PixlTalk: Episode 23: Trivection Oven

PixlTalk Episode 23: Trivection Oven

Listen in as Nate and Jason... and Stanton(!) discuss various industry current events, from GDC to PS3s and everything in-between.

This week's episode of PixlTalk hails the return of a long-lost participant: Stanton Daries!

The three of us begin the episode with a discussion of our favorite unveils and topics of GDC. Nate brings in the Super Mario talk, and Stanton brings in hype about the new Unreal Engine 3 update, with particular interest in neon lights, it seems.

Afterward, Sony becomes the topic of discussion. Stanton unleashes his bias by stating his pleasure upon hearing of the injunction preventing the PS3 from being imported into Europe. In the next breath, we talk NGP. Will it fail? Succeed? In addition, we all play a brief round of "The Price is Right" and try to guess the NGP's launch price.

The hefty episode takes a break for some nostalgic trivia, then moves onto a discussion of various David Jaffe quotes and the gaming industry's perception.

Concluding this week's PixlTalk is another installment of "Watcha Not Been Playing." Spoiler Alert: Stanton hasn't been playing anything on a Sony console.

Jason Ross Senior Editor

03/05/2011 at 06:59 AM

A question for the listeners: How long do you like your podcasts? With my personal podcast, I aim for about 40 minutes to an hour. Since PixlTalk has multiple voices and more discussion about any singular topic, I feel anywhere from one to two hours could work well, though I'm not personally adverse to something a little longer if it happens.

That said, I've never asked anyone else about this sort of thing. I'd like to know, really. When you listen to a podcast, how long do you prefer it is? And of course, you may choose something like "Whatever flows naturally for the speakers."

Maxi

03/05/2011 at 08:45 AM

I prefer somewhere between 45 minutes and a hour Jason for podcasts. Also I still can't listen to the new Pixltalks. Your PB and Jason work fine for me though. Is there a way to get the Pixltalk to use the same type of recording as PB and Jason?

03/05/2011 at 09:04 AM

When we record PixlTalks, we go through Skype and use a program called "CallBurner." It encodes the full conversation, including everyone involved.

With PB & Jason, I just use Audacity. This week, I tried re-encoding the CallBurner MP3 in Audacity, to see if that would help, but it seems it didn't. I would guess that at this point, it may have to do with the outright length of the podcasts rather than the encoding, given you had problems with this week's episode.

Nick DiMola Director

03/05/2011 at 10:41 AM

Re-encoding with Audacity should've worked. Have you checked this week's out yet, Maxi?

In response to your question Jason, for something like PixlTalk I think one hour to an hour and a half is the max I'd like for a single episode. If you have more content than that, it might make sense to split it in two and release two separate episodes.

03/05/2011 at 11:10 AM

I see that as a possibility. Potentially, if we get together and have a diverse enough range of topics to discuss for the week, I'd try to post half on Friday, then post the other half on Monday. Essentially, PixlBit would have a new podcast available Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week, barring something unexpected getting in the way.

03/05/2011 at 11:14 AM

Nick don't worry about it now.I'll just listen to Pixltalk on the CPU and PB and Jason on my Wii. Just got the CPU working again.

03/07/2011 at 10:12 AM

Nice episode, guys. It was epically long, so I had to finish it this morning after catching about 2/3 of it on Friday.

I'm honestly surprised that David Jaffe isn't a household name for everyone. He has had a pretty big presence in the industry for a while now, with his claim to fame lying in Twisted Metal. His "toy" comment isn't all that surprising if you've encountered some of the stuff he has said in the past. Being such a prominent developer, I really don't like that he does such a poor job of representing the industry.

Jason Hillhouse, one of our contributing writers and good friend of mine, has worked in the industry and he'll be the first to tell you that guys like Jaffe are the norm and not the outliers. This makes it hard for the rest of society to take gaming seriously, which will ultimately hurt it, but it's not 100% clear how just yet. I'm always concerned that the right nut will make a good case to a misinformed judge, and we'll see the government get involved in the industry. Thank god for the ESA and their efforts to self-regulate via the ESRB.

Anyhow, I also noticed that almost everyone has took note that PC predominant genres are mostly on the chopping block. FPS got the axe there, RTS is dying slowly, and I agree with Stanton, MMOs will likely lose significant popularity after WoW falls by the wayside. I think MMOs can always find an audience, but repeating the success of WoW is highly unlikely.

... Now I'm trying to remember what topics I heard in the part I listened to last week...

Oh right, the NGP. That thing is doomed for failure for the same reasons the PSP failed to match up to the DS. The high price and push for all digital like the PSPgo is a mistake too. Sony, how the mighty have fallen.

In any event, I'm looking forward to next week, and with any amount of luck you guys will have a fourth member joining you. Let me just say that I'm super excited that PixlTalk is back in action. A big thanks to all you guys for contributing, and especially to Jason for organizing all of this. Without his push to get it jump started, it wouldn't have happened.

Nate Hascup Staff Alumnus

03/07/2011 at 06:11 PM

I've got a friend coming to town who is willing to guest star with us if we are missing a person.

PixlBit