The Videogame Roundtable has been around since 2009 and it’s hit its 400th episode, separate from TD Gaming Podcast! Former co-host Dan Quick offers his congrats, and the guys discuss electronic music.
This week’s news includes:
Be sure to listen to the outtakes after the end of the podcast!
For those of you good at math, you might notice that the TD Gaming Podcast is one episode away from a special number. While we have a surprise in store for loyal listeners, there’s still this week’s news to discuss. For starters, the classic Silent Hill 2 is the subject of the Gaming Flashback, even though none of the podcasters have gotten a chance to actually play it.
There’s also some interesting news to discuss, including:
There’s plenty of Reader Feedback, but there’s no Question of the Week, because there’s a special episode coming up. Ooooh, what could it possibly be?
The success of the Nintendo console, the Wii, has proven to change the industry in many new and creative ways including reinvigorating slow product sales at Toys R Us. “The company went from a loss of $42 million at the same time last year to a profit of $13 million for the three months ended August 2nd,” says Gamasutra who spoke with CEO Gerald Storch.
Revenue was up 6.3%, in part, thanks to the Nintendo and its hot moving Wii and Wii Fit products. While Nintendo struggles to supply enough units for the strong demand, Toys R Us has no problem emptying their stores of any hardware they receive.
Months after the Wii launch we witnessed parents waiting in lines before the store opens just to see if they had Wii’s arrive for the opening. Although we’re sure it was a hassle to answer the phones with the typical response, “no, we’ve got no Wii’s in stock,” the long term plan has proven successful.
Have you finally managed to get yourself a Wii? Did you pick it up at Toys R Us?
The Incredible Machine (TiM) is a game designed and developed by Kevin Ryan and produced by Jeff Tunnel (now co-founder of GarageGames and their successful title Marble Blast Ultra on the 360 and co-founder in Dynamix makers of A-10 Tank Killer and The Red Baron). At the time, The Incredible Machine series came out of the shop known as Jeff Tunnel Productions.
Jeff Tunnel Productions published the first Incredible Machine games from 1993 to 1995 while Sierra Entertainment published all the rest of their titles all the way up to 2001. What is The Incredible Machines all about? It’s a game where you must build a series of Rube Goldberg devices in a “needlessly complex fashion” all to perform some simple tasks. That is the entire point to a Rube Goldberg device, which was originally defined as “accomplishing by extremely complex roundabout means what actually or seemingly could be done simply.”
I think everyone has seen a Rube Goldberg device, their are examples in science museums, and entire Myth Busters Episode about them, they appear in many movies (Goonies used one to open the fence to let in Chunk after he does his dance as did Doc Brown in Back to the Future to cook his breakfast and get his dog food).
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