This week’s episode features more news about the next generation of consoles, while the Gaming Flashback takes a look at the unfairly overlooked arcade racer Blur.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Paul is not in the podcast, and will be out for the next couple of weeks as he recovers from major surgery. In the meantime, the podcast chugs on with three podcasters, as Jordan relays what he thought of the Sony Gamescom 2012 press conference.
In the meantime, the news items include:
All that plus Reader Feedback wishing Paul well (sorry, Kizer, we didn’t moderate your message til after recording), as well as this week’s Question of the Week, “When is the right time to cut the price of a console?”
Circuit City seems to have a problem paying their bills or so it seems, as Sony stopped their shipments mid-transit and returned them before hitting the distributors command center. In this unfavorable market climate, with the holidays around the corner, it seems bad for Circuit City to lose the trust of Sony.
Sony is afraid, “Circuit City couldn’t pay for the shipments” so the merchandise was turned around and returned home. Considering Sony, more than likely, wouldn’t have shipped the products to start with unless Circuit City was in good standing suggests things might have been “learned” after the shipment left the docks.
Circuit City’s been in some bad situations before, having a rough time dealing with competition in a very low margin, high volume, world of electronic retail. I’ve witnessed CompUSA disappear after the local Best Buy moved in and now Best Buy sits about 80 yards from Circuit City.
This is unfortunate because Best Buy can use some competition before they take over the bulk of this industry leaving only Wal*Mart and a few smaller stores to keep them in check. Considering I just purchased a 2-year warranty on my Rock Band 2 drum kit at Circuit City I’m fearing I’ll have to break the hardware sooner than later!
(Thanks, Gizmodo)
Midway’s been around the industry for years, has decided to lay off up to 90 people and cut the Criminal project from their lineup. This is a long term plan of cost reduction by the board of directors to get down costs and keep the company running smoothly.
Their plan seems to be to develop games intelligently, by costing out each project and building what’s needed to make the company profitable without excessive cost. A company always runs best when it’s doing it wisely and looking to reduce overhead, unfortunately a company in a bit of trouble has to let go of employees to get their.
While this was a very difficult decision, we feel it was the right thing to do for the future of Midway,” said Matt Booty, interim CEO and president of Midway Games Inc.. “We view every game as an investment that must meet certain standards for quality, scheduling, and profitability. Midway remains committed to producing the highest quality entertainment, as evidenced by our strong holiday line-up which includes TNA iMPACT!, Blitz: The League II, and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe starring a team of MK characters and some of the most recognizable DC Comics personalities such as Batman, The Joker, and Superman.” (kotaku)
Hopefully this allows them some breathing room to get out of this sticky situation, we hate to see old names go down in history as failed.
