Gaming Podcast 219: ColecoVision Rules

Paul crows about Nintendo’s dominance over the ColecoVision and Dreamcast, while Jonah and Jordan reminisce about this week’s Gaming Flashback, Electronic Arts’ Barnstorming for the Atari 2600.

The news also includes the following topics:

  • Duke Nukem Forever review fiasco
  • Harrison: Apple will be the games industry in 10 years
  • Tretton: No need for PS4, PS3 now hitting its stride
  • Slimmer PS3 coming?

This week’s Gaming History looks at the husband-and-wife developing team Freefall Associates, while the Question of the Week is: How much weight do you give the score of a review? Let us know what you think.

0 thoughts on “Gaming Podcast 219: ColecoVision Rules”

  1. @Duke Nukem Forever review fiasco:
    This one is almost ‘no comment’. The nasty side is what Jordan said (except foe Jonah I can’t yet distinguish your voices, sorry if I mix you up): they don’t mind blacklisting, they just don’t want it to be public.

    @ Apple will be the games industry in 10 years:
    You can even devise a control scheme for touch based interfaces, but!
    Just like console controllers, a mouse and keyboard using player will best one using a console controller, in competitive gaming.

    Jonah, I’m with you on the real books vs. kindle. Don’t get me wrong guys, that’s a device that I like, but it doesn’t hold a kandle 😛 to a real book.

    @ No need for PS4, PS3 now hitting its stride:
    Erm, hello, PS3 is hacked? Piracy will be as rampant on PS3 as is on PC? PS3 might become a very unattractive platform to develop for? (hard to code for it and with it’s DRM system exposed for all to pirate your product).

    😀 Jonah, thanks for pointing out misspellings, it’s useful to me.

    @Question of the Week:
    I do care what it says in the review. I do want to read if a certain aspect is flawed: perhaps it is a feature that interests me, and in that case I’ll skip the game.
    As for the score versus the entire contents, well, it actually depends on the value of the score.
    If it’s below 5, then I don’t even bother to read the review. The score weights 100%.
    If it’s up until 7, the score weights 50%. Above 7, it’s really up to the contents of the review, not the score: weight drops to almost 0%.

  2. Just to let you know that things in Australia aren’t that bad. If one looks around abit you can get a good deal on games even if they are brand new. Granted prices have been $110 for some games but with some skill you can get it imported from the UK with shipping for nearly half the price. I havn’t brought a game from a major Australian retailer for some time now. Feel sorry for those who do ouch.

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EA Feels The 310 Million Dollar DaggerEA Feels The 310 Million Dollar Dagger

Halloween is a scary time of year, no less when you’re posting a $310 million net loss. EA CEO John Riccitiello sees “weakness” at retail in October and we’re betting this isn’t the end of the road of sorrow for game publishers around the globe.

Electronic Arts isn’t unfamiliar with bad times and we’re sure to see them make constant adjustments to their headcount, game releases and press as the economy goes into a bit of a slump. Although the game industry won’t see as big a hit as the financial market, everyone is going to watch their spending during slower economic times.

That slowness is a red flag for the mega-publisher, which says it’s “proactively making cost adjustments now.” One of those adjustments is the axing of some 600 EA employees across the globe. (Kotaku)

Last year Electronic Arts lost a “small” $195 million during the same time, not exactly a gold star on the financial records but it sure looks better than this loss. A few games may crumble under the economic pressures, Tiberium for example, but let us not forget the good times! EA posted some nice figures for Spore, Madden NFL 09, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

So, they mixed a few sequels with a few new franchise hits and gave gamers some pretty hot titles for the year. Of course, hot titles in our hand do not always translate to positive revenue in theirs.

Electronic Arts Issues 1,000 Pink SlipsElectronic Arts Issues 1,000 Pink Slips

Electronic Arts is planning to lay off 1,000 employees, approximately 10% of their employees. In this layoff their also consolidating EA Black Box back into EA Canada. EA Black Box was spun off as a studio outside of EA Canada to work on such titles as Need for Speed but, with the layoffs arriving, they’re going to be merging the remainder of EA Black Box into EA Canada by June 2009. The remaining EA Black Box employees will continue working on Skate 2.

The pink slips should be issued by March 31, 2009 and we’re hoping the folks that have lost their jobs will find new jobs as soon as possible. An Electronic Arts representative said:

“This does not mean that the Black Box studio is closing. The studio is moving to our Burnaby campus to share the facility with EAC and other EA teams that operate out of our state-of-the-art facility. We will operate two distinct studios, each with their own distinct culture and teams, out of our Burnaby facility.” (gamespot)

EA hasn’t mentioned any specific franchise cancellation but we’re going to assume something is going to slip, it’s hard to imagine a company can lose 1,000 employees without impacting business operations. If EA was able to layoff 1,000 people without impacting day-to-day business, then they’re definitely hurting in the management department because that would be a ton of waste.

Big companies may cut costs during hard times but they said they’re, “implementing a plan to narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities. The company remains committed to taking creative risks, investing in new games, leading the industry in the growing mobile and online businesses, and delivering high-quality games to consumers.”

We’re curious just how much EA is willing to risk on “creative” endevours considering publishers are already hesitant to break new ground. The next few years should yield great opportunities for smaller developers to put on their creative hat and open new doors and opportunities for themselves.