Episode 554: This Time, No Scott

In Episode 552, there was no TJ. This time, Scott has to duck out early in the podcast, leaving a two man podcast again. It’s all good since the quality is still there. (Maybe not.) There’s also a Gaming Flashback: Burnout Paradise.

This week’s news includes:

  • Anthem reportedly set for major overhaul as BioWare looks to reboot its troubled game
  • Minecraft Dungeons will be supported long term with a mix of free updates and paid DLC
  • Dragon Quest Builders 2 is coming to Steam

Let us know what you think.

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Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?

Tech Cruch is reporting that Electronic Arts is about to acquire casual games giant Popcap Games for a cool $1 billion, which would exceed EA’s market cap by over 13%. If true, this would be EA’s definitive entry into the casual games market, a field they broke into 7 years ago.

Despite consuming a significant chunk of EA’s reserves. buying Popcap would bring them IPs such as Bejeweled, Plants Vs. Zombies, Peggle, Zuma and Bookworm.

We’ll keep an eye on this deal as it happens.

Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360

Yoichi Wada of Square Enix has let the cat out of the bag. The cat is Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 and it will be simultaneously released with the PlayStation 3 version. This may be an end to an exclusive era for Sony as all their big brands jump to non-exclusion.

This is probably a result of gamers slow adoption of the PlayStation 3 hardware for various issues, one being cost. Personally I think Sony’s move to say “no price cut” in our near future is a grand mistake. It is well understood that they want profitability over quantity but you’re losing your exclusives to a broader audience.

Each generation of consoles brings new industry trends and, for now, exclusive games from third party developers is too risky when you look at overall cost to produce a block buster title like Final Fantasy XIII. Consider the sales of GTA IV, although they were in the millions, imagine how low it would have been if they only released on the PS3. They’d might have actually lost money on the game.

Square Enix can see the writing on the wall, that writing says “ship on as many mediums as possible.” Gamers are split between consoles with a huge segment on Wii and Xbox 360, if you can at least ship on one of those consoles along with the PS3 you’ll do better financially.

(Thanks, Kotaku)