CAGcast #375: King of Easy: Try Harder

CheapyD

CheapyD

Head Cheap Ass
Staff member
Feedback
14 (100%)
The crew discusses PlayStation Now, EA Access, The Last of Us Remastered, and also The Crew.  Is Nintendo suffering from "Last Blockbuster Syndrome"?  Will Wombat sing a cheesy 70s song? 
 
Download (1 hour 24 minutes) - iTunes - Stitcher - RSS
https://audioboo.fm/boos/2365791-cagcast-375-king-of-easy-try-harder
 
GoDaddy.com Coupon Codes

Show Linkage/Notes:
Intro: L'Amour Toujours ("I'll Fly with You")  -  Outro: You are the Woman (Wombat + Firefall)
RSS - Full CAGcast Catalog
Facebook
Youtube (Subscribe)

Please submit your show questions via CAGbag or Twitter.

I guess you can listen to Wombat's other podcast, Uninformed Opinions.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You guys are amazed by how many people go see Transformers and then you mock Cheapy for not seeing Sharknado? Hope it was a joke. Couldn't tell.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
[SIZE=11pt]Gentlemen, I thoroughly enjoyed the Cagcast this morning.  I would love if you devote a special segment of the show exclusively to Wombat’s soothing voice, “You Are The Woman” made the show this week.[/SIZE]

 
Thanks for the intro.  It was one of my favorite songs back in the day, but I had completely forgotten about it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's not just that one planet = one location in Destiny that is troubling, it's pretty much their entire mission structure. In the beta it felt like on 60% of the missions I landed in the same location and went down the same twisting path in the building except each time I had to go slightly further in. Or, I'm in a freaking dropship, why am I landing miles from where I am supposed to go (in the case of the "detecting the 2 signals broadcasting" missions). I also hate that all missions (including their +rep side missions) apparently have to be done one at a time.

If they wanted to have one large map for each planet, then the mission starting point should have been on different points of the map. As you play more missions you unlock more drop points so you can start in different locations on the map (instead of pretty much the same place each time). You pick a drop point, and you have an option to replay any mission which started from that point or select the explore option for that drop point instead of explore being its own mission where you start in the same place every time. Why give us our own ship when they so limit us on how to land to explore the area?

 
Last thing we need is another nickel and dime subscription.  I'm surprised none of you were more critical of EA Access. 

WE already have enough games to play.  Wombat even says this later on another topic.  So the ability to play old games is a mirage.

Also  if you were interested in those games you would have bought them 8-12 months earlier when they were released.   

Then you have the pay to try the game thing.  Why not let people try for free for a day?  I mean you want to sell them a $60 game but you're going to charge to try it?  That's warped.

It seems more like a way to nickel and dime the hardcore types who absolutely need to play the game first.  Not a way for someone who might be interested in a game to try it.  And then if everyone is paying to play the games early then there is no "early."  

Last, and perhaps  contrary to want you touched on, it would be annoying if every publisher started doing this.  Now you have console subscriptions and then subscriptions from all the big publishers on top of paying $60 per game.  

I think Sony rejected this because they want a better cut from EA. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
CAG #375

3:30 What's the story, Morning Glory?
5:00 (Don't) Watch This:
5:00 - Transformers Dark of the Moon
9:00 - R.I.P.D.
10:30 Deadpool test footage
12:30 Sharknado 2
13:30 Dear Mr. Watterson
15:15 New Releases
15:15 - Flat Dude in a GoKart, Mount Your Friends
16:15 - Rogue Legacy, Last of Us
17:15 - Counterspy
18:45 Vita, crossbuy, etc
21:15 XboxOne needs a news/weather ticker
26:00 Last of Us
30:45 Blast Master
31:45 Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds, Firefall
35:45 Pinball FX2 tables transferring from 360 to XB1, (PS3 to PS4 already has)
38:00 EA Access
45:30 - Why Xbox & not Sony
50:00 Shovel Knight
50:45 Kirby Triple Deluxe
54:30 The Road Not Taken
55:15 Nintendo - The Last Blockbuster Syndrome
1:06:15 The Crew
1:08:00 Divinity Original Sin
1:10:00 Destiny beta, The Moon
1:15:30 Crytek, Deep Silver bought Homefront
1:17:15 Cagbag: Emulation
1:20:45 - Pac-Man
1:12:45 - Console sales
 
Nintendo never made phones and never rented physical copies of movies.  Dedicated gaming handhelds never sold in the numbers that cellphones sold either.  Not even the same ballpark.

Argubably, Nintendo hasn't been hurt by the better portable game player.  Nor hurt by better games.

The Blockbuster theory  isn't very analogous in that sense.  

I do think NIntendo missed the easy math where they knew  about all the crappy shovelware on the DS and Wii that consumers bought for $20-$50 and all they had to do,  was ask themselves, what if that crappy shovelware costs $0?    And then if consumers are fine with buying crappy games then why would they care about the hardware part of the gaming experience?  What if that part was also $0?  And  was also a kick-ass phone, browser, music player, video player, ....?  So they were blinded there.  

But Nintendo has sold 12 million copies of Pokemon on the 3ds since last fall.  And they still have nearly $10 billion in the bank.  There is such a far cry from the health of the companies mentioned in conjunction with the Blockbuster theory.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Speeds advertised by ISP are not BS. There are a lot of factors that affect your speed. If there aren't enough "nodes" in your area to support the number of connections your connectivity will be crap. That is ISP side. Wiring in your home can also affect connectivity. For the most part if these two factors are good you will attain 100% of your speed.  I get 150Mbps constant 95% of the time while getting 130Mbps the other 5% of the time. What kills your speed is the network protocols used by these PSN and XBL services. The fastest I have seen on XBL is around 90Mbps on both 5G WIFI and wired. I have not seen speeds below 45Mbps. If you only get 1Mbps on PSN and you are on a 50Mbps line that is hard evidence PSN sucks arse. On the other hand if you are getting 1Mbps all around then wiring could be an issue and checked by cable company or yourself with the right equipment. If you have a bad node to connections ratio, good luck petitioning your provider to add more. 

I use speedtest for spot checks but I use more sophisticated means to test my actual throughput. 

BOO Shipwreck BOO! Stop hating on Destiny haha. I tried the ol CheapyD approach on this one. I have put myself on a media blackout concerning Destiny. I signed up for beta and luckily was on vacation the whole week. I played on the last day and switched to TV while cutscenes played. I made it to lvl 6 before I got booted and servers shut down. I think you (Shipwreck) have not experienced enough of the game yet. I felt a little like I was playing SWTOR but in the Halo Universe. I feel they are going in the right direction and was impressed with the outcome so far. Better than ESO, better than SWTOR, and the feel of Halo FTW!! I pretty much knew I was getting this game but after the beta I prepurchased the game and expansion. 

 
Wombat, use the power of CAG and your respective twitter accounts to promote the features you want on Xbox One. Anyone can submit an idea to http://xbox.uservoice.com and have it voted upon.

Your weather, news, tile idea is already up but needs more support:

https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/253802-home-settings/suggestions/6146082-weather-time-and-a-callander-should-be-added-to-t

although one idea for just Weather is doing much better:

https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/251646-apps/suggestions/6028584-weather-app

 
The BGR article is horrible btw.  Very shallow and gets some basic information wrong.  The 3ds was a big hit in 2010 and 2011?  Let's see in 2010 it didn't exist.  And in 2011 it was such a big hit it needed a $70 price drop 5 months after launch to help it.  The 3ds was never a big hit in North America.  Only in Japan could that be true.

And comparing smartphone sales last quarter to 3ds sales last quarter shows the author doesn't really know that dedicated handheld sales have always sold much less than cellphones have sold.  I mean does the author even realize that the 200 million smartphones he says were sold last quarter is at least 33% more than the lifetime sales of the DS???  The same DS that is held up as a big success?  He seems clueless.

The author also doesn't seem to really realize that unlike Nokia and Motorola, NIntendo was never in the phone business. They are in the gaming business. And unlike those phone companies and their phones,  Nintendo still makes some of the best games in the world.  And even arguably has a better portable game player.

So the parallels to this BB theory aren't there unless you forget to dot your i's and cross your t's.  

The only thing there is the obvious and well worn, but also shallow, well everyone has a smartphone so make games for smartphones argument.  As if you do that and are guaranteed $$$$.  That's the article in a nutshell.

But the real problem is the flood of free crappy games on this essentially free hardware (either in the form of you need a smartphone anyway or your kid will get your old one.)   Plus alot of investment money flew into the mobile gaming sector the past few years.  There's been a gold rush mentality.  Those things typically have a falling out though.  

If the market decides it is fine with free crap and never wants to pay for anything then nothing Nintendo can do in the long run.  OR if good games can be made out of free to play models (there seem to be some examples) and make money then no one reason Nintendo can't or won't eventually adopt that sort of model. 

But the gaming and entertainment business is all about fresh  new ideas.  And I think Nintendo is positioned to live to fight another day in this regard.  Is anyone better setup to bring about new gaming hardware ideas while also making world class gaming software than Nintendo???

They have problems to be sure.  But it is a hits driven business.  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
On the topic of EA Access my biggest fear is it takes off then we're going to have Ubisoft, Activision, or any other big name company putting out a subscription plan that gains access to backlogs of games (which in the case of EA, the multiplayer servers are shutdown on older games). I'm also curious if press outlets will still be getting the games earlier yet then the Premium members. 

On a side note if would be nice if they just merged Battlefield Premium and/or any of their other subscriptions into one place. 

 
Curufinwe said:
I think Wombat would find Rogue Legacy to be a pain in the ass to play, and I encourage him to read this very thorough review of the game before spending money on it. It'll be free on PS+ soon enough, anyway.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/rogue-legacy-playstation-vita-review-rogue-rage
Click to expand...
That review by Jeremy Parish is pretty much my thoughts on the game. I didn't like how you were a different character each time and you had to grind for hours to get anywhere. I may have to go back to it because even in this mostly negative review he enjoyed the game and so seems like everyone else who played it.

 
What Wombat was asking for on Xbox One sounds very similar to the Bing Weather and Bing News apps Microsoft published for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. The tiles gives you local temp and headlines at a glance and you can click on them for more details. I could see them porting those apps over to Xbox One.

In the meantime just pin a weather and news site to dashboard. X1 loads and app switches pretty fast.
 
Love the Outro btw!! I felt like I was sitting at a crappy bar listening to Wombat sing Karaoke!!! Affect achieved!!  :D/  :D/  :D/  :D/

 
Great show as always guys.

Man Wombat couldn't wait to bust out that Firefall reference, like he was afraid someone else might say it first.  The karaoke outro at the end made my week.

Here's hoping you can figure out some England Dan and John Ford Coley references for next week.

I see both sides of the Destiny argument.  After my first playthrough I felt like I was going to order the Destiny PS4 bundle for sure.  By the end of the beta I've cooled off a bit. 

All of Wombat's ideas for the XB1 and Nintendo have been fine.  But it's crazy talk to think they would change any overall perception or desire for the two. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
The news headlines and weather stuff that Wombat wants is essentially what Cortana is on Windows Phone 8.1. If you have used Google Now on Android it is very similar to that.

The current plan is that Windows 9 (codename "Threshold") is supposed to be deployed to PC, phone, and Xbox One next year and that Cortana should be included on all of them. If you have used Windows 8/Windows Phone there are excellent Bing apps (News, Weather, Finance, Sports, Travel, Cooking, Health) that Cortana pulls data from and records your preferences to your Microsoft Account. Cortana will know your sports teams, stocks, favorite news subjects, what you like to cook, traffic to your workplace, local weather, etc. across all devices with Cortana & Bing apps. Windows 9 will also enable developers to create 1 universal app or game for Windows and publish to all Windows platforms including Xbox One. Many developers are already making use of "cross play" between Windows 8 and Windows Phone (ie. Gameloft's Modern Combat 5) and this should extend out to Xbox One as well so that you can buy a game once and play on Xbox, PC, phone. The games also keep your save progress in sync as you move from machine to machine.

cortana-vs-siri-image-3.jpg


On the subject of the 3DS.... To put things in perspective, you dismissed Windows Phone (the 3rd place mobile platform), but Windows Phone had about the same number of active users in 2013 as 3DS has sales today. Around 46 million 3DS devices have been sold while Windows Phone had around 46-50 million active users last year. Windows Phone of course benefits from having much cheaper devices like the $50-$100 Lumia 520 which had over 12 million activations alone last year. The point of this is that the demand for smartphones is so great that even sales of the 3rd place mobile phone platform is outpacing dedicated handhelds like Vita and 3DS.

Due to the Xbox tie-in a higher percentage of users than you would expect actually spend a lot of money on games on Windows Phone: 
gamingrevenuewindowsphone.png


Windows Phone users Dec '13 = 35M WP8 + 12M WP7 (shared app store). = 47M total

Windows Phone users Dec '13 = 75% WP8 + 25% WP7

wp8-in-use_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png


^Does not include Windows Phone 7 users (~25% of users)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Great show!
I agree with Ship, I am worried about Destiny. Seems like a grindy shooter version of WoW. Grind for hours to get gear for raids. Rinse Repeat. I hope there is more to it.
 
cool8man said:
The news headlines and weather stuff that Wombat wants is essentially what Cortana is on Windows Phone 8.1. If you have used Google Now on Android it is very similar to that.

The current plan is that Windows 9 (codename "Threshold") is supposed to be deployed to PC, phone, and Xbox One next year and that Cortana should be included on all of them. If you have used Windows 8/Windows Phone there are excellent Bing apps (News, Weather, Finance, Sports, Travel, Cooking, Health) that Cortana pulls data from and records your preferences to your Microsoft Account. Cortana will know your sports teams, stocks, favorite news subjects, what you like to cook, traffic to your workplace, local weather, etc. across all devices with Cortana & Bing apps. Windows 9 will also enable developers to create 1 universal app or game for Windows and publish to all Windows platforms including Xbox One. Many developers are already making use of "cross play" between Windows 8 and Windows Phone (ie. Gameloft's Modern Combat 5) and this should extend out to Xbox One as well so that you can buy a game once and play on Xbox, PC, phone. The games also keep your save progress in sync as you move from machine to machine.

wp8-in-use_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png


^Does not include Windows Phone 7 users (~25% of users)
Click to expand...
As a Windows Phone user, you should know it is now on a down trend. Heck the only markets where its "strong" or "healthy" is Italy and India if I'm not mistaken. I enjoy Windows Phone but WP9 might be the last one if things don't get much better, U.S., China, and the vast majority of Europe are either uninterested or losing interest.

 
Both free games for the Xbox One suck and since there was nothing free this week on PSN I bought The Last of Us Remastered and it was the best thing I could have done.  I deleted both Xbox One games after the first level of each one but I've been playing TLOU non stop and worth every cent, the 60fps makes a huge difference and makes the controls feel much better. 

 
I think you guys are a bit blinded by nostalgia when it comes to your disbelief that people are seeing the Transformers movies. (Not in your opinion of them - that's fine, you're allowed to feel as you do.) For other people, they don't have any background with Transformers like you did watching the cartoons. To them, it's just this movie series. I was a bit too young for the original cartoons myself, so I don't have that background, and I don't think the movies are as bad as people make them out to be. They're no masterpieces by a longshot, but somewhat enjoyable action flicks. Of course, I haven't seen the most recent one (nor do I have any plans to, really), and I also got to see the 3rd movie for free at my university so that helped.

I'm with others in this thread when they say Wombat won't like Rogue Legacy. (Disclaimer: I have not played it myself.) I've watched a few people stream it, and it's grinding out deaths over and over to make progress. I'm pretty sure that is like the opposite of what Wombat wants in games.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
 Great discussion on EA and PS Now. That PS Now pricing is so whack.. After spending that money on gaikai and blowing it.

 
actripxl said:
As a Windows Phone user, you should know it is now on a down trend. Heck the only markets where its "strong" or "healthy" is Italy and India if I'm not mistaken. I enjoy Windows Phone but WP9 might be the last one if things don't get much better, U.S., China, and the vast majority of Europe are either uninterested or losing interest.
Click to expand...
You're talking about market share versus Android which is a completely different discussion than total number of users. Active users and activations per year of Windows Phone are not down. If Android has a billion units in active use and Windows Phone has 60 million, then the market share for Windows is relatively small, but it is still a bigger install base than either 3DS or PS Vita. That was the point. And when Windows 9 unifies the OS and app store across PC, tablet, phone, and Xbox, the game developers will be able to make a Windows 9 game that is playable on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide.

As an aside I disagree that Windows Phone is on a downtrend or that Microsoft will ever stop pushing Windows devices. Microsoft just killed their Android phones (Nokia X) and is converting them to Lumia Windows Phones. Now that Windows is free to license on devices under 9 inches and Microsoft dropped hardware button requirements, every single Android manufacturer can sell a version of their phone with Windows with little to no effort or cost. As a result we have seen tons of small to big manufacturers start announcing low cost Windows Phones in 2014. For example, Karbonn and Micromax are both top 3 smartphone OEMs in India and they are now both making Windows Phones for the first time in addition to XOLO.



2014 Announced WP8.1 Devices:

In addition to existing Windows Phone 8 partners HTC, Samsung and Huawei, Gionee, JSR, Karbonn, LG, Lenovo, Longcheer, XOLO, and ZTE signed on to create Windows Phone 8.1 devices in early 2014. Micromax, Prestigio, Yezz, COmpal, Pegatron, Quanta, Wistron, BLU, K-Touch and InFocus were subsequently named as hardware partners later on in the year.
Click to expand...
Many of these OEMs will be selling Windows phones that are $100 or less. When you add this many new OEMs worldwide selling low cost devices in addition to Nokia you are going to see Windows Phone unit sales go up. Whether it keeps pace with Android is not the point. The point is that Windows will still sell more devices than a 3DS or PS Vita. Microsoft is never going to abandon Windows devices, that is pure nonsense.

CheapyD is right, the smartphone gaming experience is only getting better, cheaper, and more dominant. Nintendo should pursue a strategy similar to the Amazon Kindle where they both make their own hardware and have an app/store on all mobile platforms.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
cool8man said:
On the subject of the 3DS.... To put things in perspective, you dismissed Windows Phone (the 3rd place mobile platform), but Windows Phone had about the same number of active users in 2013 as 3DS has sales today. Around 46 million 3DS devices have been sold while Windows Phone had around 46-50 million active users last year. Windows Phone of course benefits from having much cheaper devices like the $50-$100 Lumia 520 which had over 12 million activations alone last year. The point of this is that the demand for smartphones is so great that even sales of the 3rd place mobile phone platform is outpacing dedicated handhelds like Vita and 3DS.
Click to expand...
It isn't good for a phone platform to have the same number of users as the 3ds. It's bad.

And demand for cellphones has always been in another ballpark compared to demand for dedicated gaming handhelds.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I agree with Ship regarding Destiny. The beta was a surprising disappointment.

Having been a huge Halo fan from Combat Evolved all the way to Reach, I've been eagerly waiting to get my hands on Bungie’s most recent game.

Only a couple hours into the beta and it felt very boring. I wondered if I was doing something wrong.

In Halo different enemies have interesting and varied mechanics; however, in Destiny the mechanics seem a lot less varied, and unfortunately, it seems monster difficulty is determined by the amount of hit points and the size of their gun. Too often I found myself in gunfights where I’d poke my head out from cover, shoot a couple shots and dash back into hiding. Not very mentally stimulating or fun.

Not even playing with my closest buddies could help this snooze-fest of a shooter.

The story seemed very bland and the multiplayer was horrendous - instakill super powers are silly.

The game has wonderful production values but the story and core shooter gameplay is severely lacking. It has me wondering where all those hundreds of millions of dollars went.

The beta actually moved me to cancel my preorder. I’m hoping, like Ship, that I’m wrong, but with the game set to release in only a few weeks now... I’m not so sure it will be a lot different from what we saw in the beta.

 
Thanks for the nice words about Deep Silver. Deep Silver/Koch Media is the biggest publisher in Germany, and I have worked on a few of their games, but before the Dead Island 1 trailer, they were hardly mentioned  at all outside of Germany.

 
Here you go Cheapy, RedLetterMedia watches all 3 Transformer movies at the same time! You can see their mental breakdowns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rfup0XKx7o

 
Wombat,

Pokemon X/Y was released at the same time in all regions on the 3DS. So it can be done.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cheapy, just listened to this cagcast,  I found the perfect hat for your strolls in Japan with your sunburned neck issues.   

mqdefault.jpg


 
Shipwreck's quip "how much did Chevy pay for Calvin pissing on a Ford logo" made me laugh out loud embarrassingly on a train.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top