Episode 287: Dead Cats

This week’s Gaming Podcast is chock full of news and reader feedback. Rather than do a Gaming Flashback, a conversation about the middling sales of the PlayStation Vita is discussed, while Paul is anxiously looking for a black Wii U so he can play Epic Mickey 2. We also hand out the indie game prizes to our two winners.

This week’s news includes:

  • Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal, biggest crowd fundraiser ever
  • Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
  • Spector: Epic Mickey 2 takes “choice and consequence to new levels

This week’s Question of the Week: What was the best game you ever played that cost less than $5?

In addition, this is the two days of Kickstarter funding. Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.

0 thoughts on “Episode 287: Dead Cats”

  1. @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed:
    “I didn’t ask for this” – Deus Ex guy (sue me, i forgot the guy’s name)
    “But i’ll take it… gladly” – Me

    @QOTW:
    I have a list…
    Cthulhu Saves the world (epic fun awesome RPG)
    Terraria (bought for 2.50)
    Space Pirates and Zombies (2.50 as well – all hail Ganben)
    I could go on, but these are the high awesomeness ones!

  2. Have not yet listened to the podcast, but I thank you very much for the games. Made my crappy day a lot better =D.

  3. Jordan, glad to hear about the job.

    @Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal
    Jonah, good point on stretch goals. If I ever ever come up with a project that requires funding, and if I put it on Kickstarter, it’ll have all the requirements mentioned, no stretch goals.

    @Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
    Ah, EA’s way of pushing Origin … just kidding!
    Still, gotta hand it to them the way they do their testing :P. You can test for server outages, bad network conditions, you can test that.
    What can I say, COD lost me at Modern Warfare 2. It became just waay too action movie like. Now, Medal Of Honor, that’s a modern warfare game that I liked!

    @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
    Meh … i liked Mortal Kombat, but that’s pretty much it on games turned into movies.

    @QOTW:
    Ib. Free game, no microtransactions. It went waaay above my expectations, becoming a point of reference for “story and characters beat graphics”.

  4. @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed: Seriously, how many video game movies have been announced and then they run into problems? Just wait until you actually have finished something, and just announce it with a trailer because I’m getting sick of this. Halo, Uncharted, God of War, Castlevania, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock and Gears of War are just a few of the many that will probably never see the light of day.

    @Epic Mickey 2: Seeing as the sequel got pretty much the same reviews as the 1st one which I loved, I will probably end up playing this. Would be pretty excited to play it if I hadn’t like 6 new games which I would like to play.

  5. @Kickstarting the Party

    As fun as Kickstarter sounds, I stay away from it. I am very conservative about how my games are made and frown upon the Rise of Communism in gaming. I still think that Kickstarter is just a passing fad and will eventually wither away.

    @Patchy Black Ops

    Haven’t played multiplayer. Although I own the Xbox 360 version so I should be safe. People expect Xbox games to run well on-line because we pay the Gold Tax and are entitled on it. Maybe PS3 should have had a payed subscription. It’s on-line is a mess compared to Xbox 360. It’s not just Black Ops that runs bad.

    @Deus Ex

    At least it wasn’t Uwe Boll…

    @Taking the Mickey

    Jonah’s right. Epic Mickey 2 is taking a critical beating. It doesn’t matter how many endings you have if your AI partner puts all effort ensuring that you never make it to the end.

    @QOTW

    GunZ Online. I played it back in 2006 before it went freemium. Back then there weren’t that many free on-line games. Especially action games that weren’t MMORPGs. That made GunZ stand out and I sunk a good few life-times into that game. Occasionally I come back there but the smell of nostalgia is not enough to keep me interested for long. Better games to play these days.

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Episode 324: Next-Generation ShowdownEpisode 324: Next-Generation Showdown

This week’s podcast has no Listener Feedback, and is sort of short because of it. However, in addition to the news items that were on script, there was the surprise news of how much Grand Theft Auto V cost to produce.

This week’s news includes:

  • Xbox One gets November 22 launch date
  • Each Xbox One to be sold at a profit
  • PS4 only supports 4 controllers
  • PS4 and Xbox One won’t support external hard drives for now
  • Sony refunds Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn PSN purchases

This week’s Question of the Week asks if you’ve ever gotten a new version of the console you already owned.

Microsoft Says They’ll Win Console WarMicrosoft Says They’ll Win Console War

Apparently the war is in full force and Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is ready to poke the flag in the ground and call it a sure fire victory (in so many words). He said he’s “willing to declare here today that Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PS3” (eurogamer)

They’re either not seeing the Wii as a competitor or are trying to avoid that evil word considering the growth of the tiny little console in the market. After telling the audience the Xbox 360 has already outpaced the PlayStation 3 and Wii he failed to mention the one-year head start the 360 had over its competitors.

There are, of course, bonuses to talking figures when you were first out of the gate. The interesting facts, which won’t present themselves for years now, will be the end unit sales figures for Wii, 360 and PlayStation 3 when all boxes are end-of-life’d. We’re sure to hear each side declare victory when they’ve decided when the war actually ends. In Microsoft’s eyes, the console war will probably end when they release the next-generation box, barring the fact that they should wait at least one year before claiming the title.

You can’t argue with the facts, Xbox 360 is doing very well in the United States (if we ignore Japan). The Nintendo Wii has sold 8.8 million units to the Xbox 360‘s 10.3 million units. How many units did the Xbox 360 have sold around the same time Nintendo boasts 8.8 million? Probably a bit less.

Press can be a great thing when you have numbers to play with and figures to skew. Oddly enough, if some of us are any indication, we’ve purchased multiple Xbox 360’s because of dead systems. Sure, we’re stupid for actually doing it, but those figures will work into the total units sold for the Xbox 360 hardware sales. Imagine, their failing systems may have actually boosted sales figures a bit; probably not statistically significant but funny non-the-less.

We can’t wait to see what type of numbers Sony and Nintendo are going to fling out. If we ask each competitor, we’re sure they’ll say we’re going to win the console war. Nintendo may just ask, “what console war? We just make game hardware” and you can’t fault them there!