Just wanted to praise this episode, the interview with Nelson was very entertaining, with the good-natured ganging up on Wombat, and his taking it well.. And I enjoyed his interesting peek into the inner workings of Microsoft and some of the inter-group competition. Hope he gets an invitation back!
The Chinatown Wars sales numbers were surprising - I tend to chalk a good chunk of that up to the ease of DS piracy, but then again it doesn't seem that the DS audience as a whole is as 'need it on launch' as we are used to seeing on consoles. I'm sure it will continue to sell well and turn out to be a success. I've never really followed DS sales numbers, are there that many games which come out of the gate quickly, besides the Pokemon types?
I was a little dismayed to hear both Cheapy and Wombat so dismissive of GTA:CW, and I have to say it really is a terrific DS game, and to everyone, I really recommend giving it a try. I ran into the same GTA IV tedium as everyone else about halfway through, and wasn't expecting that much from this iteration. Yet it hasn't left my DS in a month, and it works great for 5-minute quickies as well as more lengthy sessions. There are a ton of improvements that scream to make the jump back to the next console versions - restarting missions is quick and not irritating at all; the option (why is it not default?) to make the GPS draw a Fable 2-like 'golden path' on the road is great (allowing you to drive watching the screen instead of the minimap like I always seem to do in GTAs); even losing your wanted level is made fun with the new cop-disabling mechanic.. It's amazing what they were able to do graphically, how the classic GTA sense of humor somehow still comes through in this format, and how they seemed to heed the IV complaints and refocus on fun.
Just overall a worthy entrant into the GTA series and one of the best DS games out there, again I really recommend giving it a spin someday when an opportunity arises.
Love the podcast, thanks guys!
p.s. Cheapy's delivery of 'snark snarksnark snark snark' at 1:16:13 really tickled my funny bone for some reason.