This week is all about the Showcases, from Summer Game Fest to Microsoft’s Xbox/Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 showcase. It’s over 2 hours of fun, enjoy!
Episode 725: Every Showcase But Nintendo
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Episode 280: Episode 280: Full of Drugs and an XCOM ContestEpisode 280: Episode 280: Full of Drugs and an XCOM Contest
Jordan Lund can’t make Episode 280, but fortunately, Paul S. Nowak makes his triumphant return, albeit pumped full of medication. Enjoy his drug-fueled babbling as he waxes poetic on the virtues of playing social networking games while high.
He was lucid enough to discuss the following news items with the gang, however:
- Cryptic calls for new MMO review system
- BioWare Mythic “can’t make all Ultima fans happy” but hope they “enjoy nostalgia”
- PS3 version of Black Ops 2 includes optional hi-res texture install
- Wii U gamepad won’t be sold separately at launch
Gaming Podcast is also running a new contest to win a free Steam code for the hotly anticipated XCOM: Enemy Unknown remake. All listeners have to do is answer the Question of the Week in the comments section, “What is your favorite game from the 1990’s?”
TD Gaming Podcast 77: Skeleton CrewTD Gaming Podcast 77: Skeleton Crew
This week on the TD Gaming Podcast we explore four exciting news stories:
- Diablo 3 Announced, Blizzard brings us their next hit franchise to the light…or dark?
- Xbox 360 Price Drop Rumors: $299 in the future?
- Blizzard adds a one-time password to World of Warcraft
- Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Get’s Fan Pack DLC
This week in gaming history we’ll look back at LJN, a listener’s idea and gaming flashback on the hit title Myst. This week we discuss the concept of using the Nintendo DS as a learning device, as they’re doing in Japan.
Microsoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 ValueMicrosoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 Value
Rumors float around the Internet questioning when Microsoft will ship a Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360 or add-on device like they did with the, now failed, HD-DVD. At CES 09 Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, says this request is “way down the list.”
Mr. Bach had some great selling points as to why a Blu-ray player has little value in the world of Xbox 360. The primary reason, of course, being the Xbox 360 developers cannot take advantage of Blu-ray as a development platform for games. This was the price Sony, or the consumer, paid to own a PlayStation 3 since all games are printed on the media and are, in effect, Blu-ray “capable.”
We say capable because not all (any?) PlayStation 3 games currently make full use of the Blu-ray media. Many games will reprint the game on the media for optimization purposes, fill the game with international voice overs for all countries or, otherwise, stuff the media with something that will serve a useful purpose. Sony has near-future-proofed their device by giving game developers years of growth in terms of utilizing the Blu-ray capacity.
Microsoft chose to take the smaller old-style DVD format for games and media. Adding the HD-DVD didn’t add a large deal of risk because, as we saw, they can discontinue the model and not change their core gaming demographic. We still laughed a bit at them, but that was where it ended. Bach also said that it’s not really a great economic time to push a new 360 SKU on potential customers with additional cost just for Blu-ray movies playback.
They could add Blu-ray game development support as well but that would just alienate the “28 million Xboxes” they have already shipped.
“OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.” (gamespot)
Of course, the first thing that came to our mind was “well, you did it for HD-DVD, how is Blu-ray different?” The key areas we can think of really come down to Blu-ray is a Sony technology and they are a direct competitor and, to top it off, HD-DVD allowed them to fight against the PS3 at the media level of the industry. They minimized the risk by making the product a secondary add-on device and, if HD-DVD had won, they’d have the winning format already under production (still not for games).
It seems Microsoft has changed their battle plans a little. They started out talking up the media aspects of the 360, using Media Center, renting movies and TV shows and had the HD-DVD as a subproduct. Today, they’re investing in Netflix for media and everything else favors the games.
Which is fine, we like games.
Hi guys.
Thanks for 2 hours of entertainment 🙂
I dont know any of these games (i mean id did not play any) so i just wanted to give this short shoutout 🙂
Is anyone of you coming to “Spiel” in Essen, germany ? So we could have dinner together or sth like that.
Keep on the good workd and stay healthy!
greetings,
Ralf