NieR Automata & We’re Getting A Mario Movie | What the D-Pad #16

Welcome back to another installment of What the D-Pad, the weekly gaming podcast on Twitch.tv/TYFOfficial on every Wednesday or Thursday where we play a trending or topical game and discuss current news that I found on Twitter or Google News.

This week, Evan’s sound input actually works!

As I played NieR Automata’s first two levels, we discuss a lot of news, as well as oddity’s from the far off corners of the internet, as well as starting off the podcast with some music talk… specifically the horribly dated lyrics by Rivers Cuomo in Weezer’s discography. The results are… problematic. Later we talk about the enigmatic Ask Jeeves fan page on Facebook and kind of the Illuminati.

The podcast is available in video form on Twitch and YouTube, and also in audio form on iTunes, Google Play and Soundcloud. News links will be provided below.

Anyway here’s the podcast…

and here’s the news…

Via Kotaku The 2018 Pioneer Award was to be presented to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell by the staff of the Games Developers Conference. It was quickly revoked after “alleged unsavory behavior” allegations came out against female coworkers at the company today. The information of these allegations was circulated on Twitter following the announcement of those to receive the awards from GDC. The company was founded in 1972 and found the height of its successes in the 80’s, and from the quoted interviews with Bushnell, one of which from playboy, it can be surmised that he’s about the same as any toxically masculine owner of a major business of the era. Following the removal of the award from Bushnell a rep from GDC told a reporter from Glixel “They believe their picks should reflect the values of today’s game industry and will dedicate this year’s award to honor the pioneering and unheard of voices of the past.”  

Longest holding world record for a video game, old Atari title, is deemed impossible. Record holder must have been cheating. GWR revoked the record. Via The Washington Post

Retailers vs Xbox Via Phil Spencer’s blog  Microsoft Xbox exclusives will now be launching on Xbox Game Pass subscription service on launch day. The first game to be included in this new service addition will be the long awaited Rare title, Sea of Thieves on March 20th. This puts yet another nail in the pre-made coffin that is retail sales of video gaming content, especially sales, as reflected from a hike to 75% of the software sales market for games in 2017.

Follow up, does Microsoft want to buy Electronic Arts? Reports by Polygon suggest the possibility. This could prove challenging considering the current state of EA game players already use their access pass service not dissimilar to Xbox Game Pass. However, it would provide a lot of exclusives that Microsoft has been desperately looking for out of its own studios, half of which fall on their face either broken out of the box or duds in online play.

Via BBC Tech To no one’s surprise, the Nintendo Switch has already outsold the lifetime sales of the Wii U, which was on the market from November 2012 to a sudden disappearance in December 2016.

Via NintendoofAmerica official Twitter – Nintendo Investor Call 1/31/18

Nintendo Switch Online service will launch in September

Mario Kart Tour Mobile App is in development  

Nintendo and Illumination are partnering on a movie starring Mario, co-produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri. Evan is not happy about this.

SNES Classic has sold 4 million units. WOW! They actually made that many! Via Kotaku

Via Facebook Developers Blog Facebook Video and Facebook Live is becoming increasingly more popular as people flock away from YouTube. They recently did a live DOTA 2 event that did not turn out so well, and a million follower based streamer known for Fortnight Battle Royale and PUBG game play. Zuckerberg plans to launch Facebook Gaming. They’ve also deliberately called out the elephant in the room about demonetization in advertisements on new media; sort of slap at YouTube, and note very specifically that they’d like to create an ecosystem where being a content creator is a viable career choice through their platform. Implementation of Oculus is also hinted at. This move makes sense considering that E-Sports is projected to be an industry valued at nearly 10 Billion dollars by 2020, as recently evidenced by the new Overwatch league.

However, facebook isn’t giving out statistics on its video platform yet, and between this and the utter dumpster fire that was the DOTA 2 tournament, during which there were more views on concurrent ripped streams on YouTube and Twitch than there were on the exclusive Facebook Live platform, and resulting in some DMCA takedowns by the ESL, that we might have to call into question if Facebook is as confident in this new service idea as they make it seem?

Can’t afford an Nvidia GPU? How about their streaming service instead?? Via Endgadget, GeForce Now on Macs and PCs only lets you play games you already own on Steam, Blizzard’s Battle.net or Ubisoft’s Uplay. Anything you don’t own can be purchased through the streaming platform. 7.99 a month lets you stream high end requirement games. But it’s just for china so WHO CARES.

New CHVRCHES single. Via Stereogum