Jonah considers Elden Ring too grind-y, and talks about the name of an infamous handheld console.
News items include:
Let us know what you think.
This week’s podcast has no Listener Feedback, and is sort of short because of it. However, in addition to the news items that were on script, there was the surprise news of how much Grand Theft Auto V cost to produce.
This week’s news includes:
This week’s Question of the Week asks if you’ve ever gotten a new version of the console you already owned.
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?
It’s the last podcast before E3 2014 starts on Monday. Jonah is still ravaged by the flu, while Paul’s ghost haunts the podcast.
The news this week includes:
All this and Listener Feedback as well as a new Question of the Week: “How much info do you try to glean from E3 reports?”
For whatever reason, the file is not working. To listen to the podcast, use this player:
Hi guys.
As usual: thanks a lot for your effort and work to bring us this and every other episode 🙂
I am not able to say so much to this episode because I don’t know all the games you talked about ?
I played a lot of Magic Arena as usual, some WoW and since it is released some days ago: Itorah, a hand drawn Meteoidvania Indie Game.
But some things I can say sth about:
Dorfromantik: I own this game and it is really relaxing and I can play it over and over again. You can’t loose in some way so it’s not frustrating 🙂 I really recommend it 🙂
PS5: I am happy i gut a PS5 some months ago, but sadly I did not play so much with it. I only played some hours God of War with the 4K HDR Upgrade.
Gizmondo: I owned this console and yes it had a SIM card in it 🙂 I never played with it, it was only a nice upgrade for my retro gaming collection. I sold
It for way to much money in my opinion, but because of the fact that it is rare and I owned the packaging box, manual and all that stuff it was a nice catch when I bought it 🙂
Super Mario Guide: why is this a topic? Such an old game and now it is a topic? ? but I think some collectors or hardcore fans are really interested in this thing. The game is still played a lot by speedrunners, afaik?
Switch Topic: I really love my switch. It doesn’t need any upgrade, because the games for this console should not be such graphical monster games in 4K HDR… I like it for the simplicity. You can play the games even if you don’t have that much time, they are easy to understand, easy to solve or finish and you can can get back to them after weeks and are in to it after some minutes. No need for an epic storyline which is hard to follow. But for sure that’s my opinion and I understand every person who wants complex storys, hardcore mode and complicated as hell 🙂
Sorry for late commenting, but I wanted to drop the lines to make you know, that I am still a listener and follower even if I don’t comment every episode 🙂
Guys, that’s all from my side. Please keep on the good work, stay healthy and enjoy whatever you do 🙂
Greetings from Germany,
Ralf