Uncompressed Episode 33
Welcome to Uncompressed Episode 33! Tony, Thom and Sean (featuring Lynn on news) talk about Google’s acquisition of YouTube, “Netcasting”, hooking up on Craigslist, digital game distributor Triton shutting down as well as our usual mix of PC and video gaming talk, as well as talking about what shows we’re watching now that the new television season is upon us.
This is the third episode with our new format and we’re really glad people are digging it. We’ve added another new feature to the show, but you’ll have to listen (or scroll to the bottom of this post) to find out what that is. 
The link to download or listen to this week’s show is at the bottom of this post. Enjoy the show!
The News
- Podcast? Old and busted. Hello Netcast!
- If youre a straight male, craigslist is not your friend
- Triton shuts down
- Google buys Youtube for $1.65 Billion
Video Games
Battlefield Demos
We’ve been plaing 2142, but if you can find 1942 it’s tons of fun as well.
Coming Soon
YouTubes Of The Week
1week of art works
Battle of the Album Covers
We forgot to mention it on the show, but if you haven’t seen South Park’s Make Love Not Warcraft episode, check it out!
Featured Band
This week’s featured band is a band from NYC, Dynamic Stew.
Featured Band/Musician is a new feature we’re hoping to make a weekly thing, so if you know of someone or a band you think should be featured, please drop us a line and let us know.
October 12th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Hey guys, I had to drop a comment about the Wii/Gamecube screenshot comparison section of the podcast. Tony (I think) asked if the Wii will suffer from a lack of third part support because of the huge performance disparity. I don’t think that third part support necessarily will be lacking, nothing will stop EA shovelware, especially if Nintendo has 25 times Sony’s install base the day after launch, and with the numbers that both companies are quoting, that’s going to be the case. What will hopefully happen though, is that the difference in power and controls combined will force more companies to make Wii exclusive titles that are customized to take advantage of what the Wii has to offer.
Also, the company that tested Call of Duty side by side with all the consoles were probably doing so on HD sets, and HD isn’t an option on the Wii. That by itself would make a huge difference, but keep in mind that 80-85% of America is still in the SD era, so the difference won’t be nearly as great for them.
And I want to take exception to something that Thom said, which was that there’s nothing on the GC that compares to the graphics of God of War, which to me is a clear indication that he never played Resident Evil 4 on the GC. Not to impugn GoW at all, it’s a great looking game, but between Metroid Prime and RE4, I’d put the power of the GameCube up against not only the PS2, but I think the visuals in those games easily match Halo 2. I know that’s a bold claim, but if you’ve really played both and can set fanboyism aside, I think it’s apparent that the GC is neck and neck with the Xbox. I think it was Tyco of Penny Arcade that said it was fair to say that Nintendo was underutilizing the GC, and that’s clearly true. Nintendo went for very stylized graphics and bright colors, cartoony atmosphere. That, combined with the fact that Nintendo never played the numbers game with Sony and MS, throwing their system specs all over the net and bragging about fill rates, make people very suspicious that the GC was wildly underpowered, and that’s simply not the case. A good indication of this is looking at the GC and PS2 comparison shots of RE4. The PS2 still looks great, but comparing the screenshots side by side, you can really see how many trees they had to trim from the forested areas, or how much ‘scenery clutter’ had to be removed. Thom said that the GC never had a 2nd or 3rd generation of titles due to a lack of developer support, but again that’s not accurate. RE4 is a clear indication of what a developer could do if they knew how to code for it and really decided to utilize everything the system could do.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:27 am
You’re right. I never played RE4 and it is a fantastic-looking game.
That gets me thinking about something — why did Capcom invest the resources in a game for a system that was clearly not leading the pack, and why did they develop an M rate game for a system that seemed like it was aimed at kids.
Thanks for the comments, Dynotaku!
October 12th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Yeah, Capcom’s decision begs a lot of questions. Developing a AAA, M-Rated title for a “kid’s” system with the poorest market penetration in any territory doesn’t make any sense. I would guess that Nintendo paid them a huge amount for an exclusivity lead on the game, except that I don’t know that Nintendo would want a “Hard-M” title on their platform. I think the only resonable explanation is that an engineer at Capcom with some sway over the business side of things saw what the platform was capable of and fell in love with it. Don’t forget that Resident Evil 1 redone with masively upgraded graphics and lighting came out early in the platform’s life, in fact I want to say it was a launch title. Or at least a ‘launch window’ title. Maybe during that process, someone must have realized that they could recreate those environments in realtime, and started penning ideas for a new game.
But that’s all speculation.
October 12th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Hi Dynotaku, thanks for the comments.
I agree 100% that EA will continue to publish on the system no matter what — actually from everything I have seen Ubisoft is making a huge investement into publishing for the console as well. Sometimes on the show I will say things to be devils advocate and spur some conversation — while I do try to state my opinions, sometimes they are a bit veiled for the sake of the show
Also, I do want to note that toward the end of the run, multi-platform releases did start dropping off for the GC. Many of the late releases from EA and others were PS2/Xbox/PC; that being said im sure that stemmed from the limited GC market (vs the development costs) and not a reflection on the actual power of the system.
With regard to the Capcom thing, it seems obvious to me that Capcom had some solid interest in the GC — releasing RE4 on it was an attempt to really make an impact with the GC platform (its all about the killer app — one must have game WILL sell systems!) but when the sales numbers failed to align with development and marketing costs Capcom strayed from the system to save their bottom line.
^ also speculating
October 12th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I am glad that you got that Leo was saying that to expand the podcast market a name change might be necessary.
I don’t agree with ThomW that it has to imply internet, does TV imply airwaves or cable?
October 12th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
You missed an opportunity when you were talking about your BF1942 Demo … you should have set a time and date then later the IP address of the place to have it.
Think of it as an U* party or something … brings your audience together and all. (ThomW, you’ve been in shackbattles.)
October 12th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
@ Nation
I don’t agree that you don’t agree with me. I guess “vision” in the word “television” doesn’t mean anything?
I’m just trying to say that I’ve always thought that ‘podcast’ was a terrible name, and given the chance to ‘reboot’ and find a new term to replace it, I think ‘netcast’ is kind of a weak replacement. ‘Netcast’ is going to mean as much to Joe Average as ‘podcast’ does now.
DO I NEED A NET TO LISTEN TO IT?
October 12th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
@ Nation
Re: Missed opportunity
You’re totally right. I cannot *wait* to get GameWith.us done. Event/Game scheduling is one of the things that it’s going to have built in. What we’ll be able to do is invite the Uncompressed Group to a game at a set time and everyone who’s opted into the group will be notified of the event and we’ll all be able to hook up that way.
I just have to finish writing it. I wish I knew how to go about getting VC so I could get paid to work on it. haha
October 13th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Despite all of the gaming talk that we do, I question how much of our audience actually consists of gamers — and how much of it consists of friends/relatives that are trying to support us. That being said, I love the idea of some U* gaming!
Nation: thats exactly it; Leo isnt saying the word “podcast” is broken among the podcasting and/or geek community — he is saying it is broken in the general public, which is where the HUGE untapped market is.
As always, thanks for your comments!
October 15th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Good show, guys.
I agree with Dynotaku’s comments from above. When Thom was talking about the graphical power of the GC, the first game I thought of was Metroid Prime, which I think had graphics at least equal to Halo. I always thought that the GC had a bad rep for being “kiddie” and as a result wasn’t taken seriously in terms of graphics. Nintendo themselves were really responsible for this because of the types of games they produced (Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, etc.)
I hope that the Wii will have some M-rated games to bring Nintendo back to some of the gamers who look for titles in that type of genre. Course, there are plenty of adults I know who enjoy games like Super Mario Sunshine as much as kids. Heck, just last week I got Lego Star Wars for my GC and am having a ball with it.
October 16th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
It was cold up here in Wisconsin last week, and we have already had some snow — I almost bought a 360 to fight off the boredom now that we are heading into the “stuck indoors” season…
I resisted, but not by much; I need that damn Wii to come out soon