This week’s podcast includes the following news items:
Let us know what you think.
Due to scheduling conflicts, there is no podcast. The next podcast will be recorded at its regularly scheduled time.
Much like Kameo: Elements of Power, Fable 2 ships without online co-op mode on day-one. However, Kameo didn’t promise the co-op mode prior to the games release, or talk about it in their presentations and hype machine conferences.
How does that happen? It’s easy to promise a feature but words do not make games true. More than likely the online co-op was a bit more complicated or had some bugs that needed to be shaken out prior to shipping. Microsoft is talking about releasing a patch for the new co-op play on the first week or so of the game release.
There are two options: ship a product that’s buggy and deal with the online PR nightmare with bugs and day-one patches, or, ship it without the feature and promise it early in the launch phase of the game. Once the code is complete, game software has to go through the packing, duplication and shipping phase. A lot of last minute testing can get done in the time it takes to produce the boxed product.
Hopefully Microsoft is doing some last minute testing to make a more reliable presentation of online co-op which everyone can use. However if it releases with a bunch of bugs…
(Thanks, GameSpot)
This weeks gaming podcast brings us some recent news articles while also focusing the history and flashbacks on play-by-mail games. We’re looking at Diplomacy and discussing this weeks comments. The week in news includes:
Don’s with us in studio this week and goes on a tear about iPhone Monopoly, requiring many censor beeps. We’re asking a new question of the week: ESRB – What is your ratio to TV/Movies for electronic entertainment?
