Gamers Week Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Square Enix has been making major headlines this week, and unfortunately, it’s not because the pixel remasters of Final Fantasy 1 through 6 are finally coming to consoles.  The Tomb Raider publisher has announced that it is selling several of its Western studios in order to focus on what it considers most important -- blockchain . Additionally, legendary game dev Yuji Naka has sha...

Send us Fan Mail It seems Sony will be making a few other changes to go along with its newly revamped PlayStation Plus subscription service. The company announced this week that any game costing $34 or higher must have an accompanying game trial that lasts for at least 2 hours. Additionally, the notoriously anti-game preservation company has just launched a new game preservation team. We examine t...

Send us Fan Mail Remember a time before microtransactions? Yeah, neither do we. That's why the news that Microsoft and Sony are considering including ads in Xbox and Playstation games has us more than a little nervous. Is this intrusion into our games the inevitable future? Or do gamers still have a voice that rings stronger than corporate greed? We'll also be discussing the apparent lea...

Send us Fan Mail Thanks to numerous allegations of misconduct and abuse, Activision Blizzard has been a mainstay in the headlines for the last year. This week was no different, except... it's only PARTIALLY bad news?? We look at the recent goings-on at the embattled company, including the move to give 1,100 QA testers full-time jobs and higher base pay, the newly hired chief diversity, equity...

Send us Fan Mail E3 's efforts last year to keep its showcase alive in digital form in the midst of a global pandemic were lackluster at best. Perhaps then it's not all that shocking to hear the event is canceled completely this year -- both in-person and digitally. One question remains, however: does it even matter? In a world that now thrives on digital showcases by the likes of Ninten...

Send us Fan Mail For years, Microsoft's Game Pass has been the king of video game subscription services. The internet has long been filled with chatter over if/when Sony's PlayStation would throw its hat in the ring and challenge Xbox on its home turf. Today, we have that answer. Sony unveiled its all-new PlayStation Plus subscription service. We dive into the details to see if it's...

Send us Fan Mail For decades, governments and media have made video games a scapegoat for the ills of modern society, and violence in games is blamed for all kinds of real-life violence. But what does the science say? You may be surprised to learn that violence in video games isn't the problem at all, and that rage quitting is actually...healthy! We also discuss the Intellivision Amico '...

Send us Fan Mail Facebook Gaming was supposed to be the social media giant's answer to Twitch . Four years after its launch, however, it's a weird wasteland of diet pill ads and sketchy viewership stats. What went wrong... aside from, well, everything? We look at the head-scratcher that is the current state of Facebook Gaming , as well as discuss what it would take to turn the service ar...

Send us Fan Mail In 1982, the video game adaptation of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial released for the Atari 2600 to commercial and critical failure. But is it really the worst game of all time? We sit down with Howard Scott Warshaw (the developer of Yars' Revenge , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and the infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ) to learn more about the heyday of Atari and find out if ther...

Send us Fan Mail Guinness just announced their list of the Top 50 video game characters of all time based on the results of a public poll, and well... we have thoughts. We go over the list's snubs, surprises, and outright shocks. Does Mario really deserve to be #1? The answer is...it depends. We'll also discuss the newly announced Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet , the leaked pricing d...

Send us Fan Mail One week (and $139 million) into the Uncharted movie's theatrical run, it seems that there's still a rabid audience for film adaptations of beloved video games. So get your popcorn ready because we're previewing eight upcoming titles. Some look good, some definitely look bad, and at least one is a real head-scratcher. We're also discussing Street Fighter 6 &apo...

Send us Fan Mail We all knew the day was coming when Nintendo would close down the digital storefronts for its 3DS and Wii U consoles. However, it hurts a bit more to realize that up to 1000 digital-only video games will disappear forever as a result. The internet is alight with debates about games preservation, emulation, and piracy, and it seems like everyone has a (very strong) opinion. We atte...

Send us Fan Mail The first Nintendo Direct of 2022 is finally here, and it was a whopper! We're going over every single announcement, including Xenoblade Chronicles 3 , the Booster Course Pass for  Mario Kart 8 Deluxe , Mario Strikers: Battle League , Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes , Nintendo Switch Sports , and so much more (as well as the unfortunately named "Mouthful Mode" fro...

Send us Fan Mail Just when we'd started to wrap our heads around Microsoft 's acquisition of Activision Blizzard , Sony announced they'd bought Bungie (maker of Destiny and Halo ) for $3.6 billion.  Considering the massive wheeling and dealing that's being done in the video game industry as of late, $3.6 billion almost seems like chump change. However, this purchase will inevit...

Send us Fan Mail How many copies of Burger King 's 2006 advergame Sneak King is too many? For AEW wrestler and reality show stuntman Leroy Patterson , the limit does not exist. Leroy joins us to discuss his nearly 3,000 copies of Sneak King , what it's really like to be a contestant on Wipeout , and why being a game tester is the worst job ever (spoiler: it involves squirrel speak). We&a...

Send us Fan Mail Mergers and acquisitions have been especially big business in the video game industry throughout the last year. Nevertheless, when Tuesday brought the news that Microsoft had agreed to purchase Activision Blizzard in an epic $75.5 billion all-cash deal , gamers the world over collectively said, "Holy #@*%!" We discuss the record-breaking buyout and what it might mean for...

Send us Fan Mail The metaverse is being touted as the do-all, be-all platform of the future where we will work, play, live, and get married. There's only one problem -- video games have already been offering all of that for years. So what's left for the metaverse to give us? Or better yet, do we really need a metaverse at all? We're also discussing the new Sega Sapporo studio led by...

Send us Fan Mail We’re excited to welcome you to the very first episode of Gamers Week Podcast ! Like the name says, we analyze the best, worst, and weirdest headlines of the past week in the video game industry. Since it's our first episode, we take some time to introduce our three hosts, but if you want to get straight to the news, check out those sweet time codes to skip ahead. It feels li...

Send us Fan Mail To gain clues about the future, it's helpful to look at the past. But if the dominance of mobile, digital, and free-to-play video games in 2021 is anything to go by, the future of video games may be unrecognizable to those of us who grew up blowing into our NES cartridges. But is it all bleak, or can we find some ray of gaming hope in the face of these dark, dystopian days? W...

Send us Fan Mail In our last episode, we looked at 2021 in the rearview mirror. This time, we're gazing in our proverbial crystal balls to see what the world of video games might bring in 2022 . We'll hear what a few analysts have to say about the coming year and then make some predictions of our own. We'll also be discussing Sony 's newly confirmed PSVR2 , how Gordon Ramsey do...

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