No question about that. The PS3 and XBox 360 routinely move more hardware units. The latest incarnation of The Legend of Zelda series will almost certainly be the last major A-list title released for the system.

So, sure, the Wii’s best days are long past. This means something, and yet it means nothing. The history of the Wii was set long before this year.

First of all, Nintendo won this generation. Make no mistake about that.

2011 will end with Sony selling around 10-11 million PS3 units, MS will have moved 9-10 million, and Nintendo will have sold 8-9 million Wii’s. The Wii has another big price drop coming at some point, which will goose sales for several months. Given that the Wii has more than a 30 million unit lead over the two competing systems, and that unit sales are going to continue to plummet as this generation winds down (Nintendo’s next-gen hardware offering, the Wii U, is due in the second half of 2012), history will record that Nintendo reclaimed the video game crown with the Wii.

The Wii was a rather large hit. It could have been more.

The Wii could have sold twice as many as the 100 million units it will probably end up selling. Sadly, a combination of fanboy and third party recalcitrance made that impossible.

For hundreds of thousands of angry, sexually frustrated nerds, the Wii was a betrayal and they never forgave Nintendo.

Years were spent learning arcane, complex control schemes. Encrusted layers of insular game knowledge had turned video gaming into the exclusive domain of basement-dwelling obsessives. First person shooters, like the swollen protagonists in them, violently relegated all other gaming convention to intellectual ghettoes. The only innovation in the industry was in frame rates and geometry.

In short, the entire industry was, and in many circles still is, about  making ever-angrier, ever more realistic sex-and-violence simulators. Bigger virtual guns to soothe the flaccid patriarchal aspirations of a societally neutered generation of males.

The Wii, and then to and even greater degree the emergence of iOS gaming, changed all that. Control schemes changed. Themes broadened. Titles became more diverse in both style and design. 20 years of obsessive button-mashing does not give you an advantage playing Angry Birds.

Most old-school software houses were also not amused. Their entire business model was constructed and optimized for developing and refining a single game engine and then milking it to the tune of 70 dollars per unit. The Wii and iOS meant the end of all that. You have to release new ideas, new games, and for less.

There is no going back.

Even if the Wii U is not a major success, even if Nintendo itself does not survive as a hardware manufacturer, the game has been recast. There will never again be another generation of systems that caters exclusively, or even mostly, to the so-called hardcore gamer. Even Sony and MS, standard bearers for the old way, had to scramble to change their strategy, desperately integrating motion-control in response to the success of the Wii.

So the Wii will pass into memory as underpowered? A gimmick?

If so, then, at least, an underpowered gimmick that changed everything.

Not too bad.

So now that President’ Bush’s agenda for the middle east is clearly coming to pass will he get credit for knocking over the first two dominoes that made it happen?

I won’t hold my breath.

There are some reasons to hate America, but far fewer than with virtually any other major world power of the past or present. The recent WikiLeaks/Julian Assange  dustup is another good example of this kind of virulent anti-Americanism.

Assange says he has no particular disdain for America, but the things he chooses to leak says otherwise. Many of his former co-workers at WikiLeaks say otherwise as well, going so far as to label Assange’s anti-American worldview an “obsession” and starting their own competing “leaks” organization.

But why then? Why so many America haters?

A lot of folks ask that question and the answer never comes back with a satisfactory or empirical response. I think the the correct course of action is actually to answer the question: Who? The ‘why’ becomes apparent more readily in the immediate philosophical wake.

Islamic Culture

The easy thing is to say that only radical Muslims hate America, but that isn’t the whole truth. Radical Muslims are the ones who board planes and commit suicide bombings, but Muslims, in general, don’t care much for America either. Have a look at the Gallup data regarding American leadership. These are disapproval ratings.

Algeria 68%

Iraq 61%

Lebanon 64%

Palestine 77%

Morocco 69%

Lest you attribute these numbers to post-Iraq/Afghanistan disgust with American foreign policy, I encourage you to check the trend line on those numbers. They weren’t much different prior to 9/11 and the subsequent wars. In fact, they weren’t even much different when American forces were protecting Muslims in the Balkans by taking down Milosevic.

I could go on, but you get the idea. America is the muscular support structure of all of Western Civilization. To the degree that Islamic culture is at odds with western decadence, immorality, etc., their disdain is necessarily focused at what most recognize that the center (or nadir, depending on your point of view) of Western strength and wealth: the United States of America. So why don’t Muslims heap scorn on other Western nations? Oh they do. They most certainly do. However, they don’t spend as much time with it because it’s like spending all of your time screaming at the opposing team’s ball boy. Not going to happen. When you’re at the game you are going to spend all your anger on the opposing team’s star player.

America is the West’s star player. Which brings us to the next group.

Old Europe

I like calling Western Europe ‘Old Europe” because it just seems to really get under their skin.

When you look at the reasons that Islamic Radicals hate America….homosexuality, independent women, sexual openness, religious tolerance, support for Israel…you’d think they would hate Western Europe even more than they hate America since Europe, too,  has those things in abundance and, arguably, even more. Certainly the environment and attitude toward homosexuals and sexuality is far more liberal in Western Europe than in America. Further, Western Europe is all but an atheist enclave now which, theoretically, Islamic radicals detest even more than those who practice different faiths.

The truth is that Islamic radicals do hate Western Europe. They know it just doesn’t matter much. America, as the primary bulwark of Christendom and Western Civilization is a much more appealing target. Radicals know that in a world without America, or with a weakened America, Western Europe would collapse like a house of cards.

This notion isn’t new in American/European relations, it has simply take on new trappings. Western Europe has been in various states of denial/guilt/envy/resentment regarding American influence and power since the turn of the century. All the truth of this is found in the way America is compared to Europe in almost every modern analysis: Europe vs. America. There was a time when the individual nations of Europe considered themselves rivals, and even superiors, to America. Now that notion seems quaint bordering on idiotic, and the comparisons have transformed into a phony construct (America versus Europe the continent instead of any single nation).

The Europeans, while sharing a history with America, often give in to a petty tendency to resent us. The failure of America, and the West in total, is apparently preferable to their current, and likely future, little sister status.

Western Media

If there is one place that may be the most perplexing hive of Anti-Americanism, it’s the media.

One might think that given that American freedoms and capitalist economic systems are the very roots from which the modern media has grown and thrived, that Western media sources would fall over themselves swooning over the good ol’ US of A.

One would be wrong.

Western media hates America because it is simply not yet learned any other way. The vilification of America and The West in Western media is a strange Captain-Kirk-with-a-goatee parallel to American triumphalism. The media, in equal measures enflamed and hobbled by it’s imagination, fights two phony battles. The first battle is America vs. Utopia. America, as would any real, human construct, comes off poorly when pitted against the Marxist daydreams of a New York Times first-year intern. America is not this. America is not that. America does this wrong. America does that wrong.

Yes, when set against the fevered intellect of a Harvard-trained liberal, I imagine America comes off as shoddy at best. Against the reality of any current or past human civilizaton? She does just fine, thanks.

The author’s general point, that Apple didn’t really “lose” in any realistic definition of that word, is completely valid.

Yes, MS still makes money, but they make almost all of it on Windows and Office. Just like they have for the past 20 years. Almost all of their other attempts at growing themselves have been abject failures. Yes, the XBox 360 too (will end up second, at best, out of three systems even with a full year head start and is barely, and only recently, profitable). Will they die anytime soon? No. Are they dying? Absolutely.

No, Apple doesn’t dominate the desktop and never will by market share but *WHO CARES*?

They are much, much more powerful and valuable than even the world’s biggest PC OEMs…Dell, HP, etc. They have almost twice as much money *in the bank* than the entire market value of Dell! Apple’s market value is nearly *three times* that of HP and 50 billion more than MS.

Apple consistently, for going on a decade now, produces devices that get far superior reviews from JD Powers, Consumer Reports, and, most importantly from customers themselves.

So, to sum up, Apple is winning the desktop wars in every way except market share. AKA every way that actually matters anymore.

By the thinking of some of you, the fact that GM, Ford, and Chrysler sell more cars by volume than Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes Benz somehow makes them winners? Or that BMW et al they have “lost” somehow? Watch the news, man. Which of those companies needed giant bailouts to continue to exist?

I won’t even go into iPods, iPhones, and iPads. The degree to which they dominated the competition in those categories should be apparent to even the most ardent Apple hater.

But you go right ahead and rock that Chevy Malibu, son. If it means that much to you.

“With an estimated 8.5 million units sold to date, Apple’s iPad is now the best-selling tech gadget in history, according to a financial analyst who tracks sales of the device.“

Apple was never *just* aiming for the anemic tablet market with the iPad. It was aiming for the *entire* low-to-mid level superstrata of the entire PC market. A target encompassing nearly 200 million units annually. And guess what? They done hit it, kids.

Maybe someone will see. Maybe it’s just therapeutic. Maybe when the league starts to crumble I want to be able to point to these posts and gloat that saw it before everyone else. Regardless of why I do it, I do it. And here it is again: the NFL is terrible.

It seems as if nine out of every ten games are decided by blind luck. Sure, my two favorite teams both suck so maybe it’s sour grapes? Sorry, no. I have other data.

A whopping five weeks in and guess how many undefeated teams we have left? Zero, comrade. Zilch. Nada. And last year’s super bowl champs? A 3-2 record with the three wins coming on a nine point margin in total. The highlight? A come-from-behind two point win against the 0-4 Carolina Panthers.

At some point, and that time is coming soon, the NFL is going to lose viewership. The fans of the major franchises in the major cities are going to eventually realize that these games are little more than colorful, over-produced gambling sessions.

After all, everyone wants to win the lottery, but no one really cares about watching it live.

Jewish people have often been scapegoated in history specifically *because* they have such a small population. I’ve been close to three Jewish people in my life and none of the three could change shape or shoot lasers from their eyes. America has a proud history of being pretty good for Jewish folks. Let’s keep it that way. Yes, I’m looking at you Oliver Stone. Bonehead.

Journalists working for Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic expressed outrage over the tough questioning Obama received from ABC anchors Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos at a debate and some of them plotted to protect Obama from the swirling controversy, according to the Daily Caller.

Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent pressed his fellow journalists to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by shifting topics to one of Obama’s conservative critics, the Daily Caller reported.

“Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists,” Ackerman wrote.

And I’ve always known that the “call them racists” strategy was employed whenever Dems are losing the debate on the basis of ideas (which is nearly always these days) but, again, still startling to see that someone just said it openly.

Now why on Earth aren’t every single one of these “journalists” fired and banned from working at any serious media organization?

Sometimes the herd is right, sometimes they are wrong. But, in any case, I think it’s self-evident that if someone asks you, “Why do you believe that?” your response should never be, “Because everyone else does.”

Of course, no one would actually say that but if they can’t form any other coherent response you can be pretty sure herd mentality is at work.

A few examples are in order I think. Politics is handy.

By the end of his presidency, George W. Bush had a narrative that the media and his political enemies had crafted for him as a warmongering moron. He’s not a moron. It’s empirically provable. The warmongering piece depends on your political leanings of course. Currently the same thing is happening to President Obama. The media and his political enemies are constructing something for him: impotent wimp. The Jimmy Carter storyline all over again.

Media, and just humanity in general, prefer simple one-word definitions and solutions and when there aren’t any they will make them up. The media then takes that message and hammers it home. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or right: you just have to hit it often enough and hard enough. The nail may be bent, crooked, misaligned, but it will go in if you pound it enough.

So, on to tech.

I also take a little pride in the fact that while I detest Microsoft, I have never swallowed the idiotic line that they did anything criminal or even particularly devious. They beat everyone’s ass. That’s all. They got a little lucky with IBM and Gary Killdall and then proceeded to out compete everyone who challenged them all through the 80s and 90s. There’s no law against winning. My only complaint with Redmond is that they just make crappy, pedestrian products and always have. And, with the kind of money they have made, there’s no reason for it. But, taste issues aside, neither the European or American governments ever had any business giving MS as much crap as they have. MS makes a crappy second-rate OS, office suite, and video game system and lots of people buy them because lots of people have no taste and/or were happy with whatever their machine ships with. MS is, and has always been, the Wal-Mart of the tech world.

MS was aggressive and fast and adapted to new realities quickly. The only reason the governments, news media, and pundits piled on was because people get pissed off and insecure and petty when someone is successful. Especially if that success comes out of their hide.

That brings us to Apple and the iPhone 4.

About five years ago or so Cory Doctorow made a big deal about abandoning Apple products. He coughed up some lame socialist BS diatribe about why he was doing it, but the truth of the matter is that he did it for the same reason he wears those goofy-ass specs: it made him look cool to his commie/intellectual peer group. And, hey, Cory and his friends are cool. No sarcasm intended. But just be honest about it, Cory. You couldn’t be seen cavorting with a capitalist entity that was no longer the darling underdog. At least you were in the vanguard.

So cut to today. Cory was prescient it seems because, jack, Apple has not only grown well out of underdog status, they are most decidedly the 800 pound gorilla in tech. The story that media and pundits are now spinning, at the behest mainly of fanboys and competitors, is that Apple is power mad and the iPhone is a crappy, half-baked dung pile.

Just not true. But that won’t matter because now there are too many people, media types, and competitors who want it to be true. The Apple Sucks storyline is too potent and appeals to too many ears now for the truth to get in the way. It won’t matter to Apple, really, in the same way the anti-MS sentiment didn’t much phase the MS behemoth. It’s just a shame it has to be this way. Let’s look at the prevailing iPhone stories right now.

So, The Antenna Thing.

Yep. If you intentionally cover a specific one millimeter spot on the lower left corner it can interfere with your signal. It is an issue so minor that none of the major reviewers even noticed it. Nor did any of the folks who used it hands-on after the introduction keynote. Nor did any of the people who received theirs a day ahead of release via FedEx.

Now most iPhone users carry their phones in a case so it’s not an issue for them in any situation. For those who carry their iPhone au natural, it is simply a matter of not burying the phone in your palm as if you intend to crush it like a tin can. It is not a “flaw” the vast majority of people would ever even notice.

It would be galling enough if the tech press was simply over-reacting to a non-issue (which they clearly are), but what is worse is that, in the desperate attempt to play the see-we’re-cool-we-hate-Apple card, they are completely selling a false bill of goods.

So if you read this headline, Innovative Capping Techniques Highlighted by BP in Gulf of Mexico, could we agree that, while not technically a lie, it would be misleading and dishonest and fail to serve the public good by creating an impression that doesn’t square with reality? We should be able to agree on that.

Same thing here with the iPhone 4.

Not only is the attenuation issue a minor one, the massive coverage of it is deflecting a far more important truth: the iPhone 4 is the best iPhone ever. By a wide margin. That reviled, heartily criticized antenna picks up and hold signals far better than any iPhone before! The camera is drastically improved, the battery life is better, the processor is faster, and the display is amazing. In short, it’s one of the several best smartphones on the market and the best iPhone Apple has ever shipped!

Not exactly the story the press is spinning, though, is it?

To read the stories and blogs (minus the serious-minded and thorough reviews), you’d think the iPhone 4 wasn’t worthy to prop up the short leg on the dining room table.

What a shame. But, hey, since when does the truth get in the way of journalism nowadays?

Glomming onto Google’s Android disease wagon is not a good idea in the long run. This isn’t 1980, it’s 2010. Google is not Microsoft and Apple 2010 is not the neutered, Jobs-less shell it was in the mid-eighties.

This movie has a very, very different ending.

Issue number one: “free” is not what you think it is. Especially for the average consumer who is simply trying to download a movie app to buy tickets for a show, the grandma who wants to buy a story book for her grandson, or the Dad who wants to check ESPN periodically. “Free” in Google parlance ends up being a landscape rife with Bad Stuff™ that most non-nerds would prefer not to slog through.

The Android Market is rampant with theft, copyright infringement, and malicious apps. Jon Johansen wrote a blog post recently detailing the myriad issues surrounding the Android Market. The thing that makes Jon’s voice significant is his credibility. He has spent his entire professional career trying to bust Apple’s DRM for iTunes. This guy, whatever else he may be, is not an Apple toadie.

Besides, Apple toadie-dom is my job.

Issue number two (tee hee): Hardware makers are about to get hosed. And it’s what you deserve. Back in 1984, it actually took a few years for IBM to lose it’s PC market share to the dirt-cheap cutthroat box assemblers. Samsung, Motorola, Sony…anyone who lines up with Google and Android is going to be out of the mobile hardware business in five years if not sooner. You see, Google has no incentive whatsoever to keep hardware prices stable. In fact, the cheaper handsets are the better it is for Google.

They don’t care about hardware, they don’t even much care about software. They are an advertisement company and the cheaper the phones are, the more ads they can place, the more money they make. The first of the super cheap Android phones are on the way and I can assure you it is merely a harbinger of the tidal wave of crap to come.

So, Google partners, who love that free OS that you never had to worry about developing or updating, take note. If there is one similarity between MS/Apple in the 80s and Google/Apple now it’s this: MS didn’t give a crap about anything except spreading Windows as far and wide as possible and Google feels the same way about Android.

If companies follow Apple’s model and develop their own OS and hardware (it’s no coincidence that industry vets MS and HP are aping the Apple approach and not adopting Android), at least they have a fighting chance. Software-only companies like Google will leave your carcass on the side of the road to rot.

Just ask IBM, Commodore, Atari, Wang, Imsai, MITS…