Episode 604: Bethesda Officially Belongs to Microsoft

Microsoft confirmed their ownership of Zenimax, and what wasn’t in the episode because it would be revealed in Thursday that Bethesda games and others would be as exclusive as possible to PC and Xbox; contractual agreements would have to be honored, of course.

This week’s news includes:

  • Microsoft’s $7.5B acquisition of Bethesda has been given the green light
  • Star Dynasties announced
  • Phasmophobia’s latest update means ghosts can open doors and follow your voice

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Episode 683: Super Mega Podcast 4Episode 683: Super Mega Podcast 4

This week we discuss Bungie lawsuits, the Street Fighter 6 World Tour, a Stardew Valley clone featuring serial killers, and Fortnite as an Olypmic esport.

The news of the week includes:

  • Nintendo seems to have fired back over the Tears of the Kingdom leak by DMCAing popular Switch emulation tools
  • Finnish newspaper uses Counter-Strike to provide accurate Russian reporting on Ukraine invasion
  • Apple Arcade adds 20 games
  • Marvel’s Midnight Suns landing on Xbox One and PS4 next week, Switch canceled
  • Super Mega Baseball 4 launches in June

Let us know what you think.

Xbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In BoxXbox 360’s Fable 2: No Online Co-Op In Box

Much like Kameo: Elements of Power, Fable 2 ships without online co-op mode on day-one. However, Kameo didn’t promise the co-op mode prior to the games release, or talk about it in their presentations and hype machine conferences.

How does that happen? It’s easy to promise a feature but words do not make games true. More than likely the online co-op was a bit more complicated or had some bugs that needed to be shaken out prior to shipping. Microsoft is talking about releasing a patch for the new co-op play on the first week or so of the game release.

There are two options: ship a product that’s buggy and deal with the online PR nightmare with bugs and day-one patches, or, ship it without the feature and promise it early in the launch phase of the game. Once the code is complete, game software has to go through the packing, duplication and shipping phase. A lot of last minute testing can get done in the time it takes to produce the boxed product.

Hopefully Microsoft is doing some last minute testing to make a more reliable presentation of online co-op which everyone can use. However if it releases with a bunch of bugs…

(Thanks, GameSpot)