Episode 341: Friggin’ Kerfuffle

Paul, Jordan and Jonah continue to rock on, as they discuss the bizarre circumstance of the iOS app Flappy Bird, while Paul deals with Pinsanity issues (behind the scenes). They also discuss the classic The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay in the Gaming Flashback.

This week’s news includes:

  • Watch Dogs release coming in April, May, or June
  • Slim Vita is coming To North America with Borderlands 2 in tow
  • Nutjitsu and Worms among first Xbox One ID@Xbox games
  • Pachter: Sony can’t afford to pay for streamed content like Netflix does
  • Gamestop advertising a layaway program for the Xbox One

There’s Listener Feedback with a new Question of the Week: “Did you introduce a non-gamer to gaming?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 341: Friggin’ Kerfuffle”

  1. Hey guys. I’m back from commenting retirement forced to do so once again by your grim opinions on my favorite console 🙂

    @Vita
    The Vita isn’t going anywhere. While I already said that I partially agree with Jordan that there is no constant flow of exclusive games, I still can’t say that this means that there is nothing to play on the Vita. Especially now with the cheaper version and the PS4 Remote Play, people will think again about buying one. Heck, if Jonah is considering getting one… maybe… By the way – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_Vita-only_games sure, there is crapware there but there’s at least a dozen perfectly good, big games.

    I also think Borderlands 2 isn’t really a system seller but it’s a well-known title that will make people look at the Vita and I believe that once you play it for a while, you realize how good of a system it really is for on-the-go gaming.

    @PSNow
    Obviously, people will,in general, not pay a subscription to play PS1 games, but PS3… I bet there are many people who would rather sell their PS3 and get PSNow for PS4 than keep the two consoles. It’s obvious to me that Sony shouldn’t be aiming at the latest releases to be available via PSNow. It’s going to be tough but if they play it right, they might be able to pull it off. I wonder if the games people own digitally will be available via PSNow for free… Also the ones obtained from PS+.

    @QOTW
    I didn’t really introduce anyone to video gaming. However, I convinced two friends to get a PS+ subscription for their PS3. I guess this counts. I also introduces some friend to board gaming and we meet regularly to play but this is easier since it’s intrinsically a more social activity.

  2. Hey guys,

    Don’t have too much to add this time but I’ll answer the QOtW.

    I think I can say my wife and I introduced our daughter into Gaming. She loves to play Minecraft, Sims, Fable, and some other web based games.

    Great show guys and keep up the good work. I also like it when you have 3 man team going with Paul or Dan.

Leave a Reply

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

Related Post

Episode 286: Free Indie GamesEpisode 286: Free Indie Games

This week, Gaming Podcast is giving away free indie games: Dungeon Defenders and the Zeboyd 2-Pack including Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VIII. The Gaming Flashback includes the original Splinter Cell from 2002.

There’s also plenty of news items including:

  • Blizzard facing class action lawsuit over Battle.net security
  • Former Square boss calls merger “a complete failure” between Square and Enix
  • Nintendo details Wii U network ID system
  • Molyneux skeptical about tablet/TV gaming
  • Halo 4 makes $220M in first day, Forward Unto Reach garners 46M viewers
  • Analyst: Grand Theft Auto V will sell 25M units

No Question of the Week – just let us know if you’d like to win either Dungeon Defenders or Cthulhu Saves the World/Breath Of Death VIII.

In addition, this is the final week of Kickstarter funding. Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.

PlayStation 3: Not About Quantity, About ProfitabilityPlayStation 3: Not About Quantity, About Profitability

The Xbox 360 price drop rumors flow like water and it’s all but officially been announced at this point. What about PlayStation 3 and their price? No.

Nobuyuki Oneda, the Sony’s chief financial officer said, “our plan is not to reduce the price. Our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to concentrate on profitability.” (gamespot) This makes complete sense coming from their chief financial officer, as their motivation is to make money, not lose it.

The question remains, how will they actually make money if they’re no longer in the race for competitive market prices? Considering game licensing must Net them some amount of profit Sony’s idea seems to be the exact opposite of their original PlayStation method: saturate the market and sell them all games.

So far we’ve seen very few “need to have” games for the PlayStation 3 console while Xbox 360 continues to build a substantial library and Wii continues to break sales records for apparently no reason. When a game publisher has to decide on a platform to launch a new game, why would they choose the one that doesn’t care to be competitively priced in the market? The one that doesn’t care about quantity of sales?

Sony intends to reverse the entire razor blade philosophy where one sells a cheap razor and charges users for the blades over and over again. Their take on this concept is to sell really expensive razors and put out small half-quality blades. Is that a good market strategy at this point?

Episode 422: Pop CultureEpisode 422: Pop Culture

This week’s a lot of discussion of comic book movies, including the upcoming “Captain America: Civil War”. In fact, it dominates most of the podcast. However, there is some discussion of video games.

This week’s news includes:

  • Free money suddenly showed up in some people’s Steam accounts
  • “Obviously there’s going to be another Borderlands,” says Gearbox
  • Rumor: Nintendo NX to be officially revealed this or next week
  • Rumor: Xbox One upgrade under development at Microsoft

Question of the Week: “Would you buy a updated console like the PlayStation 4.5 or Xbox One and a Half?”