Episode 236: Now With Pandas

This week, Paul is not around, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss the latest news, which includes pandas. Lots and lots of pandas. That, and a Gaming History profile on David Crane.

The news this week includes:

  • World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced
  • Sony: April PSN outage has resulted in improved service
  • Deep Silver: “There is a clear technology gap
  • Starcraft II DOTA mod will remain free but monetized
  • “Literally, there’s three of us” on console Diablo III
  • Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name

With that is Reader Mail and the Queston of the Week: What was your favorite Atari 2600 game?

0 thoughts on “Episode 236: Now With Pandas”

  1. @World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced
    Well, they keep doing expansions, but something tells me people got tired of it.
    As for raising the level cap, it is the only way you can keep the players that don’t want to grind up again.

    @Deep Silver: “There is a clear technology gap“
    Wow … they discovered that a 4GB system RAM, 1GB video RAM PC is better than a 256 MB system 256 MB video PS3 …
    As Jordan said, the main issue is that developing 3 code bases is expensive. The advantage of the XBox is using PC-like components, and using a PC-like software platform.

    @Starcraft II DOTA mod will remain free but monetized
    What are the terms in the EULA? Does Starcraft II allows this?
    If so, then it is the second game that I know of that does this (TF2 being the first), and I like the trend it sets.

    @Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name
    Good for them. If they kept a record of the offer to give up the trade mark, then this will weigh in quite a lot in the court: it’ll point out that Bethesda is not up to protecting the name.

    @QOTW: none, unfortunately.

  2. No Paul again. =(

    Anyway,
    @Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name:
    Finally, I was sick and tired of hearing about this nonsense, and I am grateful that Bethesda hasn’t gained anything from his.

    @QOTW: Just to show how much out of my time that is, my parents had an Atari 2600 back when they were still children.

  3. ahhhh i really miss derrick and jennifer i wish they could host ,btw any news on their son???
    @ minecraft dev wins interium injunction over scrolls name ,Hooray good for mojang im so sick of bethesda being so freaking sensitive
    @qotw dude im 13 years old the atari is a dinosaur
    Paul is gone again a mixture of sadness and happiness but mostly happines ,jk

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The PlayStation 3 is the slow seller in the United States but Sony still holds belief in their “10 year plan.” Many of us consider this to be the same style of plan Sony used with the PS2, sell your console through multiple generations and own the market share. The PS2‘s launch was much more graceful when compared to its 7th generation counterpart. Perhaps the PS3 has a different destiny… perhaps they want to remove all other media boxes from your living room.

Imagine a life without a cable box or Tivo and you’re probably envisioning Sony’s road map for a media distribution empire. First, remove Tivo from the situation with a DVR style box using their PlayTV technologies, wired up to the PlayStation 3 using a USB connection. The United States hasn’t seen a launch of PlayTV, more than likely because the PS3 isn’t a huge console here yet and Tivo is partnered with many cable and satellite providers already.

Senior director of the PlayStation Network, Susan Panico said Sony “looks aspirationally at HBO, the way they have Sex and the City and other shows” (gamespot) after admitting Sony wants to replace cable boxes in the home. Tivo has already done a great job removing the need for a cable box, allowing you to rent a “cable card” to insert into a Tivo and gain access to all their content for your DVR needs. DirectTV offers (or has in the past) a Tivo or Tivo-like DVR solution. Cable and DirectTV offer the ability to rent their DVR or offer a solution to purchase your own at a retail outlet What if Sony decides to partner with one or more of these providers to offer an all-in-one solution. PS3 owners wouldn’t have to purchase additional equipment and could be up and running immediately with hard disks big enough to handle HD content.

Sony could offer you a graphically appealing gaming experience, a high definition BluRay solution, media distribution for renting movies, an iTunes style online store for purchasing and playing music all wrapped up in a DVR solution. All this content for a $400 price tag is a value when all the offers are combined into one tiny black box.

Looking at today’s Tivo Series3 HD DVR you’ll notice the ability to play music directly from iTunes, browse and play Youtube shows, watch Disney offerings and even high definition NetFlix playback. The Tivo DVR’s can also talk with other DVR’s in the household making it easy to share TV records across systems. The only thing missing in the Tivo solution is a high definition gaming platform and the BluRay hardware.

We’re all sitting here poking fun at the small PS3 game library and telling people that BluRay is going to lose out to HD downloads yet we may be missing the bigger picture: an all-in-one media empire solution. The PS3 may not carry the largest game library compared to the Xbox 360 or the sales records of the Wii but if Sony finds a way to become a reliable and required media set top box they may realize their true “10 year plan.”

Gaming Flashback: MystGaming Flashback: Myst

Myst was published by Brøderbund Software, developed by Cyan Worlds and created by two brothers that did the design and directed the game (it was, much like a movie).

The original game was released on the Macintosh (in 1993) and then later ported to Microsoft Windows and Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Jaguar CD, AmigaOS, CD-i, 3DO, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS.

Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses an enchanted book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other special books written by an artisan and explorer named Atrus to travel to several worlds known as “Ages”. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game’s characters. The game has several endings, depending on the course of action the player takes.” (wikipedia)

The game was a success, no doubt, and was considered the best selling PC game of all time until TheSims dethroned it. Besides mind blowing graphics, at the time, Myst helped move the game and PC industry along by selling CDROM’s. The game required a CDROM, which was rare at the time, and I recall them bundling Myst with some CDROMS or hyping it as “you need a CDROM so you can play Myst.” On more than one occasion when a person game to me asking what they should get to show off their new (costly) CDROM I would say “you need to try Myst.”

The gameplay of Myst consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. The player moves the character by clicking on locations shown in the main display; the scene then crossfades into another frame, and the player can continue to explore. Players can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them(wikipedia)

Franchise sales: 12-million copies (first Myst game alone in the franchise, 6-million), pretty impressive eh?

You don’t have to be a huge Myst fan to know how it changed the industry, grew the medium of CD-based games and entertained millions. A real gamers thinking game!

To hear our full impression of Myst, checkout the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 77.