This week’s episode takes a look at the success of World of Warcraft Classic and maybe yet another Batman game.
News:
Let us know what you think.
Jordan Lund and Jonah Falcon finally get back together after an eventful E3 2013, as Jordan finished his not-so-stellar review of The Last of Us. Part of the podcast was from Jonah’s live television show on MNN, which recapped Microsoft’s decision to reverse its online policies with the Xbox One.
The news this week includes:
This week has a contest: win a free Large T-Shirt of Titanfall, by answering the question: What game at E3 impressed you the most?
Bethesda Softworks vice president of marketing Pete Hines is critzing publishers and developers who shoehorn multiplayer into their games that doing such a thing is “a waste of time” and advises, “Just drop it, don’t bother…it’ll make for a worse game.”
In an interview with Next Gen BIZ, Hines states that using online multiplayer as a tool to prevent used game trade-ins and rental simply doesn’t work, and robs developers of valuable man-hours.
Hines stated:
“(People ask us) for a game like Skyrim or Prey 2, why doesn’t it have multiplayer? Well, our question is always the opposite when we talk to a developer. If you’re doing multiplayer, why are you doing multiplayer? What are you trying to accomplish?
“If you’re doing it just to check a box or because every other publisher says you’ve got to have multiplayer, then just drop it, don’t bother, it’s a waste of time, a giant distraction and it’ll make for a worse overall game.
“We want the best game possible. If that’s a singleplayer game that’s 15 to 20 hours, then make that! Don’t waste your time on features that don’t make the game better.”
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Prey 2 are two Bethesda properties that will lack multiplayer, but one of the tools to encourage games to keep both games will be downlodable content and, even more important, good communications with the game communities and nurturing the fandom for both games.
The undeniable rumor, as expected, has come to be true and Microsoft’s Major Nelson has revealed September 5th as the day the Xbox 360 shall drop in price. Although not surprising, this is really the first good price drop for the 360 hardware which does not involve phasing out an old product line.
The price breakdown is as follows:
This is a US price cut, Japan had their price cut last week. We’re not sure about how the rest of the 360 regions will shake out, but they’ll probably end up with a price line much like the one above.
Anyone surprised? Anyone going to run out and buy a 360?
(Thanks, Gamestooge)
