Episode 539: Two Plus Hours

The previous week’s episode had too many technical issues to post, so this week’s episode overcompensates by being over two hours long. The Gaming Flashback this week is none other than 2009’s Minecraft, which is still going strong well into 2019.

This week’s news includes:

  • Microsoft explains Xbox Game Pass for PC, selling games on Steam (from GameWatcher)
  • The Avengers game is being revealed at E3 2019
  • Super Mario Maker 2‘s lack of costumes and online matchmaking with friends upsets fans
  • Wolfenstein: Youngblood to feature ray-tracing technology

All this and Listener Feedback.

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Episode 320: Like This Like ThatEpisode 320: Like This Like That

The posting of Monday’s podcast has been delayed a day, sorry about that. This week is fairly long, and the Gaming History gets into the venerable Sega Dreamcast, which still has some developers making new games for it.

Otherwise, this week’s news items include:

  • Assassin’s Creed series will have end, assures Ubisoft
  • EverQuest Next gameplay revealed, accepting beta registration
  • Blizzard confirms Project Titan overhaul, “unlikely to be subscription-based”
  • EA claims freedom of speech in NCAA lawsuit appeal, court rejects it
  • Region-based factions will be in The Crew

This week’s Question of the Week: “What makes you decide to preorder a game or console?”

Episode 767: The Big 6-0-0Episode 767: The Big 6-0-0

The news includes: Firaxis announces, “Today, we confirmed we’re testing dramatic changes to Legacy Paths, and continuous play as one Civ through all the Ages”, Baldur’s Gate 3 is about to become an Xbox Play Anywhere game. Jonah and T.J. have a long discussion of the games they’re playing.

This week features a Gaming Flashback: Master of Orion II

The rest of the news includes:

  • Nintendo’s Palworld lawsuit suffers a big blow
  • Another Battle Royale game is shutting down for good

Let us know what you think.

Xbox 360 Silver Accounts, Free XBL Cross-Platform GamingXbox 360 Silver Accounts, Free XBL Cross-Platform Gaming

Microsoft has announced they’ll be giving Xbox Live silver accounts access to play some multi-player cross-platform games for free until the fall update. Recently, Microsoft announced free online play with Games for Windows titles, effectively giving PC gamers “gold accounts” to play online.

Most people agree the move to give gold subscriptions to PC gamers was done because PC gamers don’t care to play Games for Windows games online if they have to pay for it. The culture of PC gaming is much different than console gaming on XBL, gamers expect the online experience at no cost; they’re already paying an ISP for network access, paying for a match-making system with a yearly subscription is not desired.

Console gamers don’t have a choice, buying the 360 experience arrives with simple to play games (no drivers, no installs) but limited online choices: pay or go away. Now, silver members will get a little taste of network play, along side PC gamers in the cross-platform Games for Windows titles.

“Supported cross-platform titles include Universe at War, Shadowrun, and Lost Planet: Colonies Edition.” (gamespot)

We question the intention here… is this as a good faith move or are they wetting people’s appitite for XBL so they’ll want to upgrade to gold in the fall? Or, maybe there are some logistical reasons to doing this in the Xbox Live infrastructure to prepare for upgrades where making it free solves a few of their internal upgrade paths and, as a side effect, gives gamers some games to play.

Of course, we’ve seen few people playing Shadowrun or Lost Planet lately. Maybe this will re-popularize a few older titles as well.