Tom Towers and Phil Fogg break from their monthly podcasting schedule go over the week's news and anything else gaming related in their lives.
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Howl of the Dragon Golfer
0:01 (MP3) (Article Source) (EP)
YakuzaKillzONE MINUTE
2:45 Kaz is coming to Hots Shots Golf.
4:04 Killzone Director Says PS4 is Not Just a High End PC
NEWS
7:29 Nintendo Direct Conference
40:25 March 2013 NPD
Sega Saturn with Memory Card
Transcript
Tom: The Yakuza with the heart of gold, always had a bit of an income for gold, and now we can take that income in new lives.
Tom: Moving from mini-game gold to full-game painting gold, with no handicap in Japan at least for yen.
Tom: Flying Pikmin, and a ridiculous amount of DS announcements.
Tom: Why not play a laser beam and a gold-pistachio instead?
Tom: As long as that's not a user-missing, there ain't beating in your head.
Tom: So join two men that's a bit egress, as they address the haunted lines on laserlemon.com and the rest.
Tom: On Game Under's first micro-podcast, focus on the new Unitarian Manor, as far as fire format.
Tom: As you can probably gather from that intro, this is in fact the Game under.net podcast.
Tom: I am Tom Towers, and I'm joined by co-host Phineas Fogg.
Tom: Because I have to correct your name next.
Tom: And yeah, and we've got to give full credit to the music, which was in fact not original content made by us, but How the Dragon Goat from the Yakuza soundtrack.
Tom: And if you were paying attention to the lyrics, you would have discovered that they were not only introducing the podcast, but also telling us all about the first thing we will be discussing, which is the fact that Kazuma Kiryu is a DLC character in Hotshot Golf World Invitational in Japan.
Phil: Well, beyond that, you know, Tom, I think, first of all, we should say that that was an original song.
Phil: That song, as it appeared first in Yakuza did not have your lyrics over the top of it.
Tom: That is true.
Phil: And I've got to say, I'm pretty disappointed with that song.
Phil: It kind of spoiled the podcast for me.
Phil: Now I know what's coming up.
Tom: Well, it's meant to whip your appetite for what's coming.
Phil: Well, I've read the script for this week's podcast, and I don't think my character Phil Fogg gets enough development.
Phil: I thought we would be moving along a lot earlier, you know, at this point of the show, but I'll go along with it.
Tom: I'm still waiting for him to contribute something musically.
Phil: Well, he's contributed enough by introducing our Yakuza Killzone Minute.
Phil: Which is everyone's favorite part of the show where we must at least dedicate some time to Killzone and or Yakuza.
Phil: And fortunately for us, I was reading on lasallemming.com this week that Kazumakiro is coming to the PlayStation and PS Vita Hotshots Golf World Invitational.
Phil: And we'll have these pictures available for people to look at, but you can just go to LasalLemming and see them yourselves.
Phil: But starting actually this week for about $in Japan, people can download Kaz for Hotshots.
Phil: And the pictures show like a cheaper little version of him in the locker room.
Phil: You can cut his hair, you can put a bow on him and other things.
Phil: And then they also show, which we're using on our front page actually, if you just want to go to gameunder.net, you'll see the front page, his birdie shot.
Phil: Every time you get a birdie, you have like a triumphal animation in Hotshots.
Tom: In which he grabs a mic stand.
Phil: Yes, yes, because he has to sing karaoke.
Phil: So, yeah, so that's what I had for Yakuza this week.
Phil: What have you got in Killzone News?
Tom: Well, apparently the technical director of Guerrilla Games, Michael Vandalau, has been rather offended by the claims that the PSis basically just a high-end PC.
Phil: Which, well, I object with that.
Phil: I object to that.
Phil: It's not a high-end PC.
Phil: It's like a mid-range PC.
Tom: Well, that was the first problem I was going to raise, is that it's clearly not a high-end PC.
Tom: And the second would be, I don't think that's really a bad thing to be compared to, even a mid-range PC for a console.
Tom: But he says, the fact that the best pieces of hardware are also devised from or optimised versions of the sub-refinery in PCs doesn't make it any less a console.
Tom: He goes on to say, in response to people, that's difficult because people are trolling, right?
Tom: What do you say to a troll?
Tom: You don't feed the trolls.
Tom: That will make them grow.
Tom: This is a statement he said directly after responding to the trolls by saying, it's not a computer.
Phil: What I found interesting about this is that he explains how Guerrilla Games, they were basically working with Sony, well, they're owned by Sony, in terms of their feedback that they gave.
Phil: They said that their feedback resulted in at least five changes to the graphics chip, the CPU and the bandwidth between the components, which is going to be RAM, which I thought was kind of extraordinary.
Phil: I mean, on the one hand, it shows that actually it's all positive, really, that Sony is at least going to their first party publishers and saying, hey guys, this is what we're thinking about hardware.
Phil: Is this going to work for what you think your next generation game will be?
Tom: And Guerrilla seems like a pretty logical choice to do just that, because Killzone and at the beginning of the PlayStation lifecycle was easily one of the best looking games, and still looks pretty damn incredible.
Tom: So if they were going to go to one of their first party developers, it's not surprising that they will go to someone like Guerrilla Games.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: And also because those guys are Eastern European, I mean, they're basically going to, you know, they're not going to play any games.
Phil: They're going to say, look, hey, this is what we need.
Phil: This is what, you know, I know Epic played that role for Microsoft and the Xbox in terms of doubling the amount of RAM in that system.
Phil: You know, Epic basically said, look, our engine isn't going to run on your system unless you double the RAM on it.
Tom: They then released a statement five days later saying that it will run on anything and expect the same.
Phil: Including an Android phone.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: All right.
Phil: Well, that was our Yakuza Killzone Minute.
Phil: And from there, we should probably tell our regular listeners, we will be podcasting once a month our show gameunder.net, but we will be doing as many shows in between those monthly intervals as we see fit as big news.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Or something interesting.
Tom: Such as the Yakuza News.
Phil: Such as the Yakuza News, I mean.
Phil: I know, man.
Phil: It only applies to our Japanese listeners who speak English at this point.
Phil: But it's pretty big news.
Phil: But the big news this week was of course Nintendo Direct.
Phil: There was a Nintendo Direct conference.
Phil: These things are always revealed basically at the last minute.
Phil: And this time, sometimes we have a Japanese Nintendo Direct, sometimes we have a Western one.
Phil: This time we had two at the same time.
Phil: There was a Japanese and Western Nintendo Direct conference.
Phil: And from that, some news appeared.
Phil: And then there was quite the reaction to the news that appeared.
Phil: Now, in the past, these Nintendo Directs have been pretty disappointing.
Phil: They don't typically reveal any big news.
Phil: But this one did have some big news.
Phil: And that was mostly a DS heavy release schedule.
Phil: So we'll start with the biggest of news, and then we'll work our way down.
Phil: Link to the Past was announced for the DS.
Phil: This will be coming out in early
Phil: This was already playable, and members of the media were allowed to play the game.
Tom: And there's lots of gameplay videos floating around.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: Nintendo says that all dungeons and puzzles are new, which is interesting, because fairly shortly after, there was a screenshot that showed that at least some parts of Link to the Past are exactly like the original Link to the Past.
Tom: Yeah, that was a shot of a forest or a town.
Phil: Which I think is fine, because if I were to have a sequel to one of the most popular Legend of Zelda games of all time, and plenty of people list this as the greatest game of all time, it would make sense that you'd have at least a tribute level, and that may be what people have seen.
Phil: But I did find it interesting that Nintendo qualified that all dungeons and puzzles are new.
Phil: And I may be reading too much into that, but that means to me that, well, what isn't new, right?
Tom: Well, going by that screenshot, perhaps the world map is exactly the same.
Phil: Yeah, something else that's new in the game is the ability to become a wall drawing, to crawl across ledges and, you know, basically they took the woodcut art from Wind Waker and you can basically become a, what do you call it, a pictograph or a hieroglyph and crawl across ledges.
Phil: The only other thing, before we get to your reaction to this news, was that in the West it's called Legends of Zelda.
Phil: In Japan, on the Japanese Nintendo Direct, they call this Link to the Past
Phil: So, or more explicitly, a sequel to Link to the Past.
Phil: So in the Japanese Nintendo Direct, they made it very clear that this is a sequel, but the Western title doesn't make that as clear.
Tom: I think this might be in anticipation of people getting pissed off about a sequel to an old Zelda game where everyone is still waiting for a new Wii U Zelda.
Phil: Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there.
Phil: They know that in the West, they're far more sensitive to criticisms of just releasing sequel after sequel after sequel of the same old game over and over again.
Phil: So if you call it explicitly Link to the Past sequel to Link to the Past, that's really going to undercut your marketing.
Phil: So, but nevertheless, I mean a follow up to what many people consider the greatest game of all time is big news.
Phil: And hopefully they've done it right.
Phil: I'm sure they are.
Phil: I think EAD is doing development on this.
Phil: They're not subbing it out.
Tom: Well, the gameplay videos look pretty promising.
Tom: The most interesting part of it is that I saw, and you can't really get a sense of how this works watching videos of it, but how they're using D to basically show vertical depth so that the levels are basically designed so that you're moving around them and you're often having to jump up to higher levels while also watching the lower levels.
Tom: So a lot of the puzzle solving appears to be simply climbing up the dungeon from level to level as opposed to in older Zelda dungeons where you're basically just looking for a key, right, to then move on to the next level through a door.
Tom: So that could turn out to be a pretty revolutionary change to the structure of the Dramagens.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, I'd have to agree.
Phil: I mean, I don't think that this is...
Phil: Many people are looking at that one screenshot that's been put up in every gaming forum on the planet and thinking, oh, maybe this is just a rescan, but I do think there's obviously some pretty new game design elements being introduced in this game.
Phil: Another sequel that was announced was Yoshi's Island DS, another game for the handheld.
Phil: Now, this is supposedly Yoshi's Island but Yoshi's Island was already released.
Phil: I don't know if you remember, there was a Yoshi's Island DS game, which was a sequel to the game.
Phil: And in Japan, it was released as Yoshi's Island but two weeks before its North American release, they changed it to Yoshi's Island DS, which again may have been the same sort of thing that we were talking about just a few minutes ago in terms of the different brandings.
Phil: So this is actually Yoshi's Island
Phil: Yoshi's Island did receive pretty good critical success as I recall, but no one remembers it.
Phil: So I mean, it's a new game.
Phil: It reproduces the game play of the original.
Phil: It's basically just a D platformer.
Phil: And for me, what was disappointing when I looked at the game play was that it looked exactly like the SNES original.
Phil: The DS is obviously more powerful, capable of, you know, much more than just reproducing SNES games.
Phil: Yeah, and again, I don't know what message it brings.
Phil: Again, this is the DS.
Phil: We've already seen a sequel to F-Zero on it.
Phil: You know, we've got Link to the Past
Phil: We've got Yoshi's Island now, you know.
Phil: So again...
Tom: You know, I'm looking at it.
Tom: Hang on.
Tom: I'm looking at the game play video.
Tom: This doesn't really look like the SNES version at all.
Tom: It looks to me more along the lines of in terms of the foreground and the characters.
Tom: You Super Mario Brothers, we you or we at a lower resolution.
Tom: We have painted backgrounds.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: But it's the same art style pasted on top of their current DS D platformer engine, right?
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: That is true, yeah.
Tom: I like the look of it, I have to say.
Phil: Well, the look of the original Yoshi's Island was the best part about it.
Phil: The crying baby Mario was the worst thing about it.
Phil: So it's okay to bring back the art style.
Phil: In fact, I wanted them to bring back the art style.
Phil: I just was expecting more than a reskinned New Super Mario Brothers.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: So moving on, the next new thing that they announced was that they will be publishing a game that was released by Square Enix, Bravely Default, which is a turn-based JRPG.
Phil: It's developed by Silicon Studio, the same people that did D drop Game Heroes, and sold extremely well in Japan, and would have been...
Phil: Everyone was saying, I know Cat Bailey was saying that she thought it would be an easy game to localize for the West, and indeed, Nintendo will be doing the localization of it.
Phil: It's a game that Square opted not to bring over.
Phil: It's called Bravely Default Flying Fairy in Japan.
Phil: In the West, it will just be known as Bravely Default.
Phil: Surprisingly.
Phil: Yeah, it has both turn-based and multi-hit combination moves for the battling, but the part of the game that's interesting beyond the quirky characters is that when you're in a fight, you can basically pick to go Bravely or the Default.
Phil: And if you go the Default mode, then basically it fights the battle for you, and you may win, you may not.
Phil: If you choose to go the Bravely route, then they have a multi-hit time-based combo type fighting that requires more skill.
Phil: So that explains the name a little bit more.
Tom: This would be how it works with an individual attack.
Tom: It's not like it plays out the entire battle for you.
Phil: Right.
Phil: As you're going into a fight, you get to pick, do you want to go Bravely or do you want to go Default?
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: So it's kind of like Final Fantasy VIII or Legend of the Groon, but probably more complicated.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Probably.
Phil: And it also has a more fast...
Phil: You know, it's more paced to modern sensitivities as opposed to those games as well.
Phil: So this is great news.
Phil: This is like the first game that's not called Animal Crossing that I'm actually excited about coming to the DS.
Phil: So, I mean, it's brilliant.
Phil: And Nintendo had previously said...
Phil: Iwata had previously said that they were looking for Japanese titles that they could bring to the West, that, you know, if the third parties weren't going to publish and localize them, that they would themselves.
Phil: And this is obviously a good move, and this also shows a high level of cooperation between Nintendo and Square.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: It's good to see.
Tom: And there's a game that does in fact look visually good for the DS, DS.
Phil: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Phil: It's not just a SNES game with a new coat of paint, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Phil: Do you want to hit some of the other points here?
Tom: Sure.
Tom: There is a Mario Party game for DS.
Tom: Now, have there been any handheld Mario Party games before?
Phil: For the DS, yes.
Phil: But not for the DS.
Tom: So is there much to say about Mario Party?
Tom: I mean, I'm assuming it is like all the other ones.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: There's nothing much to say here.
Phil: If you like Mario Party, that's great.
Phil: The only thing I'd want to know, and perhaps on a lack of research here, if it were online, if it were not online, then it would be terrible, because Mario, when you're playing Mario Party by yourself with three AI characters, it's the dumbest, most depressing...
Phil: it's like sitting at home playing Monopoly with yourself.
Phil: It's just terrible.
Phil: So if it has an online mode, that's acceptable.
Phil: I mean, if it had an online mode, it's not just acceptable, it would be fucking awesome.
Phil: If it doesn't have an online mode, and they're just counting on Japanese people playing this on the bullet train on the way to work, then it will be terrible for the West.
Tom: Well, there's one way it could work, is if quite a few of the multiplayer handheld games, they have it so that you can have, say, four people playing on the one game, right?
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Then it could work, even if they're in an online mode.
Tom: But if they're expecting everyone to buy their own copy for it and link up, that would be fucked.
Phil: You know, that is an excellent reason, because families typically have, when we talk about families, we're talking about a traditional nuclear family with two parents and multiple children.
Phil: It's not uncommon for them to at least have two DSs or DSs or DSs.
Phil: You know what I'm saying?
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: And if the parents had to buy a cartridge for each of those DSs for Mario Party to work, that wouldn't ever happen, ever.
Phil: So, yeah, yeah, good idea.
Phil: You saved the day.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: If they could have, yeah, game sharing, that would be awesome.
Phil: And Nintendo has done that before for like Mario Kart DS and things like that.
Tom: So it's a possibility.
Tom: And the next thing up is New Super Luigi U, which is basically just a DLC which lets you play as Luigi in New Super Mario Bros.
Tom: U, right?
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: I thought this was a new game, and when I found out it was a download for the old game, my reaction was, you've got to be kidding me.
Phil: But, I mean, what was your reaction?
Tom: See, I thought it was a new game as well.
Tom: Then I watched the videos, and I was watching them and thinking, this looks exactly like New Super Mario Bros.
Tom: Wii U, except Luigi is in it.
Tom: What the fuck are they doing?
Tom: Literally making the same game again.
Tom: So my reaction was one of relief when I found out it was actually just DLC.
Phil: Just a patch, right?
Tom: Yeah, that would have been completely ridiculous if it was what it appears to be.
Phil: As redundant as Nintendo's game publishing has become, you're right.
Phil: I mean, a patch to modify an existing game is at least more honest than perhaps what they've done in other games.
Phil: You know, I mean, there was a time when maybe they called this New Super Princess Peach U, release it as an entirely new game, and just have Princess Peach with an umbrella in it.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: So we say with the Mario Party, I think we're up to like Mario Party now.
Phil: You know, where it's the same game, it's just a patch.
Tom: It's just a theme.
Phil: Like if it was The Sims, you'd be downloading themes.
Phil: You wouldn't be downloading individual games.
Phil: So this has new courses on the same world map.
Phil: So the same world map, but new courses.
Phil: So I'm not quite sure what that means.
Phil: And they bring back Luigi's Floaty Jump as well for this one.
Tom: Because you're so slippery as you was in Super Mario Galaxy.
Phil: Oh, I have to be.
Phil: I would think so.
Tom: So if there's new courses, that sounds like levels to me.
Phil: Yeah, but on the same world map.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: I don't believe that.
Phil: I think it might be new ways to traverse the same levels.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: That makes more sense.
Tom: Is this paid DLC or is it a free add-on?
Phil: No, you will be paying.
Tom: Yeah, that sucks if you're basically just paying for Luigi.
Phil: Yeah, depending on your perspective of Luigi and how much you love him.
Tom: Well, I like Luigi, but I mean, is it really worth paying just to have him in the game?
Tom: He's not...
Phil: Not for you.
Phil: You'd have to buy a Wii U and then you'd have to buy New Super Mario Bros.
Phil: You.
Tom: And then the DLC.
Phil: And then the DLC.
Phil: So I'd say for you, definitely not worth it.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Regardless of your Luigi love.
Tom: But moving on, probably the most interesting news is that Earthbound is going to be coming to the Virtual Console this year.
Tom: And this is in the West as well as Japan, right?
Phil: Right.
Phil: Well, in Japan, it's already been out, right?
Tom: Okay.
Phil: So this has already been available in the Virtual Console in Japan.
Phil: Now, they're just bringing it to the West.
Phil: And there were problems with the licensing and content of the game, which is why they've always said they've never brought it out here before.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: So some of the music, they say they couldn't bring out because it's too close.
Phil: They ripped off a lot of music.
Phil: They ripped off a lot of other IP like Charlie Brown and things like that.
Phil: So it will be at least interesting to see what they change about the game to make it acceptable for release in the West.
Phil: Or if they just leave it the same and we find out that what they've been telling us is just BS all these years.
Tom: Maybe they managed to clear all the licenses.
Phil: Yeah, right.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, you know, this is of course Mother and it's the only Mother game that has been released to the West.
Phil: I don't understand the appeal of this game.
Phil: I have the SNES original.
Phil: I've tried to play it twice.
Phil: It bogs down pretty quickly into the game.
Phil: The pacing of it is pretty poor.
Phil: And it's not really challenging.
Phil: I mean, this is a -year-old game.
Phil: So I just don't understand the market for this.
Phil: If it's nostalgia people, then let's assume that the target age of the original game were -year-olds.
Phil: So they'd now be
Phil: So I think this is the real reason why they've never brought these out before.
Phil: Because, I mean, the game never sold well to start with.
Phil: I know it has a cult following.
Phil: I just don't know who this game is for.
Phil: Maybe just for people who have always wanted, you know, have heard tale of it and they're like, okay, I want to pay it, but I don't want to, you know, pay an exorbitant price for it on eBay or buy a SNES.
Tom: Well, that's what I think it will be.
Tom: I mean, it is basically over the years gone on a huge mystique.
Tom: So everyone basically knows about it more than you would expect of even old RPGs that are considered classics.
Tom: I mean, everyone's heard of it.
Tom: The fact that it has not been released in the West makes it appeal to people so much more than if it had previously.
Tom: I mean, if it had been released in the West, even if it had been successful, you wouldn't get so many people constantly going on about wanting to play it and wanting it to be on the Virtual Console.
Tom: I mean, when the Virtual Console was first announced, this was one of the first games that everyone hoped would appear on it, if you remember.
Phil: Yep, yep, yep.
Phil: Well, the Virtual Console, in my opinion, should have been every friggin game they could have gotten licenses for.
Phil: You know, there should be a Nintendo Forever archive.
Phil: I mean, they would make so much money, and it would flip my perspective of Nintendo entirely.
Phil: It would make the Wii...
Phil: If they said tomorrow that the Wii U was going to have every Nintendo game ever made available, you know, for sale, not for free, I'd be right there.
Phil: I'd be like right on, you know?
Tom: And that's the issue with...
Tom: Just to go on a completely unrelated note, that is the issue with using this cloud, this proposed cloud service for the PSinstead of backwards compatibility.
Tom: I know they've basically implied that any game, every game is going to be available for it.
Tom: That's not going to happen.
Tom: That is...
Phil: No.
Tom: First of all, I doubt that it's even going to be in the full base table, but there's absolutely no way that there's even going to be the majority of their back catalogue available to play.
Phil: To be fair though, there were thousands of PlayStation games that...
Tom: Well, it's a lot better than the Virtual Console on the PSbut you're still missing so many important games.
Tom: I mean, there's lots of obvious games that still aren't there.
Phil: Yeah, and I'm actually mistaken.
Phil: What I was thinking of was the PlayStation compatibility for the PlayStation
Phil: The PlayStation and compatibility lists were almost one and the same.
Phil: You could almost play...
Phil: Like there was only about or games on the PlayStation that you couldn't play on the PlayStation but that was using hardware emulation.
Phil: You know, moving over to software emulation is a whole different ball game.
Phil: But if PlayStation is using the cloud for backward compatibility for PlayStation games, as they have indicated, that's not going to work.
Phil: I mean, that's not a substitute.
Phil: That's poor.
Phil: I mean, with all of these forms of media, I mean, when they brought out a Sony CD player, they didn't say, in the end, it will play all of your Sony cassettes, you know.
Phil: I mean, there is a point where you have to end legacy support.
Tom: But, but I don't know about that, because let's say not this generation, but looking into the future, there's no doubt that hardware-wise, consoles are becoming more and more like computers.
Tom: So I don't see why they need to change OS to the degree where you're going to cut out the vast majority of your backlog.
Tom: So let's say the PS
Tom: If the PSis, for all intents and purposes, a mid-range PC.
Phil: Right.
Phil: It's xarchitecture, right?
Phil: Moving from the cell to xis almost impossible for them to provide support.
Tom: No, no, no.
Tom: What I'm saying is, the PSthere's nothing to say, given that they're using mostly PC architecture, that you couldn't use PSgames on it without any problem, as long as they don't fuck around with the OS, right?
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: Absolutely.
Tom: Because the vast majority of issues with backwards compatibility on PC don't come from the hardware, but come from the software side of things.
Tom: And if they were to, at a later stage, open up the OS, as they did with the PSwith Linux, then % of the time, those things can be worked around.
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: Now, you're right.
Phil: Well, here's the thing, but just to talk about backward compatibility quickly, is that in the old days, backward compatibility was to increase sales of your next-gen console, because the argument was always from parents, is this thing going to play the games from your last thing?
Phil: Right?
Phil: However, now, the people have so much invested in their digital libraries that the and PlayStation have cultivated, people have no reason to want to move to the next level, because they want to keep all of their digital library, right?
Phil: So what you're actually doing is in the past, backward compatibility was a plus, because you'd say, and it can play all of your old shit, but now they want to wean you off your old shit as fast and as quickly as possible.
Phil: These consoles, the Wii U is suffering heavily, right?
Phil: But these new consoles for the PlayStation are going to suffer even more, because people have so much invested in their digital library that they've downloaded on the hard drive for that thing, they're going to be looking for reasons not to buy the next console.
Phil: And with cross-generational titles, where they're saying, hey, this is our newest shit, you can buy it on the or the gamers are going to be like, well, you know, I'll just stick with the for now.
Phil: You know, I don't want to spend this sort of money.
Phil: And after all, Netflix works fine on my current and I've got all these music and games and XBLA on it.
Phil: Anyway, that's my point.
Phil: It's just interesting to see, like, that backward compatibility has evolved from something that was a plus for the manufacturers to something that now they're like saying, we really can't include it, because otherwise people aren't going to buy their next-gen game.
Phil: So you had a final news story about Nintendo Direct before we move on to NPD.
Tom: And that is that Pikmin has actually got a release date for America, which is in August, I think.
Tom: It's not really in the notes here, but I think the exact date was August the th, I believe.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Something like that.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: So it may in fact actually exist.
Tom: And the other bit of Pikmin news is that there are going to be flying Pikmin in it.
Tom: And if you watch the Nintendo Direct video, you can in fact watch these flying Pikmin.
Tom: And they're cute.
Tom: There's not much more to say about them apart from that.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I mean, Pikmin do you think this was a Wii game that's been up-resd?
Tom: Well, it looks like a Wii game to me so much.
Tom: I mean, the environments look really, really bad.
Tom: And they are so...
Tom: They're of such a lower quality compared to the characters, even though the characters are pretty simply designed.
Tom: They really stand out in the environments and look like they're on a different level.
Tom: The same for stuff like water effects.
Tom: But the environments and, like, the textures on the rocks and stuff, it looks like really, really bad at best.
Tom: First generation PSand graphics, right?
Tom: It just looks too bad to have been done from the ground up for the Wii U.
Tom: The other side of the coin, though, is possibly they're using that as a contrast so that the Pikmin stand out more easily in the environment so you can follow them in the heat of the action more easily.
Tom: But surely they could have thought of a better way to do that than making the environments look lower-res than crap.
Phil: Yeah, that's a good point.
Phil: So looking at Nintendo Direct, Link to the Past Yoshi's Island Bravely Default, Mario Party New Super Luigi U patch, Earthbound and Pikmin
Phil: What tickled your fancy?
Phil: What would get you to buy a DS or Wii U out of that?
Tom: Well, nothing.
Tom: All they've offered for that is what?
Tom: It was Luigi download and Earthbound, right?
Tom: That was all the Wii U news.
Tom: I assume they're going to be keeping back any major Wii U stuff for Ewouldn't you think so?
Phil: Yeah, that was the only Wii U content that was announced, and if they're holding back the EI would think that that is a mistaken strategy.
Phil: Regardless what they announce at Eit's going to be overshadowed by the and the next Xbox, and the PlayStation
Phil: And I think they need to hit as many people now before anything is known about the next Xbox and before anyone has really consolidated their opinion of the PlayStation
Phil: They had a system that's out right now, which is allegedly a next-gen system.
Phil: Now is when they need to be getting people to buy them before they start saving up for a PlayStation or the next Xbox.
Phil: The PlayStation no price has been announced for it yet.
Phil: The Xbox, nothing has been announced for it at all.
Phil: Right now, you can walk into any target, you know, in the United States or wherever, any GameStop, any EB Games, and buy a Wii U.
Phil: And that's what they should be saying.
Phil: They should be saying, the next generation is available to you right now.
Phil: Here's Pikmin, available now.
Phil: Go out into the stores, you know.
Phil: Earth, announcements about -year-old games coming to a virtual console is completely and entirely meaningless.
Phil: A patch for a game that you release at launch is pathetic.
Phil: I mean, they're basically, if the Wii U was a baby in a cradle, they're basically stabbing it in the face right now.
Phil: They need to get as many people to buy a Wii U before their competitors announce a price for their systems as possible.
Phil: Because come May, we're in fucking April right now, late April, and come May at Eas soon as people hear price points for those other two consoles which are going to kick Nintendo's ass in terms of hardware and third party support, people are going to start saving up their money for those systems when they come out in November.
Phil: And right now is Nintendo's last gasp to get people to buy their Wii U.
Phil: I'm not concerned about the DS.
Phil: The DS is going to be just fine, because it's going to be the only handheld gaming system, the only dedicated handheld gaming system.
Phil: So if they're holding off big news, like a real Zelda for Ethen they're idiots, right?
Phil: Even if they're not going to bring out these games now, they need to be saying that these games are coming, right?
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So that people...
Phil: Super Mario Galaxy coming, you know, soon.
Phil: Buy your Wii U now.
Phil: I mean, they need to be doing something.
Tom: Here's the thing, though.
Tom: I mean, on all the Nintendo Directs, they've really focused on DS rather than Wii U.
Tom: The biggest thing they announced with the Wii U, right, was the Wii U itself.
Tom: But they didn't really go into details.
Tom: It was kind of like they're just doing it...
Tom: They just did it there because they had to.
Tom: And then they were going to bring the more major stuff later at E
Tom: So it was basically like a prelude, right?
Tom: So they come across as really treating Nintendo Direct as like their main focus is the DS, then they use Efor the console.
Tom: And I agree that seems like an incredibly stupid decision.
Tom: Unless, I have to say, though, unless it is Zelda.
Tom: If it is a Zelda and they knock the presentation out of the park, like they come out with something like in the vein of the realistic, in inverted commas, Zelda demo that they did a while back, that can compete with the PSon the Wii U.
Tom: If people see that, that can compete with it.
Tom: People will see that and think, okay, there's a fucking mature, realistic Zelda coming out.
Tom: I'm getting a Wii U.
Tom: They'll immediately forget.
Tom: A large number of people, certainly enough to justify such a decision, will forget about the PSand the announcements, right?
Phil: They need to announce it now.
Phil: It's too late to announce it at Ebecause they're not just competing with the PlayStation and Xbox at E
Phil: They're also competing with Activision's new game from Bungie.
Phil: I mean, potentially an Uncharted
Phil: Look, for the people for whom a realistic Zelda is going to matter, those people already own a Wii U, right?
Phil: To an extent.
Phil: So I'm kind of arguing against myself here, but the word on the streets is that the Wii U doesn't have any games.
Phil: And so that's why people aren't buying Wii U's.
Phil: So they need to show that, hey, Nintendo games are coming out for the Wii U.
Phil: Here's your next Mario Kart.
Phil: Here's your next Zelda.
Phil: Here's Yusuf Mario Galaxy
Phil: And abandon the casual strategy because everything they've done to this point has been aimed at casuals and it isn't working, including launching with a Yusuf Mario Brothers game.
Tom: But the thing is, if they do announce Zelda at, say, a Nintendo Direct, the thing is that's going to be a much smaller audience.
Tom: And even if it is a full announcement, it's going to garner less coverage in the press than if it was to be announced at E
Tom: And so if you're saying that the vast majority of people who are interested in Zelda already own a Wii U, right?
Tom: That's also going to be the vast majority of people that are going to be taking notice of an announcement at Nintendo Direct.
Tom: So the outliers who may not have a Wii U yet, but might be swayed by Zelda, are going to be more swayed if it is a huge, grandiose-style announcement at E
Phil: All right.
Phil: I have actually been swayed by your argument.
Phil: I agree with that, but Nintendo does have to do something.
Phil: I think their systems are in game stores now.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: I mean, it's embarrassing that they're showing a flying Pikmin and just announcing a release date for it randomly.
Tom: It smacks of desperation at Nintendo Direct.
Phil: Not desperation perhaps.
Phil: Well, desperation and or cluelessness or whatever.
Phil: Clearly on the DS side, let's have a big picture look at it.
Phil: They've announced a major title, a sequel to one of the best games of all time.
Phil: Yoshi's Island was considered a great game.
Phil: They've announced a sequel to that, and they're showing true dedication to the hardcore by localizing and publishing a game that isn't going to sell well, Bravely Default.
Phil: So on a DS message type, Mario Party.
Phil: So they're showing first party support for it as well for Casuals.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: On the You information, maybe they just should have shut up and not said anything, because at this point, it's just kind of depressing to see the kind of games that they're bringing out for it.
Phil: It just seems like...
Tom: You know, it would have been perfect if they had announced a new full D Zelda for the Wii U.
Tom: So you build up the hype for E
Tom: So everyone's looking forward to getting new info and a massive, much more footage of it at Eright?
Tom: So they give you all that, and then they also give you Zelda for the Wii U as well.
Phil: They just give it a mention and then give you more information later.
Phil: It would have shut up all the haters.
Tom: So let's move on to MPD quickly.
Phil: Yeah, indeed.
Phil: Let's go through MPD.
Phil: Starting at number was a Naruto game for the PS
Phil: Number was The Walking Dead because that entire episodic content came out as one game.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: No, this is not The Walking Dead.
Tom: This is The Walking Dead Survival Instinct.
Phil: Oh, you're right.
Phil: Oh, the terrible first person shooter.
Phil: Oh, God.
Phil: Oh, God.
Tom: Oh, God.
Phil: Oh.
Phil: Oh, that's terrible.
Phil: That's either result of just licensing, people walking in the store and not knowing anything about anything and going, Walking Dead, I like the comic book slash TV show, or this is just a complete misappropriation of all the GOTYs that the adventure game got last year, right?
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Oh, I've heard about that.
Phil: That's pretty good.
Phil: Oh, God.
Phil: That's terrible.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Perhaps a mixture of both.
Phil: This is really bad for Telltale because this is going to poison the well for so many...
Phil: You know, when they continue on with the Walking Dead adventure game?
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Number and went to sports games, NBA Kand MLB the show, a PlayStation Vita exclusive.
Phil: Number went to Luigi's Mansion.
Phil: Very notable.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Sold units.
Phil: Physical units, yeah.
Phil: Again, just you got to shake your head.
Phil: Black Ops came in at number
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: As always, got to be in the top
Phil: Why don't you round out the top ?
Tom: Number was God of War Ascension, which sold a very, very solid
Tom: I'd say they'd be pretty pleased with that.
Tom: Number was Gears of War Judgment, which once again sold pretty well indeed,
Tom: Number was Tomb Raider, which sold what must be a crushingly disappointing for Square Enix,
Tom: And number was Bioshock Infinite.
Tom: And is this...
Tom: these are combined sales, right?
Tom: Correct.
Tom: Bioshock Infinite sold which is very impressive.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: This is all US sales as well.
Phil: Because last week we talked about how Tomb Raider had sold X million copies, but that is shipped.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: So that's what Square Enix sold to retailers.
Phil: So when they were expressing disappointment with Tomb Raider, they may have been expressing disappointment with the pass-through sales.
Phil: Because if they had shipped million copies to retailers and retailers only shifted copies of it, it means Square Enix is going to be losing a lot of money.
Phil: That would make more sense.
Tom: But in that article, they also said, this might have been a while ago, their prediction was million or something sold, whether that's the retailers or people, that is just a ridiculous figure, even if that's just what they expect retailers to make up.
Phil: If Square cut million copies of Tomb Raider and only units were moved, we will be able to buy these games for beer coasters for $in about four months, in four weeks.
Tom: And in two months, we can go and get it from a hole in the desert somewhere.
Phil: And this explains their panic, because that is crazy.
Phil: And again, they shipped million to retailers.
Phil: If pass-through is only K, and again, this is only North American sales, non-digital, they're fucked, because those retailers will be expecting Square to buy those back from them.
Phil: And then they'll be stuck with those copies.
Tom: With a lot of expensive coasters.
Phil: And Bioshock is essentially a million-copy seller with only about two weeks of sales.
Tom: Yep, that's pretty damn good.
Phil: I heard a lot of people saying that they thought that the God of War and Gears of War sales figures were disappointing.
Phil: Can you see that in any way?
Tom: No, they look very good to me.
Tom: I mean, God of War Ascension and Gears of War Judgment have both had significantly less hype than any other game in the series, right?
Tom: I mean, at this stage, people are getting pretty sick of them.
Tom: Those seem like good sales to me, and I don't think that either publisher or developer of them would be disappointed with those sales unless they are as stupid as Square Enix.
Tom: They would have had to have been expecting lesser sales than the series has previously seen.
Phil: The truth of it is revealed in your first statement, and that is these games received hardly any marketing support.
Phil: Publishers give marketing support to games they know will sell based on their market research.
Phil: These companies spend a lot of money, and they are not idiots.
Phil: They know what will sell and what won't.
Phil: Gears of War Judgment wasn't published, wasn't developed by the core Epic staff.
Phil: It was developed by People Can Fly.
Phil: God of War Ascension was developed by Sony Santa Monica, but apparently this was like Sony Santa Monica B team, because Sony Santa Monica A team is working on a PlayStation project right now.
Phil: And the other thing that shut God of War Ascension in the face was that it was early marketed as being a multiplayer game, which I thought it was exclusively multiplayer, but apparently it does have a robust single player mode as well.
Phil: But more to your point, people are just sick of these franchises.
Phil: This isn't, as I said in a thread earlier this week, this isn't a Nintendo thing.
Phil: This isn't just people being sick of New Super Mario Bros.
Phil: People are sick of old games.
Phil: And God of War for me, I was pretty much done with it at that point.
Phil: I had already played four other God of War games that were just like it, including the handhelds.
Tom: And just on that point, by the way, both you and GG are in fact correct, because he was referring simply to your average forum goer.
Tom: And if you're going to go and read NeoGaff, there is, without a shadow of doubt, there is backlash for the likes of Gears of War and God of War, right?
Tom: There is disproportionately far, far more venom aimed at Nintendo for doing this.
Phil: Well, and Call of Duty.
Phil: Oh, yeah, and Call of Duty, yeah.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, but what I objected to mostly with that exchange was basically, I'm not your average forum goer.
Phil: I'm trying to engage in a conversation here with you, and you just keep ignoring me and talking about what people are saying.
Tom: Yeah, okay, yeah.
Phil: Yeah, that was essentially my point.
Phil: Moving on to hardware...
Tom: I just want the attention is what you're saying.
Phil: Right, and we do want to thank our listeners for listening to The Game under.net podcast.
Tom: We can quickly do hardware if you want, by the way.
Tom: There's just time for it.
Phil: Let's do hardware.
Phil: is the only one we have solid numbers for.
Phil: It sold copies.
Tom: Yep, which is a drop of almost %.
Tom: Is that on last year or from last month, by the way?
Phil: From last year.
Phil: Yeah, the same time last year.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: But I'd still be happy with that if I were Microsoft.
Tom: Oh yeah, that's still pretty good.
Phil: And they're making profit on their hardware at this point.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: They sold
Phil: By comparison, PlayStation sold
Tom: Which is % on last year.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Yeah, I don't know why.
Tom: Because it's the God of War Ascension, obviously.
Phil: Or MLB The Show, the other PlayStation exclusive this month.
Phil: Wii U allegedly sold units.
Tom: Ouch.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: And the Wii which is up % last year.
Tom: So apparently people are rushing out to buy Wiis for some reason.
Phil: Apparently there's still people buying Wiis.
Phil: I mean I've heard it's because it's a good Netflix device.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: And they're cheap.
Phil: So that's pretty much it for MPDs.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: And also pretty much it for the podcast, I believe.
Phil: Yes, we do have to end on that note, but we do appreciate everyone listening in.
Phil: We were hoping to talk about the Sega Pluto, which was some photos surfaced of its hardware.
Phil: But I have just one thing to share about that, and that is this is essentially a Saturn Slim.
Phil: I'm sorry to have to disappoint everyone.
Phil: This is not a console that was coming out in between the Saturn and the Dreamcast.
Phil: It was basically a slimmed-down version of the Saturn, which had a built-in modem and had lower component cost for Sega.
Tom: See, my take on this is, given that two were built, is that this was never something that they even considered for launch, but simply could have been some of their prototyping and testing leading into having a permanent fixed modem in a console, right?
Tom: So they would have just been messing around with this idea in integrating it into Saturns with no intent of releasing it, just as part of their R&D for how they might have been doing this in the next console.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Well, it was also a removable component, so this could have been the Saturn Slam, and then they could have sold it with a modem option or a modem that you could buy additionally.
Phil: So with that, we'll bid adieu to our listeners.
Phil: We really do appreciate everyone who has downloaded the podcast.
Phil: It was really encouraging to see the level of support that we received on our launch show.
Phil: We do want to let you know that you can now subscribe to us on iTunes, and the easiest way to find us on iTunes is basically just go to gameunder.net and follow the links that we have in the top right hand corner.
Phil: Shows are also available for direct download or streaming at gameunder.net.
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg and Tom Towers, thank you for joining us this week.
Tom: Thank you for having me.
Phil: Thank you.