After what has to be the longest post-launch drought in gaming history (yeah there's been a couple games like Lego City & Monster Hunter, but that's still a drought) finally it seems like Wii U owners are going to have some reason to regularly play their Wii U starting this Sunday with Pikmin 3 and there is actually a regular release schedule over the next few months. I'm kind of meh on Pikmin 3 personally. I wasn't really into the first two games all that much and with Tales of Xillia out next week along with Ducktales & Mario & Luigi Dream Team out not long after the beginning of August is just a little too full for a game I'm not that hyped about. I'll probably still try and give it a rent and give impressions in the near future. I'm far more pumped for Wonderful 101 which will be out in September, and there's plenty of great-looking Wii U games coming down the line as well, so I can see my Wii U getting as much if not more playtime than my other systems.
The biggest news out of this video is easily the friends list limit and that while yes you must pay for PS+ for online MP, you don't need it for virtually anything else, including free-to-play games which are becoming a major part of next-gen consoles. Again this makes PSN a far more attractive deal then Xbox Live Silver, and Plus still wins over Gold since you get great discounts and free games that people might actually give a shit about (Halo 3? Good luck finding anyone who still plays that). The friends list thing is getting a little ridiculous at this point on both ends though. I mean yeah it's pretty easy to reach 100 friends so raising the limit by a big margin makes sense, but people were already thinking Xbox One's 1000 friend limit was overdoing it, 2000 just seems nuts.
And over the weekend, Phil Fish, creator of indy hit Fez, basically rage quit the gaming industry and cancelled Fez II. He claims it wasn't any one thing but clearly the straw that broke the camel's back was him being shit on by some guys for Gametrailers for not wanting to give a quote about Microsoft's recent decision to allow Indies to self-publish on the Xbox One. While either side could've handled this better (GT could've simply said whatever and moved on rather than calling Fish and Jonathon Blow out, Fish could've simply ignored them) Fish does come off as kind of a giant asshole here. But we are seeing this a ton now. Developers used to be fairly anonymous, hell game companies in general used to be fairly anonymous. Now in 24 hour gaming news cycle you get lots of people who while they might be good at their job, aren't used to and aren't good with dealing with the press and the public. They aren't used to playing nice and thinking before they speak and stuff like twitter isn't making it easier. Don Mattrick was probably very good at his job, it's not like he was some new guy at MS, he had been there quite awhile and was a key factor in the 360's success. But a few really bad interviews in a very short time period where he just clearly has no clue how he's coming off to people and he's the biggest villain in gaming.
I can think of numerous times where gaming personalities constantly in the public eye have come off as general douchebags (especially Penny Arcade, PVP and CAD, which are all gaming-themed comic strips I enjoy) at one time or another. Hell even I've gotten some vitriol from people over my rather insignificant and little-viewed rantings on here. For better or worse, gaming is a very transparent and public thing now in just about every aspect so people involved in it at almost any level either have to be very aware or have a very thick skin or possibly both. A lot of people in this industry just aren't equipped to deal with it that well. Will Fish be back at some point? It's very possible, it seems like gaming is in his blood and I doubt he'd be content doing something else.
That's really all I have for today, but I'm hoping to get another post up tomorrow, most likely another installment of Gamer Cinema.
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