Welcome to another episode of Throwdown. On this podcast/vidcast we discuss the latest video game, pop culture, and tech news in an honest and uncompromising fashion.
At the beginning of the week, Polygon Reviews Editor Arthur Gies and Frogdice CEO Michael Hartman got into a debate on Twitter about “hypersexualized” characters in video games. This inspired our main topic which is about a developer’s right of artistic expression. When is it justified to tell a developer how they should create their games? Should a developer sacrifice their artistic vision so as to not offend anyone?
No Tech or Pop Culture news this week so we could have enough space for some of the big gaming news which happened.
First up, we discuss the delay of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Though it’s always good when a developer delays a game in order to iron out any kinks, in this case it might hurt Sony. With no Uncharted 4, the PlayStation 4 doesn’t have any big exclusive titles for that all-important holiday season. Could Microsoft finally make some headway in the console war with Halo 5, Forza 6, and Rise of the Tomb Raider? What does Sony plan to do about this?
Next up is the official announcement that Titanfall 2 will be a multiplatform game. This news isn’t surprising given how the PlayStation 4 has nearly double the amount of consoles the Xbox One does. EA isn’t going to let all of that potential money go by keeping this series exclusive to one system either. With that said however, this is significant news as Microsoft has now lost one of its biggest exclusive titles.
Finally, we talk about the latest NPD numbers which were just released. In an interesting twist, Nintendo came out as the big winner in February. Two of its titles book-ended the top ten games (Majora’s Mask and Monster Hunter 4 respectively) and its 3DS managed to be the best selling console out there. More interesting is that, despite being $50 cheaper, the Xbox One was still beaten by the $400 PlayStation 4. We leave no stone unturned in this discussion.
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Thanks as always to Shawn Daley for our awesome intro and outro music.
