Episode 416: Blowing Winds

Unfortunately, we had to skip a week despite recording a good podcast thanks to technical difficulties – don’t worry, we’ll air it at some point in the near future. It was a good episode. This episode had its own issues, as Jonah was unable to record the podcast at home, so he was outside in the New York City night air podcasting with TJ and Scott.

This week’s news includes:

  • Microsoft cancels Fable Legends, closes Press Play Studios, considers shuttering Lionhead Studios UK
  • Report: SpinTires developer sabotaged his own game
  • 10 months later, MAME finishes its transition to open source
  • Valve announces The Lab, a compilation of free VR “experiments”

Let us know what you think.

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Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360

Yoichi Wada of Square Enix has let the cat out of the bag. The cat is Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 and it will be simultaneously released with the PlayStation 3 version. This may be an end to an exclusive era for Sony as all their big brands jump to non-exclusion.

This is probably a result of gamers slow adoption of the PlayStation 3 hardware for various issues, one being cost. Personally I think Sony’s move to say “no price cut” in our near future is a grand mistake. It is well understood that they want profitability over quantity but you’re losing your exclusives to a broader audience.

Each generation of consoles brings new industry trends and, for now, exclusive games from third party developers is too risky when you look at overall cost to produce a block buster title like Final Fantasy XIII. Consider the sales of GTA IV, although they were in the millions, imagine how low it would have been if they only released on the PS3. They’d might have actually lost money on the game.

Square Enix can see the writing on the wall, that writing says “ship on as many mediums as possible.” Gamers are split between consoles with a huge segment on Wii and Xbox 360, if you can at least ship on one of those consoles along with the PS3 you’ll do better financially.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

Guitar Hero: On Tour – 300K Units SoldGuitar Hero: On Tour – 300K Units Sold

The little DS title Guitar Hero: On Tour arrived with a hand-held attachment for playing guitar on the go. Some reviewers found it cramped, annoying and too damn small to really feel any comfort. Other reviews found it exciting, fresh and a break from standard DS games.

Reviews aside, 300,000 people are willing to bet money that the DS title was going to rock the house. The concept hit the mark for the DS because the game system is for on the go “touch and feel” style games; Guitar Hero: On Tour is definitely a touch and feel game.

Although we’ve not played it, we’re not too surprised that 300k people purchased the title, considering the install base for the Nintendo DS device itself. With such a large install base, even if only 25% of the target audience buys into the product they’ll be rolling in the dough.

Will this inspire a Rock Band style ‘drum game’ for the future from the Activision competitors or was this nothing but a fluke?

(Thanks, GameSpot)