I can’t wait for Konami at E3, if that’s even still a thing. It will hopefully be a business man saying that they will still work to maintain the franchises we know of love, then announce ZOE 2, which is a mobile free to play game that will have the Kojima Presents label (even though he has nothing to do with it just to give him a final farewell). Maybe even cardboard standouts of Kojima/Igarshi at the conference. Actually, they will just hire look alikes in an attempt to fool consumers, Kideo Hojima for example.

Vinyl is nice to have for collectors, but claiming that it confers anything beyond that onto a piece of music is demonstrably false, and is the sort of elitist waffle that a hipster would say.

When you own a piece of vinyl, you own that piece for a very long time, and can play it on demand. Much like a physical copy of a video game compared to a digital one. Or a book for that matter. It’s great that people enjoy having digital content replace physical goods, but I prefer the latter and am glad when such things survive. Also, saying “vinyl is for hipsters,” is itself for hipsters.

You may one day see that console gaming is in the same position that records are in now. You will have nothing but mobile, streaming, digital-only games, and if there’s a PlayStation left, it will be looked upon as a very niche hobby (and probably digital-only anyways). I don’t want that either.

I think instead that this is more like the shift in the early 80s from huge devs who churned out an avalanche of shit to smaller companies that made awesome stuff (and who are now the huge devs of today).

We’re watching video games go through a major transitional period of reacting to a serious threat [mobile apps] to the integrity of the art form. Look at that happened to the music industry since the inception of iPod and iTunes. This digital-mobile future is a pretty destructive force. But then things emerge to try to preserve integrity somehow, like the comeback of vinyl. There’s two record stores within a 10-mile radius of me who make their main business on vinyl, with used cd’s as a small afterthought (and more stores like them in the surrounding counties). Vinyl was supposed to have gone off to live with the dodo, and yet here we are. So the pressure on the video game industry caused by mobile will squeeze out a lot of shit while some gems get made in the midst, I expect.

I just don’t know what we would do without Lusipurr.com… sit at home and apply Imitanus while huffing copious amounts of Zestria, over and over again, hoping to get that feeling back, but nothing could fill that void.

Wonder when we’ll see a FTP Suikoden title! *cries*

Very well written article. I enjoyed reading this.