YouTube vs Twitch: Who Will Get the Streaming Crown?

   
YouTube is planning to revamp and relaunch their live streaming service. The reason behind is because YouTube wants to put its live streaming in a direction that will cater to gaming and eSports companies and viewers.

     "Gaming and eSports in particular are going to be a big driving force for the new-look YouTube Live," one source said. "There'll be huge opportunities for established streamers and organizations soon and I would say that the record numbers of eSports viewers are only going to grow when Google starts promoting and partnering with these events." 

     As you can tell, this us starting to sound a bit like another site that allows. People to live stream playing video games. What site could that be? Of course Twitch. Twitch hosts over 45 million users with 12 billion minutes of streaming games. Only last year that Google, YouTube's owner, tried to buy Twitch before its deal with the site fell through and Amazon ended up buying it for 1 billion. So Google and YouTube has learned the motto if you can't buy it, beat it. But can they?
     Twitch has made itself know to be the place online where you can go to watch people playing games live. Anything that will try to compete with that will have a hard time to beat Twitch, including YouTube. YouTube has their work cut out for them. Although YouTube still dominates as the source for gaming content with Let's Plays and people who had became internet famous for playing video games like Pewdiepie, Markiplier, and The Game Theorist, Twitch is slowly coming for that crown. Twitch hasn't taken YouTube's place but it's starting to take its spotlight. So it's no wonder that YouTube is trying to outdo Twitch. The question is will it?

As I said earlier it will be hard to do, but it seems that it won't be likely for YouTube to upstage Twitch with live streaming gameplays. Twitch has put itself in a niche that people will most likely stool prefer to do eSports and do live streams no matter what YouTube does. Twitch has made itself synonymous with live streaming games. There's also the question of content. YouTube as it is now seems like a mini basic version of Twitch and until we see the finish product, which their probably won't be that much improvement, it will still come off as a basic Twitch.
     YouTube and Twitch are two different sites with different content. Again, Twitch is mainly for live streaming video games and YouTube has become a palette for creating other gaming content like shows and other forms of entertainment. They should stick to what works for them.

What do you think?

Nintendo and DeNA: A Smart Move?

     Earlier this week we learned that Nintendo is making a partnership with DeNA in order to make games for smartphones. That's right! Nintendo is starting to make games for your smartphone. Director and president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata stated:
     "One of my goals here is, now that we are challenging ourselves with this endeavor by making use of Nintendo IP, to produce multiple hit titles at an early stage after we start releasing our software on smart devices. Also, until now, when we said, “platform,” it meant a specific video game platform. Now that we are going to release games on smart devices and make use of globally widespread PCs and smart devices for our new membership service, we would like to offer more consumers with software that is suited to their tastes. In other words, we are challenging ourselves to redefine what “Nintendo platforms” mean."
     This means that soon you will be able to play Zelda or Super Mario on your iPhone. Aside from just releasing games on smartphones, Nintendo will be using its partnership with DeNA to create a membership service that will connect all devices, smart devices and game consoles. Meaning that you could have ccontent that could connect your 3DS, Wii U, or even the new Nintendo NX they announced as well this week with your iPhone or iPad. There have been some indications in the past that Nintendo will be doing this or that they were testing the waters. Not too long ago, we had Nintendo announcing they would be releasing a Mario Kart 8 app on smartphones weeks before the game came out. We also have a crossover with Mario and the popular Puzzle and Dragon series in Japan which will be coming here to the US in the near future.
      Whether or not you feel that this will help Nintendo, this was a decision that they desperately needed to make. It was no secret that Nintendo was facing some problems over the past years. The company has reported financial loss for the past three consecutive year due to the Wii U and the 3DS underperforming.Super Smash Bros, the Majora's Mask remake, and Mario Kart 8 Nintendo did well. They brought up sales Wii U and Nintendo 3DS sales as well as help sell the New Nintendo 3DS, but it is still not enough. Nintendo needs to do more to get them back to the top again.
There's a great chance that this could work for Nintendo. Here in the states, with games like Flappy birds and even the game from her whom we shall not speak of, mobile gaming is becoming a new medium to play games almost like handheld was years ago. This is more evident in Japan with the success of mobile games like Puzzle Dragon. We've come a long way from Minesweeper on you old Nokia phone. Nintendo sees this is becoming a big thing and know that this is where they need to go. It will be interesting to see that they are thinking forward on doing something like this. They are excited to go further with DeNA, hoping that there will be a mobile game at the end of the year. Whether or not it will work, we will have to see.

What are your thoughts on Nintendo and DeNA's partnership. Will it work for Nintendo?

Five Nights at Freddy's 3: Does it Suck?

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was released on Stream last week. After weeks and weeks from playing the last game, the third installment of the famous Five Nights series is finally here. The Five Nights series has swept the internet by storm for the past year. We've spent countless hours online not only playing the game but watching YouTubers play, and freak out by the jumpscares. Considering on how big Five Nights at Freddy's 1 and 2 were, 3 has huge shoes to fill. Especially considering that there hasn't been that much of a break period between each games, with all three games being released in over a year which is not only crazy, but the series does risk getting old and stale. Has it? Let find out.

Story

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 sets us 30 years in the future since the events of The first game. Freddy Fazbear's pizza restaurant has become an urban legend. So what do you do when you want to make money off of an urban legend other than make two really horrible slasher films about them? You make an attraction based off of an urban legend. That's right Freddy Fazbear's is now an amusement park and you're the star. You play an fake security cop watching over the attraction trying to survive the nights and you'll also be actually working to "keep it authentic" or the people in charge are REALLY cheap... The story is a big shock as some Freddy Theorists had hypothesized that the third installment would had taken place with the original restaurant. If you're new to the games and lore, there was an original Freddy Fazbears that was bought and the restaurant became a franchise a la Chuck E. Cheese. There were four restaurants in the series total. The original one, and unknown one that was referenced, the one from Five Nights at Freddy's 2, and the one from the original game. It is interesting that instead of doing the obvious, the creator, Scott Cawthon, decide to give us all a twist and go in this direction.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Five Nights at Freddy's 3 has been revamped a bit. You are up against one animatronic, Springtrap. You have a new maintenance panel. It mostly works like the ones from the previous games. You don't have battery life like the other games so you have to reboot everything to make sure things are working for you. You still deal with the same camera functions to monitor everything in the building. They do go out so they need to be rebooted so you can know where everything is. The ventilation mechanic is to help calm things down as when it is down, you zone in and out and this gives Springtrap a better opportunity to reach you and he moves more frequently. You have audio devices in order to distract Springtrap as it works like the door switch and the Freddy mask from the previous games, being the only thing to protect you from getting killed.  The other animatronics from the previous games appear as hallucinations that try to hinder you. They mostly appear when you look at the cameras. They can't kill you, but Springtrap can. Minigames between nights are back. They are just as fun as the ones from the previous game. The minigames are important in order to get the different endings in the game. The maintenance panel mechanic was confusing at first. Some game mechanics didn't work. The ventilation mechanic didn't make sense gameplay-wise and storywise. It has no purpose other than to freak you out even more, which the hallucination animatronics kinda already serve that purpose.

Visuals
Visuals look sleeker than the previous games. Instead of everything just looking like images getting closer and closer, they have more movement. There are some scenes that when Springtrap is near your office, he slinks towards across the office window to the doorway. The jumpscares are more fluid. Cawthon did a good job with the visuals.

Final Verdict
So, does it suck? Yes. It is obvious that Cawthon had a lot to live up to with the hype and success with the other games. Sadly he didn't do it. The first game was good and simple. The second one with all the changes to the gameplay was amazing as it took everything with the first one and went big. The third one fell flat as he seemed to lose the focus of what made the series great in order to focus on story and trying to make things more twisted and scary, which he didn't do as well. I love the idea of the phantom animatronics, but they get boring and less scary in a short amount of time. Springtrap loses his scare appeal as well. Again, I understand that Cawthon tried to piggyback off of the fasicnation of the series' lore, but when you try to do that instead of focusing on how to improve the gameplay, the game gets less fun to play. Hopefully this will be the series' swan song. Five Night's at Freddy's 3 gets a 2 out of 5.