There was another Nintendo Direct earlier today and again Satoru Iwata has brought us news from the world of Nintendo. This time was a little different though as this ND was aired simultaneously across the world and Iwata was joined by Mario and Luigi for the first few announcements of the news pertained to them. Now let’s get straight down to business.

• Mario and Luigi: Dream Team – The game will be available at retail and for download on the eshop on August 11^th.
• Mario Gold Would Tour – Coming out summer of this year; will have local multiplayer as well as online multiplayer across the world.
• Mario Party – Coming Winter 2013; this game has seven different game boards that have different rules for each one. The game gives 81 new mini-games that you will have to use your luck, concentration and speed. Players will also be able to play mini-games exclusively or try out a 30-floor tower climb, StreetPass battles, and AR Card games.
• New Super Luigi Bros. U – If you have NSMBU this summer you will be able to download the Luigi exclusive DLC which has his signature ability of being able to jump higher than Mario can, but with the bonus there is the drawback of him not being able to stop as well as Mario. Many stages have multiple obstacles and only a 100 second timer forcing a faster run of the stage.  With 82 stages added in this DLC there will be plenty to do.
• Donkey Kong County Returns 3D – There are eight new stages that can be played after completing the story. Also there is a new mode which gives new items and mechanics. The game will be out on May 24^th.
• New Yoshi’s Island Game – Not much was shown other than there will be more information given in the future. There will be flutter jumps, ground pounds, and egg throws like previous Yoshi Island games. Also new actions that use the unique features of Nintendo 3DS.
• Mario and Donkey Kong:Minis on the Move – In this game you direct mini Marios on the top screen of the 3DS by placing paths on the bottom screen. There are over 180 stages over four different modes, and players will also be able to create and share their own stages. This game is an eshop exclusive and comes out on May 9^th.
• Wii U Update – This is the update to shorten loading times when switching between applications or returning to the Wii U menu. New features such as being able to copy or move data between two USB drives. Also automatically install new software that has been downloaded in the background while playing a game, and can automatically receive updates even without starting up the software. You will be able to press the “b” button during startup to go directly to the Wii menu. Downloads will be able to be installed while the Wii U is off.  This will finally be coming next week.
• Virtual Console – This will be coming out shortly after the new system update.
• Panorama View – Also coming out after the system update and will cost $2 per view
• Pikmin 3 – New flying Pikmin shown and will be coming out August 4^th.
• Earthbound – Finally because of the fans begging for it Earthbound is finally coming to the US and Europe.
• Game and Wario – Available June 23^rd each mini game will use the Gamepad in unique ways.
• Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Update – Giving off-TV play using the Gamepad and also allows Europe and the US play games online together. The update is already out.
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf 3DS XL Bundle – The bundle costs $219.99 and comes with New Leaf preinstalled onto the system.
• Legend of Zelda: Oracles of Ages and Oracle of Seasons – These will finally be available to download on the 3DS May 30^th. Will be able to unlock the final boss and secrets just like if the two games were linked when they came out on the Game Boy Color.
• Bravely Default – A role-playing game with a new risk-reward twist. Players can skip a turn in battle to do more damage in later turns. The game includes AR functions, multiple endings and unique wireless features. The game will be out in 2014.
• Professor Layton – Includes more than 500 puzzles and will be releasing in 2014.
• The Starship Damrey – puts players in a suspenseful adventure where they will have to search for any information available to discover the truth about their circumstances. This comes from Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko
• Bugs vs. Tanks – Players control a tiny customizable tank in battle against swarms of giant bugs. From Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune
• Attack of the Friday Monsters – Take the role of a young boy who lives where the giant monsters from Japan’s 1970s TV shows come to life every Friday. Brought to you from Kaz Ayabe
• Shin Megami Tensei IV – every copy in the initial shipment will be a Limited Edition Box Set that includes a 176-page Strategy & Design Book containing the official starter strategy guide and full-color artwork ranging from concept art to in-game pieces to never-used designs; the Shin Megami Tensei Music Collection CD that offers tracks specially selected from across the 20-plus-year history of the SMT series; and a deluxe-sized Collectible Slipcase featuring key art designed by character designer Masayuki Doi. Game will come out on July 16^th.
• New Legend of Zelda Game – This new game being developed is set in the world of A Link to the Past. Link will have the ability to become a drawing and move along walls getting a whole different perspective of the dungeons. This game will be released this holiday season.

A few exciting pieces of news this time; what news were you excited about or were you hoping for something else to be announced? I am extremely excited for the new LoZ game and can’t wait to finally play Earthbound (been waiting for years to actually get to). Also I can’t wait to see how well the Wii U update is going to help the system. You can watch the Nintendo Direct video at http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Join Hardlydan, Xcalybr713, Amras 89 and special guest Lyfelike for game talk and fun! This time, the Gamesmen talk about the recent Sony PS4 conference.

Featured Music:

Well I’m not going to tell. This time it’s up to you. Email the show with your answers. The person with the most correct answers will win one of Hardlydan’s spare games and whatever else we can find to add to the prize.

Show Notes:

• Email us at thegamesmenrpg@gmail.com
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Download | iTunes | RSS | YouTube | Stitcher (01:15:05)

By now everyone knows that Sony had their press event last night and there were a lot of things about the future of Playstation brought up. Spoiler warning…It’s about the PS4.

For anyone that missed the stream or doesn’t want to watch the whole thing here is a summary of all the announcements that came up last night.

To start off Andrew House came onto the stage saying “The living room is no longer the center of the Playstation ecosystem, the gamer is.” He also announced that “togay” (no that is not a typo he really said it) they would be showing a glimpse into the future of play.

He then talks about what they were looking for in the next generation and says, “A reimagination of the gaming experience that has been developer led, consumer inspired, and thoughtfully engineered by Sony Computer Entertainment.”

This then flashes to the screen behind him showing PS4. From here it is going to be bullet points of what happened for the rest of the event.

Mark Cerny – Lead Architect of PS4 Console
·         Started working on PS4 five years ago.
What was needed in the PS4
·         Nothing between you and the game.
·         What developers want.
·         By game creators, for game creators.

Informed System Architecture.
·         Supercharged PC Architecture.
·         X86 CPU
·         Highly Enhanced PC GPU
·         8GB High Speed Unified Memory
·         Local Storage (Hard Drive)

Dualshock 4 Controller Shown
New features:
·         Enhance feel of the joy stick and trigger buttons. Giving a tighter set of control over in game actions.
·         Enhanced Rumble Capability
·         Touch Pad – Giving a new form of input.
·         Share Button and headphone jack. To give enhanced social interaction.
·         Light bar – simpler way to identify players.
Designed with a second peripheral

The Stereo Camera
·         Can sense the depth of the environment in front of the controller and track the 3d position of the controller via its light bar.
Unreal Engine 4 was then showed as a tech demo.
System memory is GDDR5
·         This gives the PS4 176GB/s of bandwidth.
·         Provides a further boost to the GPU performance.
Tech demo of Havok’s million objects physics simulation.

The revealing of the game Knack.
After this is the talk about the next design task for the team was  to make a large user experience using five key principles.
Simple, Immediate, Social, Integrated, and Personalized.
Simple
·         Consumer Oriented
·         Functionality
·         Ease of Use
Simplicity meaning “That powerful functionality needed to be just a button press away.”
Immediate
·         Suspend / Resume gameplay by pressing the start button; games reserved in RAM
·         Secondary custom chip to manage uploads and downloads in the background or with the power off.
·         Play games even as they are being downloaded.
Social
·         Hardware added into the PS4 to support social.
·         Always on video compression and decompression hardware.
Showing of the new user interface.
·         Sharing videos while you play.
·         Browse a live video of a friend playing a game.
·         See a friend is in trouble and take over the controller and assist them in a difficult section in a game.
Integrated
·         Seamlessly interconnected across the network to the full Playstation ecosystem as well as to third party devices and services.
Personalization
·         Button press away from your game titles or interactions with friends.
·         As the system learns your likes or dislikes you can discover content preloaded and ready to go on your console. (By favorite creator or genre)

Next up was David Perry – Co-founder of Gakai

He starts off talking about the social side of PS4 like:
·         Streaming games
·         Talking with friends
·         Having comments pop up on the screen.
·         Friends taking over controls to help get through a level.
·         Friends dropping in items to be used during the game.
Then he goes into remote play with PS4 using the PS Vita.
·         Showing Knack being played via remote play
·         Reduce transition time to make it more responsive using Gakai technology
Speaking of Gakai technology he goes into the cloud.
·         PS4 to be able to play PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS mobile games
·         Everything everywhere using the cloud
·         Cloud services will come out in phases.

Next is a showing of a video with a lot a people from development studios talking about Playstation and the promise.

Michael Denny comes out next for announcing the games and developers working with the PS4
·         Hermen Hulst – Guerrilla Games – Shows off Kill Zone Shadow Fall
·         Matt Southern – Evolution Studios – Showing Drive Club
·         Sucker Punch Productions – inFamous Second Son
·         Jonathan Blow – The Witness
·         David Cage – Showing off facial animation and talks about character polygon numbers through the years.
1999 – 350
2005 – 1,500
2010 – 15,000
2012 – 20,000
2013 – 30,000

·         Alex Evans – Media Molecule –Showing creative exploration, sculpting, and set creation all using move.
·         Yoshinori Ono – Capcom – Showing Deep Down using the Panta Rhei engine.
·         Yoshihisa Hashimoto – Square Enix – Showing off their engine for the PS4
Then he brings out:
·         Shinji Hashimoto to announce Final Fantasy at E3 2013
·         Yves Guillemat – Ubisoft – Talking about Watch Dogs
·         Jonathan Morah – Ubisoft – Showing off Watch Dogs
·         Chris Metzen – Blizzard – Announcing Sony and Blizzard to take over the world, oh and that Diablo 3 will be coming to PS4
·         Eric Hershberg – Activision – Introducing Bungie and their new game Destiny.
·         Ending the conference with a compilation video and a PS4 coming holiday 2013.

Now that was a ton of stuff announced in that two hour event and there are going to be some interesting things coming from Sony. What are your thoughts from this event; are you now excited for PS4, what are your thoughts on their new controller, how about the games showed off?

Join Hardlydan, Xcalybr713 and Amras 89 for game talk and fun! This time, The Gamesmen discuss a little of what they’re playing, there’s a call from @Jsslifelike, chat about Nintendo Direct and  the PS4 teaser trailer. Games/topics discussed are  Nintendo Direct, Sony Teaser Trailer, Far Cry 3, Ni No Kuni, and much more!

Featured Music:

• Ni no Kuni - “Main Theme”
• Dark Souls - “Great Grey Wolf Sif”
• Far Cry 3 – “Far Cry 3″

Show Notes:

• Email us at thegamesmenrpg@gmail.com
• Leave A Voicemail (412)267-RPG1
• Catch us on Twitter @thegamesmenrpg
• Be sure to check out www.vghub.net
• Make Certain To ‘Like’ Us On Facebook

Download | iTunes | RSS | YouTube | Stitcher (02:18:00)

In just three weeks Rayman Legends was supposed to be coming out as a Wii U exclusive, but alas it was not meant to be. As of today Ubisoft has announced that they are delaying Rayman to give time to make the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game; the game will now be coming out in September. Below is the comment from Geoffroy Sardin (Ubisoft’s European chief marketing and sales officer).

“We heard from many Xbox and Playstation owners and Rayman fans who told us they really wanted to play Rayman Legends on their current system, we decided to give the fans what they wanted while at the same time broadening the audience exposed to this innovative and memorable game.”

I for one am not very thrilled with this; a game that would of made more people actually get a Wii U because it can only be played there is now gone. Kinect and Move will some how have to be incorporated into the 360 and PS3 versions of the game to somehow  achieve what the Wii U is doing with the touch screen; or will they just cut those aspects out? That may help the Wii U sales for the game in that you may only be able to use the Wii U GamePad to get the same experience from the game. Still that is really only for the people that already have the system, and it gives no incentive for anyone who doesn’t to actually pick one up since you can pretty much get the same game on a console you already own. What are your thoughts on this decision; does Ubisoft not have any faith in the Wii U to sell their game?

I’m sure everyone has heard about the Ouya Kickstarter that happened in August of last year. Well it looks like it has gone up for pre-order on Amazon.com for the price of $99 and will ship out  in June of this year. Not a bad price for this little cube and the games will be able to be played  for free before actually buying them. With that said it is an android based system where there will be android app games and I wouldn’t expect to see any CoD or AAA games in general on there. I have put the specs for the system below for your review.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Join EVERYONE for the live hilarity that is The Gamesmen Podcast!

Show Notes:

• Email us at thegamesmenrpg@gmail.com
• Leave A Voicemail (412)267-RPG1
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Download | iTunes | RSS | YouTube | Stitcher (02:50:00)