This week, the crew discusses all of the news surrounding Activision/Blizzard after its purchase by Microsoft, and the consensus is that Bobby Kotick is still a slime.
Other news includes:
Let us know what you think on the TD Gaming Podcast Facebook page here.
This week we had a huge gaming podcast but we managed to get it all down to 60 minutes of content but it wasn’t easy. We’re digging through some old history, Yoshi’s Story is our gaming flashback and we covered gaming history on The Biography of Yoshi. This weeks news includes:
No new Rock Band in 2009This weeks soap box segment, we’re looking at game audio and which music made the game experience, what game music we best remember. What’s the theme music you remember best?
Also, checkout the TFC information for DRM technologies and comment.
Interview at Casual Gamer Chick with SomaTone.
Here are some reminders!
Well, we hinted at it in the last few podcasts, and now it is live: TD Gaming Podcast is now looking for listener support through Kickstarter.
It’s very easy to donate: just visit our Kickstarter page and click that donate button. The goal is pretty modest, a mere $1500. If all our listeners each donated even just $5, we’d blow by that amount.
What will we do with the money? Make sure we can keep old episodes without having to delete them due to limited server space, and get pro mics for every podcaster. The more money, the longer we can go without worrying about server subscriptions.
We have a few fun reward tiers – our most hardcore fans will definitely want an MP3 of one of the crew or any of the crew recording a voice mail or answer machine outgoing message, or the entire podcast bantering for a few moments. There’s also the requisite T-shirt, which will have the awesome Gaming Podcast logo.
And if you’re in the NYC area, or plan to be, Jonah Falcon will have dinner at a nice restaurant with you. If you’re going to plop that much dough down, how could we refuse a free dinner?
Keep the TD Gaming Podcast alive – donate. We’re counting on you.
Ensemble Studios, owned and operated by Microsoft or, Microsoft Games Studios, has been targed to be dissolved. All employees will find new homes, a large quantity will start a new studio and continue maintaining the later released Halo Wars franchise.
Microsoft has chosen to close the studio as part of their growth plan of Microsoft Games Studios much like FASA was closed in the past. The difference, there is a new landing point for Halo Wars unlike the uncertain future of Shadowrun.
Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.” (gamespot)
Ensemble Studio’s folks will continue to work with Microsoft and will continue to support Halo Wars after its launch. It is important to stress their statement of continuing to support Halo Wars, there is no need to think the project will be done half-assed or without pride as the project will live on with a different studio name.
The only question is… what is causing Microsoft to close down studios with actively working real franchise projects? FASA went down, Bungie was let go on their own and now Ensemble Studios? There has to be something going on here… idea?
