Episode 530: Pokemons With Swords and Shields

This week’s episode was delayed in publication thanks to real life intruding on the videogame podcast.

The week’s news items include:

  • Pokémon Sword and Shield starters revealed
  • Stardew Valley gets esports tournament
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be revealed in April
  • Funcom is working on a Dune MMO, and two more Dune games

All that and listener feedback.

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Podcast DelayPodcast Delay

Due to a malicious trojan virus that infected my desktop, this week’s podcast is delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The podcast was recorded, but there’s no way to edit it while the PC is in this state.

Worst comes to worst, a new podcast will be recorded next week.

Episode 323: What Is Nintendo Thinking?Episode 323: What Is Nintendo Thinking?

Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss PAX Prime 2013, then delve into this week’s news, Listener Feedback, and discuss the 1990’s developer Psygnosis.

The news this week includes:

  • Nintendo announces 2DS, Wii U price drop
  • Inafune “fought hard” for risk taking at Capcom, creators must be “willing to fail”
  • Godus beta to hit Steam Early Access on 13th September
  • Diablo III‘s new loot system to “cut the legs out” from the auction house
  • Bethesda wants The Elder Scrolls Online available to non-Xbox Live subscribers

The Question of the Week: “How many times have you purchased a new form factor of a console you already owned?”

Xbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In BoxXbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In Box

Much like Kameo: Elements of Power, Fable 2 ships without online co-op mode on day-one. However, Kameo didn’t promise the co-op mode prior to the games release, or talk about it in their presentations and hype machine conferences.

How does that happen? It’s easy to promise a feature but words do not make games true. More than likely the online co-op was a bit more complicated or had some bugs that needed to be shaken out prior to shipping. Microsoft is talking about releasing a patch for the new co-op play on the first week or so of the game release.

There are two options: ship a product that’s buggy and deal with the online PR nightmare with bugs and day-one patches, or, ship it without the feature and promise it early in the launch phase of the game. Once the code is complete, game software has to go through the packing, duplication and shipping phase. A lot of last minute testing can get done in the time it takes to produce the boxed product.

Hopefully Microsoft is doing some last minute testing to make a more reliable presentation of online co-op which everyone can use. However if it releases with a bunch of bugs…

(Thanks, GameSpot)