8-4 Play: 06/07/2013

A question - would Steam-like sales change anyone's mind about the used game issue? Steam doesn't allow used games, borrowing, lending, giving anything away - but I buy MOST of my games through the sales. If it's all about the money saved, sales should be enough. I don't see Microsoft or Sony going for that, however.

Also, the DivX thing is both hilarious and extremely relevant - what a great reference (I presume JJ put it in, if so - props to him!).

@karmann: They are 8-4 play, a Japanese localization company. They are friends of Patrick and the GB crew at large. GB is simply hosting the podcast. If I remember right the gaming site that used to host the podcast, was closed down. 8-4 are not journalists,and the two sites has no affiliation. But when ever they come to the states, they usually drop by, and vice versa. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxvEvpi7-0

Patrick said:

Joining the "family" is a good way to put it. We aren't merging with them or anything. They cover and talk about some games that we don't, but more importantly, there was an opportunity to host the podcast (which will happen fully eventually) and join up on some cool projects down the road. I love those guys, and I basically listen to zero gaming podcasts. I'll have a post on the site later today about it.

I seriously cracked up when they got to the part about Circuit City being a major investor in DivX.

This is a great example of why I tend not to like this podcast, they over react over the Xbox One stuff and thinking that there is even a chance that Sony won't give these options to publishers is bat shit crazy.

@pepsiman: that video is incredible. thank you

I'm trying to give this a shot, but they just say "like" too damn much.

I think they're making the grave assumption that the average consumer will care at all about the XONE's DRM and go for PS4...unfortunately. While it's nice to hear them advocating for the used game market when the GB crew seems to speak pretty derisively about it, this is one of those times where them living in Japan and having a clear affinity towards Japanese games kind of skews their perspective a bit. Also they don't like Rare games, and that makes me sad.

On the plus side, that DivX clip is both magical and hilariously relevant.

Is it just me or do the individuals on this podcast seem naive as all get out. Microsoft is taking some lumps right now for what it has announced dealing with DRM but thinking Sony won't have similar systems in place seems crazy to me. If I am wrong that will be awesome, but welcome to PC gaming from forever ago. Maybe not the 24 hour check in bull pucky but the used game stuff or trying to sell my game becoming really hard to do seems like it will just happen.

E3 HYPE TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN

Love the rage!

Every time I finish an episode of 8-4 I'm immediately saddened that I have to wait 2 months until the next one :(

What a bunch of complaining bitches.

Gaming Jesus ethering KI like a bawss.

"Participating Retailers" I'm glad someone else noticed this. "Gamestop this is the problem"? "Gamestop is screwed"? They're the ones getting in on this...

This weeks episode made me lol so much XD Fuckin awesome you guys ::D

These guys are talking BLASPHEMY about the Banjo Kazooie games!

Choo!.. Choo-o!..

I forgot all about this! Literally out riding my bike when the hype train arrived.

Man, there's a whole lot on the line this E3. I agree, the industry stands to lose big time if stuff like Last Guardian, Kojima-involved Silent Hill, HD Zelda, or other compelling projects don't show up this week. People are looking for system seller games - nobody expects miracles right at launch, but there needs to be something just over the horizon.

Even before the Xbone problems, console gaming was facing the same fatigue it always does - Atari to NES when arcade style games gave way to sidescrollers, SNES to PSX when sprites gave way to polygons, PS2 to X360 when JRPGs gave way to shooters. All of these transitions saw a huge slash and burn of the game genres that 'worked' on the old consoles, but eventually new genres and huge risky projects brought back a healthy diversity of games. That might not be guaranteed to happen this time.

I do hope Sony and the big publishers realize that if everyone pushes too hard to solve the used game problem, there could be a general crash. With the wrong combination of factors, it could be ALL Gamecubes this generation. Valve and Apple would like nothing better than to pick up the pieces of that kind of mess.

It's becoming really hard to listen to these guys talk about the next gen consoles. I'm really looking forward to Sony's presentation in a couple of days; they did a lot of impressive stuff back in February. But if the 8-4 guys honestly think Sony's "DRM" policies will be anything but marginally different than Microsoft's they are in for a huge surprise. As the Giant Bomb guys have so astutely pointed out over the past few days, these policies are, in large part, being dictated by the publishers. If Sony doesn't make concessions to them like MSFT has they are going to lose their support. And although Sony puts out some killer 1st-party games, they can't rely on them exclusively to keep them afloat. Also, I'm not sure how bringing out Jonathan Blow, a developer who has had more articles written about him than 99% of his colleagues, makes Sony an "indie darling". I imagine they are putting more resources behind supporting "indie" games this generation but they have a lot of ground to make up. Anyway, I imagine a lot of this stuff will blow over by the time the consoles launch and we'll be treated to a pair of awesome machines. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do.

Choo chooooo!

Got to say loved the last minute xbox one DRM talk

Love that you twisted the E3 Hype Train catch cry into a way to keep people on point. Great stuff.

E3 Hype Train!!

Got to love that E3 Hype Train!

@conduitfoursale: Wrong

@dexterkid: While we are just the interns I can also say that I (Tom) have completed Dark Souls and got to around end game in a second play through. Tony has the game on both 360 and PC and has at least completed it once if not more.

That DIVX clip is so good! Great podcast, guys.

This show was hillarious, the Hype scooter was a great interlude too :D

Also: The only guys in apparently the whole gaming industry that got it right. How crazy is that? Almost everyone said "This is inevitable"

Technically Microsoft DIDN'T go about this unilaterally (listening to this AFTER E3 was actually pretty entertaining), remember: Sony's whole "we care about your used games" applies ONLY to first-party games. So technically, BOTH companies DO HAVE publisher-enabled DRM.

That said, no check-in is awful nice.

@undeadpool: There is a *giant* difference between hardware DRM and software DRM. Publishers have had the opportunity to use publisher DRM since the PS2, and haven't. If they do try to put something on PS4, there's going to be plenty of games to play that don't have such restrictions.

There's a major difference between that and having hardware enabled DRM on every next gen console.(Sorry Wii U :( )

THANK YOU! I have been SO BAFFLED about this since everyone in both companies (not journalists, but PR people) seem to be resorting to Orwellian double-speak when questioned about it.

Now my only concern is that a major selling point of the Xbone will be "Ubisoft, EA, Activision exclusives."