Gaming Podcast 139: Pirate or Privateer?

Welcome to the early edition of the gaming podcast, because I’m going to be in Germany this week we had to record a bit early and post the podcast for listening. Hopefully this won’t screw up too many people’s schedules with a day-early release! This week we’re flashing back to Sid Meier’s Pirates and learning about women’s rights (or lack of) in the life of a privateer. We’ll talk a bit about the history of the Amstrad CPC 464 and cover some news:

The community questions were great, gave us lots of nice ideas for a future gaming cave! This week we’re riding on the community listener, Onyersix who wrote a good question of the week: “What was the scariest moment you ever experienced playing video games?  We’re talking the type of shock that makes you need to go and put on a new pair of pants!”

Hey, did you notice our new microphone quality, Jennifer and I have upgraded our studio setup (by about $1,000!), hopefully you’ll notice the more dynamic vocal qualities.

0 thoughts on “Gaming Podcast 139: Pirate or Privateer?”

  1. After having to listen to all the podcasts from episode 136 onwards to catch up due to being busy preparing for university and putting together my new gaming rig (Core i7 baby!), I can finally write an answer to a Question of the Week!
    And so, without further ado, the first game that truly terrified me (and in many ways the last) was ‘Alien Trilogy’ for the PSX. Not in retrospect a very scary game, but I was only about 7 or 8 at the time and the game was rated as an 18… Not sure why I was allowed to play it. But after then, I never really got scared from games. Some games (like Systemshock and the Half Life games) managed to create a dull feeling of dread and foreboding, which in many ways is more ‘entertaining’ than straight shocking fear. In recent years the only game that managed to make me properly jumpy was when I was playing the Fear 2 demo, but the shock-factor soon wore off. None of the classically ‘scary’ games such as Resident Evil or the Silent Hill series ever scared me in the remotest, more often than not they merely bored me and so I got into the habit of simply ignoring games whose primary selling point is to create brown-trousered audiences…
    As always, thanks for a brilliantly entertaining podcast, cheers and peace!
    P.S: Monty Python quotes are always welcome… He’s not the Messiah!

  2. After having to listen to all the podcasts from episode 136 onwards to catch up due to being busy preparing for university and putting together my new gaming rig (Core i7 baby!), I can finally write an answer to a Question of the Week!
    And so, without further ado, the first game that truly terrified me (and in many ways the last) was ‘Alien Trilogy’ for the PSX. Not in retrospect a very scary game, but I was only about 7 or 8 at the time and the game was rated as an 18… Not sure why I was allowed to play it. But after then, I never really got scared from games. Some games (like Systemshock and the Half Life games) managed to create a dull feeling of dread and foreboding, which in many ways is more ‘entertaining’ than straight shocking fear. In recent years the only game that managed to make me properly jumpy was when I was playing the Fear 2 demo, but the shock-factor soon wore off. None of the classically ‘scary’ games such as Resident Evil or the Silent Hill series ever scared me in the remotest, more often than not they merely bored me and so I got into the habit of simply ignoring games whose primary selling point is to create brown-trousered audiences…
    As always, thanks for a brilliantly entertaining podcast, cheers and peace!
    P.S: Monty Python quotes are always welcome… He’s not the Messiah!

  3. *clears throat* Okay, I was going to ask Jonah to back me up on this, but why drag him into my nitpicking, right? ‘;D

    The resolution issue? Is not an issue. If you have a 1080p HD screen, it doesn’t matter whether your viewing area is 24 inches or 60 inches, you’ll get the same number of pixels. So the bigger the screen, the less tight those pixels (if they even call them that on TV screens) will be. The spoilage I alluded to is not so much console-related (considering the only console I have is a Wii), but rather the PC*, which has been “Hi- Def” resolution for about a decade now. ‘;D [* – Or the Mac, if you like.]

    Maybe PS3 games scale up well on 50 inches, but I’m sorry to say that I don’t really know firsthand. ‘:( *sniff*

    Of course, if your basement (er, gaming cave) is HUGE, then you can sit far enough away for it to still be enjoyable.

    BTW, by “whatever’s ideal for Natal,” I of course meant an exact replica of the living room used in Microsoft’s tech demo/video, just off to a corner of the imaginary gamer cave (which I admit I got carried away with, but I thought I heard Don say money was no object, which I took a bit literally. [Or perhaps I just ran with the cave metaphor a bit far, since caves are typically for hibernating. ‘:D]

  4. *clears throat* Okay, I was going to ask Jonah to back me up on this, but why drag him into my nitpicking, right? ‘;D

    The resolution issue? Is not an issue. If you have a 1080p HD screen, it doesn’t matter whether your viewing area is 24 inches or 60 inches, you’ll get the same number of pixels. So the bigger the screen, the less tight those pixels (if they even call them that on TV screens) will be. The spoilage I alluded to is not so much console-related (considering the only console I have is a Wii), but rather the PC*, which has been “Hi- Def” resolution for about a decade now. ‘;D [* – Or the Mac, if you like.]

    Maybe PS3 games scale up well on 50 inches, but I’m sorry to say that I don’t really know firsthand. ‘:( *sniff*

    Of course, if your basement (er, gaming cave) is HUGE, then you can sit far enough away for it to still be enjoyable.

    BTW, by “whatever’s ideal for Natal,” I of course meant an exact replica of the living room used in Microsoft’s tech demo/video, just off to a corner of the imaginary gamer cave (which I admit I got carried away with, but I thought I heard Don say money was no object, which I took a bit literally. [Or perhaps I just ran with the cave metaphor a bit far, since caves are typically for hibernating. ‘:D]

  5. Two things about the original Pirates you didn’t mention:

    1. You needed the cloth map to find out where you are, because you have to use a sextant to figure out how high the sun was in the sky at noon. (Now it’s just automatic.)

    2. You could be the only member of your crew left during a fight, but so long as you defeated the other captain, you won. Picture you fighting a captain while 200 sailors are standing around watching. heh

  6. Two things about the original Pirates you didn’t mention:

    1. You needed the cloth map to find out where you are, because you have to use a sextant to figure out how high the sun was in the sky at noon. (Now it’s just automatic.)

    2. You could be the only member of your crew left during a fight, but so long as you defeated the other captain, you won. Picture you fighting a captain while 200 sailors are standing around watching. heh

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Or is it?

Bobbie Bach, Microsoft Entertainment and Devices president, seems to believe this generation of consoles will expand out further than the typical four-year release cycle. Perhaps because the console developers have invested so much money in defeating each other in the market and making their console “number one” in the eyes of their investors.

Bach does not believe we’re cresting on the current generation, that is for certain, and we’ve yet to hear any hype over a new next-generation console from Microsoft. They were the first to market so, theoretically, they should be the first in the next-generation as well, right?

Their move to be number one was really a strategic attack which has paid out well, leading them above the past domination of Sony and Nintendo before it. However, they are holding strong with the Xbox 360 and there might be cause to sit tight and let this generation playout before bringing in another piece of hardware.

Bach stated that he believes consoles today are competing at different levels than ten years ago. There isn’t one clear winner, there isn’t one dominating console. There will be victors in different areas of the industry; casual consoles, top game sellers, best graphics and others. It’s not about sheer “units sold” it’s more about being profitable and building a community around your hardware, see Xbox Live as a great example.

Next generation will be full of fantastic new features, ways to connect and crazy hardware specifications, no doubt, but… for many of us, it will take years before we forget the pain and suffering we paid shipping our dead Xbox 360’s back to Microsoft for repairs. Would you be willing to buy into their next generation as their first customer?

(Thanks, 1up)

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Mr. Bach had some great selling points as to why a Blu-ray player has little value in the world of Xbox 360. The primary reason, of course, being the Xbox 360 developers cannot take advantage of Blu-ray as a development platform for games. This was the price Sony, or the consumer, paid to own a PlayStation 3 since all games are printed on the media and are, in effect, Blu-ray “capable.”

We say capable because not all (any?) PlayStation 3 games currently make full use of the Blu-ray media. Many games will reprint the game on the media for optimization purposes, fill the game with international voice overs for all countries or, otherwise, stuff the media with something that will serve a useful purpose. Sony has near-future-proofed their device by giving game developers years of growth in terms of utilizing the Blu-ray capacity.

Microsoft chose to take the smaller old-style DVD format for games and media. Adding the HD-DVD didn’t add a large deal of risk because, as we saw, they can discontinue the model and not change their core gaming demographic. We still laughed a bit at them, but that was where it ended. Bach also said that it’s not really a great economic time to push a new 360 SKU on potential customers with additional cost just for Blu-ray movies playback.

They could add Blu-ray game development support as well but that would just alienate the “28 million Xboxes” they have already shipped.

“OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.” (gamespot)

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Which is fine, we like games.