A crystal ball wasn’t exactly needed to foresee this news as G4 TV has announced that they will be cancelling both X-Play and Attack of the Show. The last two game centric shows currently on the network, both X-Play and AOTS will air until the end of 2012 and after that it’s officially done.
The news of G4’s last gaming centric programming isn’t exactly a shock considering the news that the network would go under a rebranding at the behest of owner NBC Universal/Comcast. Details of the G4 rebrand are still elusive, but word had it that the network would go for a GQ look in an attempt to appeal to a more sophisticated but still male centric demographic.
Even if it was only a matter of time before G4’s last bastions of video game programming were going to be chopped, it still sucks to see such a thing actually happen. Not only does is it a bummer for the staff of both shows, but it once again means that as of this year G4 is officially a thing of the past. I know at this point G4 has only been a shadow of it’s former shelf, but I think some people were still hoping that the network would somehow bounce back and wouldn’t go on a path that would attempt to appeal to the dudebro crowd that favors 1800 Tequila instead of Miller Light kegs.
Exactly where the prospect of good, or acceptable, video game TV programming stands is completely up in the air. The rebirth of G4 could herald in some good programming or it could be abomination V3.0 to the max. Though I guess the ever growing presence of game based shows on the web should count for something, but the evolution of that and gaming sites doing scripted shows is a story for another day.
