Episode 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?”

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GTA IV: 46th Best-Selling Game In AugustGTA IV: 46th Best-Selling Game In August

Like a washed up superstar, Grand Theft Auto IV continues to drop in NPD figures. This Axl Rose of video games came on strong and sputtered out into oblivion with barely a notice, leaving the spotlight and all hype behind it. This drastic fall may hurt any negotiations “behind closed doors” with Electronic Arts and their constant attempts to take over Take-Two.

Prior to the release of GTA IV we, in our gaming podcast, predicted a huge launch would up the anti against the bids on Take-Two from EA but things didn’t work out exactly as we expected. Although the game has sold 8.5-million units, it might not add any new bargaining power to the back door negotiations.

A game company is only as good as their games. A hit title which dies out quick helps financially guide the future of the company; technically the future isn’t so bright. With the title quickly falling off the top game sales charts we may never see it hit record sales figures to match that of smaller titles. Having one hot title every four years that “breaks records” for a week isn’t a strong weapon against a low bid from a larger publisher.

While EA may not have any record setting “one week” sales titles yet, they do have a consistently strong set of titles which stick on the charts for months with newer titles arriving to take their spot when they fade. The same can be said for a few other notable publishers, Activision and Ubisoft. To survive in the hot game industry, especially with market downturns, one must have a cycle of great games to publish throughout the year consistently year-over-year in order to provide evidence of their financial stability.

Assuming the bid won’t raise for GTA IV, where does that leave Take-Two? Perhaps Take-Two is better off under the umbrella of Electronic Arts after all. The waters are getting more hostile in the industry as companies compete for gamers attention with 100-million dollar titles and casual games and game consoles (read: Wii) start to build a whole new none-gamer-style momentum.

Is Take-Two better off under the EA brand?

Episode 607: PC and xCloudEpisode 607: PC and xCloud

This week’s episode is double-sized, because the previous week’s episode was… pretty bad. Who knows? Maybe we’ll air it some week when we’re unable to post a new episode.

This week’s news includes:

  • Xbox Cloud Gaming for PC beta invites sent out
  • Rumor: Battlefield 6 not coming to Xbox One or PS4
  • BioShock 4 job listings appear to confirm an open world and sidequests
  • Civilization 6’s final free game update adds three new units, two new maps, and more
  • Nintendo says it will focus on more original game series in the future

All this and listener feedback. Post your own feedback here at Facebook.

Episode 251: The New Crew ReturnsEpisode 251: The New Crew Returns

After last week’s special appearance by Derrick and Jennifer Schommer along with Don Dunn, the regular crew of Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Paul S. Nowak return, and they find themselves with some fascinating news items.

The news items include:

  • Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard
  • Sony passed on Demon’s Souls because it was “crap
  • Sony credit rating downgraded, “strong recovery in earnings unlikely”
  • Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game
  • Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime

Paul is also running a contest to earn “Pixie Diamonds” currency for Disney’s Pixie Hollow social networking MMO, with the prize going to the person who can answer, “Who is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?”