This week probably has the most shocking and industry moving news of the week, as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo start to play nice — and their players get to play together.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week, the gang ponder about the games that are coming in 2017, thinking about what they’re really interested in. The games range from Mass Effect: Andromeda to Injustice 2, among other titles. It’s a long rambling conversation, but at least it’s hope. The Gaming History focuses on the folly that was The Capcom 5.
The news items this week include:
The Question of the Week is “What game are you looking forward to in 2017?”
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)
This is the last podcast of 2023, as the gang just talks about the year that was and the upcoming 2024 in a long, unscripted episode.
