Episode 452: Goodbye Princess Leia, Hello 2017

The year has ended, as the last podcast of 2016 was recorded last week, and released today. There’s much discussion that was cut out and saved for a future outtakes episode. Regardless, there’s plenty of show to go around, and the sound quality is also far better than ever thanks to Jonah getting a professional headset and mic.

This week’s news includes:

  • Nintendo registers trademark that could point to a SNES Classic Edition
  • Windows 10 may be getting a new “Game Mode” option
  • The next game by That Dragon, Cancer‘s dev is not what you’d expect

This week’s Question of the Week is “What game in 2017 might you buy that you normally wouldn’t?”

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Episode 598: Welcome to 2021Episode 598: Welcome to 2021

This is the first podcast of 2021! It was also recorded a day before people decided to invade the US Capitol. How weird is that, hearing us blissfully unaware of insurrectionists who thought they could terrorize the US Senate?

Anyway, this week’s news includes:

  • Minecraft Earth is closing in June
  • Bethesda tweets about Elder Scrolls
  • Hitman 3 will launch with trilogy-wide optimizations

Let us know what you think at the Facebook comment site.

Ensemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In QuestionEnsemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In Question

Ensemble Studios, owned and operated by Microsoft or, Microsoft Games Studios, has been targed to be dissolved. All employees will find new homes, a large quantity will start a new studio and continue maintaining the later released Halo Wars franchise.

Microsoft has chosen to close the studio as part of their growth plan of Microsoft Games Studios much like FASA was closed in the past. The difference, there is a new landing point for Halo Wars unlike the uncertain future of Shadowrun.

Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.” (gamespot)

Ensemble Studio’s folks will continue to work with Microsoft and will continue to support Halo Wars after its launch. It is important to stress their statement of continuing to support Halo Wars, there is no need to think the project will be done half-assed or without pride as the project will live on with a different studio name.

The only question is… what is causing Microsoft to close down studios with actively working real franchise projects? FASA went down, Bungie was let go on their own and now Ensemble Studios? There has to be something going on here… idea?

Episode 471: Nintendo’s LawyersEpisode 471: Nintendo’s Lawyers

Nintendo is the main focus of this week’s episode, but we can’t discuss the company too much or they’ll sic their lawyers on the podcast. Other than that, there’s plenty of safe things to discuss.

This week’s episode includes:

  • Evil Genius 2 in development at Rebellion
  • Nobody can find the source code for Icewind Dale II
  • Breath of the Wild players will learn more about Zelda in The Champions’ Ballad DLC
  • Where are all the Nintendo Switch game ports?

Also, learn about who won the contest, which was decided by the roll of a die.