Episode 345: Old in the Valley

This week’s Jonah discusses an article about ageism in Silicon Valley, while Paul complains about an achievement ruining a casual game he’d spent $200 on. This week’s Gaming Flashback is Dance Dance Revolution.

The news includes:

  • Facebook acquiring Oculus for $2 billion
  • Valve’s Portal coming as Tegra 4 Android App to Nvidia Shield
  • Xbox One may allow loaning of digital games
  • Nintendo, Sony won’t attend PAX East

All this and a little Listener Feedback, with the Question of the Week being “Do you subscribe to videogame magazines now?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 345: Old in the Valley”

  1. Hi guys great episode!

    I found Infamous to be a pretty easy game, if they make the third even more so just seems sad. Not a lot of games seem to be as difficult as the old 8-bit games. I do like the paper trail feature Jordan talked about and I know Rockstar has a similar thing though not quite as cool as unlocking more missions through using the website, you can still track your progress of various games on the site.
    Hearing Paul spending 200 on in game purchases on a FB game just makes me sad. I know it’s his choice on how to spend his money but a lot of FB games really seem to encourage you to spend real money to get fake in game money just to speed things up and make the game enjoyable. The Foxtrot comic Jonah brought up is a good example of why I don’t like those games. I feel like it’s lazy game making and undeserving of my money. I know they got to make money to pay their bills but I don’t like what they are selling. I guess though if there is a demand for these type of games who am I to judge? I’ll stop beating the dead horse now.
    @Occulus bought by FB: When I first heard the news I was like “Why?” I wasn’t the only one scratching my head at this. I really didn’t want to think of Virtual Farmville. I do like the idea though of remote classroom, though I know we already have video chat for that sort of thing. Is anyone going to really want to wear this thing on their head? It’s like a fancier virtual boy.

    QOTW: I subscribe to Gameinformer, which can be read online now. It does seem like it’s less and less necessary now though given how easy it is to hear about gaming news.

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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.

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The format for displaying their facts, figures and sales numbers was well played. Nobody wants to sit in front of a chart and listen to an executive blab on about what they did and where they’re going. But, when you add some Little Big Planet flair, such as having the graphs built within their game engine and Sack Boy hopping around on the statistics things smooth over well.

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By focusing on the full suite of products they’ve put their eggs into many baskets rather than rely on their bleeding edge flagship product which still needs time to grow.

Well done Sony.