TD Gaming Podcast 101: A Case of Hubris

This weeks gaming podcast rains on a lot of parades, talking about the Sony PS3 and its issues in the market, Microsoft’s scratch disk conspiracy and ugly sales figures for some games. This weeks news includes:

This weeks gaming history and flashback cover some religious games. This week we look into the history of Wisdom Tree and Konami’s game Noah’s Ark from 1992. The show is a bit late this week because we were without power from Thursday night until late Monday night, four days without power is humbling.

We’re also asking folks what would be on their holiday wish list if you could have any game or gadget of your dreams. Maybe a hot RPG, or sweet new console, retro-remakes or something entirely different!

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Netflix and Xbox 360 – It’s a DealNetflix and Xbox 360 – It’s a Deal

If you’re a Netflix subscriber and own an Xbox 360 you’ll be able to watch the entire library of Netflix programming on your console. This deal, recently announced at E3, puts Microsoft in a great way in terms of being the console to buy for multi-media entertainment against its Rival Sony.

While the Wii can’t even play a DVD, Sony holds a lot of power of its Music (having its own labels helps) and its ability to play Blu-Ray movies. Microsoft’s HD-DVD player DVD player doesn’t handle high definition movies, although most new consoles have HDMI and all the high definition goodies ready to go.

Again, this won’t cost current Netflix subscribers any additional cost, “and movies and TV shows can be shared with the avatar-based community called Live Party, just announced earlier this morning.” (Kotaku)

This may not inspire you to run out and purchase an Xbox 360 console but it may be a deciding factor when pitting it up against the PlayStation 3 when shopping for a current-generation system.

Will Xbox Live Survive 2008 Holiday Stress?Will Xbox Live Survive 2008 Holiday Stress?

This year many gamers will open new consoles for the holidays and many of those same gamers are going bring their console “live” on Xbox Live the same day. Traditionally we’ve found Xbox Live falls under the weight of the holiday rush much like Apple’s iTunes. Will we repeat history again?

Although a fully loaded Xbox Live service is money in the bank, how much money will Microsoft lose when gamers login for the first time to a service in a state of destruction? People say first impressions are extremely important, but Microsoft makes a poor first impression every holiday. Xbox Live’s Jerry Johnson told Eurogamer:

“I can tell you that when Robbie Bach is on the phone on Christmas Day calling people asking what the hell is going on, and that’s coming down from Steve Ballmer… that’s the kind of attention it got last holiday.

Many things have changed since then, and we realised [sic] the kind of growth trajectory we were on and had to prepare for it.” (Kotaku)

It’s obvious the top executives at Microsoft want to give customers a great first impression and, after a few repeated holiday down times, this year is the chance to change it all. By now, Microsoft should be fully aware of the holiday flash crowd and have a system ready to cover the load.

Plenty of gamers login because their console automatically signs in on startup, but a handful of those gameres will be shopping for Xbox Live Arcade games to see what Microsoft is now offering them and their new console. Many XBLA games the current 360 crowd is bored of will be fresh and new to holiday adopters so it’s very important to keep the system online.

Much like Amazon, sales will decrease when the service is busy or under heavy load. Hopefully Microsoft is ready to make a great first impression to new buyers and give them the option to buy high valued (high markup) electronic downloads.

Xbox 360 Japan Sales Drop, PS3 Sales CrappyXbox 360 Japan Sales Drop, PS3 Sales Crappy

The Xbox 360 saw a huge jump last week with Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai, but has dropped back down to normal sales (about none). Some are saying it’s mainly because of a short supply as the 360 sold out in Japan as a result of Tales of Vesperia.

In other news, the PlayStation 3 still isn’t selling very well, a bit more than the PlayStation 2 but nothing like the PSP. The DS holds the record yet again, no surprise there, but we always though the 360 was losing to the Wii and PS3. Although the Wii isn’t doing bad it’s not at the same crazy sales pace it is here in the United States.

The drop in sales for the 360 was fast, hopefully it was indeed due to out-of-stock issues, else that drop was faster than the drops we’ve seen here for GTA IV or MGS4!

(Thanks, Kotaku)