This week’s episode is full of industry news in the wake of The Game Awards. There wasn’t many news items but there was plenty to talk about with the Awards, especially with this week’s Gaming Flashback, Unlimited Adventures.
This week’s news items include:
Let us know what you think.
The TD Gaming Podcast has started its Kickstarter fundraising, and really, even if every listener donated a few dollars, the project will get funded.
This episode is a bit short thanks to Dan having to skip this week and Jordan and Paul’s busy schedules. Don’t worry, this is only a one time thing, and a full length podcast will be recorded next week.
In any case, this week’s news includes:
This week’s Question of the Week, “What is your favorite convention to attend?”
Microsoft has announced they’ll be giving Xbox Live silver accounts access to play some multi-player cross-platform games for free until the fall update. Recently, Microsoft announced free online play with Games for Windows titles, effectively giving PC gamers “gold accounts” to play online.
Most people agree the move to give gold subscriptions to PC gamers was done because PC gamers don’t care to play Games for Windows games online if they have to pay for it. The culture of PC gaming is much different than console gaming on XBL, gamers expect the online experience at no cost; they’re already paying an ISP for network access, paying for a match-making system with a yearly subscription is not desired.
Console gamers don’t have a choice, buying the 360 experience arrives with simple to play games (no drivers, no installs) but limited online choices: pay or go away. Now, silver members will get a little taste of network play, along side PC gamers in the cross-platform Games for Windows titles.
“Supported cross-platform titles include Universe at War, Shadowrun, and Lost Planet: Colonies Edition.” (gamespot)
We question the intention here… is this as a good faith move or are they wetting people’s appitite for XBL so they’ll want to upgrade to gold in the fall? Or, maybe there are some logistical reasons to doing this in the Xbox Live infrastructure to prepare for upgrades where making it free solves a few of their internal upgrade paths and, as a side effect, gives gamers some games to play.
Of course, we’ve seen few people playing Shadowrun or Lost Planet lately. Maybe this will re-popularize a few older titles as well.
This week’s podcast has Jonah having a new job, while some really long Listener Feedback letters lengthen the podcast. In fact, several discussions between Jonah and Jordan were cut and will be in a near-future Outtakes episode.
This week is full of news as well, including:
That plus the long Listener Feedback, and Jordan has an appeal to veteran listeners to write in.
