This weeks gaming podcast includes community feedback, game flashbacks to FX Fighter for the PC and gaming history about Hideo Kojima. The gaming news of the week includes, but is not limited to:
This week’s question of the week is pretty simple: What’s “the best” video game to movie that you’ve seen?
A lot of people have purchased the Xbox 360 and a growing number have had new interests in the PlayStation 3. The summer time is winding to an end and fall will bring us a new host of video games and reasons to keep playing our current generation consoles. Many analysts and industry leaders believe the 360 and PlayStation 3 will undergo a USD $50.00 price cut before the Holidays begin.
With holiday madness comes momentum and sales, a USD $50.00 price cut would help bring new momentum to both consoles, especially with Nintendo lapping them in sales. Nobody has considered the direction of the Wii as it doesn’t need to be priced competitively given this is going to be the third year it’s impossible to find in stores.
Do the consoles really need a price cut? It’s hard to argue the PlayStation 3‘s dire need for cutting in price given its already outrageous costs for a console with the least amount of desired titles. The Xbox 360, for most, has the best lineup of titles with a strong fall series of games. The Wii… well, titles don’t really matter just yet because people still buy the console upon sight. The PlayStation 3 is showing off some impressive graphics for this fall and early next year, it may almost be time to invest in the product.
The fall games will keep hardcore gamers buying titles but it will do little to inspire new console sales. If GTA IV, Halo 3, Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid 4 couldn’t drag a gamer to buy, what fall titles will do so this year? Probably very few.
It’s time for the big console vendors to broaden their audience by opening the console to a demographic of gamers that just can’t afford the higher graphic consoles. No, USD $50.00 won’t bring in everyone but it may inspire those on the fringe of consideration to change their minds. With their new consoles in hand they can use their USD $50.00 savings to purchase a new holiday release title.
This week’s gaming podcast covers a host of topics about Kinect, Diablo and more unknown news from Sony. We’re hitting up a bit of gaming history on Donkey Kong Country and getting the inside scoop on what we can expect from the latest Wii incarnation known as Donkey Kong Country Returns in a short game review from Jennifer.
This weeks news:
We’ve also got some listener comments and a small announcement about what the TD Gaming Podcast will look like after Episode 200.
Rumors float around the Internet questioning when Microsoft will ship a Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360 or add-on device like they did with the, now failed, HD-DVD. At CES 09 Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, says this request is “way down the list.”
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)
Of course, the first thing that came to our mind was “well, you did it for HD-DVD, how is Blu-ray different?” The key areas we can think of really come down to Blu-ray is a Sony technology and they are a direct competitor and, to top it off, HD-DVD allowed them to fight against the PS3 at the media level of the industry. They minimized the risk by making the product a secondary add-on device and, if HD-DVD had won, they’d have the winning format already under production (still not for games).
It seems Microsoft has changed their battle plans a little. They started out talking up the media aspects of the 360, using Media Center, renting movies and TV shows and had the HD-DVD as a subproduct. Today, they’re investing in Netflix for media and everything else favors the games.
Which is fine, we like games.
The best movie based on a video game would have to be “Resident Evil”, just a bit more than “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”
A lesser known game based on a video game is “Cloak & Dagger”, which was pretty meta in that the film was about a kid who loved the game so much that he had an imaginary spy friend (Dabney Coleman!)
There was a French film called “Karate Champ” about a young 13 year old who loves the game so much he pretends to be the character from the game. The squicky part is that he has an affair with a woman in her 30’s.
“Tomb Raider” got okay reviews. “TRON” doesn’t count because it’s a movie that video games were BASED from.
The best movie based on a video game would have to be “Resident Evil”, just a bit more than “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”
A lesser known game based on a video game is “Cloak & Dagger”, which was pretty meta in that the film was about a kid who loved the game so much that he had an imaginary spy friend (Dabney Coleman!)
There was a French film called “Karate Champ” about a young 13 year old who loves the game so much he pretends to be the character from the game. The squicky part is that he has an affair with a woman in her 30’s.
“Tomb Raider” got okay reviews. “TRON” doesn’t count because it’s a movie that video games were BASED from.
@Sony Thinking of Charging for PSN:
That’s why I hate depending on a service. Now here’s what will happen: people will complain, but only a few will drop. So Sony racks in the dough.
@Web Access To WoW Auction House:
Hmm, do I feel a trend here? This is the second service in the same podcast that increases costs.
Rant about subscriptions:
I hate it when the terms of subscriptions change after the user subscribed. It’s like changing a contract after signing it.
Now I know that a lot of banks have a contractual point going like “we reserve the right to change the terms bla bla bla”, but game makers? Since when game makers decided to use the same policies as banks?
@question of the week:
Mortal Kombat. Although Resident Evil was also good, I saw MK first, and that had more impact on me.
@Sony Thinking of Charging for PSN:
That’s why I hate depending on a service. Now here’s what will happen: people will complain, but only a few will drop. So Sony racks in the dough.
@Web Access To WoW Auction House:
Hmm, do I feel a trend here? This is the second service in the same podcast that increases costs.
Rant about subscriptions:
I hate it when the terms of subscriptions change after the user subscribed. It’s like changing a contract after signing it.
Now I know that a lot of banks have a contractual point going like “we reserve the right to change the terms bla bla bla”, but game makers? Since when game makers decided to use the same policies as banks?
@question of the week:
Mortal Kombat. Although Resident Evil was also good, I saw MK first, and that had more impact on me.
I believe the best game turned into a movie would have to be Final Fantasy: Advent Children. The movie is very EPIC. When Square Enix 1st started developing advent children the software wasn’t available to do the task @ the desired standard so as a software company they developed there own. Also the rendering in there PS2 game FF X look better than nearly any shorts I have seen on 360/PS3 games. One of the aspects of game development which is of most interest to me is the Art. I love it when the developers pay close attention to detail. For example HALO 3 is amazing, some of the landscape designs aren’t necessary but are amazing & you really appreciate the effort when you spend the time to notice. My love & appreciation for art is probably due to my old man being such a great artist.
I believe the best game turned into a movie would have to be Final Fantasy: Advent Children. The movie is very EPIC. When Square Enix 1st started developing advent children the software wasn’t available to do the task @ the desired standard so as a software company they developed there own. Also the rendering in there PS2 game FF X look better than nearly any shorts I have seen on 360/PS3 games. One of the aspects of game development which is of most interest to me is the Art. I love it when the developers pay close attention to detail. For example HALO 3 is amazing, some of the landscape designs aren’t necessary but are amazing & you really appreciate the effort when you spend the time to notice. My love & appreciation for art is probably due to my old man being such a great artist.
Any 1 watch D3ATH NOTE or the last Samurai Champloo, not games but epic shows =] (if you do watch Sponge bob death note on you tube just for laughs XD)
Any 1 watch D3ATH NOTE or the last Samurai Champloo, not games but epic shows =] (if you do watch Sponge bob death note on you tube just for laughs XD)
Incidentally, the company EA bought for social gaming is Playfish. They spent $300M on them.
Incidentally, the company EA bought for social gaming is Playfish. They spent $300M on them.
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Hey, Thanks for the info on this material. I never knew there was so much in the world of Pc Gamming . This has been really helpful for me to understand the entire concept you have put in this article. Keep it up. I would like to hear more on PC gamming and tis stuff. I shall subscribe to your RSS feeds and keep coming back for more information. Thanks Again