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.
Apple approves 
Now here is another interesting video game for the Atari 2600, the game Dragon Fire consisted of two game screens, one which you ran across a bridge while fireballs were shot at you, you had to duck or jump over the fireball. This screen was a side-scroller style screen (although it doesn’t actually scroll), at the other end of the bridge was a castle door which you’d enter to get to the next screen.
When you finished collecting all the treasure an exit would pop up in the corner and you had to run to it without being burned by the fireballs, that dragon would turn from left to right nearly instantly too! Then, you’d jump into the exit and be back on the bridge again, but this time it was harder. You could die up to 7 times before the game was over (just to show you how hard it is, they gave you a bunch of lives).
You know why I hate Windows sometimes? Because it decides to do a reboot and a system update while I’m in the middle of writing a comment on a podcast episode…
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. I will keep it brief because I don’t feel like writing an elaborate post again after what just happened.
1. I got the T-shirt, thanks a lot! It fits perfectly and the cotton quality is excellent. Great gift.
2. X-bone launch date. It will not launch in Poland and some of the neighboring countries so it makes me care even less about the console that I did previously. Because of the limited launch range, the date hase everything to do with Black Friday and nothing to do with the PS4 double release date. We sort of have some sales like this before Christmas and people do get trampled over in stores but still it’s not as crazy as over there. Thankfully, there’s always Amazon and Cyber Monday so I’m going to stock up on stuff then. Also, we didn’t have labor weekend or anything like that last week 😉
3. PS4 controllers. Do they mean 4 Dualshock 4s or 4 controller of any kind? Maybe it’s the former which would mean that the console will support more RockBand or Buzz controllers? That would make little sense, though. Still, I don’t care that much. The last time I played couch co-op was maybe two years ago when I played NHL 3-on-3 Arcade with two of my friends. Other than that, I don’t remember what else I played. I use my second controller while the other one is charging and that’s it.
For move games you usually don’t have enough space in the room to fit 3 or 4 people playing so it’s 2 people time 2 controllers = 4 total and that’s enough.
4. External hard drives. This is unclear to me. Do they mean media storage as well, i.e. movies and music on an external hard drive? This wouldn’t make sense, again. It shouldn’t be that hard to support an external USB drive in the OS so maybe they do mean games and game data.
500 GB is not that much if you count all the games you download with PS+. I own a 120 GB PS3 and I need to cycle my games constantly, which is not convenient. I’m getting a 1 TB disk soon and I wanted to put it in the PS4 and move the 500 GB into the PS3. I’m not sure the warranty is void if you do it, to be honest, since Sony encourages the disks to be exchanged (see, the 12 GB Flash iteration of the PS3)
5. FF XIV – I believe the only reason they’re continuing to realease new games is to learn the Roman numerals…
6. QOTW – If it ain’t broke, I’m not getting a new one – that’s my way of thinking. And since I’ve never had a console break, I’ve never exchanged one. To be fair, I only owned an NES, a PS3 and a Vita (I’m not counting some old, old TV consoles that played Pong…), so my experience is limited. Maybe it will change with the PS4 which I will get at launch. The chances that it will last for 6-8 years are slim, I guess but hopefully I’m wrong.
7. @Jordan – have you played Killzone: Mercenary on your Vita? That’s a AAA exclusive you’ve been waiting for. I’m not a huge FPS fan and I’m not that good at them, especially online, but I really like this game and it plays extremely well on the handheld.
8. I’m going off the grid for over a week so I will miss the next episode. You will probably talk about the new Vita model. Have you noticed that the mysterious connector has disappeared from it? The one next to the game slot on top of the device? Any ideas what that was supposed to do anyway? 🙂