This week’s episode is full of news that aren’t described below, as the games the guys have played get a lot of analysis.
The news, incidentally, includes:
Let us know what you think.
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The news this week: Elon Musk’s estranged daughter weighs in on his pro gamer claims: ‘He was a Bronze Torbjörn main. He was fucking dogshit’, Palworld decides it wasn’t April fooling after all, is actually making a visual novel dating sim where you can, uh, ‘dismember and eat’ some of its cast, Death Stranding has crossed 20 million players since launch, If the Switch 2 stumbles, Nintendo has no Plan B, Final Fantasy 9 Anniversary celebration begins, Star Wars XCOM game on the way?, and Shuhei Yoshida believes Nier: Automata was a turning point in modern Japanese games.
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This week we’re a bit sick, but the gaming podcast goes on regardless! We can’t seem to get away from the current hot topics of the week mostly involving Sony and hacking in the same sentences. This week’s news includes:
This week Jonah gives out his review on Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled Blitz for XBLA and, giving away his copy of Plants vs. Zombies for the DS. This weeks question of the week, are you going to get a Nintendo 3DS?
Sony’s been talking about how they’ve overtaken the Xbox 360 here in the States, perhaps this is because Microsoft shifted their attention to pwning them in Japan? Xbox 360 sold 25,000 units to PlayStation 3‘s minor 9,673 units according to Edge Online, that’s 2.5 times more if you’re into that math thing.
Seriously though, Microsoft didn’t really shift any effort, they just got a Japanese style game called Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai. Go figure, when a Japanese focused game arrives for a console Japanese gamer will go out and buy it.
The big barrier to the 360 in Japan is the games and their contents. Microsoft is in tune with the needs and demands of the United States gamers, it usually involves FPS titles and excessive killing. Japanese gamers are not exactly huge FPS fans, we’ve seen the Asian community dominate in RTS style games (Starcraft is a great example) and they’ve always had interest in MMO’s, especially micro-transaction based games and we all know that’s the land of Final Fantasy. Is it so surprising the Xbox 360 moves off Japanese shelves when they have a game or two the gamers actually want to play?
This is only partly Microsoft’s fault, Microsoft doesn’t specialize in Japanese games anymore than Square Enix excels at western style games. The big difference? Square Enix doesn’t manufacturer its own console hardware. It is Microsoft’s console and they should have an interest in making games the Japanese people will like, thankfully Namco Bandai came through for them this time!
