There’s a lot of PlayStation news this week, good bad and indifferent. In addition, there’s some Gundam’s coming your way. This week’s episode features a double whammy of a Gaming Flashback highlighting Mass Effect 3, and the Gaming History of the infamous Gizmondo.
The news item this week:
Let us know what you think.
Microsoft has come out and validated some earlier rumors about Xbox 360 Avatar’s and their 3D dashboard design. Apparently, this is to build more of a community and bring a bit of the Mii-like influence from the Nintendo Wii to the 360 hardware.
It seems Microsoft is taking some of the concepts from the Nintendo Wii which were poorly implemented due to the lack of any real network community and bring them to live with a more integrated useful system. This proves Nintendo was on the right track but shows off their lack of integration and fear of bringing people together.
“Create, share, and have fun with all of your friends… but avatars are just the beginning. The new Xbox is tailored for the living room. Here we are at the community channel — instead of a list of friends, you actually see them.” (joystiq)
Nintendo’s cute little idea of Mii’s and sharing them with friends was fantastic, a great bullet list feature, but rather useless. Typing in friends codes gets old way too fast and there really isn’t anyway to vocally chat with people on your friends list anyway, so who cares?
Microsoft has proven to know a bit about the community space, has parental controls and a fairly reliable LIVE system for making it all happen. Although Nintendo should look at this with a bit of pride, given duplication is the best form of flattery, they could learn a few things about how to work a community into your console too!
This week it’s Jordan Lund’s turn to be absent, while Jonah Falcon and Paul Nowak discuss just how bad The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is. This week’s Gaming Flashback is Peter Molyneux’s ambitious title Black & White.
In the news:
There’s also some Reader Feedback, while the Question of the Week is, “How in tune with an MMO’s story are you while playing?”
This week we’re bringing the energy, talking about General Computer Corporation, Ms. Pac-Man and reading off some good listener questions (including our facebook questions). We’re hitting up the news with the following stories:
This week’s question of the week, are we going to spend more money on episodic content than a single-boxed game?
Testy test.