This week’s episode is light on news but heavy on features, as the Gaming Flashback checks in on the coin-op arcade classic I, Robot, while the Gaming History takes a look at the career of Danielle Bunten Berry.
As for the news, the gang comments on the following items:
This week’s Question of the Week: What board games, if any, do you love to play? Let us know!
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Podcast notes:
Feel free to leave feedback.
Believe this, Nintendo and their Wii console takes another month as top seller. The only product that moves more hardware than the Wii is the DS. As a gamer, it’s hard to understand how the Wii product continues to sell like this with the least supported game library on the planet.
The DS is completely understandable as it has a huge library of games, is more cost effective, comes in pretty colors and can save you tons of arguments and fighting from your kids on a long trip. In many ways the DS is synonymous with peace and quiet. What does the Wii offer us? Wii Sports and a new control scheme along with a few hit titles from Nintendo but little else for now.
I’ll be the first to admit, I thought this would be Nintendo’s chance to turn it all around and get the third parties involved. They have everything going for them in terms of sales, third party developers should be pushing out games each month considering the craze factor of the hardware. This just isn’t true.
This week we’re cooking up some final holiday treats in the form of gaming history, news, retro flashbacks and general commentary. We’re looking back at the Need for Speed franchise, a little gaming history on Black Box Studios and covering some news stories:
This weeks soap box covers a little holiday cheer, what games did you love as a child, which game got you the most excited, what’s your best memory and most prized achievements in gaming. What game was a total turn off?
Wish wish everyone a happy holiday no matter what you celebrate, when you celebrate and how you celebrate. Party hard. Drive Safe. Enjoy.
Podcast Crew.
@New Mass Effect 3 multiplayer rumors arise:
Jonah, I see what you mean. Co-op is the better kind of MP for a game that is thick on story. The alternative would be an MMO, but I believe that will require a lot more time to wrap up.
@Bethesda says Xbox 720 three years away:
Dunno. From a technical point of view, the components to make it already exist. So I am siding with Jonah, and say 2012.
Another reason for delays is shipping Windows 8. If MSFT wants to ship both Win 8 and the new console, then I can see the console being delayed by Win 8.
@QOTW:
Don’t think they qualify as board games, but: backgammon, remi.
I just wanted to weigh in on the console launch argument. Firstly, the N64 launched at $200, not $150. Secondly, I don’t believe inflation adjustment is a useful concept when thinking of the historic nature of console launches because the prices are fairly similar across time (for example the Atari 2600 was $200 in 1977 – same as the N64 nearly 20 years later).
Of course, historically, there have been expensive game consoles such as the Neo-Geo or the 3DO, but these were more boutique, high end machines. I think it is useful to compare the launch of the PS3 to these consoles. This was the mistake Sony made with the machine’s launch: They tried to sell a high end machine to a mass market that wasn’t willing to pay the high cost. I for one waited 3 years until it was finally at the same price the PS2 launched at. I considered that the effective launch of the console.
As with any piece of technology (unless it’s made by Apple) one can wait a certain amount of time for the product to come down in price to where the consumer is comfortable with the cost. Expecting a console to launch at $100, however, is unreasonable. This has not ever happened with the launch of any home console that I am aware of and certainly could not be done without a severe loss to the manufacturer on each unit. That being said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a new console to launch at $200-$300 dollars, even in the HD/3D/recession era we live in now.
Regarding the possibility of an Xbox 360 successor in 2012: I believe this is highly possible. I hardly think it would be “too soon” at that point considering the console will have been out for 7 years. In historic terms, this would be considered a long cycle. I think Microsoft may be weary of putting out a console too hastily considering that the 360 came out only 4 years after the original Xbox, and they really seem to be pushing their Kinect as an extension of the lifespan of the console, but a 7 year run seems quite reasonable to me. Also, it would be a prime opportunity to sucker punch the Nintendo Wii U and possibly get an early lead on the next console war.