A good episode this time, if a little meandering. The episode is slowly reaching its milestone.
The news items for the week include:
Check us on twitter: Jonah Falcon is @jonahfalcon, Paul Nowak is @stagermonkey, and Scott Dirk is @alphashard.
This episode follows the landmark 500th episode, and this next episode is dominated by Nintendo, both in the news and looking back at the Gaming Flashback for Wii Music and the infamous E3 performance starring Reggie Fils-Aime and Cammie Dunaway.
The news includes:
All of this and Listener Feedback.
Jonah thought that this podcast would be another short show — but it evolved into a lively conversation about Spiritfarer and other game news.
The news includes:
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Halloween is a scary time of year, no less when you’re posting a $310 million net loss. EA CEO John Riccitiello sees “weakness” at retail in October and we’re betting this isn’t the end of the road of sorrow for game publishers around the globe.
Electronic Arts isn’t unfamiliar with bad times and we’re sure to see them make constant adjustments to their headcount, game releases and press as the economy goes into a bit of a slump. Although the game industry won’t see as big a hit as the financial market, everyone is going to watch their spending during slower economic times.
That slowness is a red flag for the mega-publisher, which says it’s “proactively making cost adjustments now.” One of those adjustments is the axing of some 600 EA employees across the globe. (Kotaku)
Last year Electronic Arts lost a “small” $195 million during the same time, not exactly a gold star on the financial records but it sure looks better than this loss. A few games may crumble under the economic pressures, Tiberium for example, but let us not forget the good times! EA posted some nice figures for Spore, Madden NFL 09, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
So, they mixed a few sequels with a few new franchise hits and gave gamers some pretty hot titles for the year. Of course, hot titles in our hand do not always translate to positive revenue in theirs.
Diskless Nintendo, I think this might be a great idea… if they moved to memory cards they can reduce the system profile while increase performance and capacity (Larger Cards give access to larger games). I think it also makes sense to expand their digital library to support all the older/legacy games and have them accessible in the console… especially if the enable you to access the digital version if you have a physical copy. As for video game movies… I do not think I have enjoyed any movies that have been based on a video game. That being said, I have enjoyed some of the Anime shows/movies which have turned into games or were released after the games. Lastly I thought I would share that I also bought the Hero’s Humble bundle but haven’t had a chance to play any of them yet. I am going to install them on my Surface tablet and see if I can get them working with touch. Wish me luck.