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Video game news that reflects on the latest trends and cultural impacts brought on by gaming. From the perspective of a few guys who wish they had more time to play video games!
Episodes
Wednesday Dec 15, 2021
Wednesday Dec 15, 2021
There was other news from the company that can't be named and in the Epic vs Apple ongoing saga but this week is dedicated to the Video Game Awards that were held this past week. Let's dive right in and let you know our thoughts on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
http://www.joystickandmouse.com
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Show Notes
The show as a whole
https://www.cnet.com/news-live/the-game-awards-2021-every-result-winner-announcement-trailer-and-more/
https://www.thegameawards.com/
The musical guests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2021#Performers
The awards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2021#Video_games
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/live/the-game-awards-2021-live-blog
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-game-awards-2021-winners-revealed
The announcements
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2021#Announcements
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/live/the-game-awards-2021-live-blog
Video Game Review
Halo Infinite: Campaign
Wednesday Dec 08, 2021
Wednesday Dec 08, 2021
Open mouth, insert leg. Yep, you know what company that is about. maybe Sony is finally waking up to the way people want to consume games and it's awards season on the video game front. These topics and some serious horsepower coming to a phone near you on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
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Show Links
I know you guys are tired of hearing about this and frankly we're tired of having to bring it up every week but Activistion/Blizzard just can't get out of their own way. When will they learn? This week they layed off 30% of their QA workforce form the CoD Warzone studio and to say it didn't sit well with the community and employees was an understatement. So where do we go from here with this company?
https://kotaku.com/call-of-duty-warzone-devs-stage-walkout-over-layoffs-1848165716
Is Sony REALLY going to take on the holy grail of game subscriptions? This week they announced that they were going to do away with their current services (thankfully) and were going to create a new service similar to Microsoft's XBox Game Pass ... but will it. We take a look at the details of this announcement.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-03/playstation-plans-new-service-to-take-on-xbox-game-pass
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/3/22816087/sony-playstation-5-game-subscription-service-xbox-games-pass-now-spartacus
The game awards are this week and their hype video brought back all the memories of the great games we got this year. So lets talk about those and what we are hoping to see during the show.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-game-awards-2021-hype-trailer-reminds-you-of-2021s-best-games/1100-6498622/
https://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-game-awards-2021-hype-trailer/2300-6456856/
https://kotaku.com/the-game-awards-wont-take-sides-on-activision-fallout-t-1848158706
Full Stream Ahead
if you have tried to buy a video card in the last two years you know what a chore that can be. If you can find one, they cost as much as a high end laptop. So with this arid landscape of video card availability, is this weeks Gefroce Now announcement of 3080 performance in the cloud the oasis in the distance .. or just a mirage?
https://www.techradar.com/news/is-nvidia-geforce-now-rtx-3080-the-next-generation-of-cloud-gaming
Friday Nov 26, 2021
Friday Nov 26, 2021
Blizzard is more of a slushy mess these days, Netflix and kill is a thing now. The boss of EA is clueless (we knew this already) and are NFT's really that bad? All that and Halo built in on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
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Show Notes
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Blizzard. You remember that really tone-deaf email written by Fran Townshend that was sent right after the lawsuit was brought by the state of California. The one Bobby Kotick agreed was tone-deaf? Turns out he should should know since He wrote it and had it sent out under her name. There is just so much wrong with this situation. Oh and turns out the whole equal pay thing was a farce too ... Blizzard, what are we going to do with you?
https://kotaku.com/bobby-kotick-actually-wrote-fran-townsends-deranged-co-1848069983
https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-scandal-bobby-kotick-jen-oneal-board-shareholders
https://www.ign.com/articles/blizzard-jen-oneal-mike-ybarra-equal-pay-after-resignation
The Netflix game service went live and as expected it was meh at best.
https://www.polygon.com/22759722/netflix-games-on-android
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/netflix-mobile-games-stranger-things-3-review/articleshow/87623388.cms
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/netflix-video-game-impressions/
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of NFTs and block chain. A dimension that the CEO of EA has no clue how we are going to get there. Why are we not surprised? So what does NFT and Block Chain mean for you, the gamer?
https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/11/05/ea-ceo-says-nfts-and-blockchain-games-are-the-future-of-our-industry-and-that-hes-unsure
Full Stream Ahead
Coming to a TV near you ... Halo?
https://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-is-working-with-tv-manufacturers-to-bring-cloud-gaming-to-your-screen/
Wednesday Nov 03, 2021
Wednesday Nov 03, 2021
The guys got together in person to record an episode and man it felt good. We talked about the latest developments at Blizzard. Sonys lackluster announcements and the joint venture between Sega and Microsoft. Oh and some spooky game that Alex was playing.
Show Notes
You know how people think their devices are listening to them, well it appears that ours, and facebook in particular is listening to us because Facebook decided this to rebrand itself as Meta focussing on the Metaverse.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/10/29/facebook-meta-rebrand-metaverse-video-games/
After months of mis-steps and tone deaf responses, Blizzard Entertainment this week FINALLY stepped up made some real changes at the company. Letting perpetrators go and renaming some characters and in game items is nice but the employees of Blizzard were looking for some tangible changes and this week the company announced a great first step in making the company an example for the rest of the industry to look to.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211028005446/en/A-Letter-From-CEO-Bobby-Kotick-Regarding-Progress-and-Commitments-Made-at-Activision-Blizzard
This seems a slap in the face though for the victims of the harassment
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041068091/activision-blizzard-strikes-an-18-million-deal-over-its-workplace-harassment-law
https://gamingintel.com/playstation-state-of-play-october-2021-recap/
Full Stream Ahead
Sega and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership to develop "large scale" games for the XBox platform. What does this mean and what games from the Sega library would we love to see a new installment from?
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-11-01-xbox-and-sega-announce-strategic-alliance-for-super-game-project
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
Thursday Oct 28, 2021
The metaverse! What is it? How does it work? How do we start living a world like Ready Player One? Why should we be so excited (or terrified) about this? There's lots to unpack as we look at the evolution of this metaverse - most importantly, how this affects games. We're going to talk about all of that and more on this episode of Joystick & Mouse.
Show Links
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been making news lately by talking about the “metaverse.” Zuckerberg says it’s the future of Facebook — and the internet. So what is the metaverse?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QfprVOtEUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1OmJAA-7KM
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3637952/will-zuckerbergs-metaverse-change-everything.html
This idea of a metaverse screams potential for gaming and creating a single place where gamers can collaborate and play. So what are the plans for it in the context of gaming?
https://hackernoon.com/gaming-101-what-is-the-metaverse
There are A TON of players involved with developing the metaverse. There is a push for this to be an open platform, but with this many players, can it actually be truly "open"?
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/metaverse-market-map/
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-whistleblower-shocked-companys-investment-metaverse-rcna3725
How does this all make sense economically? NFT's and play to earn games are a big focus for how it's possible. Let's talk about what they'll do for the metaverse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ClJxjuRvw
https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-metaverse-play-to-earn-and-the-new-economic-model-of-gaming
Full Stream Ahead
VR headsets these days are powerful. But they're not powerful enough to bring the next generation of the internet to life. Turns out, cloud computing might be the answer.
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gaming/streaming-vr-and-ar-content-google-cloud-nvidia-cloudxr
Thursday Oct 21, 2021
Thursday Oct 21, 2021
Nintendo looses its crown. Game developers are finding new, more creative ways to enhance their brand recognition. XBox has some news on that Fable game we've ... oh, wait. No they don't and an huge update (the last free one) is coming for our favorite island. We break it all down for you on this episode of Joystick and mouse. Oh yeah, one last thing. JAYDIMES IS BACK!!!!!
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Show Links
The Nintendo Switch loses its crown as the king of consoles but it has been a hell of a run and should we honestly be surprised that a new console has outsold a 3 year old one even if it does have a fancy new screen.
https://kotaku.com/playstation-5-ends-switchs-three-year-run-as-best-selli-1847885112
Free-to-play gaming companies like Roblox can monetize users in various ways, one of which is by displaying ads. However, no one really likes their game being interrupted by a 30-second video. Therefore, companies have to straddle a challenging line between optimizing income and keeping users happy.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/10/18/the-new-creative-advertising-strategy-video-game-c/
This past Sunday, the official Twitter account for Xbox Game Studios Publishing posted a tweet which appeared to suggest Fable news was incoming.“We’re excited to kick off something special tomorrow,” it said, adding “just give us one more day to prepare the chickens” with a chicken emoji. “We’d call it our Fable Anniversary, but that name was already taken.”
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/xbox-apologises-for-confusion-after-seemingly-teasing-fable-news/
You know that island you haven't looked at in over a year? Well it might be time to fire up the ol' Switch and stomp the cockkroaches becasue there is HUGE update for Animal Crossing coming in November. It's sort of like a list so we'll take a look at it and see if it's enough to make us jump back into the game.
https://www.imore.com/everything-announced-october-2021-animal-crossing-direct
Full Stream Ahead
In his latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman hinted that Apple was considering maybe, possibly but not now having a cloud gaming service to piggyback on its Apple Arcade service. An interesting concept but, would it fly?
https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/17/report-apple-has-considered-launching-a-cloud-gaming-service-alongside-apple-arcade/
Wednesday Sep 29, 2021
Wednesday Sep 29, 2021
You should have learned. I didn't learn, it's one of my issues. This famous line by Mario could have been said about Blizzard entertainment. What? Not Mario ... Oh yes it is. That and everything else announced at Nintendo direct on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
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Guest
David Luzader - https://twitter.com/davluz
Show Notes
It's been a couple of weeks since we've talked about Blizzard Entertainment but I think we need to give an update. So looks like the feds are getting in on the act as the SEC announced that they are opening their own investigation into the gaming giant. Also it seems more folks are jumping ship as Blizzard lost their Chief Legal Council and the Executive Producer on Overwatch this past week. It's not all gloom and doom in Irvine though with the release of Diablo II Resurrected this week although that launch was very subdued.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-21/blizzard-executive-overseeing-hit-game-leaves-in-latest-exodus
https://www.esportstalk.com/news/more-and-more-activision-blizzard-employees-quit-amid-legal-trouble/
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1039393895/more-on-the-investigations-into-video-game-publisher-giant-activision-blizzard
Big goings on in the world of Mario this week as Nintendo held a Nintendo Direct to give us a glimpse into whats coming for the switch and ... well ... we have questions. What do we think about what was announced and yes, we'll get to that other thing later in the show.
https://www.techradar.com/news/nintendo-direct-september-2021-all-the-biggest-announcements-you-need-to-know
https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/the-nintendo-direct-made-me-finally-cancel-my-switch-oled-pre-order
Aaaaaaannnd it's time for the other thing. During the Nintendo direct, Shigeru Miyamoto dropped the bomb that there was an animated Mario movie coming next year with the dinosour wrangling Starlord himself as the voice of the main character and the internet loved it ... Just kidding, as usual they hated it and threatened to burn the castle down. So what do we think about the movie in general and the star-studded cast that is voicing it?
https://kotaku.com/the-internets-hateboner-for-chris-pratt-as-mario-in-nin-1847739685
https://www.cnet.com/news/a-super-mario-movie-starring-chris-pratt-is-coming-dec-21-2022/
Full Stream Ahead
Nintendo also announced this week that The Forgotten City will be available on the switch via their cloud gamning service. Yes they have their own service and noI wasn't really aware of that either. As far as I can tell they have 3 whole games available. So it begs the question, Is Nintendo missing the boat when it comes to cloud gaming?
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/the-forgotten-city-is-coming-to-nintendo-switch-as-a-cloud-game-today-3053556
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
Going to take a dive into the psychology of gaming today and take a look at how we project ourselves into games. When we make a decision in a game what is it that drives us to make that decision and how does it affect us? Gamers will now be able to experience the "pleasure" of building IKEA furniture and XBox cloud gaming is loose in the wild on this episode of Joystick and mouse.
Guest Info
Scott Johnson - @scottjohnson
GameCentral had an article where they interviewed psychologist and author Dr Rachel Kowert about why we make the choices we do in games, and why they’re usually good ones. But are they?
https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/16/why-video-games-can-make-you-a-better-a-person-but-not-a-worse-one-15270237/
Holy Swedish Meatballs, Batman! IKEA is releasing a full lineup of gaming furniture and accessories. They have partnered with ASUS to come up with a ROG inspired line of gaming offerings including everything from desks and chairs to ring lights and phone holders. The big question is though, will it come with scratch and sniff mouse pads in Swedish meatball scent.
https://www.spieltimes.com/news/republic-of-gamers-collaborates-with-ikea/
https://nerdist.com/article/ikea-gaming-furniture-line-asus/
Time. It is the single most important commodity in life and there never seems to be enough of it. There are so many things every day that vie for our attention and video games are one of them. So lets talk about how we select those games that we give our time to and how we can experience more of them.
https://www.techradar.com/news/pressure-to-be-good-at-games-is-ruining-my-ability-to-enjoy-them
Full Stream Ahead
Microsoft released X-Cloud gaming to the masses this week. That's really cool and we'll see how that plays with people but along with it, the ability to stream your XBox to your PC.
https://www.pocket-lint.com/games/news/xbox/158381-xbox-cloud-gaming-local-streaming-pc-windows-10
Wednesday Sep 15, 2021
Wednesday Sep 15, 2021
This week Sony held a Playstation showcase and reminded us who has the best line-up of games and why that $500 console is worth every penny. Let's dive into what was announced and look at our favorites and maybe some other angles of these announcements that weren't readily apparent on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
Our Guest
The one and only Brian Ibbott - @Coverville
Show Notes
Here's everything that was announced and shown at the Playstation showcase event.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22663238/sony-playstation-showcase-2021-ps5-trailers-spider-man-god-of-war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5VtfD2i3rc
https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/09/10/uncharteds-amy-hennig-and-gary-whitta-are-working-on-forspoken
We saw some real honest to goodness gameplay from the forthcoming God of War Ragnarok game and it was glorious. Behind the scenes though there was a change of directors. What did that mean for this game and what does a director for a game really do anyways? We'll take a look at that and maybe at some times where a director chage didn't work so much.
https://www.ign.com/articles/god-of-war-ragnarok-eric-williams-cory-barlog-interview
https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2021/09/11/how-god-of-war-ragnaroks-new-director-brings-a-different-perspective-to-the-series
And in a surprise announcement Sony announced a new release from Rockstar games. Thats right folks were getting ... GTA5 on the playstation 5. Its OK, we were underwhelmed too.
https://www.ign.com/articles/grand-theft-auto-5-playstation-5-reveal-backlash
Sony killed it this week. With the last several announcement events being pretty meh, (Nintendo anyone) Sony finally put on a show that made us truley excited about some new games that were coming out and once again showed us what THEIR marketing strategy is. Having the best line-up of games is pretty simple but hard to execute but somehow Sony keeps doing it.
https://kotaku.com/sony-brought-its-playstation-a-game-today-1847647997
Full Stream Ahead
So a lot of us in the community were running around Aeternum chopping trees, killing wolves and any number of other tasks in the open beta for New World from Amazon Studios. Well this week it was announced that this new MMO would be available on Amazons cloud gaming service Luna. This got me thinking what does that mean for the game does it change our outlook for it?
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22663690/amazon-new-world-luna-cloud-gaming
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Get your woks out because we are going to stir up a couple of Chinese stories today. We'll offer that with side dishes of mashed no upgrades and steamed tutorial and end it all with big ol slice of 5G cloud gaming on this episode of Joystick and Mouse.
http://www.joystickandmouse.com
http://shop.joystickandmouse.com/
https://www.patreon.com/joystickandmouse
Our Guest
Searanex - https://twitter.com/Searanex
Story Links
last week we told you about China's new law limiting minors to 3 hours per week of gaming but does that have unintended ramifications. Better yet will it help at all? This article gives another perspective on this new law and what it means for the Chinese gaming industry.
https://www.ft.com/content/ffca0c80-b6b4-473f-9be2-c3a313e94f62
With that take on the China law in mind, should or could the western countries and companies do something similar?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/04/why-the-industry-should-heed-chinas-crackdown-on-video-game-players
Well the honeymoon is over for folks that are holding off and getting that PS5 and are still buy triple a titles for their PS4. Sony announced this week that Horizon: Forbidden West will be their last game that gives free upgrades to the new console version.
https://kotaku.com/sony-will-no-longer-offer-free-next-gen-upgrades-for-it-1847621301
Every game starts with them. We've all seen them .. we all hate them. Yes of course I'm talking about game tutorials. Some times they are done well and some times not so much so what do we think of them. Are there any that we remember as being really bad or really good?
https://www.wired.com/story/the-case-for-video-game-tutorials/
Full Stream Ahead
Indian telco giant Airtel conducted a cloud gaming test last week that may show the future of the technology.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-cm/airtel-demonstrates-india-s-first-cloud-gaming-experience-on-a-5g-network-121090201005_1.html
https://www.livemint.com/