We’re surprising each other with gifts at the following link.

I don’t know of many people looking to get a PS4 Pro. Of the people I know who got an Xbox One S it was usually due to being their first Xbox One or just getting it for the size or color. All of that is to say that most people don’t have a 4K display yet to enjoy what these new consoles are providing. But I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I wasn’t someone back in the SDTV days who said it’ll never go all digital or complained about the push for HD stuff. I was all for it. And I’m all for 4K as well. It just hasn’t made the crossover yet, but it will and probably very soon. That “crossover” being when you can walk into a store and 4K sets will be the only choice you have on the resolution side.

By the way, if you ever wondered just how much of a DuckTales fan I was or how excited Sara gets over The Banner Saga – this is your episode!

We’re having technical difficulties at the following link.

I’ll start by telling you the show is a bit short. At least what you’re hearing (or watching) is a bit short. There was an issue with Twitch and we lost a few minutes there. Sorry about that.

I’m back from PAX West/Prime and while it shouldn’t have taken us as long as it did to talk about that, we sort of spent a long time talking about that. So long, in fact, that we didn’t get to the whole PS4 Pro situation. We touch on it just a little bit before the end of the show, but I’ve saved all our notes and moved them over to this weekend’s episode so we’ll be sure to spend a good chunk of time talking about this new console that sort of, kind of, really isn’t new.

We’re pulling levers and pressing buttons at the following link.

First of all, there’s no show next week. Just want everyone to know that next week we won’t do a show, so no Tuesday update. I’ll be in Seattle for PAX where I’ll get to play Obduction in VR.

Speaking of Obduction…

You kinda have to know me to understand where I’m coming from when I talk about Obduction. Hopefully, over the 10 years we’ve been doing this show you might have some idea already. Cyan, who made Obduction, shaped me as a gamer. Their Myst series is where I fell in love with gaming for the first time. It opened my eyes to puzzle gaming, great storytelling, and beautiful imagery. So here we are with Obduction and I am through the roof with this thing. It’s hard to express how I feel when playing this game. There’s frustration, sure, because some of these puzzles are difficult. But there is also a sense of wonder and surprise and, well, every feeling I ever had when playing a Myst game is right back here with me during Obduction. I could use the cliches of feeling like a kid again or something to that effect and I wouldn’t be wrong, but it feels like so much more than that. It’s a reunion. A return.

They say you can never go home again. But in a game, you can do exactly that. You can return to where it all began. In Obduction, I’m home…again.

We’re honing our sneak skills at the following link.

This is how the console generations end. With an upgrade. I’m completely fine with this. Microsoft recently laid out some intentions on where they see the next Xbox going and, if it all works, it’s not a bad direction to be headed in. We talk about it in the episode but going the direction of the way PC’s work seems really simple and straightforward. When I upgrade parts of my PC, all the games I already own still work on it and home console gaming will hopefully follow suit. The Neo reveal from Sony in September probably won’t be that step for them, but Microsoft seems to be intent on making that happen starting now with Xbox One and even more so with Scorpio’s release next year. However, it’s probably a given that whichever way works is the way the competition will follow.

We’re pretty sure there’s multiplayer in this episode at the following link.

No Man’s Sky is now out among the public and most people seem pretty satisfied with it. Unless you’re playing it on PC. Looks to be a bit of trouble there. I’m not playing the game but that has more to do with what the game is than all the other things surrounding it. I don’t do those kinds of survival games. What I want from No Man’s Sky is probably in the game, but there seems to be quite a bit of work and what looks to me like frustration to get there. Eventually down the line during a steam sale or even something good out of Black Friday, I may end up playing the game. But nothing I’ve read, or seen, or heard of has me changing my feeling of this game from the last post I made about it on last week’s episode.

Bring on the Deus Ex.

We’re uploading a day-one patch on this episode at the following link.

I don’t have the least bit of excitement for No Man’s Sky. However, I am totally interested in how it will play out this week in reviews and public opinion. It was on my radar at some point, I can’t remember when, but I lost interest the longer they took to make it. And the excessive amounts of times they would show footage without answering a single question. But whatever…it’s here now, right? So where’d my hype go? I don’t know, but I’ve lost interest. I’m curious how it plays and looks on PC, but that’s about it as far as my own involvement.

Then there’s what everyone else thinks about it. Keep in mind, however, I’m not watching this like some twisted NASCAR fan who only goes to see the crashes. I said it on the show and I’ll say it here – every time I have a bad feeling about a game prior to its release, I want to be proven wrong. Always. Every time. Let me eat my words so I can have something to enjoy that surprises me. It happened twice with Wolf and Doom. Here’s hoping it happens again with No Man’s Sky.

We’re selling this episode ten days early on eBay at the following link.

Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way. If speculation is correct, Nintendo seems to have chosen the act of getting out of the way. Although, one could argue that Nintendo was never in the way to begin with. They are sidestepping and doing what it is they do VERY well, and that’s handhelds. Outside of phones, Nintendo has the handheld gaming market locked down and can only strengthen this grip with the NX console – again, if speculation is correct.

Also, to the guy who spent $1,300 to get No Man’s Sky ten days early – bravo! First, for the courage you had to spend that kind of cash on an eBay item. And second, you can do whatever you want with your money, so go right ahead and do it. The things I’ve spent my money on before give me no room to judge you and what you do with your money.

We’ve gotta catch’em all at the following link.

I’m really trying to suppress my “grumpy old man yells at sky” mentality here, but it’s not working. Pokemon GO is a thing. A thing that I play very casually. It’s also a thing I’m already tired of hearing about. Since before Comic Con (and I’m sure news sites will get back on track), everything in my news feeds were almost ALL related to Pokemon GO. For a good few days there it was nothing but guides on everything the game offered. Then it was injuries, threats, embarrassments, and more ways for the general public who don’t play to point at it as a deterioration of our society and a corruption of our youths.

I don’t hate the game. At all, in fact. This is to be expected when something like this happens. And what this is is a phenomenon. In fact, I can’t look back and reference anything that could mirror what Pokemon Go has done and in the short amount of time it happened. I’m curious as to how long this will last. You know what they say about lights that burn twice as bright…

We’ve got 30 of our best episodes for sixty bucks at the following link.

Nintendo’s new NES-mini. Is that what they’re calling it? I don’t know. I’m not sure I want it out of just nostalgia’s sake to have a tiny NES sitting on a shelf somewhere (kinda like my big NES sits on a shelf somewhere), but I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of people who do. Nintendo needs some quick cash? Make a small little system that plays older games on it for a low price. A year from now if the NX doesn’t reach expectations…move on to the SNES and then the N64. I honestly think they may have stumbled upon a gold mine here. They could easily have 3 different SKU’s of NES-mini’s. Sports themes, racing, RPG, movies, tv shows, the list goes on and on.

I’m curious how this will play out. Nintendo has done things before that the other two players in the game have tried to follow. Could we see Xbox-mini or a PSX-mini in the future?

We’d like to sell you some CSGO skins at the following link.

Video games have come a long way. And I don’t mean that in the sense of how they look, but there’s certainly something to be said in that department. Probably a lot to be said seeing as how retro style 8/16 bit games have made their way into the current market. Those are mostly indie titles, but we don’t seem to care. It’s become less about looks and more about what we get out of it. But…hasn’t it always been that way?

Anyway, back to my point. We cover this a bit in the episode. As the younger folks call it, it’s our “back in my day” speech. And back in our day we had to plan ahead when we sat down to play a game. Mostly anything we’d fire up on the NES was going to need our full attention for the whole play through. If we did break, it mean pausing the game, turning off the TV, and hoping like hell a power flicker didn’t happen so we wouldn’t lose our place. Now, we have autosaves like a word document so we don’t lose all the progress we’ve made. This is only one aspect of the difference. And I’m not complaining, I promise. Truth of it is, while games compete against each other for your attention, they are also trying to grab it from everything else. Netflix, YouTube, Game Of Thrones, and now…an app on your phone. I dread to think what Pokemon Go will do to gaming in the coming years – the knock offs and integration into other games. For better or worse, it’s coming. You know it is.