Episode 678: Paradoxical

This week we check out Paradox Interactive’s showcase, as well as the following news:

  • Cities: Skylines 2 achievements reveal hailstorms, rat infestations, and 150 map tiles in a single city
  • Evidence is mounting for an upcoming Minecraft Bedrock world editor mode

Let us know what you think of Paradox’s lineup.

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Episode 583: #MeToo in VideogamesEpisode 583: #MeToo in Videogames

The latest sexual harassment scandal rocks, and things are not steady with the developer. Bad puns aside, the industry continues to have to grow up from dude-bro heaven to actual places of business.

All that, as well as the following news items:

  • Batman: Arkham studio accused of failing to prevent sexual harassment
  • Spelunky 2 is now on Steam with an updated release window
  • Nintendo’s next Switch indie presentation tomorrow
  • 7.5 million players claimed a free copy of Total War Saga: Troy

Let us know what you think.

Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360

Yoichi Wada of Square Enix has let the cat out of the bag. The cat is Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 and it will be simultaneously released with the PlayStation 3 version. This may be an end to an exclusive era for Sony as all their big brands jump to non-exclusion.

This is probably a result of gamers slow adoption of the PlayStation 3 hardware for various issues, one being cost. Personally I think Sony’s move to say “no price cut” in our near future is a grand mistake. It is well understood that they want profitability over quantity but you’re losing your exclusives to a broader audience.

Each generation of consoles brings new industry trends and, for now, exclusive games from third party developers is too risky when you look at overall cost to produce a block buster title like Final Fantasy XIII. Consider the sales of GTA IV, although they were in the millions, imagine how low it would have been if they only released on the PS3. They’d might have actually lost money on the game.

Square Enix can see the writing on the wall, that writing says “ship on as many mediums as possible.” Gamers are split between consoles with a huge segment on Wii and Xbox 360, if you can at least ship on one of those consoles along with the PS3 you’ll do better financially.

(Thanks, Kotaku)