Episode 550: Kowtowing to China

Blizzard finds itself in hot water as it finds itself having to explain its actions in pleasing the Chinese government, in news that’s still hot and doesn’t look like it’s going to cool down anytime soon. It’s enough to overshadow even an official console announcement from Sony. There’s a Gaming Flashback, the embarrassingly bad FMV game Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties.

The news this week includes:

  • Blizzard is facing a boycott after removing a Hearthstone Grandmaster
  • PlayStation 5 launches Holiday 2020
  • Doom Eternal delayed until March 2020, Doom 64 goes multiformat

Let us know what you think.

0 thoughts on “Episode 550: Kowtowing to China”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 491: January BluesEpisode 491: January Blues

Aside from cardboard products by Nintendo, there wasn’t much to talk about this week, thanks to the January slog. However, the guys did play games and there was some news to talk about.

This week’s headlines include:

  • NIS America admits it has no idea when Ys VIII will launch on PC
  • New Fortnite: Battle Royale update available now
  • Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age releases in just a few weeks on PC

All this and Listener Feedback, too.

Episode 570: Fallout: New Vegas ReduxEpisode 570: Fallout: New Vegas Redux

This week’s Gaming Flashback, Fallout: New Vegas, sets the crew on a long discussion of what made New Vegas good and Fallout 4 a failed sequel, and the inherent problems of the mainline Bethesda games as opposed to Obsidian’s take.

This week’s news includes:

  • Nintendo “investigating” reports of accounts being breached
  • Nintendo gearing up for increased Switch production following global shortages
  • COVID-19 lockdowns have led to surges in popularity for survival and sports games
  • Animal Crossing trading is being ruined by absurd trader fees

Let us know if you, too, are obsessing over the latest Animal Crossing.

Xbox 360 Fall Update Too Big For Diskless UsersXbox 360 Fall Update Too Big For Diskless Users

If you’ve got an Xbox 360 arcade edition or an older console without a hard disk, you’ll want to clear up at least 128MB of your flash card before powering on your console after the fall update hits. Wait, you’re flash disk isn’t 128MB in size? Oh oh.

Latest reports are stating that consumers that own a 360 without a hard disk, albeit a small group, will not be able to simply install the fall update as the rest of us because they don’t have enough disk capacity. What is Microsoft doing about that? Microsoft’s Larry Hryb says saying they will be “offering storage solutions” for such customers.

We’re wondering, are they going to actually ship people free hard disks? Perhaps a coupon for a larger flash card? Interesting indeed!

“The new Xbox experience will require 128MB of free space. A hard drive is recommended for the optimal experience, to take advantage of some new features, and to be able to enjoy the great movies, TV shows and games available on Xbox LIVE. While we expect the majority of consumers to download the New Xbox Experience without a problem, a small percentage of Xbox 360 owners do not have enough memory to accommodate the update. To help ensure all Xbox LIVE members are able to download the New Xbox Experience and enjoy its new features, Microsoft will be offering storage solutions to the Xbox LIVE community. We are not sharing details of this offering yet. Be sure to check xbox.com for more details in the coming weeks.” (1up)

It was really only a matter of time before the Xbox 360 out grew the fact that they allow consumers to roll with a diskless console. No other console limits you by having both a disk and diskless option; we know why they did it, but now it would seem their having some growing pains.

No doubt, the next Xbox 360 console will come complete with hard disk! Hopefully you were wise and got the bigger console complete with disk.