This week’s episode is kind of short because there’s really nothing big to discuss. There is news, however, which includes:
Let us know what you think.
Rhythm games are the new FPS for a lot of gamers, a broader audience of gamers, and the market is thriving and demanding new titles. Harmonix and Activision are at the front of the battle with Konami following a bit behind but still contending (we think) very soon.
Each company plans to up each other with cooler instruments, tighter controls and new in-game options and multi-player fancies. It’s a business and each competitor tries to gain a lead by whatever means needed to win… or do they?
Harmonix stops short when it comes to purchasing exclusive rights to music artists, for now at least. Harmonix’s Eric Brosious went on blogger record saying, “We prefer not to sign exclusive deals with artists because while it seems like the competitive “business” thing to do, in the long run, it’s really not good for anyone. We think we should be working to get more music out to more people.” (kotaku)
As Marky Mark once said, we need “Music for the people” not for in-game exclusives making us choose between Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles. We’ve seen what EA has done to the football franchise by taking control of the NFL roster, money talks and the best game doesn’t always win.
If Activision decides to buy up a ton of great exclusive content and you’re a rock band gamer, you’ll lose out in a ton of great content. For some gamers, that might mean losing out in some artists you’ve never heard before which also means the artist loses out in new fans. We’ve seen younger gamers fall in love with the sounds of Boston and The Police, bands famous way before the birth of many of the Rock Band fan base.
You can tell Harmonix is a development group with roots in music while Activision is a development group with their roots in business. While exclusive access brings you an advantage, in terms of broadening the culture of music, it does very little. Harmonix may be in the right but will that matter in the end when business deals hit the table?
p.s. sorry about the Marky Mark reference, but it had to be done. Bringing out a bit of my own childhood there…
The famous Michael Pachter, industry analyst has been drawing some strong connections between Xbox 360 gamers and the Netflix subscriber base since 360 launched their Netflix addition. Our family has seen the same thing, we signed up for Netflix a few days after it arrived on the Xbox 360 firmware launch.
Oddly enough, we’ve not used the Netflix addition to the Xbox 360 much after subscribing for Netflix. We’ve utilized the DVD shipment feature and we’re using the Tivo version of Netflix for the living room. Although we’ve found the Xbox 360 Netflix version is much more user friendly and fast.
“Pachter estimates that roughly one million Xbox Live Gold members are also Netflix subscribers, and that 200,000 or so of them signed up for Netflix after the debut of the New Xbox Experience in late November, 2008.” (joystiq)
Prachter believes 35% of all new Xbox 360 purchasers will sign up for an Xbox Live Gold account. He expects “as many as 1 million [XBL Gold members] join as Netflix members in the next year.” We’re fairly certain the Netflix and Microsoft Xbox 360 partnership was a well thought out plan to expand their domination in the industry.
Of course, as we’ve seen, Netflix didn’t just stop at Xbox 360, their Tivo solution is another great way to leverage your downloadable video content. Now, we just have to hope we don’t blow through the 250GB cap Comcast supposedly contains.
Jordan’s back, as the four of us discuss topics like the fact No Man’s Sky has reached a Very Positive rating on Steam, Russian disinformation is trying to spark a boycott of Stalker 2 by claiming it’s going to draft you into the war in Ukraine somehow, a new Pokémon project in the works with Wallace and Gromit maker Aardman and Sony confirms interest in buying FromSoftware.
In other news:
Let us know what you think.
The post Episode 739: Jordan’s Back first appeared on Gaming Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
