Episode 323: What Is Nintendo Thinking?

Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss PAX Prime 2013, then delve into this week’s news, Listener Feedback, and discuss the 1990’s developer Psygnosis.

The news this week includes:

  • Nintendo announces 2DS, Wii U price drop
  • Inafune “fought hard” for risk taking at Capcom, creators must be “willing to fail”
  • Godus beta to hit Steam Early Access on 13th September
  • Diablo III‘s new loot system to “cut the legs out” from the auction house
  • Bethesda wants The Elder Scrolls Online available to non-Xbox Live subscribers

The Question of the Week: “How many times have you purchased a new form factor of a console you already owned?”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Like Wave Race? Wii Sports Resort is Your ChanceLike Wave Race? Wii Sports Resort is Your Chance

Many of us, Wave Race fans have been looking for a Wii wave racing title for a year now with no talk of expanding the franchise. We’ve got a Wii Fit board, we’ve got motion controls, the only thing we’re missing is Wave Race.

Apparently a Wave Race style game can be found in Wii Sports Resort “power cruising” mode. This experience is supposed to be more involved than initially thought and provide us with our Wave Race fix, can that be true?

Every mini-game series Nintendo releases is a stripped down almost-cooked version of a real game. They tend to be a controller prototype to show off the motion control concepts. Why would “power cruise” be like Wave Race in depth when the game is about the entire “Wii Sports Resort” experience. Is every mini-game going to be a full blown title?

If so, this wouldn’t be a “mini” game experience! The entire concept of mini is thrown out the window if the title is really a bunch of mini-games plus a full Wave Race franchise title. Perhaps the “deep” title their talking about is simply a mini-game with a few more buttons and nobs to twist? The big issue with the pack-in mini-games tends to be very basic games with few modes of play, difficulty settings or other options.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

Diablo III: Confirmed and IsometricDiablo III: Confirmed and Isometric

We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.

Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.

We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.

The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.

Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.

Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!

(Thanks, Nukoda)