Steam Set to Escalate the Console Wars in 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/29/13 at 02:45 PM CT
It has been a long time coming, but this past week Valve, the company behind the incredible Steam PC gaming platform, made three big announcements about their intentions in the nascent 8th Generation Console Wars.
While Valve had traditionally been content to cater to the PC gaming community, recently the company’s president, Gabe Newell, has expressed nothing but disgust for Microsoft and its Windows 8 operating system. At the same time, he has flip-flopped his stance on PC gaming vs. console gaming and embraced the PlayStation 3 with a hacked-together and poorly-utilized version of Steam for Sony’s failure of a console.
With Valve’s week of Living Room announcements, however, Gaben’s true intentions have been revealed, after months of speculation and rumor mongering. Let’s take a look at each announcement in turn.
Announcement 1 – SteamOS:
It’s obvious that Gaben hates Windows 8, primarily due to fear that Microsoft will eventually lock-down the OS entirely, …
Sega & Atlus: Two Star-Crossed Lovers
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/22/13 at 01:35 PM CT
Atlus, the publisher of niche Japanese games and spiritual successor to Working Designs, has followed in its forbearer’s footsteps and gone out of business. Index Digital Media, the owner of Atlus, filed for bankruptcy back in June, leaving ‘Persona’ fans to rend their garments and gnash their teeth over the future of Japanese-schoolchildren-vs.-demon RPGs.
However, there is no need for Atlus fans to despair, as Sega, that perpetual Miss Congeniality of the 3rd through 6th Generation Console Wars, snatched up Atlus for a meager $140 million (or 100 times that amount in Yen). In recent years, this kind of major acquisition by Sega-Sammy Holdings seemed like an impossibility, thanks to the company’s inconsistent financials.
The fact of Sega’s current ability to make any acquisition seems a non sequitur after their series of recent disasters, like “Aliens: Colonial Marines” and “Hatsune Miki: Project Diva F.” Of course, Sega has taken significant steps in …
VitaTV: Sony's First Good Handheld Decision
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/14/13 at 03:21 PM CT
This week, Sony announced their first sensible decision with regard to the PlayStation Vita (and, indeed, their entire handheld ecosystem). The VitaTV is a $100 microconsole ($150 with a controller, but it supports the DualShock 3 controllers we all presumably own already) that brings the world of PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable games to the big screen.
I’ve long been a proponent of handheld-to-TV adapters, and had great respect for Nintendo’s past decisions with the SNES’ Super Game Boy and the Gamecube’s Game Boy Player. But recently, Nintendo has been slacking in this capability, and there is currently no 100% legitimate way to play DS or 3DS games on anything but a tiny handheld device (though DeSmume is a rock-solid emulator for PC). With the WiiU’s similarities to the DS, I have been expecting a DS Player announcement for months, yet none has been forthcoming. Instead, Sony took the world by surprise with a device (currently slated only for release in …
Backlog: The Embiggening - September, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/07/13 at 01:37 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Perhaps the Summer Game Drought never really brought its full force to bear this year due to the impending dread by smaller developers of the juggernaut mainstream releases coming in September. Not that September actually looks to have many good releases, just that it will have at least one release that will sell to every ne’er-do-well with a game console: “Grand Theft Auto 5.”
Of course, the shovelware and licensed dreck developers aren’t afraid of “GTA5.” They’re doing their own thing since their target audience is too young to buy a ‘GTA’ game over-the-counter (no matter how fervent the desire). Thus we’re getting a new game based on HotWheels toy cars (Do kids even play with those anymore?), a DS back-port of a 3DS/Vita LEGO game, and teenaged DC Comics superheroes. Slightly older teens, whose angst surely will cause them no end of despair at their inability to legally buy “GTA5,” will have to content …
Review Round-Up: Summer 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/01/13 at 02:17 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
Summer is traditionally associated with vacations and lots of time to have fun. But as adults with multiple jobs, the MeltedJoystick crew doesn’t really get to experience that anymore. Instead of chipping away at my backlog and clearing out a large number of games (like I wanted), I ended up falling into the trap of trying to play two different RPGs at the same time – one a single-player TRPG and the other a MJ online co-op game. It is a lesson I learned long ago, but I experienced a momentary lapse that doomed me to a Summer of backlog stagnation: NEVER try to play two RPGs at the same time!
The drought of local co-op games has continued, leaving us with only a compilation of old arcade games to tide us over. It didn’t really live up to expectations. But now “Dragon’s Crown” is finally available to us, and we’re …
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