Episode 694: Baldur’s Starfield

As Starfield readies its launch, Baldur’s Gate 3 gets a ton of updates.

The news includes:

  • Star Wars: Dark Forces is getting the Nightdive remaster treatment
  • Xbox must have mobile presence if it’s going to thrive, Phil Spencer says
  • No Man’s Sky adds its first new race in its biggest update of the year
  • Citizen Sleeper 2 announced
  • League of Legends is ditching Mythic items

All this and Listener Feedback.

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Episode 421: Pursuit of HappinessEpisode 421: Pursuit of Happiness

This week’s episode morphs from a discussion about abusive workplace practices to pharmaceutical company practices. Otherwise, it’s just a discussion about the games people play and the people who play them. Also, a bunch of pop culture discussion.

This week’s news includes:

  • GameStop to launch video game publishing division
  • Sources leak potential Nintendo NX and controller specs online
  • Nintendo’s cloud-like patent approved
  • Ark: Survival Evolved lawsuit settled

The Question of the Week, “What games are you looking forward to this coming Summer?”

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.

Ensemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In QuestionEnsemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In Question

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?