $40 in DLC because they know people will buy it (looking at you, Kotick). I would like to see more originality out there, but I don't think it's going to happen in the current climate. On top of that, this isn't a Japan-exclusive issue (my eyes are still on you, Kotick) -- I suspect the only difference is that the American companies have beaten Capcom & Co. to the punch on exploiting the everliving daylights out of the consumer. MM9 and 10 had DLC, but it wasn't that big of a deal compared to mappacks for MW2 or full-unlock things for Battlefield or Xunlai Panes for Guild Wars. SSF4 is (last I heard) going to have a couple of characters available for DLC soon... maybe that'll get them back in the black.

In any case, I think it's unfair of Inafune to target Japanese developers as being the only unoriginal ones, AND to say that unoriginality is a bad thing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Amateurs.

Clearly you didn't read what department this article comes from.

I thought IBM tried this years ago when they snuck that cyborg, Ken Jennings, onto the show. (This joke would have worked better if he wasn't invited with the program, but it had to be said.)

I see the headline in RSS and think to myself, "Wow, that's an interesting story. Wonder who evaluated that" and then I read the blurb and it's from the COO of Microsoft? Seriously, what is a PR statement doing on the front page of Slashdot? What next, will Tim Cook go on record to say that Leopard is actually the most secure OS on the planet? Will he say that Snow Leopard will be absolutely immune to attack? Will that go on the front page, too?

Yeah, it's the word that came to mind - I was writing that comment in class and was half awake at the time. Apologies for using it wrong, but thanks for pointing it out, really. Maybe I need to lay off the Facebook :)

I'm by no means an avid Facebook user, but this article doesn't surprise me. Even inside of lectures, you'd be hard pressed to find someone's laptop that isn't on Facebook (with ESPN in a close second). The sad thing is, even though the article says they only spend 1-5 hours per week studying, that's all you need to survive and be moderately successful in a class anyway. I was surprised to learn a couple months ago that a girl who frequently shows up to history lectures high, drunk, or doesn't show up at all, got a higher score than I did on the midterm for the class. Her response was something along the lines of "Wow! I only crammed for about an hour before the test started!" (for those curious, the score was a high-80. Not bad at all considering her attendance/attention rate)

TAs and whoever else can warn that cramming does more harm than good and doesn't lead to long-term retention of the information, but most of the students don't want long-term retention of dates and other errata. They only have to actually pay attention to the review session (if available) and then cram for an hour and bam, they've got themselves a respectable score on an exam. And the rest of the time? Well, I guess they can just hang out on Facebook.