In GameFans Podcast #3, the editors from WiiUDaily, PS4Daily, XboxOneDaily, and Phandroid recap the events of E3 2013. A lot was learned about two new consoles, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. Microsoft opened with a $500 launch price while Sony countered with a $400 launch price and a console that is 63% smaller.

Nintendo took their time announcing all their new first party exclusives during their prerecorded Nintendo Direct which aired on Tuesday morning. Still lots more to learn about the future of PlayStation, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

Ashley King @overlordror – WiiUDaily.com

Nick Kosmides @KosmoCrisis – PS4Daily.com

Mark Hearn @MisterHearn – XboxOneDaily.com

Chris Chavez @GamerCore – Phandroid.com

We hope you enjoy the high fidelity of our third podcast. Please email us with your podcast related questions or comments to podcast@gamefans.com.

After a day of walking around the E3 2013 showroom floor and attending meetings spanning the lengths of the LA Convention Center, it was time to unwind in a parking lot across the street. But this wasn’t just any car-laden parking lot, it was inhabited by OUYA in what turned out to be a successful showing of their retail boxed OUYA Android powered gaming console.

There was a DJ, beer on tap flowing freely (literally), and Tune-In Radio was right there next to them. I took a moment to talk with Ben Nicholson, Business Development Manager, about their future plans on OUYA. And what he said was they have been working on a 10-foot version of their OUYA app that is based on the current Android tablet version.

The goal is to bridge the gap between the two and offer OUYA users a familiar and superior interface and overall experience. The Tune-In Radio team were there giving out t-shirts to the crowd and sponsoring the theatrics with an on-site DJ.

Tune-In is based out of Palo Alto, California in the middle of silicon valley and a place I once lived. It is a place where great minds come up with great ideas and come together to deploy great products and services. If you have never heard of Tune-In Radio, then I encourage you to visit their website and download the app on iOS or Android. It’s also on OUYA if you have one.

We are growing nearer and nearer to E3 2013. Nick Kosmides from GameFans/PS4Daily, Ashley King from WiiUDaily, Chris Chavez from Phandroid, and Mark Hearn from XboxOneDaily will all be at the many events this year.

In episode 2, we talk a lot about games. Which games do we anticipate the most? Which games will matter the most? Which games will sell consoles? How about more about the hardware and what Sony’s strategy will be going into this holiday season release war?

We listened to feedback from our first show and have improved the audio quality of this show. You can leave comments about the show below as always, or you can send us your questions pertaining to E3 to podcast[at]gamefans[dot]com. As requested, here are our Twitter handles:

Twitter Handles:

• Ashley King – @overlordror
• Mark Hearn – @misterhearn
• Nick Kosmides – @kosmocrisis
• Chris Chavez – @gamercore

[GameFans Podcast site]

Join us as we inaugurate episode 1 of the official GameFans Podcast. In this episode, the bloggers and editors from PS4Daily, WiiUDaily, XBoxOneDaily, and even Phandroid come together to discuss what they expect from E3 2013. Sony and Microsoft are expected to go head-to-head while Nintendo passively attempts to flaunt it’s all-star cast of characters and hopefully pulls out a third party exclusive or two.

Will we be wooed by the sultry sounds of whizzing Blu-ray players, or will second screens dominate the showroom floor? Will Kinect and Xbox TV suffice over a welcoming list of new IPs or an advancement of the digital distribution movement? So many questions to answer, so many discussions to be had. We hope you enjoy the show and do leave your comments below, especially on the obscene quality of this first ever GameFans Podcast.

[GameFans Podcast website]

Indie game developer Greenheart Games has an interesting way of combating piracy. Upon release of their first game, Game Dev Tycoon, they also released a cracked version to “the number one torrent sharing site, gave it a description imitating the scene and asked a few friends to help seed it”. In the cracked version of their game, and after a while of playing, the player gets an in-game message:

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally.
If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

Then, the player’s sales will start to decline in the game about developing a game. Their game that once sold 1 million units would now sell barely 100k units as a demonstration of what piracy does to a developer’s bottom line. Game Dev Tycoon is an $8 game and is deploying an unusual tactic. A graph on their blog shows that after only one day of the game’s release, 93.6% of users were playing the cracked version. That amounts to about 3104 users. It’s probably a lot higher now.

Not only does Greenheart Games have a cracked version of their already DRM-free game, but they also have a demo you can play if you don’t want to cough up $8, and don’t want to be labeled a pirate either. As always, we encourage you to buy a pretty enjoyable DRM free game from a new developer.

[via Greenheart Games]

Valve’s venerable digital games platform is nothing short of a social gaming savior for PC gaming. With home video game consoles quickly bridging the performance gap, pushing the boundaries of social integration and the vastness of their overall entertainment value, it is platforms like Steam’s Greenlight that are giving diehard PC gamers a reason to use a keyboard and mouse.

All the while, a friendly nod to the entertainment days of yore persist in theatrical releases of pinball games. Where The Pinball Arcade revisits the dusty tables of Williams, Bally, and Stern, Zen Studios and their original Pinball FX2 will have Steam gamers flipping their lids. You shant need a controller or special HDTV with a subpar console tethered to it anymore. Pinball FX2 will arrive on Steam come May 10th as a free shell, whereby loads of DLC table packs can be purchased from within.

Who doesn’t love lists? The following is a list of all the DLC table packs available May 10th from the main game:

• Star Wars™ Pinball
• Marvel Pinball™
• Marvel Pinball: Vengeance and Virtue™
• Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles™
• Pinball FX2™ Core Collection
• Zen Classics™

CCP, developer of Eve Online and Dust 514, announced at Eve Fanfest a partnership with Dark Horse Comics. Along with this partnership comes Eve’s True Stories campaign, which allows players to submit their own story from their experience in Eve Online.

These submitted and voted-upon stories will inspire the Dark Horse comic book, a TV series, and possibly films. Of course, we all know how enjoyable game-movies end up not being, I hope an Eve movie doesn’t follow suit. A TV series would end up being far more entertaining, and after nabbing Contraband Director Baltasar Kormákur, I have high hopes.

Comics are a different story. People love comics about games they play, and they read the crap out of them. Valve teamed up with Dark Horse 2 years ago and released DLC along with the comic they produced and that was a hit. Hopefully Dark Horse can do the same for the Eve universe, and they’ve already started work on 64-pages of delicious content.

No specific details yet about the TV series, but I’m certainly excited. You can watch the full Eve Fanfest broadcast at TwitchTV.

Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, the personification of Xbox announcements, recently posted news and a handy countdown clock announcing the date everyone will once and for all learn what Microsoft has in store for the next generation of Xbox. Mark your calendars for May 21st, as the announcement will come from the Xbox campus in Redmond, WA and be streamed through Xbox Live and at Xbox.com.

What we can expect is a lot of concrete information finally squashing all the rumors and speculation about the next Xbox. That list has grown to fatal lengths, and yes, this announcement could have come a little sooner. But with Sony having sheltered the minor detail about what the PS4 actually looks like, the biggest question is whether or not the next Xbox/Xbox 720 will show itself on this day or be saved for E3.

Major Nelson does make sure to carefully point out that not all details will be revealed on May 21st. In fact, the left overs including the full lineup of games will be warmed up and shared around the E3 2013 dinner table this June and we will be there to share all the fixings with you. This news comes at the same time as we hear that Nintendo will not hold an E3 press conference. Whether or not this is a good strategy will remain to be seen, but our friends at WiiUDaily have put together a juicy article discussing the current state of Wii U.

It will be interesting to see where their most popular franchises will take gamers in the future of gaming consoles and how Microsoft will counter some of the praise Sony is receiving with the PS4. Which juicy Xbox Next/720 rumors do you think are top priority for Microsoft and the Xbox team to reveal on May 21st?

[via Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

It’s late on Wednesday evening in many parts of the world, early Thursday for others. What better way to get over the hump of the middle of the week than to listen to some smooth acapella renditions of classic Nintendo video game songs. Smooth McGroove visits The Legend of Zelda, the Lost Woods, and Guile’s theme song from Street Fighter II.

Just watching McGroove’s videos is entertaining enough to get me through the week and I’ll likely be revisiting these regularly. I appreciate musical talent as he displays over and over with these acapella remakes of classic video game chiptunes. Even some of his non-chiptune arrangements are more enjoyable than the actual ones.

Have you got any fun and interesting non-work related ways to get through the week? Please, do share with us either here in the comments section or by sending us an email. What’s your favorite Smooth McGroove song? Follow him on Twitter or buy his stuff on iTunes.

Here’s to hoping your an Xbox Live subscriber, because today Major Nelson has revealed that Flixster is now available on the service effectively offering another way to buy and rent movies through your Xbox 360. Additionally, any UltraViolet movies can now be accessed through the Flixster service on Xbox Live.

Maybe your using Flixster on your iPhone or Android device, through the web on a laptop, or tired of seeing friends sharing Flixster reviews through Facebook. Whatever the case may be, here’s a look at all of Flixsters services for Xbox Live:

• Buy or rent SD and HD movies
• Browse up to date movie listings in local theatres
• Browse new and upcoming DVD releases
• Stream high quality movie trailers
• View movie details such as film posters, film synopses, or Rotten Tomato scores
• Sort and stream movies from you UltraViolet collection (requires an UltraViolet account)
• Navigate Flixster using voice and gesture controls via Kinect

Maybe you feel Xbox Live is straying further and further away from a gaming console every time an app or service like Flixster is launched. Microsoft clearly believes offering more non-gaming services is the way to keep your attention focused solely on their console when you’re not in the gaming mood. Of course all of this is also available on your iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Most smart TV’s may also have Flixster out of the box, so there will undoubtedly be some overlap. Offering Flixster on Xbox Live is another way to place the service above the free model that is the PlayStation Network. Do you feel the Flixster service fills a void otherwise unfulfilled on your Xbox 360? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

[via Major Nelson]