This week, Nintendo reveals the Switch 2 teaser video and Hello Kitty and Friends DLC has been released for Minecraft. Fun!
The news also includes:
Let us know what you think.
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This week’s Gaming Podcast is exciting as we’re giving away a copy of the Xbox 360 version of Borderlands 2, which Jordan Lund drools over, while Jonah Falcon urges players to check out Kerbal Space Program. The Gaming Flashback is none other than the classic The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
As far as game news:
Finally, the Question of the Week is, “What is your favorite game from the decade of the 2000’s”. For some help, check out this article.
Once upon a time the folks at Blizzard Entertainment thought they could support the entire world of World of Wacraft by ad revenue. This would have created an MMO experience which would cost you nothing but a bit of annoyance by ad providers; what would the total audience be if the game was free?
Had WoW launched free of charge they would probably have significantly more users playing the game, but the ad revenue from the sheer amount of people would be nothing compared to a monthly charge for eight million subscribers.
Although only a small number of those subscribers are US based, they’re still raking in the cash compared to an ad-based model, even if they were to have triple the subscribers.
However, the Blizzard exec noted: “We didn’t want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realized that wouldn’t support us.”
It’s possible, perhaps, that Blizzard would have fallen under its own weight had they created a world where anyone could play for no charge. Imagine the server utilization, the volume of traffic and the support calls they would get for triple or quadrupal the player base with only ads paying the checks.
Granted, a free system would be excellent in theory, but in practice, making us pay is the only way to throttle our addictions. Sad, but true.
(Thanks, gamasutra)
Wii Motion Plus is Nintendo’s next big hardware up sell, an add-on that should make the Wii controller more realistic and flexible when playing highly sensitive “real movement” games. The hardware has been looked at by many in the industry as fixing imperfections in the current hardware, a patch of sorts.
The Wii Motion Plus is going to be bundled with Wii Sports Resort, a title that’s obviously playing off the biggest Wii hit Wii Sports. Latest reports are showing the game title missing from the upcoming release lists, so, it’s not too far fetched to assume the hardware will be delayed along with the game, considering this was the first game to rely on the Wii Motion Plus hardware.
The delay is rumored to be due to a few problems with the Wii Motion Plus, more than likely during the final stages of testing the prototype products. In Nintendo’s defense, they’re usually very good about due diligence when it comes to producing hardware and software, taking the time that is needed to get something into the customers hands that’s acceptable quality. All eyes are on Nintendo with the Wii Motion Plus because people see this as the final “fix” to make the Wii controller do everything it was promised to do.
While Nintendo doesn’t see the original controller as broken (nor do the millions of customers buying them everyday), this new hardware should make it more sensitive for games that require perfect movement… games like Wii Sports Resort?
At this point we’d expect to hear news of a slight delay by Nintendo soon. We’d rather see it arrive late than utterly broken and useless.
(Thanks, Kotaku)
