Look, we’re back, and as promised, the new podcast is now up and recorded on the final day of E3 in Devolver Digital’s off-site space. Jonah and T.J. hang out near the Fable Fortune booth as they discuss the games they scoped out on the show floor. If T.J. seems a lot more chill than usual, keep in mind he’s enjoyed a few beers by then.
Next week will see Scott joining in with his impressions of the conference from afar.
Apparently Konami just realized Harmonix, MTV Networks and Viacom have made some game called Rock Band and want to take legal action. Konami has created some Japanese games involving karaoke called Karaoke Revolution. Why take legal action now?
Probably because Konami is working towards Rock Revolution, a title which puts together drums, vocals and guitar. How odd, don’t we have a game called Rock Band which has done that for awhile now? It’s much easier to be competitive in the market if you can squeeze your opponent out of the market by telling them you hold a patent on the entire concept…which you let slide for a year.
It seems a bit convenient to force a lawsuit, now, after Rock Band is proven successful and before you launch your own “clone.”
Its suit claims that Rock Band violates a series of US Patents registered in 2002 and 2003 relating to “simulated musical instruments” and “musical rhythm-matching game.” (gamespot)
Although the developers of Rock Band should have gone through some patents on the topic prior to make it (or maybe they did?), it seems a bit out of place to patent such a generic concept. As far as I know, Musical Chairs is also a musical rhythm-matching game but nobody put up any stink when Konami filed a patent for the same concept…
This week we’re one person down, but we’re carrying the torch anyway. This gaming podcast covers the latest news, hits up a flashback of Qix and digs into the history of Taito. We’ve got some great comment this week from ipod gaming to console generation predictions. This weeks news includes:
Longest Pre-Order Wait EverWe’re also going to hold a little contest to give away to copies of Plants vs. Zombies from popcap. Listen to the gaming podcast for the details! We want to thank all the folks who wrote in and cheftafoya for some of the news articles.
Question of the week? Are you going to sign up for hte Starcraft II beta on hype alone…?
[This episode was reposted due to being corrupted when the site went down.]
This episode is heavy on remasters and expansions, some bad, some good, some questionable. There’s even a sequel in there.
The news items include:
All this and listener feedback!
