CAGcast #271: Home of the Tijuana Mudbath

CheapyD

CheapyD

Head Cheap Ass
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[preview][IMG-L=5838]15060[/IMG-L]CheapyD likes Lumines, but doesn't care for the Vita, Shipwreck likes winning 17 games, but doesn't like losing 1 game, and sometimes Wombat just wants to walk to the yellow circle, kill something, and get a present.

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Show Linkage/Notes:

Intro/Outro: Take a Walk - Bolz Bolz (Youngsters Bass Mix) / jj - Still

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Yeah, the echo is annoying.

CheapyD wasn't bashing the Vita that much in this episode as his tweet alluded to. Just giving some real talk, and I agree with his points
 
What's really frustrating about listening to negativity about the Vita is how often the complaints are factually off base. Shipwreck complained about not being able to have your digital Vita games backed up in the cloud or on your PS3, but both of those things are possible! You can re-download your games at any time, and you can back up your digital purchases to a PS3 or PC.

The expense of the memory cards is also overstated. Anyone planning to buy retail games can get by with a $20 4GB card. And if we're going to be obsessed with comparing the Vita to smart phones, $100 to add 32GBs of storage is a better deal than Apple offers on iPhones, plus you'll be able to upgrade to a 128GB card down the road without throwing away the system.

The game pricing complaints are also overwrought, considering Vita will have everything from $50 big budget games like Uncharted down to $.99 PS minis and PS Suite smart phone-style games, including a healthy PSN only market of games like Escape Plan or Super Stardust for ~9.99. Holding Ubisoft's shitty pricing for their shitty iPhone ports against the system itself isn't cool. That crap came to the 3DS, too, at full retail pricing. Ubisoft being dicks isn't evidence that the Vita is doomed.
 
Every time wombat talks he gives me that sensation that you get from having stomache acid , or that small hair that get stuck in your eyes .

He makes these ridiculous statments that are very wrong and bashes random subjects for no reason ! and the worst is that he sounds like a confident douche while talking !

great show
 
Section 8 also had a direct-to-download sequel, but I've never seen any sales figures to see if that move was profitable. I see the move as a way for developers to reuse their premade game infrastructure and not worry about making it look better than the original due to being "only an xbla title". I'm hoping this new Alan Wake game feels like a complete experience and not just leftover dlc.
 
The Vita needs a rape kit after this show.

I couldn't imagine waiting for those downloads every time I wanted to do something. And those downloadable game prices are waaaaaaaay too much IMO.

More bad jokes from Wombat please.
 
[quote name='BradGrenz']What's really frustrating about listening to negativity about the Vita is how often the complaints are factually off base. Shipwreck complained about not being able to have your digital Vita games backed up in the cloud or on your PS3, but both of those things are possible! You can re-download your games at any time, and you can back up your digital purchases to a PS3 or PC.[/QUOTE]

Maybe I misspoke, but I was concerned about how easy that would be, not whether or not you could do it. You could do it on the PSP as well, but since I have a Mac, it is not all that friendly to use with the PSP. As such, I always transferred stuff back and forth between the PSP and the PS3. It works, but it could be a whole lot more elegant.
 
I liked the Vita discussion this week. Pretty blunt opinions like always.

As for the ME3 demo, I didn't think it was too spoilerish. The SP stuff wasn't that bad. I've been in media blackout but I played it anyway. Nothing major in the grand scheme of things. Btw Cheapy, if you wanna avoid spoilers, just play the MP part of it instead.
 
Ps vita game range from $1.99 (ps mini) to $50....it's crazy to gear you guys talk about things sometimes.

And please cheapy sale your vita and buy ship and wombat one. You sound so unhappy with it. My friends list pops up in 5-10 secounds....but according to you it takes sooooo long. You like making YouTube videos, make one for us about your problems.
 
Cheapy,
Next time you go to throw something out just make a video of yourself shitting on said product (i.e. vita, 3ds). Why not?
 
I don't see the big deal with the whole Kickstarter thing. You really aren't "donating" your money, you are pre-ordering a game.

It really isn't any different than that since when you pre-order there is always a risk that the game may suck. The only difference is that for most games you have some game play before pre-ordering, but that can be even more misleading sometimes.
 
[quote name='steverl22']Ps vita game range from $1.99 (ps mini) to $50....it's crazy to gear you guys talk about things sometimes.

And please cheapy sale your vita and buy ship and wombat one. You sound so unhappy with it. My friends list pops up in 5-10 secounds....but according to you it takes sooooo long. You like making YouTube videos, make one for us about your problems.[/QUOTE]

The Minis are a great step in having a diverse pricing economy, but that's not the issue I see with Vita game prices. I've said this for quite some time, but I'll say it again. Developing retail sized games (not PSN or Mini level games) for the Vita is expensive. It's basically asking developers to develop a game to the specs of the 360 or PS3. This means game prices are going to be high and it's going to mean a lot of Vita games are just going to be ports of PS3 and 360 games. When comparing those titles to their console counterparts the only area in which Vita is going to win out is portability. So in order to make buying the Vita version appealing over the console version (or in addition to), the Vita version needs to be priced significantly less than the console versions. Unfortunately, they can't be because then that cuts into sales of the higher priced console versions. It's a really difficult place to be in for third-party publishers that aren't going to spend the money to make Vita exclusives when they could release the same game to the install bases of the 360 and PS3.

The Vita is a neat device, but the marketplace for this product is an extremely challenging one.
 
Thanks for the response ship....I see your point. I just see the minis as a great way of bring over iOS games to the vita. They're already some iOS games there (Nova), if I had to Pick weather to play a game on my iPhone 4 or vita, vita would win hands down.

Now IMO I would say that the Max price for a vita game should be $40....pricing a portable game at $50 is nuts. I got the 1st edition bundle as a gift from my wife so I signed up for a gamefly account to test some games out before I buy anything. I agree so much with what wombat said about gaming in the iPhone, I've yet to play any game on any of my iOS devices longer then 15-30 mins. Vita isn't for everyone and I get that...but for me it's a great addition to my collection of consoles.
 
$20 is a good price for PSV games, good thing there will be a games lower or around this price point like Super Star Dust Delta so I can pick them up.

Crackle has some interesting items on it at least on the PS3. It has decent movies, and has some good TV shows on the service, and a bunch of mediocre titles as well. But I can't complain about the price to watch.
 
Wasn't the Section 8 sequel released on XBLA? Developer actually put more into the XBLA game then the original $50 game had.
 
As I mentioned on Twitter, I could care less about whether Schafer's game will be good or not (full disclosure: I am a backer), but I care about the impact on the industry that this will have.

I hope the industry uses it for good (e.g. Kojima starts a kickstarter for a Snatcher port to the 3DS/Vita :)drool:), Suzuki asking for funding for Shenmue 3), but I know that really, Kotick's probably drooling at the thought of having COD fans fund the next game, charge them for the game, then attack them with DLC.
 
Cheapy really took Phil Harrison's comments about touch controls being a gimmick personally. Given that he made them six and a half years ago and left the company four years ago, it's probably OK to let it go now.
 
Great show and thanks for the shout out! The point I was trying to make about Amazon/Audible is that to create a new Audible account you simply 'sign in' on Audible using your already existing Amazon username and password. It's that simple and since almost everyone on CAG has an Amazon account; then, almost everyone on CAG should support CAG by syncing your Amazon/Audible accounts through the referral link.

Cheers, BD
 
I just want to reiterate what someone else already said:

The Vita memory card will really only be a huge issue if you are downloading your games. So yes it will be an issue for many but it's not quite as bad as it was made out to be.

For example if you download Uncharted yeah it's damn near 3GB which would make a 4GB memory card a dumb buy. However if you buy the retail physical copy of Uncharted the save files are only about 64MB. Another example is Hot Shots Golf. Game download size is 1.1GB while the save files are only around 4MB.

So if you plan on buying retail even a 4GB memory card is a decent start and will easily hold all your save files, just not a bunch of full game downloads.

Either way I completely agree that memory should have been included in the first place.
 
There is still a really great Wii game coming out in April. Xenoblade Chronicles. It's a jrpg which I don't think anyone on the Cagcast likes, but this is one of the best in a long time. Its at a 92 on metacritic. I played the europe edition and it's kind of like FFXII with mmo style play, but done a lot better.
 
Unless I misheard it, I don't think Cheapy threw out his Wii, I think he just threw out the accessories for his Wii. The console itself he just leant to his friend. Nevertheless I'd totally understand if you threw out your Wii. Even here in the states the resale value for one is in the toilet, especially if it's one of the first models.

I definitely agree with Shipwreck about the memory stick pricing. While it's true that the pricing/size of the sticks won't matter much to people buying the physical copies of the game, part of the appeal of the Vita is the ability to download full retail games. Of course people are going to want to take advantage of that and I wonder how many of those people will understand how much room they're going to need in order to do so. I think with the recent surge in iPhone/Android games, a lot of people take for granted not having to think about memory when it comes to purchasing games online. I'm curious to see how well the Vita does in the next couple of months once more games are released and the public realizes how much money they need to invest in memory sticks.

So in a week in which both Twisted Metal and UFC 3 come out, the only games discussed are Rhythm Heaven and Tekken 3DS. Not complaining, just thought it was funny. Keep up the great work guys. These podcasts help get me through a 10-hour workday.
 
[quote name='LiK']
As for the ME3 demo, I didn't think it was too spoilerish. The SP stuff wasn't that bad. I've been in media blackout but I played it anyway. Nothing major in the grand scheme of things. Btw Cheapy, if you wanna avoid spoilers, just play the MP part of it instead.[/QUOTE]

I've been in media blackout as well and played the demo. What was the spoiler? The Reapers fire dub-step at you?
 
[quote name='metallicoholic']I definitely agree with Shipwreck about the memory stick pricing. While it's true that the pricing/size of the sticks won't matter much to people buying the physical copies of the game, part of the appeal of the Vita is the ability to download full retail games. Of course people are going to want to take advantage of that and I wonder how many of those people will understand how much room they're going to need in order to do so. I think with the recent surge in iPhone/Android games, a lot of people take for granted not having to think about memory when it comes to purchasing games online. I'm curious to see how well the Vita does in the next couple of months once more games are released and the public realizes how much money they need to invest in memory sticks.[/QUOTE]

There are a few ways to look at the Vita memory pricing. As I mentioned before, the actual price of entry is just an additional $20. That's not too bad in absolute sense. I also mentioned that the memory pricing isn't bad compared to non-expandable memory pricing on iPhones/iPads, nor the kind of HDD upgrade pricing Microsoft has been charging with the Xbox this whole generation. In fact, right now an extra $50 will get you both 3G and 8GBs of storage. From Apple that would be a $230 upgrade.

But there are a couple technical reasons they went proprietary. First of all, since all games need to be playable as a download from flash storage, Sony needs to guarantee a certain level of performance for the memory cards. Think the WipEout load times are bad now? Imagine the same game if you were trying to play it off a slow as shit bargain MicroSD card at 2 MB per second. Sure, you got 32 GBs for $30, but if it takes 6 minutes to load a race, what's the point? Sony's pricing isn't that far off high performance flash memory.

Second, Sony needs to protect this device from piracy. They cannot afford to have everyone playing everything for free like the PSP. The size of the Vita memory cards is specifically designed to be too small for a MicroSD to be practical, thereby hopefully providing a barrier to people trying to load arbitrary data on to the device, or examine data created and stored for the Vita from a PC.

Technicals aside, you can just look at it like this. If the convenience and utility of a large Vita memory card is of value to people, they will be willing to pay for it. If people can bring themselves to pay $50 or $60 a year for Xbox Live (well, ~$35 a year for CAGgers), when MS is literally just lifting artificial locks on their ability to use their own hardware, internet connections and paid third party services, paying $20-100 for a physical chunk of memory should not be that big a deal.

I'm not disagreeing that having some amount of flash built in would have been nice, but I think a starting price of $250 with the choice to spend between $20-100 for memory is preferable to Sony packing in 8 or 16GB and moving the Wifi only price up to $299.
 
[quote name='Curufinwe']Cheapy really took Phil Harrison's comments about touch controls being a gimmick personally. Given that he made them six and a half years ago and left the company four years ago, it's probably OK to let it go now.[/QUOTE]

Right. And then his overall wish, what would make him love the Vita, is that it have LESS functionality? I just don't believe it.

I'd love to have a CagCast that is positive, and has less Apple blowing going on. It's embarrassing after a while.
 
Not interested in Vita myself. I wouldn't bet on it succeeding. I think it is doomed. But a killer game or two can completely change the landscape. And realize pricing willl get lower and games will only grow in number and realize the PSP sold more than the 360 has worldwide.

Still I think Sony should have made the Vita tablet sized!
 
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I just don't understand why people get so mad at Cheapy for picking on the Vita and 3DS. Cheapy's been shitting on the PSP and DS for like four years now. Often while I'm playing RPGs on them! It doesn't diminish my enjoyment in playing them or listening to the Cagcast.

He's allowed to voice his opinion on his own show.
 
I know it's a little late but...

I read 'The Hunger Games' based only on Cheapy's recommendation. I loved it. Best read in a while. I'm about to dive into the second book tonight. Thank you Cheapy! Any other reads you recommend? Perhaps similar types? Perhaps a small segment called "What's Cheapy Reading?"
 
[quote name='BradGrenz']There are a few ways to look at the Vita memory pricing. As I mentioned before, the actual price of entry is just an additional $20. That's not too bad in absolute sense. I also mentioned that the memory pricing isn't bad compared to non-expandable memory pricing on iPhones/iPads, nor the kind of HDD upgrade pricing Microsoft has been charging with the Xbox this whole generation. In fact, right now an extra $50 will get you both 3G and 8GBs of storage. From Apple that would be a $230 upgrade.

I see what you're saying about the iPhone/iPad HDD upgrade but how often does one need to upgrade the storage on that device? I am legitimately asking since I don't own either one. I do own a Kindle Fire and I never see myself filling that thing up completely with games since the file size is so small. I would imagine the $.99 games and apps on the iPad/iPhone are pretty small too, thus I don't see the need for much upgrading when compared to some of the larger games that are going to come out on the Vita.

As for the Xbox, right now you can get 320GB for $120 while 32GB for the Vita is $100. I'm not saying 32GB wouldn't hold an average Vita user over for the most part, but that pricing is outrageous. Anyone that builds up a serious collection of downloaded games will be forking over a lot of money through this new device.

[quote name='BradGrenz']Technicals aside, you can just look at it like this. If the convenience and utility of a large Vita memory card is of value to people, they will be willing to pay for it.[/QUOTE]

I completely agree with you. If the convenience of better load times with the PS Vita memory stick is a value to people, they will pay the premium. I just wonder how many people will continue to buy memory sticks as they need them. I know you can store games on the PS3 but I think this goes back to convenience. It's much easier to just have all your games readily available (ala iPad/iPhone) than to have to keep switching out games because you've run out of room.
 
I really enjoyed the PS-Vita discussion. However, take Cheapy's advice on handheld games with a grain of salt, considering he is not interested in handheld gaming at all as he stated on the 8-4 Play Podcast. Also his comparison for all handheld consoles/games to his iphone is another rant to get people to buy an iphone (or rather any apple product)...that's it. He also stated that his gaming experience on that lasts "a few minutes."
 
[quote name='Ozonekill']I've been in media blackout as well and played the demo. What was the spoiler? The Reapers fire dub-step at you?[/QUOTE]

It's the second half of the demo where there's a specific mission in the middle of the full game. it's fairly spoilerish.
 
Its sad for me but I think the portable market is dying. Everything has to be $0.99 or freemium and it seems like there is no market for high quality games anymore. There isn't anything on iOS I can play for more than 5 minutes and touch controls suck!

Great show guys!
 
I have no fucking idea what is being referred to when people talk about "spoilers" in the ME3 demo.

I played it and found that there was absolutely nothing worth writing home about story wise.
 
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