Episode 516: More Telltale News

The massacre continues at Telltale Games, and the crew discuss the ramifications in this episode. TJ complains about the new Skype incoming call music, and the Gaming Flashback this week is the short-lived 2008 reboot of Prince of Persia. There’s also a new Gaming History, discussing an infamous incident in World of Warcraft back in 2005.

This week’s news includes:

  • Telltale Games has seemingly laid off its remaining staff
  • Nintendo to launch updated Switch next year
  • Overcooked! 2 gets Sunny Island DLC available now

All this and Listener Feedback. Let us know what you think of the Telltale closure.

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Michael Pachter Says Wii HD Will LaunchMichael Pachter Says Wii HD Will Launch

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter is “absolutely convinced” we’ll see a Nintendo Wii HD by 2011. What makes him so sure? In short, Nintendo will start to look bad if their console is said to be “for your mom” instead of for gamers.

What they’ve done, so far, is show the industry there is more market than just hardcore gamers. They’ve also convinced many of us that only hardcore gamers actually buy games. Nintendo says they’re selling games, we’ve just not seen any real evidence of that outside of their own first party titles.

“Nintendo has to overcome that [lack of graphics power],” said Pachter. “A Wii HD would really position Nintendo well, which is why I’m absolutely convinced there is a Wii HD coming. Businesswise, they can’t have people saying that their machine is a toy for my mom.” (gamedaily)

Nintendo obviously doesn’t to be the focus of a “your mom” joke outside of being able to boast huge sales figures. Selling the console into homes has definitely raised the awareness of their brand to gamers and non-gamers alike. Now, it seems, Nintendo is going to have to “grow up” and get with the high definition graphics crowd… by 2011.

Would you re-buy a Wii if it was in HD? It’s also important to note Prachter believed Take-Two would become EA and was “convinced” of it. That didn’t happen. Will this?

Small Games Make Big WavesSmall Games Make Big Waves

The game industry is doing “okay” in this bad economic time compared to other industries.  Primarily, Nintendo is rocking the house with their games, hand-held’s and consoles while mobile developers are showing some great successes in the industry. Many success stories in our industry are based on small titles, downloadable games of the more “casual” style while a few larger titles are experiencing slower than expected sales trends.

wiiwareWe’ve mentioned this in the past, but the tough economy gives many smaller developers great opportunities for success. While big publishers struggle to look good in the eyes of the investor, tiny developers can produce quality titles for minimal cash investment and time to market. Ten years ago, smaller developers tried to compete with the big boys making larger titles, cloning successful titles or simply asking investors to put it on the line for their game. Today, developers can create a small iphone app, a cute WiiWare title or exploit the XNA efforts of Microsoft for Xbox Live Arcade and actually have a chance.

There are still challenges with these smaller developers when working in the WiiWare and XBLA publishing channels, your game marketing and promotion becomes highly reliant on Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony for PSN. Tom Prata, senior director of Nintendo of America talked to Gamespot about this issue:

“Finally, there’s the problem of promotion. It’s not enough to make a great game if nobody notices it. Prata specifically said Nintendo will be devoting more resources to support the promotion and development of WiiWare games in the future.” (gamespot)

Of course, in the world of smaller game titles and downloadable casual games, you’re going to be at risk of finding a lot of “shovelware” — products that are only released to make a quick dime, often based on some license or popular theme/character. The great game titles will, hopefully, rise to the top and show themselves off amongst all the wanna-be money makers.

Those smaller developers putting a huge passion into their titles actually have a chance in this new industry trend. Game makers, internationally, now have a chance to grasp a small piece of the industry and make their dreams come true. The core audience may see this as a trend of noisly low quality titles, but I believe the industry needs this change to grow a new generation of developers based on niche interests.

While many can wait for their next release of Madden the rest of us will continue to spend a little money to see what the future innovators are going to be bringing to the table.

Episode 251: The New Crew ReturnsEpisode 251: The New Crew Returns

After last week’s special appearance by Derrick and Jennifer Schommer along with Don Dunn, the regular crew of Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Paul S. Nowak return, and they find themselves with some fascinating news items.

The news items include:

  • Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard
  • Sony passed on Demon’s Souls because it was “crap
  • Sony credit rating downgraded, “strong recovery in earnings unlikely”
  • Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game
  • Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime

Paul is also running a contest to earn “Pixie Diamonds” currency for Disney’s Pixie Hollow social networking MMO, with the prize going to the person who can answer, “Who is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?”