The XBox Live Price Crisis, Vicarious Visions' Fate, and Cyberpunk's Struggles
Microsoft attempts to raise the price of XBox Live, Vicarious Visions is absorbed into Blizzard, Resident Evil multiplayer, and still no Half-Life 3?...
Jarret is out but Kurabara is in to join Nick to talk about what’s going on in gaming news. First, Kura talks about playing World of Warcraft Shadowlands and enjoying the raiding. Then he talks about how he wanted to play Mario Maker but wound up playing Mario 35 and getting schooled by his wife. Nick, meanwhile, is enjoying using the gambit system in Final Fantasy XII to keep his kid busy, even if his kid can’t keep their party guests alive.
Cyberpunk 2077 is still in the news as CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski released a video publicly apologizing for the state of the game. Kurabara points out that the apology won’t really be accepted until CDPR is able to patch the game to an acceptable state. Nick points to Hello Games as an example of a studio that overcame a troubled and underwhelming launch. CD Projekt Red is also being examined by the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. The Office is looking into confusion around the Cyberpunk launch and wants to make sure that refunds are being handled correctly. This is concerning because they can fine CDPR for 10% of last year’s revenues, which could be extremely damaging.
In other news, Lucasfilm Games was announced as the new branding for all Star Wars games going forward. It also appears that the Star Wars-EA license exclusivity deal is no longer in place, as Ubisoft announced an open world Star Wars game is in development by Massive Entertainment, who last worked on The Division series. Nick and Kurabara are hopeful and Nick tries not to turn this into a eulogy for Star Wars Galaxies.
Other games that have been announced include an Indiana Jones game from MachineGames, who worked on Wolfenstein. Nick’s only concern is that they get the whip physics correct. Square trademarked some names which screenrant thinks seem to suggest upcoming Final Fantasy content, but Nick is skeptical. Ever Crisis could be a follow up to Crisis Core or something else, and The First Soldier could be a Sephiroth game or it could not. Nick and Kurabara talk about some other instances of misleading trademarks that riled up fanbases.
The US Natural Resources Defense Council issued a recommendation that Sony and Microsoft set their power settings to their lowest settings by default. Nick and Kurabara review just how much power the new consoles draw and Nick complains about paying his power bill.
Microsoft issued a clarification about their contract with Duracell, and Nick and Kurabara review the discussion from last week.
Hosts
Nick Zielenkievicz
Host of WoW! Talk! and The Tauren & The Goblin. Sometimes known as the Video Games Public Defender. Wants to play more Destiny and Marvel Heroes but WoW is all-consuming. Decent F2P Hearthstone player. Sad that he lost the Wii that had Wrecking Crew on it. Would be happy if the only game ever made was M.U.L.E. Gragtharr on Skywall-US. Garresque on Ravencrest-US.
