The Bobby Blackwolf Show - March 17, 2024
We revisit the emulator settlement from last week with some clarifications from someone who is more knowledgeable in the inner workings of that scene than we are.
Some emulator developers have gotten spooked enough to take their emulators offline, others have more resolve with more safeguards.
Digital Eclipse's second entry in the Gold Master Series is out - Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. It shows that Jeff is a master of the VIC20, but ends abruptly in 1994 - even though Jeff's story is still being told.
The Museum of Play has announced the 2024 World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists - who would you vote for?
Then we talk to OLR about Llamasoft games that we might have played as kids, and who we would pick for the World Video Game Hall of Fame.
The Bobby Blackwolf Show - March 10, 2024
We start off this episode by remembering Akira Toriyama and all of his contributions to gaming and anime.
Happy MAR10 Day! Several Mario themed announcements were made, such as adding more Mario games to Nintendo Switch Online, and bringing some Gamecube and 3DS titles to Switch, and a LEGO Mario Kart set (a building set, not a video game) coming in 2025.
However, earlier this week Nintendo and the Yuzu emulator team settled for $2.4 million, shutting down the emulator team that worked on Yuzu and Citra for the 3DS.
Warner Bros Discovery has informed independent developers that published through Adult Swim Games that their games will be delisted, and the publisher has informed them that they will just delete the Steam pages rather than do the three clicks to transfer ownership to the indie developers. (The indie developers still own the IP and can republish, starting from scratch.)
Then we talk to Rob about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and why I'm now burned out on it.
The Bobby Blackwolf Show - March 3, 2024
I finished Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and moved on to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and no, you don't actually know the story, so be wary of spoilers. (Not from me, though!)
Octopath Traveler has been delisted temporarily from the Nintendo eShop, most likely due to the change in publisher.
Toys For Bob, the studio that brought us Skylanders, is leaving Microsoft after the Activision merger.
Sony Interactive performed a Reduction in Workforce this week, closing several studios and canceling other projects in flight.
EA has also performed layoffs this week, cancelling several licensed games that were in development. The interesting part of their announcement is how much it actually costs to lay off employees and cancel license deals.
This leads to a discussion about if games are really more expensive to the consumer or not, and if the rising game budgets are sustainable given inflation.
Then we talk to Rob about how he hasn't started Final Fantasy VII Rebirth yet.
The Bobby Blackwolf Show - February 25, 2024
I tried the Apple Vision Pro at an XR meetup for three minutes, which means I'm an expert on it now - and I also met an Apple fanboy who actually believed that everything the AVP did was revolutionary and was never part of any VR device before it. (It was wild!)
Sony announced that they are investigating making the PlayStation VR2 headset work on PC - which would be fantastic for the hardware.
EA Sports will be paying college football players $600 plus a copy of the game if they opt in to EA Sports College Football 2025, but how will they stop people from creating players who opted out without running afoul of the law?
Since there was no OLR, we chatted about JRPG lovers eating good between Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
We also talked about Multimorphic's new title for their modular pinball machine, this one based on The Princess Bride.
The Bobby Blackwolf Show - February 18, 2024
We start off talking about the return of EA Sports College Football 2025, because it was teased this week to be returning this Summer, and how it relates to one of the quotes in the show intro.
Xbox is bringing four games to other consoles - Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded, to expand the reach of Xbox Games Studios franchises - but don't expect Halo to be on PS5 any time soon.
Of course Phil Spencer says he'd love to see Sony exclusives on Xbox, but he's not holding his breath. He thinks it's in their best interest, though.
This goes into an explanation as to WHY the console wars are "a thing" for consumers, even if it's not for the industry. It's because of the economic status of the loudest gamers - they can't afford multiple consoles so they want THEIR choice to be the correct one.
Then we talk to Rob about the Xbox games going multiplatform.