I got to put "ass" in the title.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72769/episode-946-jcvds-ass-and-the-pink-symbiote
I wonder if we're getting to a place where technology has become too uniform.
This week alone we talked about the Virtual Boy, gamepads built from phones, and the Power Glove. Recently, we've talked about absolute trash like Tiger Electronics' R-Zone, Jon bought the goddamned The Eye of Judgment, I am at this very moment looking at a Wappy Dog, and it is astride Donkey Kong Bongos. Who knows what other outrageous pieces of plastic and silicon designed to separate us from our money in exchange for time we've touched on in the last couple of years.
Remember when we told you that Nintendo released games via satellite broadcasts? That was last week! Sega used to send games over your co-ax cable. In 1994.
People used to have ideas! Somewhere in the boxes in my parents' home is a Cybiko. Why? It was weird! It's so weird!
Nintendo is still doing weird ****, sure. But what's the last weird **** Sony did? Wonderbook? Do you remember Wonderbook? That was 2012!
We aren't getting video games on VHS tapes anymore - which was a real thing.
No, not the ActionMax or the Video Driver. The Takara Video Challenger. Heck there was one with the Captain Planet branding that was shaped like a space ship but was also a light gun...and used VHS players. It's all very weird.
Now they're all black boxes, or tablets with controllers, or mobile phones. Phones, with their ever-expanding capabilities, have been responsible for killing off all sorts of classes of device: cameras, music players, handheld game systems, etc.
I suspect this general loss of experimentation comes with the maturity of the gaming space. The players are established, their moats are deep. Anytime we've had new contestants attempt to breach the space, they always offered something aspirational: cloud streaming or whatever the hell the Amico was supposed to be, to differentiate. Don't fill the moat with dirt - dig your own. Usually they've just dug their own grave.
This space needs scrappy upstarts with terrible ideas. It thrives on WonderSwans - with the TATE mode secondary buttons and the 3DO with... nothing of value. It needs a Casio Loopy to ask the question: what if my video game console was made for little girls who just love stickers? What if we designed our console around being able to be installed in the back of Japanese sedans (thanks Fujitsu)? What if we just released the exact same games on £7.50 carts that our home computers play on 50p cassettes but don't remove the keyboard prompts despite removing the keyboard (Atari XEGS)?
They might be commercial failures, but they stress test ideas that are mostly too stupid for anyone to pursue. Its just sometimes, at least in theory, they aren't.
Sometimes your idea to use CD technology creates the TurboGrafx-CD, sometimes you invent the Philips CD-i. May the sins of Eindhoven be remembered.
It's time. Microsoft is busy immolating their gaming business anyway, so come on - make a Kinect 3. Damn the torpedoes, because your management are the torpedoes!
Now all the weird stuff in tech is... smart glasses. It's more than a bit boring and just a pinch dystopian.
Anyway, this week we kick-off the show looking at deals on eShop that may not still be available! Happy shopping! Greg has some info on the recent updates to Mario Kart World, especially how it now tracks your progress. Jon checked out the latest Everybody's Golf - and it turns out it might not be for him anyway. He also dives back into the coffee-fueled world of Raiden NOVA. Guillaume played through Kirby (many other words go here) Star-Crossed World DLC and finished Pepper Grinder. He also documents the struggle of finding an official Switch 2 case.
After a break, we dive into Listener Mail. This week we document some memorable credit sequences, defend my honor, and figure out Kirby's weaknesses. Send emails.
- (00:08:16) New Business - eShop deals!
- (00:14:33) Mario Kart World update.
- (00:30:28) Everybody's Golf Hot Shots. Raiden NOVA.
- (00:48:24) Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World.
- (00:55:31) Pepper Grinder update. PowerA case and screen protector.
- (01:04:30) Listener Mail - Memorable credits.
- (01:31:35) James Jones, fake Virtual Boy fan?
- (01:57:27) Can anyone put a stop to Kirby's reign of terror?
Topic: Episode 946: JCVD's Ass and the Pink Symbiote (Read 16 times)
