Episode 590: Microsoft and Epic Tag Team

This week has Microsoft backing Epic against Apple, Nintendo telling people they don’t have controller drift and apologizing for controller drift, and some new games.

The news includes:

  • Level-5 has reportedly halted nearly all operations in North America
  • Microsoft sides with Epic in its fight with Apple
  • Nintendo is reducing the price of Switch Joycons in Japan
  • Torchlight 3 leaves Early Access

Let us know what you think.

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Episode 347: Final FantasyEpisode 347: Final Fantasy

This week’s podcast features the Gaming Flashback of Final Fantasy VI, which takes up a third of the podcast as Paul and Jordan enthuse about the Japanese roleplaying game at length – so much so, that some news items were skipped over due to running length. Jonah prepares for his trip to PAX East 2014 for the weekend. He also proclaims Emperor Palpatine dancing in Kinect Star Wars the best thing to ever happen for Star Wars.

This week’s news includes:

  • Amazon says FireTV will boost mid-market games
  • Borderlands 2 Vita bundle hits on May 6, game launches May 13
  • Molyneux predicts Kinect-less Xbox One
  • Microsoft looking into Xbox 360 emulation through Xbox One

A lot of Listener Feedback this week, and the Question of the Week is “What mobile games have you played recently?”

Episode 236: Now With PandasEpisode 236: Now With Pandas

This week, Paul is not around, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss the latest news, which includes pandas. Lots and lots of pandas. That, and a Gaming History profile on David Crane.

The news this week includes:

  • World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced
  • Sony: April PSN outage has resulted in improved service
  • Deep Silver: “There is a clear technology gap
  • Starcraft II DOTA mod will remain free but monetized
  • “Literally, there’s three of us” on console Diablo III
  • Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name

With that is Reader Mail and the Queston of the Week: What was your favorite Atari 2600 game?

Activision Blizzard Official, Merger CompleteActivision Blizzard Official, Merger Complete

The deal has been done, you can now officially call the company Activision Blizzard. Sure, the name is sorta lame but it does cover the bases… they’re Activision and they’re Blizzard; surely neither company wanted to lose their lively hood and branding.

We’re now looking at a company that’s more powerful than Electronic Arts, surely this worries Electronic Arts a bit. However, consumers like ourselves should be cheering for more competition against the big EA, perhaps forcing them to innovate a bit more and keep competitive.

Many gamers and industry participants would love to see independent companies grab a bit of the market share and bring in new startup companies and spin-off studios. However, if there is going to be a merger at the top-tier it might as well be one that puts pressure on Electronic Arts.

“We have created the world leader in online and console games with this transaction, and the combined strengths of the two businesses offer immense growth potential,” gushed Vivendi SA CEO Jean-Bernard Levy. “I am also very confident that, with the new leadership team in place, the new entity is perfectly positioned to take advantage of these rapidly developing markets across the globe.” (gamespot)

Now, we’ll have to wait and see if the upper level management can get along in a fluid manner and keep all their projects on track. With great power comes great responsibility, they’ve got the power… are they going to be responsible with it?