This week is another short one as the news is pretty light. However, there is another Gaming History as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is examined.
This week’s news includes:
The Question of the Week: “What is your favorite giant monster?”
Gamers around the world are going to feel the pain in the 2009 holiday season after the economy shakes apart many great development studios. Electronic Arts feels the pain of being a public company as their investors complain about lackluster revenue, THQ deals with closing studios to extend their runway and other firms will lose more headcount in the coming months.
It’s not all bad. But, it’s going to get ugly before it gets better.
The financial market has played tricks on everyone in our global economy and companies across all industries are going to feel a bit of a tightening around the belt. Investors are shaken and doing their best to protect their investments and cutting loose those that aren’t projecting profits in the near future. Game studios are going to slow their financial burn rates, trim a bit of the fat and hunker down the long term. The end result, next years holiday season will have a few less games because those games are being dropped to the floor now.
Mid-sized studios within larger firms may find their projects canceled or put on hold and their employees re-structured or let go while big studios assess what projects will make the long haul. This is the ugly side of the business, having to make a decision on what games stay and what games go with the grief of having to tell some of your best talent “goodbye.”
The bad part of the industry is occurring today, with publishers posting mediocre profits and trying to convince their investors to be patient and trust they’ve got a firm hold on their destiny. The game industry is not alone in this, many firms are reducing head count and many startups are finding themselves without series A or B funding; they’re closing their doors because the money is being directed to more stable ventures.
What’s the good in all of this?
Look, we’re back, and as promised, the new podcast is now up and recorded on the final day of E3 in Devolver Digital’s off-site space. Jonah and T.J. hang out near the Fable Fortune booth as they discuss the games they scoped out on the show floor. If T.J. seems a lot more chill than usual, keep in mind he’s enjoyed a few beers by then.
Next week will see Scott joining in with his impressions of the conference from afar.
This week is a short podcast, since there’s no Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but there was some important news in the past few days that caught our eyes. We’re also giving away a free copy of Duke Nukem Forever for the Xbox 360.
The news items include:
How can you win a copy of Duke Nukem Forever for the Xbox 360? Answer the Question of the Week, What kind of food and drink to you eat while gaming? US residents eligible only.
Hello guys.
(First of all: i am not a native english speaker, so please excuse me, if some sentences sound horrible 😀 )
I really enjoy every episode of your stream. Thank you for your time doing such a nice podcast!
In the latest episode you asked the listener to comment about Ono mentioned, that there will be no pay to win in Street Fighter 5. I am a huge Fan of Street Fighter (since i played it the first time on the SNES (i think it´s called super favicon in th US 😉 )). Regarding SF4 (and all the updates: super, ultra and so on). there is NO opportunity to pay to win. The only thing you can buy, are other costumes and stuff like that. All balancing is for free, which means, you can’t buy an updated version of a character to make it stronger. If you have a newer version of the game (for example the lastest one: ultra street fighter 4) you are only able to use the new characters against other people who got the latest version. But you have the opportunity to select an older version of the game, before you look online for opponents. This means a person who has NOT the newest version of the game, and with this, neither the new characters is NOT able to play against another player with a new version. He is only able to play against other players with the same version of the game. so it is NOT able to pay to win … except you feel like a winner, when your char has another costume 😉
Belonging to your question of the week, my favourite “monster” is not a real monster … it´s only a giant turtle: Groß-A’Tuin. I don’t exactly, if it has the same name in the english version, but this is the giant turtle from Discworld, on which back are standing the four giants, which carry the disc world 🙂 I really like big giant things .. such as this out of the world turtle … it´s so smooth and gentle 🙂
I have two question for you: is there any possibility to get older episodes than the ones in itunes-podcast?
second one: do you have experience in upscaling devices, so i can play my old consoles (like NES and Master System) on a new Plasma tv? A friend told me about this site: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de … but i hope you may have some experience already and could share them with me 🙂
Thanks again for your great work, and please keep on doing this podcast.
If you ever want to visit germany, maybe to join the games con or just for fun, contact me … i can help you around in germany and you can stay at my place 🙂
So long, greetings
Ralf