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Weekend Confirmed Episode 57
by Garnett Lee, Apr 22, 2011 11:00am PDTLike millions of happy gamers, the Weekend Confirmed crew eagerly jumped back into the joys of testing in Portal 2. But there's a lot more to keep guests EGMi's Andrew Pfister and Billy Berghammer, and Jeff and Garnett busy. Mortal Kombat has them in fighting spirits and a full report from Bethesda's recent spring showcase includes a deep look at the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Prey 2. There's also news of the next Wii hardware, codenamed "Cafe," and the brouhaha over Portal 2's ARG in the news before closing things out with Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 57: 04/22/2011
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If you're viewing this in the GameCenter application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 57 directly.
Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 1: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:31:18
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 2: Start: 00:33:04 End: 01:08:29
- The Warning: Start: 01:09:31 End: 01:42:42
- Featured Music "Ahead on Our Way (FF7 Cover)" by Haunted Shores: 01:42:42 End: 01:45:39
- Front Page news: Start: 01:45:39 End: 02:26:42
This week's featured music is the track "Ahead on Our Way (FF7 Cover)" by Haunted Shores. Haunted Shores is Mark Holcomb (guitar) and Misha Mansoor (guitar and programming) and they are an ethnically confused project based in Washington DC. Hear more from them on their Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter delriomusic.
Jeff can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
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Nintendo invented hardcore gamers. The NES, SNES and Gameboy are the reason why there is a hardcore gamer demographic today.
The gamecube was the last system that truly tried to cater to that crowd, true, but the Wii is but ONE step in Nintendo's life in video games.
The DS is still an amazingly inventive space full of experimentation and hardcore titles, a la Nintendo of course, but play Advance Wars, play Castlevania, Kirby's Canvas Curse, hell just play the World Ends With You to see how great that system is for hardcore AND casual gamers.
The Wii market share is held so strongly by people who only play 2 or 3 games on it that it killed any interest developpers could have to try to make it big there, it is true. It is also true that when a title comes multi-platform I will look at PS3 or PC before the Wii, and almost always pick it up there.
But saying Nintendo does not care for the hardcore is shortsighted. They do, they just created the new generation of hardcore gamer, those 5-12 year olds playing the Wii will be tomorrow hardcore, and Nintendo will be what they remember foundly, AGAIN.
Can you realize what they did? They afforded themselves a reboot of their brand. Let me explain:
in the 80s, Nintendo saved the gaming industry and made a generation of kids happy with games they would grow up to love more than any other form of entertainment.
In the 90s, the reaped what they had soughed with the gameboy and the Snes that everyone wanted because of the major hit that the NES was. They even managed to survive the catastrophic Virtual Boy (which would have killed most other companies because of the backlach) and ride on the N64 era which was, in retrospect pretty weak.
In the 2000s (naughties if I am not mistaken) they started to feel a bit long in the tooth because they had a formula that was dwindling (gamcube), their handheld space being the savior, mostly because they were the only serious competitor.
Mid-naughties, they come up with both the DS and Wii, platforms unique and original which were aimed at REKINDLING THE NES ERA. Nintendo is rebooting, after 20-25 years they needed that, we wanted that too.
Now with this idea in mind, think of the PS3, and the Xbox 360.
Playstation is in the third generation, and what was a great start in the PS1 era, then a phenomenon in the PS2, became a clinging 3rd place in the PS3 (catching up, it is true, after all the PS3 and the 360 are shoulder to shoulder now). As for Microsoft, they totally parachuted a system in the race that was just a consolised PC, and as a PC gamer, I hated them for it. Were was the support that Valve (a developer, not even a big time publisher) had to provide? and the 360 has that for it that it is a step forward in term of streamlining the online experience. Which any tech savvy PC gamer had already. The idea there was making it accessible.
But where Playstation rode on two great generation and might have troubles keeping its momentum the next cycle, Xbox is already losing steam in the second cycle (no pun intended on steam, considering that ironically enough, the resurection of the PC gaming scene through steam might be Xbox's biggest problem).
Based on what I have presented, I would say that the next generation, nintendo will expand on their renewed base and turn those kids and casual amateurs into the new generation of hardcore gamers, which we will be welcome to join. Sony and Microsoft will then be faced with the same choice Sega had at the Dreamcast stage, rebooting their brand by enlarging their base, or falling back on a dwindling niche that will shrink a bit more every year.
Just imagine, in the next few years, cloud gaming will be a very serious proposition, PC gaming will actually become easier than console gaming (if you have experienced profile migration on a console, you know why Steam gets it better). the longer they wait, the harder it will be to get people interested in a new machine if it is addressed at the same people who bought the last one.
Actually, following that logic, and even if I doubt that it will fail, I think the 3DS might be the first (after the GBA Micro, of course) Nintendo handheld that really struggles in imposing itself. Considering the inceasing quality of the offer on smartphones and the arrival of tablets, the 3DS might just have to face an uphill battle, because it is the gamecue of it's market, a little too late, a little too small improvement.
Hummm, that was long winded, not as much as my argument on video game violence, I hope, and as interesting too :)
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