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.
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?
This week’s podcast is rife with arguing between Jonah, Jordan and Paul regarding computer science in schools and have a long discussion about the future of the Wii U. In this episode, the earliest MMOFPS PlanetSide gets a Gaming Flashback.
As far as the news items for the week:
All this and Reader Feedback as well as the Question of the Week: “How important is backwards compatibility to you?”
This week’s podcast isn’t the best, but at least we tried, right? There’s a lot of chatter, and Scott gets really angry at people criticizing Star Wars.
This week’s news items includes:
This week’ Question of the Week: “When, if ever, will you be getting VR?”
