This week starts with two hosts and mysteriously turns into three without any warning. It’s scary. Otherwise, this week’s Gaming Flashback is the source of scorn from the hosts: Spore. Yes, SimEverything was SimDisappointing. Listen in and find out why.
The news for this week includes:
Let us know what you think.
This episode is a little late due to the holiday, but at least it’ll give everyone something to listen to when there’s no episode next week due to Jonah Falcon and Paul S. Nowak heading to E3.
In the meantime, the gang covers the following news:
Along with the usual Reader Feedback, the crew this time asks the readers to ask some questions, instead of the other way around. Let us know what you want to know.
This week we’re enjoying our last 2010 gaming podcast, Jonah, Jennifer and Derrick are cracking through some of the latest news releases for this year and pondering what comes next. Our flashback includes Miner 2049er and the remaining history on the Atari console platforms. The news of the week includes:
This week’s question of the week, pretty simple: What are you looking forward to in 2011 in terms of video games and the industry?
Since the last breath of HD-DVD rumors have been flying about Microsoft’s need (desire?) to get into the Blu-Ray hardware for their 360. The rumor was feasible because Microsoft already spent time working the HD-DVD angle for their “home entertainment” Xbox 360 console.
Although Microsoft’s Shane Kim told Forbe’s, “I can categorically say that we’re not working on a Blu-Ray player for Xbox 360,” there is further proof in Microsoft’s direction: Netflix. From a profit standpoint, Microsoft’s got more to work with in a downloadable digital format with Netflix than they do sending another specification off to manufacturing.
The effort that went into the HD-DVD addon was significant but with risk comes reward, but risk also comes with the chance of failure. Microsoft had to write it off as a failure, do they really need to go through it all again when digital downloads are the future of media? Probably not.
The Xbox 360 is going to be three years old this year, positioning another addon hardware storage player seems like the wrong idea for many reasons:
Undoubtedly, Blu-Ray would be a great storage medium for their next-generation console because it could be established as the core storage platform for developers. If the intent is just to play Blu-Ray movies, you’re going to work hard, today, when adoption rates are so low.
Until you can use a Blu-Ray player for both games and movies, stick with digital downloads of movies and retail purchases for games. Maybe next-generation.
