It took films about twenty years to do away with silent films.  It's taken the gaming world the same amount of time but not everyone is complying. 

Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion flatout embarrassing the rest of the market who choose to give text.  Dialogue is more effective to the senses when spoken, and the silent games will soon be extinct.  In fact they already should be.  After I played Resident Evil 2 in 1997, I was awestruck by the spoken dialogue and so enthused by the then "next gen" era of gaming.  Unfortunately, I've been severely disappointed by reluctance of developers to use full audio speech.  I was so disappointed the very next year, when Ocarina of Time had a bunch of old-fashioned dialogue boxes.  Then not one, not two, but three more Zelda games came with their mouths duck-taped shut.  Come on Nintendo, you can't look AND sound out of date. 

But Nintendo is not the only culprit.  Another recent embarrassment was Final Fantasy XII.  Going back and forth from talking cutscenes to silent textboxes can not possibly take you out of the game more.  The same goes for Dead Rising, Okami.....hell - you all know who you are! 

Having text boxes may be endearing for the beginning days, but its simply out of place and out of touch with today.  Just imagine how tacky they'll seem when every game has full audio; sadly they were already tacky at the turn of the century. 

So please, we have three brand new consoles, let us turn up the sound!