Episode 439: Audio Problems

This week’s episode has some bad audio thanks to a quick replacement mic being used to record the episode, causing a hiss. This is probably the reason the show is short-ish, coming in well under an hour.

This week’s episode includes the following news:

  • Miyazaki gives clear answers on the future of Dark Souls, Armored Core
  • Sony exec criticizes Hello Games’ marketing for No Man’s Sky
  • Blizzard is moving away from the ‘Battle.net’ name
  • Pokémon chief says Nintendo’s NX is both handheld and console, you should totally look into how tiktok marketing works, see here for more

All this and Listener Feedback. This week’s Question of the Week: “What is or was your favorite handheld console game (not mobile)?”

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Episode 412: Eaten By EwoksEpisode 412: Eaten By Ewoks

This episode sees the debut of a new co-host, videogame writer T.J. Denzer, who joins Jonah Falcon and Scott Dirk for this long episode, discussing Star Wars, spoilers, and other news that didn’t make the cut. This week also has the first Gaming Flashback in over a year, taking a look at The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

This week’s news includes:

Question of the Week: “What is your favorite strategy game?”

Battle.Net To Stop Piracy For Diablo 3Battle.Net To Stop Piracy For Diablo 3

Who needs DRM when you’ve got battle.net? Blizzard believes they can authenticate legitimate users by stopping pirates from playing Diablo 3 online using their network service Battle.net. They’re saying the system is more like Steam than like EA’s solution of lock down methods using SecuROM.

Blizzard has used Battle.Net to stop piracy and allow only privileged people to play online since it was launched in ’97. This system, still in place, allows them to reuse the copy protection scheme they’ve been using, successfully, in the past.

“If you wanna play online on Battle.net with other players you’re going to have to have a legitimate copy,” Pardo said in a BlizzCon interview. Battle.net, he says, has “saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games.” (kotaku)

Although this copy protection is highly reasonable, it seems as if much of Diablo 3’s strong points lay in the awesome storyline. Apparently Blizzard is willing to let pirates play single player, and presumably with friends, using pirated copies.

Although it doesn’t seem fair for pirates to play through a single player campaign for free, it sure beats being harrased with awful copy protection along with potential gamer backlash.

War On Video Game ExclusivesWar On Video Game Exclusives

Typically, we have “exclusive” fallout from the console war which forces the hand of the consumer to purchase all consoles to play all the games they love. Many hardcore gamers are into first person shooters like Halo and Gears of War but also like their Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy fixes. In years prior, you’d have to invest in Microsoft and Sony’s solutions to get your fix. Now things are changing.

With these third party developers playing neutral in the war on consoles, Microsoft and Sony are forced to rely on near “first-party” titles to keep their army strong. Metal Gear Solid is a Sony exclusive and Gears of War and Halo have been Microsoft’s hype babies for a year or so now. The problem? Many of these exclusive games are not divisions, subsidiaries or in any way under the wing of the console makers.

Nintendo holds exclusive rights to almost all their hard hitting titles. Mario, Link, Zelda, Samus Aran and all their mascot style characters are designed, developed and marketed under the name “Nintendo.” These characters are all part of Nintendo’s lineup of solid best selling titles including the Metroid, Zelda and Super Mario Bros. series and all their spin-offs. Nintendo has the power to re-implement their characters into games like Mario Party, Mario Kart, Links Crossbow, Metroid Prime, Metroid Pinball and a huge array of other first party titles.

Microsoft and Sony must continue to play nice with Konami, Bungie, and Epic Games to keep their exclusivity. What happens if one of these developers “betrays” their console and starts shipping multi-platform?

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