This week’s episode takes a look at the excitement caused by Devil May Cry 5, as well as some more discussion about upcoming games.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
It’s the last podcast before E3 2014 starts on Monday. Jonah is still ravaged by the flu, while Paul’s ghost haunts the podcast.
The news this week includes:
All this and Listener Feedback as well as a new Question of the Week: “How much info do you try to glean from E3 reports?”
For whatever reason, the file is not working. To listen to the podcast, use this player:
A new draft of the R18+ classification has been released by home minister Brendan O’Connor through the Australian Federal Government. The new guidelines closely match those in place for Australia’s film industry. The new R18+ rating removes restrictions on bad language, drug use and nudity; in contrast, the current guidelines forbade the classification of any adult-themed games.
O’Connor’s draft claims that the R18+ rating will allow “virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes”, and violence in games “except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified.” As far as sex, the draft says, “Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is ‘simulation, yes – the real thing, no'”.
Of course, “standards of morality, decency and propriety” is still troublesomely subjective, while “simulation, yes, the real thing, no” is comicly inept for videogames, where everything is simulation. You may be able to tell when live actors are actually performing sexual acts, but when can you tell a videogame character is actually having sex?
O’Connor stated:
“The Gillard government wants to provide better guidance for parents and remove unsuitable material from children and teenagers. The introduction of an R18+ classification will help achieve that and will also bring Australia into line with comparable nations. This issue has been on the table for many years, without the necessary progress to make a change. We’ve recently seen several states publicly express their support for an adult only rating for games and I’m keen to reach a unanimous decision at the July meeting.”
Rather than banning games, why not punish stores for selling mature games to underage children? Or put the onus of raising children on the parents?
The Xbox 360 saw a huge jump last week with Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai, but has dropped back down to normal sales (about none). Some are saying it’s mainly because of a short supply as the 360 sold out in Japan as a result of Tales of Vesperia.
In other news, the PlayStation 3 still isn’t selling very well, a bit more than the PlayStation 2 but nothing like the PSP. The DS holds the record yet again, no surprise there, but we always though the 360 was losing to the Wii and PS3. Although the Wii isn’t doing bad it’s not at the same crazy sales pace it is here in the United States.
The drop in sales for the 360 was fast, hopefully it was indeed due to out-of-stock issues, else that drop was faster than the drops we’ve seen here for GTA IV or MGS4!
(Thanks, Kotaku)
