Episode 404: Rebel Scum

This week’s episode is a little late thanks to unforeseen circumstances, but nothing will stop us from posting new episodes. It’s actually one day late, since last week was a week off, thanks to Podbean limits and Halloween. On that note, this week, Jonah had to erase a spoiler segment about The Force Awakens, but enough remains of the convo discussing other parts of the upcoming movie.

This week’s news:

  • Sony not to offer backwards compatibility
  • Advertising Standards Authority rules Valve misled customers with Grand Theft Auto V Steam Sale
  • The Witcher movie slated for 2017
  • Ubisoft admits poor Syndicate sales are due to franchise fatigue caused by Unity
  • World of Warcraft paid subscribers at a nine year low at 5.5M

The Question of the Week is what we usually ask ourselves, but with all the new games coming out, “What have you been playing this week?”

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Australian PSN Restoration DelayedAustralian PSN Restoration Delayed

The Japanese government has not allowed PlayStation Network to be activated for Japanese gamers yet due to security concerns, and now an expert is advising Australia to follow suit.

Professor Bill Caelli told newspaper The Australian, “Why is it that in the IT industry enterprises certify themselves?” said Caelli, noting that PSN didn’t have the same restrictions, and added that the public has “no way of assessing the assurances given by the owners of the (PSN) system themselves”.

Reportedly, Australian privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has been in contact with Sony, and has not judged yet whether Sony has given them enough information to restore PSN. His investigation will be an ongoing one as well, even after PSN is restored.

When it was discovered user information had been stolen during the PSN breach, the Australian federal government announced plans for a law forcing companies to disclose privacy breaches, although it was unclear when it might come into effect. Privacy minister Brendan O’Connor had stated:

“Sony isn’t alone. We’ve seen serious privacy-related incidents in recent months involving other large companies. All companies that collect customers’ personal information must ensure that the information is safe and secure from misuse.”

We’ll stay on this story as it develops.

Episode 495: Monster Hunting BrosEpisode 495: Monster Hunting Bros

This week, Scott and T.J. talk about playing Monster Hunter World on their PlayStation 4’s, while Jonah talks about how bad his experience with the console version of Prey was. Everyone talks about their impressions of the Gaming Flashback this week: Fallout 3.

This week’s news includes:

  • The state of Washington passes law to protect Net Neutrality
  • Rumor: a new XCOM 2 expansion may be coming soon
  • State of Decay 2 will be released in May
  • Fortnite is now the most watched game on Twitch, doubling PUBG‘s viewer count

Let us know what you think!

Microsoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 ValueMicrosoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 Value

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.