Coffee Talk #235: Downloadable Games Should Be Like E-Books

One nifty feature about e-books is the ability to borrow and lend them. This adds a social element to e-readers and takes advantage of the digital nature of e-books. Digitally downloaded games should be handled the same way.

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, your World Series prediction, the Celtics thrashing Miami Thrice, or Bryan Danielson acing two WWE shows in a row, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

One nifty feature about e-books is the ability to borrow and lend them. This adds a social element to e-readers and takes advantage of the digital nature of e-books. Digitally downloaded games should be handled the same way. The social impact would be awesome and the borrowing/lending could be a more effective marketing tool than demos.

Let’s say RPadholic thundercracker buys a strategy RPG called Christina Aguilera’s Quest for RPad. He knows that Final Fantasy Tactics is my all-time favorite game and thinks that I’ll love Christina Aguilera’s Quest for RPad. He clicks a button on the menu screen and pushes the game to me. The next time I turn on the console, I see a notification that says I have a game available from thundercracker. I would be able to play the borrowed game for a limited time and have the option to buy it.

I’d love to see a feature like this implemented into PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. A friend’s opinion is worth more than any reviewer’s. Plus pushing games to friends would be fun. I hate to use modern buzzwords, but it would add a “social discovery” element to gaming. What do you think? Would you use something like the borrowing/lending scheme I mentioned? Would you want something different? Do you think publishers would go for borrowing and lending?

Steve Jobs Was Pissed Off When Microsoft Bought Bungie

Former Microsoft vice president Ed Fries told Develop a fantastic story about how Apple CEO Steve Jobs was pissed off when Microsoft acquired Bungie. Apparently His Royal Worshipfulness High Master Steve phoned up Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and unleashed the wrath of Jobs. Here are the details from Fries:

As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called. He was mad at Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we’d just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer.

So, during the day, I got an email from Steve Ballmer asking me to phone Steve Jobs and calm him down about the whole thing. Anyway, we did this deal with Apple where we’d port some PC games to the Macintosh and help Peter Tamte create this company to do it, and I had to go to a Mac developer conference and get on stage and talk about this whole new partnership. It was a pretty strange time.

Man, that conversation must have been awesome. Both Jobs and Ballmer have tempestuous personalities, so it must have taken a lot for Ballmer to back down and ask Fries to assuage Jobs. Let’s play a game and imagine what Jobs said to Ballmer. I’ll go first. In my head Steve said something like this:

Listen you bald-headed f*ck. I don’t care if you’re in charge of Microsoft now. You’ll always be Bill Gates’ b*tch to me and you better do something to make me happy. You just took away the Mac’s best game developer. Seriously. Have you ever played Marathon?!? That’s the best thing Bungie ever did and ever will do. How the f*ck do you take that away from my glorious platform and put it on your stupid-ass game-box, which — by the way — will never go anywhere. I’m going to have fun watching Nintendo and Sony rape your skull on this one.

Your turn!

Source

BlizzCon 2010 Cosplay Video

One of the coolest parts of BlizzCon 2010 was checking out all the great cosplayers. From World of Warcraft to StarCraft, the show had some of the best costumes I’ve seen at an American show. Here’s a video — along with some wise-ass commentary — featuring the excellent cosplay at BlizzCon 2010.

After you check out the vid, please let me know which cosplayer was your favorite.

(Pro tip: The resolution is pretty high, so go full screen if your PC is up for it.)

Related content:

Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties is Totally Charming Dood!

Someone has stolen Etna’s (Disgaea) panties and only her prinny minions can recover them in Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties. I absolutely love this trailer. It’s full of the famous Disgaea charm and humor. The first Prinny game was totally fun, but ridiculously hard. I’m looking for more of the same in Prinny 2. After all, you get 1,000 lives.

Check out the trailer and let me know what you think (please)!

Nintendo President Cites Apple and Zynga as Competition

According to Nintendo of American president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo’s immediate threats are Apple, Zynga, the Internet, and newspapers. He recently told Forbes:

I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper.

Regarding Apple, Fils-Aime said:

Do I think that in the near term they can hurt us more than Microsoft? Absolutely.

I know that most of you RPad.tv regulars aren’t down with Nintendo products, but let’s play a game anyway. What companies, products, and services are Nintendo’s stiffest competition?

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Video Games Live: Level 2 Available This Week

Video Games Live: Level 2 comes out this week on Blu-ray and DVD. If you haven’t seen one of these shows — an excellent orchestral and rock performance of numerous popular videogame songs — then I highly recommend picking up this disc. Check out the trailer above for a glimpse of the new disc. I’m going to bug the show’s co-founder, my pal Tommy Tallarico, to see if I can get an interview. He’s cool like that.

Coffee Talk #234: My Router’s Name is Scarlett Johansson

Inspired by one of Bill Simmons’ readers, I’ve decided to change my router’s name to Scarlett Johansson. This way I’m always “connecting to”, “connected to”, or “searching for” Scarlett Johansson (this is not too far from reality).

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the chances of the Yankees signing Cliff Lee and/or Jayson Werth, how much Jayson Werth looks like WWE Edge, or Cain Velasquez kicking the crap out of Brock Lesnar, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Inspired by one of Bill Simmons’ readers, I’ve decided to change my Internet router’s name to Scarlett Johansson. This way I’m always “connecting to”, “connected to”, or “searching for” Scarlett Johansson (this is not too far from reality). Sometimes I will be connected to Scarlett in multiple ways (PC, console, mobile phone, etc.). I’m not a selfish man, so when friends come over, they too can connect to Scarlett Johansson. This is going to be brilliant!

Out of curiosity, what’s your router’s name? Go ahead and smack yourself in the head if your router is named “LINKSYS” or “NETGEAR”. I think you should all rename your routers this week! What names are popping around your head?

And yes, today’s column was particularly fun because of the photo research I “had” to do. Here are some bonus pics.