Episode 323: What Is Nintendo Thinking?

Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss PAX Prime 2013, then delve into this week’s news, Listener Feedback, and discuss the 1990’s developer Psygnosis.

The news this week includes:

  • Nintendo announces 2DS, Wii U price drop
  • Inafune “fought hard” for risk taking at Capcom, creators must be “willing to fail”
  • Godus beta to hit Steam Early Access on 13th September
  • Diablo III‘s new loot system to “cut the legs out” from the auction house
  • Bethesda wants The Elder Scrolls Online available to non-Xbox Live subscribers

The Question of the Week: “How many times have you purchased a new form factor of a console you already owned?”

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Episode 591: The PS5 Is HotEpisode 591: The PS5 Is Hot

This week’s episode has only two official news items, but there’s a lot to discuss that didn’t quite make the list, including Sony’s controversial plan to update the fan speed on the fly by taking data from consoles already purchased, to the beautiful Ori Collector’s Edition bundle. This week’s Gaming Flashback: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The news includes:

  • Phasmophobia updates will make ghosts smarter and less predictable
  • 2K under fire for adding unskippable in-game ads to the full-price NBA 2K21 a month after release

Let us know what you think.

Episode 669: Quick Pre-PAX ShowEpisode 669: Quick Pre-PAX Show

Jonah’s heading off to cover PAX Unplugged on Thursday morning, so this week’s podcast has been a quick, sub-40 minute show, even with a Gaming Flashback of Infamous 2, a game that former co-host Jordan Lund is probably far more familiar with.

This week’s news includes:

  • Report suggests Microsoft soon to offer concessions in Activision deal
  • Two Point Campus goes boldly into space for brand new expansion
  • Pokemon Scarlet & Violet sells 10 million units in three days
  • Monster Hunter Rise reportedly heading to PlayStation and Xbox in January

Let us know what you think.

End of 100 Million Dollar Games?End of 100 Million Dollar Games?

Gigaom had a great writeup about how Grand Theft Auto IV marks the end of “next generation” as we know it, stating, in more words or less, the game is a failure. GTA: San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies during its time on the shelf while GTA IV has sold roughly 9 million copies as of June 7th.

Granted, the game is still on the shelves and will still get sales, but the mass of “hardcore gamers” have had their fill and either purchased it or will not. The end result? A huge tapering of sales numbers for the graphically impressive game. Take-Two spent USD $100 million to develop the game which had great opening sales records but has gone down drastically since.

Imagine the title gains them USD $30.00 per sale in profit (considering distributors get the game for roughly USD $45 to $48.00 USD), taking into account shipping of the product, marketing and all the materials that go into producing a copy, they’d have to sell a large quanity of game titles to break even, which I think they have done.

Nobody is in this industry to break even. A block buster title should make block buster profits, right? Else, why bother to spend the 100-million when a Wii title can double or triple the profits with six months of development?

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