Recapping the Xbox Developer Direct

Be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for January
nineteenth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so, let me
help you sort through the world of gaming on Game mess Mornings Live with me
Jeff Grubb today, Xbox's developer directs sets up the company's twenty twenty four and
is it time for Elden Ring DLC. But first, please join me and
welcome to today's co host a Game Mess Mornings. It's t more who's saying,
everybody, dam how are you doing on this dregs Day? You said
the magic words, So I'm hey, you know the magic words, Jeff
dregs Day, Yeah, exactly, That's what I'm talking about. What are
you talking about? Well, I don't know. I got lots of magic
words over here, all right, listen, I'm studying under the masters like
Randy Pitchford and Randy Pitchford, that's who I got. I can't, for
the life of me figure out why you would fuck me on this great the
greatest Brandy quote. I think about it all the time all the time,
and it's like one of those things where it's like I can I'm glad you
can, like drop the reference here, and we're working out it works out
well. I want to reference it all the time, and I'm like,
most people in my life are not going to understand what I'm talking about here.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, but it's very important to me. That
is a precious quote to me. Yes, I know, how are you
doing this? Is? You know, we're like halfway more than halfway through
January twenty twenty four. Let's go through twenty twenty four. Do you feel
like you got the hang of twenty twenty four? I think I think I'm
getting there. I'm not quite there that yet, though, how about you?
No? Oh no I am. I am like I'm still crawling my
way up out of twenty twenty three. Yeah, I'm slowly getting there.
Like twenty three was a quagmire, a pool of quicksand that I'm just now
figuring out how to get out of. So but you know, it'll be
good, It'll be it will be fine, it will be okay. Well,
we are figuring it out slowly, but surely we're figuring it out.
Yeah, this is exciting. Things have happened, you know. We we
announced that we're going to Pax. Yeah, I'm very it's going to be
great. I've never been, so this is gonna be I'll have been to.
We went to the lost PACs. Pax West, Yes, Pax West.
Now I'm going to pack s East for the first time. Is paxist
a good one? Well, Pax was, He's not a good one.
Pass West it was awesome as well. But I mean, like, is
the Pax East the one that everyone is like? So yeah, I think
the way it went down is Pax West was Pax Prime for a long time.
That was like the originator, and then they started up Pax East a
long time ago, and it was basically equivalent to Pax West in about every
way. And now they're both. They're both equal and huge and big,
and they were still like a little bit of Oh I go to pax Prime
net these days they are equal. I had a lot of fun at Pax
West. It was like really cool, and I am so excited to go
to Pax East now. Yeah, it's great. It's great to just see
the you know, the East Coast Games people out there that don't tend to
go out to Paxwest. That's always fun and it's a different time of the
year. Favorite East Coast Games person let's see here from Alex Navarro. Hell
yeah, there, we got the right there, he is a right uh.
All right, let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I,
Jeff Greb, will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking
news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look
smart. You were watching live on Twitch Welcome. You could always listen to
the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Games Mornings, Hello YouTube,
or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. See he's still getting the
hang of the year, everybody. You can also catch the show later with
chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello Hello YouTube. There it ish No,
No, that was pretty on our side, sounded perfect. We're good.
Yeah. And I definitely said Alex Navarro, one because it's true, and
two because he controls the rains on Blake Club and at any time can step
in and fuck U. So yeah, and I can't believe he would.
Vinie would never, so yeah, ethnically exactly. All right, Let's let's
hop into this news, starting with everything we saw at Xbox's January Developer Direct.
This comes from Kenneth Shepherd at Kotaku. Xbox just held its January Developer
Direct, which showcased a handful of upcoming first party games. If you missed
the fifty minute stream and want to watch the whole thing, you could do
so, but here's a way to catch up as well, starting with Obsidian
Entertainments fantasy RPG Avowed, which is set in the same universe as the team's
Pillars of Eternity series. The game is launching on Game Pass in the fall
of this year. They showed off some gameplay, they showed off some more
action. They also, finally actic showed off for the first time. Really
the kind of RPG, talk to enemies, talk to NPC's sort of nature
of the game, things that people were expecting from an Obsidian RPG, Well
now they confirmed. Yah, it's going to be one of those. Of
course. How are you feeling about Avowed now, Tam, I'm a little
bit harder on this preview than I was on the one at Summer Game Fest
last year. How about you? If I'm being completely honest, I am
kind of ambivalent about it, right, Yeah, I don't think you're I
think a lot based on what I've seen, based on my excitement, I'm
excited for about But my excitement for it comes entirely from the fact that it's
Subsidian. Sure and Obsidian make games that I really enjoy, and they make
like on different scales, whether that's you know, like Fallout or Pillows or
whatever it may be, or yeah, Pentiment or also like our worlds at
the World's Yep. Yeah, so like that is, and and it seems
like format and like kind of construction wise, structure wise, it looks like
they're going something like that where it's like a bunch of areas that are like
yeaing together. The thing about it is like from the combat side of it,
there was I have this like thing now where a lot of these dev
diaries when these happen, not specifically the Microsoft one, I've seen them happening
all over the place. Yes, present things as if they're brand new,
and it's just like, okay, man, like that sounds barely plain and
normal, like not saying it's bad, but they're like you can wield things
different hands to spells or like a sword, and so I was like I
expected to do that. Yeah, yep, that's what games I've been doing
for a really long time, and they're like, and the combat is like
strategic and technical. I'm like, yep, that's yep, that's whats are
for sure. I'm not saying again, I'm not saying it's bad, but
it's like presenting things as if it's like wildly brand new and innovative. I
was like, Okay, this looks like a a functional, maybe satisfying kind
of combat system. And then they it looked I thought it looked pretty good,
like it looked interesting. We talked about this on games Part after Dark.
I haven't not an issue, but I really do wish that in situations
like this where rpg's're showing off on RPG and you're talking about the narrative,
that people don't try and show off what like the narrative is like through being
like, here's a very very fast, reductive explanation of a quest line,
and be like and at this point you make decisions. I feel like we've
reached the stage now where it's pretty clear that the way you do it is
by focusing on specific characters for people to go wild about. Definitely, And
again I talked about this on after Dark and I was like let's take it
within the context of Balder's Gate. Blsgate has a lot of really cool narrative
and plot threads. Trying to explain that in something like a you know,
director of this style. I think Larry and had longer stuff where they would
like really break things down as good. Trying to explain that in the context
of like what Xbox was doing extremely difficult. However, you can put a
character like a Starian on show, or like Karlac on show and say like,
this is one of our characters. Look at Karlak. She's awesome and
hot and you'll want to bone her, you know, sorry, And he's
a bit of a menace, but he's also kind of sexy. I feel
like that's here's a bear, you can fuck it. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. I feel like that's how you get people like talking and excited about
the potential there. I trust that Obsidian will do good narrative, good story,
and good characters. I did not get a good sense of that through
what they showed. What they effectively showed me was they are making a game.
It's an RPG, it's got combat, and it'll have a story and
you'll make decisions. That's all I took away from it and the vast majority
of my excitement, which again to be clear, there is a lot of
excitement, comes from the fact that I know what they can do and what
they have done and their consistency with it. I think, yeah, you
know, the way you put that there. I fully agree that the the
specifics of the content of that of that video, the things that like spiked
my interest. The most of what they showed was definitely like design. I
think the looks of like the lizard characters that look like they have their own
culture and stuff like that. That that and you know you're fighting it mostly
but the being British mate, oh the lizard people, of course, yes,
it's it was I'd like, Okay, this looks cool. This is
like striking my fancy. It is, uh, they are building up something
where like they know what looks cool and they know what's going to make someone
go, I wonder what's up with these people? And then you know you're
right. They would show they would try to go a little bit deeper on
some of the quests, and it's it's hard to like keep track of what
they're saying and whether or not it's going to be interesting. You kind of
need to feel ownership of a quest before you actually begin to understand whether or
not you care about it or not. And it's just really tough to get
to get that across on the video. So yeah, you're right, that's
exactly how I felt when they were like, and here is an MPC talk
at you and you're making a decision. I'm like, Okay, you make
decisions. It's one of those games. And that's all I could take away
from that. So all that said, I still feel more positive about the
game now than I did after the last preview. The last like sort of
a showcase for this game, and we're gonna be playing it later this year.
I hope we get like another update maybe later, and it's like,
Okay, now now we really understand how to show up this game, now
that we're in a stronger position with it, and we really do know when
it's coming out, and you know it's a game pass for that ass you
a good points that I I again like aut Welds was massively underrated, I
think, And and I'm excited for a new RPG from Obsidian, same yeah,
right, and even if it's and I'm like excited for a Skyrim adjacent
sort of idea of a fantasy RPG where you're walking around the world and doing
stuff. Now, it's not going to be It's the scale of Skyrim is
just not going to be there, going to be closer to Outer Worlds.
You know what Outer Worlds did kind of it worked, It was enough for
me, so I'm hoping it for the same here. Speaking of man,
yeah, how good is out a wild Still? There was a company reaching
out about like an outdoor television and I'm like, what would I do with
that? I'm like, no thanks, And then mean a TV that can
like survive being in the elements or whatever, So you could just leave it
outside, yeah right, exactly. Yeah, it's gonna drink its own piss
exactly. You could like hang out, you could mount it on like uh
in in like your I don't know, if you have like an outdoor patio
or something like that and just leave it it will be fine. And I'm
like, I'm not gonna do that. That's crazy. And then I'm like,
well, you know, it'd be really fun to play Outer Wilds outside
and like this like summer, like like like late night summer camp playing through
Outer Wilds again. And having that like, you know, future banjo music
playing. I want to play that real bad again. Yeah. I think
I'm going to replay it soon. I'm on best Buy and I did not
know that outdoor TVs was just a genre of thing that you could buy.
You have so much to learn about white suburban people. Yeah, I was
gonna say much to learn. Why don't you just get a projected uh?
The many and mostly because we don't, there's no good reason. No.
Yeah, yeah, I really want to replay Our Wild It means it's one
of those things where I'm very grateful to have a ship memory because I'm like,
I bet I could get a lot out of that game again and won't
remember most of it. So I have got a book mode, but I
believe there's a von mode for it. That'd be cool. I wonder if
they have a randomizer for Outer Wilds. Can you randomize that? I feel
like you need to listen to about what people are able to randomize. You're
right that one seems like it'd be especially difficult to do that, but I
wonder. I wonder, all right, Sticking with the Xbox Developer direct up
next was Ninja Theory, who showed off sin you was saga hell Blade two.
Uh. The game got confirmed from May twenty. First, they showed
off some more gameplay, more more combat. It definitely looks like hell Blade,
but but bigger. They did confirm afterwards, tam not that much bigger
eight hours. It's going to be a fifty dollars game. It is like
hell Blade one, but like with the seems like a slightly bigger budget,
maybe a significantly bigger budget. But they're not trying to say this is going
to be like a God of War. This is like, no, this
is another hell Blade. I'm pretty fascinated that they did that. But it's
like, I guess it makes a ton of sense. They never ever said
or suggested they were going to like try to turn this into something else.
They always just said they were making hell Blade too. So I'm so I
should have not been surprised by this. This this is an assumption that a
lot of people have made based on the business and studios structure changes of that
studio. Ninja theory is because Microsoft acquired them. Yep, they got a
brand new studio and they added people to the team, and people naturally just
assumed bigger, bigger, badder, and more exactly what I did, and
and like I saw, I've seen a lot of people doing the same,
and like, I'm glad that they finally confirmed, like, hey, we're
not going well. But at the same time, I don't expect them to
be like, oh, yeah, this is an al game. It's pretty
much exactly how you remember. I think like they're going for like this is
one of those eight hour games that is going to be crazy detailed. Oh
yeah, like really really, like the production values are going to be super
high, and we did spend a lot of money on it, but we
spent that money like on a an experience that does deep instead of like,
you know, world exactly deep instead Abroad is exactly what I was thinking.
They aren't going to add fifteen other systems just to flesh out a game to
make it feel like, well, this is why it's worth seventy dollars.
It's like, no, no, they're going to make the game. They
will make it, but deeper and more detailed. I think that's an excellent
way of putting it, I think, And I think it's like people will
be really happy about that, and some people would be like, oh,
why doesn't this compete and look exactly like a prestige first party Sony PlayStation game.
But again, they never said they were going to make anything like that.
They were just saying they're making more hell Blades, so I think fans
of that will be happy. I've was never two into hell Blade. I
have nothing against it, It's just not for me. I do think that
this game looks stunning. It really does look really really good in motion.
The visuals are are are very high fidelity, and that's the part of me
that's like, I want to like check it out a little bit and I'll
mostly though, I bet I'm gonna bounce off, and I'll be happy to
hear other people who got a lot out of it. Are you a hell
blake person, Tam, I'm a big time help lady, and I'm like,
I'm a known in ninja theory like her so much so that the other
day I tweeted that dmc do McCrae was my favorite dover McCray and it had
a good story, an interesting story, and and I did a little cool
things. And let me tell you, I still received death threats about people
are very upset and I was like a weird years grow up man, Jesus
man. I do like that MC game a lot. It's just really good.
And I say that as a longtime fanatical Devil May Cry fan. I
remember playing the first one and it was one of my most like treasured gaming
experiences. I feel like I'm gonna I feel like it's time for people to
recognize that Dante was cool and then he became the Corneus motherfucker in this he
is definitely and I understand. I understand that's part of the charm and it's
part of the point. But man, as I grew up, I was
like, it's embarrassing. Yeah, he's definitely like U in part of the
lineage, the Spawn lineage, right that there was like the cool spawna Deadpool
characters in the nineties and they quickly were like huh okay, And I love
him for that and he pulls it on, and especially when they like to
introduced Nero and like had him being like annoying a little bit and you're like,
oh, Dante, I love you, man. But like I also
really loved like what they did with that other version of Dante where it was
like the spirit of Rebellion and yeah, you know that punk rock and people
just could not see past the fact that it wasn't original Dante made by Japanese
people, yep. And I was like, hey, actually, man,
that's pretty cool. I'm very glad to hear you say that, team because
I'm like, I really I that DMC game. Do I just have bad
take the special edition? Also on PC? I believe like is this I
think they updated people have updated it to be like the best version of that
game. So it rocks man music in that game rules. I'm getting the
craven and go back to that as well. Square Enix made a surprise appearance
to show off Visions of Mana, the latest entry in the long running fantasy
RPG series Mana. You see Mana or Mana? Mana? Mana? That
Mana's right. The game was initially announced that the twenty twenty three Game Awards
and looks like a return to form for the Mono series after spin offs and
Dead Mobile games. Squares presentation included looks at the open world, cute critters
in the series' return to action RPG combat. Visions of Mana will launch on
PC, PlayStation four, PS five, Xbox Series X and S in summer
twenty twenty four. This one was a little bit of a surprise that it
showed up there, but I don't think it looked to so out of place
it broke up. The sort of pacing was a nice breath of a fresh
air after help Bla. It's, you know, a little bit of oppressiveness.
I thought looked very cute and cool. I thought the action combat actually
looked really fun as well. I'm not a huge minor person, but this
looks neat. Yeah, I mean like I'm not a maze. I played
secrets and that kind of stuff. Sure, yeah, I'm not a huge
minor person. I think it's it's really interesting to contrast that with like the
statements from SQUARENENX that will get to later on. We're like, we need
to make less RPG, like anyway, there's an RPG kind of funny.
But I know this is a series that a lot of people held a lot
of like love for, and Squarens has been recently been quite good about bringing
these franchises back and doing good with them, so I am interested to see
what they do with this. It looked more it looked very like actually like
I don't remember Mona being like that, but like it had like air juggles
and stuff, and I was like, what's going on here? But uh
yeah, I mean like it's got some of that spirit of the original in
the lot. I just got like the charm of it, and I like
the way it looked. Definitely me too. Yes, I saw that,
and I was like, man, I want to go and go back to
playing Tales. I forgot Tales of a Rise. I never finished that,
and I was like, Damn, that game is good. Yeah. I
even started that game and enjoyed some of it. And I'm not a huge
REPG guy. Vision's amount of looks pretty cool again summer twenty twenty four,
but it's out on everything. I think they'd even like announce this for Game
Pass. It was just hey, no, we've got to got friends over
at Square Enix will show off their game. Felt like this was this was
your annual reminder that Xbox exists in Japan. Yeah, you're angele reminder that
Phil Spencer occasionally takes a plane flight to Japan. It talks to people.
That's what this is. Yeah. Uh, and I respect them for us
saying yeah, glad that you're still doing it. Yeah, absolutely doing it.
All I'm saying is it'll be much easier if you just commissioned a Lost
out toy remake. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the easiest answer right
here. Side games showed off are History Untold. Next, the studio calls
it a living world in a strategy game with their decisions as leaders influencing the
world. This one is do Out This Fall as well. It is Former
Civilization People. It's a for a Grand strategy four X game. I'm a
four X person. I dabbled into some grand strategy stuff. I don't necessarily
know what separates one from the other other than like making massive decisions that affect
your world, and maybe that's maybe that's exactly what it is. But I'll
say that this one fascinated me because it seemed like they were simulating a lot
of stuff in the world, and I like this idea of a feedback loop
of your decisions affecting the world and then world changing affecting like what you can
do, and kind of that continuing throughout the entire lineage of a playing through
one of these four X games. That could be really neat. I have
tried to find games that aren't SIV, that are similar to SIEV that like
kind of fill that gap. None of them have quite hit hit for me
the way SIV five did. Maybe this will be the one, maybe won't
be. I think SIB seven's not not too far off, so we'll see.
But I'm at least going to check this out. I think it looked
pretty interesting. You have any interest in four X games? Dam I had
my time with CIEV, I played it. I think I've played pretty much
all the SIEV games. I think SIV five or four were the one I
played the most of those CIEV games, But the one I played in that
franchise overall the most was CIV Revah. Yeah, i think I'm past my
time on four X games and a lot of ways, I feel like it
requires a level of attention that I'm unable to give them anymore. And like
me as well, Yeah, yeah they don't. They also like aren't doing
things where they can evoke and kind of capture that attention for a long period
of time. Basically, the colors and the flashing lights aren't enough for me
these days. I need like more from it. When I was a young
man, the promise of colonialism was all I needed. Yeah, just like,
let me just conquer a world and I'll feel good. Now these days,
I'm like, I do think I do need a little bit more strategy.
Stuff will be more here, I don't know. Yeah, for me,
it was like the promise of revenge against colonialists of course, of course,
and these days I just do that outside the video exactly. Don't ask
me how. I'm never going to a crime. But however, speaking of
oxide games, are you are you familiar with the musical work of English DJ
and MC garage MC, Oxide and Neutrino. I can't say that, I
am. Okay, well, I recommend you and everyone watching go to Spotify
Oxide and Neutrino, Oxide and neutrino neutrino. Yeah, so they have some
absolute bangers that you will probably not understand the world of Okay, fantastic everyone,
I want to I want to understand a word of it because it's not
English, or it's because it's extremely that's it was the other side of the
spectrum. It's two English to understand. I love that. Okay, Yeah,
yes, I'll lie down. I will try not to hurt myself while
listening to it. There was an area of m seeing in the garage days.
So garage music is is a kind of like I think it's very British
like originated, but it's like a precursor to grime music and almost like it's
like imagine hip hop, but with more of a dance approach to high bpm.
And there was a period of time where m seeing or wrapping over garage
was effectively British version of scatting. Oh wow. Okay, so it was
like a bizarre period of time in British music. If I listen to this
and I close my eyes, well I have flashbacks to wipe out XL or
is that a different kind of you? You may, okay, I mean
like it's it's not as like electronic all right, but it is. It
is very good. Okay, it is very very good. I wonder if
we can play some in the in the post show. Yeah, yeah,
if you give me a give me a linking, we'll go for it,
all right. Then closing out the show was the headliner Machine Games is Indiana
Jones and the Great Circle, but there's the Big Boss. Todd Howard talks
about how he's had an Indiana Jones game in his head for a long time,
down to the period of the Adventurer's life. He wanted to write around
between Greaters of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, and he believes the
Machine Games was the right studio empathet the stables to make it work. The
game is due out in twenty twenty four. They're not getting more specific than
that. I think probably what happens here Tam And just to kind of get
the schedule out of the way real quick, they said, see which one
was coming, helpful A two US in May, and then they're gonna have
Ara in the fall. I think they'll probably have like some of these other
games come out, like AVOWT. I think it's also the fall. Those
games will probably be early fall, like September October, and then Indiana Jones
is November. Right, that's the thing that makes them if it can come
out this year. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
The game looks pretty good. It is first person and everyone freaked out about
that. That name, Okay, they did the name is bizarre is how
do you like the Great Circle? Okay? Like I feel like they it's
like they use all their creative energy and then they went into a meeting about
the name and they're just like big cool. I think, I like,
legitimately I think like George Lucas was like really good at coming up with like
really cheesy hockey names that worked, And I think it's an art form that
most other people have never even thought about. Like we're like, okay,
we need a pop fiction y name, and it's a great circle and it
just comes out sounded real bad. You gotta just dress it up a little
to make it the circle of something. Yeah. Yeah, Indiana Jones in
the Circle of Rebirth. I did it. Yeah, there it is.
There you go. And it's like there have been like good video games.
Yea, Impress Tombs not great, But Indiana Jones in The Infernal Machine,
that's good, that's strong. Great, the Lost Art Yeah, in the
Fate of Atlantist, like, that's good. People of Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull, Yeah, these are once that actually worked very very easy to I
don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's a case of like the Great
Circle. Maybe it's a case of like when we play the game and see
the story, we regret our woods and deeds and all that kind of shit.
But I I don't know, man, it's not a very strong like
I feel like you could have done literally anything like it. Reminds me of
a there's a movie called Miami Connection. It's so famously bad movie, and
there's a scene where they're a computer programming class and the teacher has like one
line where he just walks up to the star and says, good circle because
they're probably she's programming a circle or something. It's good circle something. Indiana
Jones, Indiana Jones and the retunal trib Baker there he is. Yeah,
Hey, finally Troe Baker, Trey Baker getting work. Hey, listen,
he did a real good job. He sounds a lot like Harrison Ford.
Do you know what a lot of people are like, Oh god, it's
Tribaker. I'm just gonna say it. He's he's good at doing Yeah,
he's turns out he's better than most people have tried Harrison Ford before. Let
that man live like. He's like, I'm good at a thing and everyone's
mad at me. I'm not gonna stand in his way. Yeah. It's
like for Maker again. If you were good voices and doing voice Oliver,
and you kept getting work and everyone was like, can we stop giving that
person's work, you'd be so pissed off. Yeah, you would hurt your
feelings I don't want to Baker. Leave Troy Baker alone. That's all I'm
saying. He did. He did a real good job. They also got
Harrison Ford's likeness. Uh So that's kind of surprising, but also not too
surprising. That it's Microsoft money. They should be able to make that happen
if it was possible. Turns out was possible. So they got young,
young Harrison Fords. Like this, Troy Baker doing a really decent Harrison Ford.
More than decent. It's a it's a good Harrison Ford. Uh.
And I'm I'm all on board. I think this looks great. I'm someone
who does like Indiana Jones. Uh, I think that the machine games first
person action combat with that where like you got the whip and your whipping people
nazi's feet and you're tripping them and then you're shooting them that stuff and then
you're getting on in their face and punch him a bunch. All that stuff
looked really good. And then you know, if it if we base it
on what we understand from Wolfenstein and then what we saw on this trailer,
they're gonna give you plenty of opportunities. They see like Indiana Jones emoting they're
going to get up in his face with camera shots and the cut scenes,
and I bet it's going to be very moving and well done because machine games
very good at that stuff. They're very good at that. They also exception
I think there's some of the best. I think they might be the best
in the business that creating villains. Yeah, villains, they are. No
one does villains like them like And it's not even just like it's Hitler,
because the Hitler we got was Pissedes shitting and farting constantly, remember it was
it was the other the villains that was like that were like, oh man,
this person sucks and I really want to shoot him in the face or
drown him. So like, I am very excited for a very very like,
charismatic and compelling villain in this game. There's an extremely, extremely good
and extremely high chance that this game will be the best Indiana Jones thing since
what the original movie could. High chance it could have a more positive impact
on the relevancy of Indiana Owns than anything including the movie, except for Indiana
Jones being in Fortnite. Other than that, yeah, it'll be the most
impactful thing. And I think that's very I think it's likely at this point.
I like everything that they're saying, everything that they're doing. I like
how the whole people are pointing out like it looks vaguely immersive seen me.
Yeah, I like I like that they're like, fake this whip for a
bunch of things. Yeah, I think it's a good fit for this,
for this, for the series. I'm there's a lot of authored puzzles and
stuff, but I think giving you the chance to express yourself as Indiana Jones
with that whip in a bunch of different ways, that's a smart move.
How do you feel about first person Well, I'm I'm a fan of first
person I always thought this game would be third person though, even though it's
machine games and it should clearly they should stick with what they're comfortable with.
It's like, I do think they're going to try to make it uncharted.
I do think they're going to try to copy that formula, and maybe they
should. I think that's what most people want. Seeing it in action as
a first person game, I got very excited because I'm like, this is
my shit, I really do like this. And then and then I was
aware of like there's a lot of people, especially people who have primarily played
on console. I think I just saw a poll that someone did, like
a couple of weeks ago where it's like, do you prefer playing first person
or third person? And do you play on console or PC? And it
was pretty split. On PC, people like I don't really have that much
of a preference. I'll play whatever, And on Console it's say, by
far third person, And I think that's just like the distance you sit from
the TV and stuff like that does play a factor, and people definitely have
a preference. I don't blame anyone for for that. I just like,
let's give this game a chance, because I bet it's gonna win those people.
I think from I'm not saying this is why people are upset, but
I think for me, one of the things I was like, huh,
that's interesting is it does change the kind of perception of that game. And
it also a marketing perspective is I feel like it's more advantageous to being third
person because purely because in third person you are looking at an iconic character model
Indiana Jones, and he's very extremely like Silhouette is enough of that game.
The first person you don't have the advantage of putting that out there, and
it's not as much of a draw like I think if you took the average
Joe Schmoe and they were like, do you want to play this game or
this game? And they were both the game the same Indiana Jong games,
and one was in first person, one was in third person where you could
see Indy. They would be like, I want to play that. I
want to play. Yeah. I think like that's a big deal in terms
of, like, I want to be able to see the legendary cultural appropriator
hero that everyone loves number one culture appropriation and Nate Drake. I think that's
a big part of it. I think it's a I think it's like it's
one of those back of the mind things that people probably don't really factor in
for a lot of times. But when I when I saw them doing it,
I was like, Oh, it's got to be third person because they
want people to be able to see the character they are, and it's an
easier thing to market if it's third person. Yeah, it's you can think
of it as the same in the same way that Tom Rader in first person
will be weird because then you're like, right, why would you not Laura
Croft on the screen. That's crazy, right, You spend all this time
building up but an affinity for these characters. Yeah, you want to you
want to emphasize that and exploit it, because that's the whole The whole idea
is like, do you put all this investment into making people love Indiana Jones
or Laura Croft or Nate Drake, And yeah, you're not gonna want to
squander that. And I think with this game doesn't feel like they're necessarily squandering
it. I'm just a little surprised that it's first person, and then I
think about it, so obviously they're good at it. And then they showed
it that there was third person segments. Uh, you're gonna be able to
see the character in some gameplay stuff when you're like climbing ropes. I bet
they have really thought about the ways to make that have the biggest impact and
feel like, Okay, and this is stuff we can use in marketing and
it's gonna look good, and it's we're still gonna make it fun. Let's
really think about it, and then let's think about like the first person first
person segments and try to make them feel as Indiana Jones as possible. I
think there's people like pointing out how like the shadow the silhouette of Indy pops
up a lot and you can kind of see yourself, and like that alone
does a lot to convey Oh my god, I am that iconic silhouette.
Like that's the first thing we see in Raiders of the Lost Arc is Indie
silhouette putting on the fedora and all that stuff. So it's like they can,
if they think about it, they could still get most of the way
there. I think there's no denying that the marketing would have been easier if
this was a third person game. Yeah, I think also they could.
I hope they do that thing. I can't remember what game it is,
this first person game, but one of the emote it like pulls out the
third person so you can see it, right, they should. They just
said you should have like shit tons of Indiana emotes and just yeah, just
like dropping the gun or whatever. Yeah, uh okay. Then overall,
Developer Direct pretty good. I was entertained. I thought they did a judge
because I think it was a very very very good show from kind of announcement
to kind of execution, mainly because announcement they were they could not have been
more clear about what this thing was gonna be, what was going to be
there. They were like, four fucking games. These are the games.
There's gonna be nothing else. Please don't lose your shit over it. Exactly,
that's exactly what it was. They had one surprise, which was like
okay, cool, that's fine, but no one went in there being like
finally Silk Song is happening, like all right, calm down everyone, and
then it was like a nice kind of tour around these studios. I think,
like we talked about this again on Games after docias like it felt a
bit sanitized in a lot of ways. From a discussion point of view.
It felt a bit like read from the script, and there was personality there
for sure, but I would have loved a little more like human element to
it. You know. Yeah, it doesn't feel quite as personalized as maybe
and the direct is kind of pretty similar, but like the Indie World Showcase,
like when the indie studios sit in their videos and they kind of like
just do what they want, there's none of that. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. And also I think it's like I think the tricky part of it
is like it's a bunch of studios under the Microsoft umbrella. Now we haven't
seen them for a while, and people are like and it's a very corporate
look, a very like we packaged this up in them to the most slick
way possible and here it is. And I think like now these days,
people what they want is like the human side of it, where it's like
you go to you know, the Game Awards and you see people like genuinely
emotional about showing games and that kind of stuff. That's not to say this
is bad. I don't think so at all. I think that there's there's
a way to create a good balance. Because they had like Dave in the
background where he walked in. Everyone's like, yeah, they felt that felt
good. It felt like it was fun, it was cute. Yeah,
And they had like outro outtakes at the end, that kind of stuff,
and that kind of stuff like weaving it in a bit more it could be
cool. But nevertheless it was like tight. It was like to the point
it didn't waste any time. What's very well paced, good amount of gameplay,
a really good like level of insight. I mean, for the most
part, mostly developers were saying interesting things. Yeah, the the kind of
like they are a part where it was like explaining the basics of a four
X game, sure, saying things that were like we've got this thing.
It's like, yeah, that's what man, Yeah, it's I think these
are the things where it's like next time they'll they'll probably try to rebalance it
and be like, Okay, we'll do a little bit more of this,
should we lose a little bit of that, And it's like it's never gonna
be exactly right because people have different expectations for these things. But it feels
like they're at least like always considering how these things look when they're presented the
way they are, and it's like that's kind of all I'm not really asking
for is be mindful and think about it. You're taking up my time.
Do your best to try to entertain me. That's all that's all I'm asking
for. But in all other ways it was I thought it was fantastic.
Yeah, very well. I would love to see more of this me too.
Yeah. I think Microsoft said they're gonna be doing a lot more.
Uh, they're gonna have more places to show their games. I think that
does mean more dev directs, but they'll be at more events as well,
all right, you know what, We're gonna take a quick break when we
get back. We've got a lot more news, spend a ton of time
at Xbox, so we're gonna get everything right after this. All right,
we're back, and let's see here we go, let's talk about this for
Square Nix wants to make fewer games. This is from John Walker at Kotaku
during an investor call in November twenty twenty three, which was made public this
week and spotted by My Nintendo News. Square Innox CEO Takahashi, Yeah,
Takashi, excuse me. Takashi Kiriyu acknowledged the company's failure to market much of
its recent catalog and raise and raised attentions to slim down the publisher's lineup.
As in publishing fewer games. Square Inox has been in a funny place for
a while now. The company's apparent obsession with Web three bullshit like blockchains and
NFTs escorted controversy as of late, and just as that now we started a
phase a form of following former replacement or excuse me, following former CEO and
blockchain stand Yoske Matsuda's replacement. The new CEO Takashi Takashi Kiu decided to go
all in with artificial intelligence in the most tone deaflyable. That news was rapidly
followed up by the revelation that Splatoon cloned film Stars has AI generated art.
But basically, they go on here to say they want to increase our development
proficiency by strengthening our internal development capabilities so that we are able to achieve a
greater diversity in our title portfolio. And at the same time they say they
want to make fewer games so they can focus more on making games better and
more high quality. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, that's
what tam. What can you tell me what you think square Enix's problems are
and how you do you have any ideas of how to solve them? I
genuinely don't know if they have a problem. I feel like squarenix is kind
of perception of itself is the problem. They are effectively a boutique RPG developer,
but they are operating much high on a scale, much bigger than anyone
else. They make the biggest RPGs, right Final Fantasy, they make Kingdom
Hearts, they make Dragon Quests. The problem that they have I personally think
is they still see themselves as a multi game publisher that operates, you know,
like a Take two or a two K, whatever it may be,
a sony where they have a bunch of different games and different genres and different
studios's that's not what they're about anymore in my mind, and they could not
have made that more clear. And it's incredibly wild that they're saying this,
given that they sold pretty much every valuable IP they had so that they could
focus on RPGs and the franchises that really do the job for them, like
Dragon Quest, like Final Fantasy, and then experiment with stuff that is close
to that, with things like Octopath and those kind of like two D three
D RPGs still RPGs. This is a case where they're like, what if
we started making other games and made a few of them. It's like,
no, you did this. You gave away one of the most like beloved
ips, multiple of the most beloved eyeps. You got rid of tomb Raider,
you left legacy of kin to rot in your in your dungeons for really
ip dungeons. For a very long time, you could not see that hit
Man was one of the coolest things that had been made in the last decade
of video games, and then you got rid of it. You solid to
embrace the probably the shittest company you could have sold it and for cheaps early,
Yeah, for dirt cheap. And now they're like, what if we
tried to kind of win back some some kind of uh positive will after just
doing this blockchain bullshit and like NFT nonsense. I guess I might like long
and short of it is like square Enix needs to realize that it makes RPGs,
it makes opgs from Japan. It can occasionally branch out and make,
you know, other types of games if it wants to. But like,
there's no way you're going. Let's make different, Let's diversify our portfolio,
make less games and be okay and feel like you can compete. Just understand
what you are now. You chose to be this. You got rid of
the ips that would have allowed you to do what you want to do.
Now you made a conscious decision. Sleep in the bed that you make.
Yeah, own it, And it's like they don't own it if you like
look back, look back to twenty twenty two. Yeah, also like not
to just to put a point on it, like they make the best,
they make some of the best op eg yeah yeah, and be okay with
that, right, and then they kind of don't know what to do with
them a lot of times, and they have a bunch of different games.
Twenty twenty two is like Bablonce Fall, Triangle Strategy, Chocobo GP, Stranger
of Paradise, Chronocross, The Radical Dreamers Edition, the Various Day Life,
Live a Live or Live Alive, Let's see the deal Field, Chronicles,
Valkyria Valkyri, Elysium, Valkyrie Profile, Linith, Star Oceans, Divine Force,
Harvestella Tactics, Ogre Reborn. This is still twenty twenty two Romancing and
Saga, Dragon Quest, Treasures, and then they finished up with a Crisis
Core Final Fantasy seven Reunion. It's like, go back to twenty twenty two.
What was Squaring Nix marketing in that year? A handful of those Final
Fantasy Strangers Paradise a little bit. The rest kind of were left, for
the most part to dwindle. And I don't like that's the problem. Like
a lot of these games are decent and some of them are very good,
and it kind of felt like Squarenx is like they'll they'll just find their way.
I guess they don't know how to make a lot of these games and
then talk about them and market them at the same time. And it feels
like, why is the answer make fewer? Listen, maybe the answer is
make fewer, But why does it make fewer instead of we need to ramp
up our marketing? Is it because you can't afford it? So okay,
if that's the case, I definitely scale back. Yeah, yeah, I
think like the good point of comparison and the company doing it correctly and making
inroads into growing into new ideas again is capcom Like they they realize what is
what is our bread and butter? And they pared back in a lot of
major ways, and they focused on Resident Evil. They went back and they
were like, let's just make remake these Resident Evil games and make them awesome.
And that's exactly what they did. And they use the residin the stability
of very very good Resident Evil remakes, maybe with the exceptional Residual three.
Even though that's it. I guess it's an interesting game. Yeah, it's
the best one, but like the Yeah, so they did that and they
were like, Okay, we'll carry on making these Monster on the games,
which are like knocking it out of the park every single time, and then
on top of that, we'll stop thinking about getting a bit weird. Like
you know, they're like, okay, we made a good Devil Mad Cry
game. Next step, they're doing the smart thing and putting some effort into
Dragons Dogma again that you know, not a you know, not going to
set the world on fire, or the original didn't set the world on fire,
but a lot of buzz around it already, right, And it feels
like they're like, Okay, we have these marquee top of the world game
franchises, and now let's take what we've learned to accomplish that with all these
franchises, reach your hand back down the ladder and pull one of these other
franchises that could be up here on this tier up there. It feels like
it's exactly what they're doing. Dragon's Dogma and squaren Enigs feels like they don't
even own a ladder because that they don't know how to do that at all.
It is just can we get people to care about like these offshoot final
fantasies. Oh they don't even care about that? Really? Okay, great
spoken son you want to pay us to make for spoken that's what they're doing.
It's bizarre. Capcom is taking like random shots as well, like Exo
Primal is one of them. It's like yeah, but it's like you can
the messaging from Capcom isn't like we need to reorient this entire company to what
the fuck is that? That's my monkey? What do you mean? They're
not trying to reorient the entire company to be like we need to be about
making more Exo Primal style stuff. No, they are. They understand like,
no, our bread is buttered with Monza Hunter a resident Eagle street Fighter,
and we'll we'll keep we'll keep making those games. In the meantime,
we'll like ensure that we're still pumping out Phoenix Right games as tenny games.
We'll take a shot every now and then on something weird like a you know,
Excel Primal, but the foundation will remain what it is. Let's not
try and do anything crazy with it. And yeah, yeah, you're right.
I think it's the right approach. I think Extra Primary even seemed like
I had every advantage. It was in game pass. Uh, it had
a lot of people talking about it more than was like talking about a lot
of these screendex games that kind of just come and go yeah, yeah,
and you know what, Capcom, I respect it. I will never respect
you until you give us God hand return Gene to his rightful place in the
in the pantheon of video game grades. Okay, we're rooting for you,
tam all right, Bandai Namco EU in America YouTube accounts have both been updated.
They updated their elder playlist, specifically, damn, let's go ring music.
I'm getting my hopes up for this that this is the real thing.
This has happened before in the past where they did this right before the second
trailer at TGA. I love the idea of doing an office style like cut
to a intern you like I added a song by accident, and they're like,
what playlist? But this happens to me with my YouTube channel all the
time, where like Mike will be like, you added some random like workout
video to our podcast playlist, and like I did show I was just I
think I was trying to watch later if the software band like I added Prodigies
Firestar to the Elder ring fucking playlist. Now everyone thinks there's a Prodigy DLC
coming for this game. What's going on? It would be incredible to get
fired to Firestarter a Firestar. I think this is probably though, this is
probably it. I do think this is probably it. This this is happening
soon, right, I mean like it's happened. Like there was also that
that other leakue on that website. What was it again, Like they put
up some special edition or some another clu control of the Eldern Ring themed control
of that right, Yeah, yeah, I need that ship badly. It
looks like ass I want to. I'm glad. How fucked up? It
looks absolutely and you're that controller was like hey February or whatever. I can't
remember the exact details we talked about it on this show, but yeah,
like that was like yet more circumstantial evidence, and that was like relatively strong
evidence, relatively speaking, more than just like, oh this is when they
do this kind of thing. It feels like, no, that that could
be pointing in this structure really hard. Now we have this and it's just
things. Everything feels like it's lining up for an early part of the year
release for this DLC to line up with the release of the original game two
years ago. Yeah, and I'm too God, is that fucked up?
Yeah? I think it's because I still play that game, and I like,
what like our friends r KG are doing like a very very very long
let's play kind of serious about it on retry and I watch that like every
week. So elder Ring is a constant presence in my life. But yeah,
two years. Actually realize it's been two years. I'm very very ready
for another dose of elder Ring. If I'm honest, let's just put a
final stamp on it before Jones and the elder Ring. Easy. Oh,
that's that's real good. Damn do you believe? Is this it? Oh?
I always believe? You know that I am. If anyone's believing it's
me, Yeah, I mean, what's the worst that happens? You get
your heart broken, you could survive, Like I, I like worst case
scenario. It's it's easier to believe in something that is eventually going to happen
than something that you don't know if it's gonna happen, we come out eventually
sorry about leg Yeah, like you know, I I that's the one thing
I believe in that it was probably not gonna happen for a very long time.
Anyone out there wanna work with me on getting at Me? Power World
is currently Steam's best selling game, and it passed three hundred and fifty thousand
concurrent users on the platforms from Eddie McCoo at GameSpot, pow World, the
Pokemon with Guns game from developer Pocket Pair, is off to a hot start.
The game released today January nineteenth, and has already surpassed three hundred and
fifty thousand concurrent users on Steam. It only trails the free to play games
PUBG Dota two Encounter Strike two in terms of concurrent players. Powerworld is available
now for twenty seven dollars. That price is temporary and we'll go up to
thirty after January twenty fifth. What the fuck? I just love the idea
of like the Pokemon Company office where someone's just sitting there being like if we
gave them a gun, I forget one of them my gun, hey,
and they're like, what are you talking about? They're like this entire game
where they will go guns when we gave one of them my gun, and
it's it's like, the videos are incredible, just like four people run around
just unloading machine guns into these giant slow Pokemon. It's wild. We're gonna
play this today. People, I have a question in Chad if you know,
is it cross play? If someone gets the game Pass version, can
they play with me if I have the Steam version, let me know.
I hope so. I would imagine so. But we'll see. I counterpicked
this game and people seem to like it for Fantasy credit. I counterpicked it.
No, No, it's bad. If people like it, I counterpicked
it. So if people like it, I'm gonna be screwed because because if
it gets like an eighty, I'm gonna lose points yea, and Nicky will
get those points. Nicky will get the points no matter what happens to me.
We'll see. I am I'm I'm worried. I'm not not too excited
about the fact that people love this game, except for we're gonna play it
today, and maybe I'll be excited then. Yeah. Uh eight percent of
game to have say they're making they're making a game on switch Accessor. This
is a GDC survey from my Nintendo News what. Yeah, well this I
was like a lot of people expecting Nintato Switch Accessor to come out this year.
Uh, like, who's piping that into a fucking so well, I
mean I think I think the survey is like the GENCU survey is like really
elaborate and has like a bunch of different options for all these different questions.
It's like what kind of game are you making or what do you make it
stuff for? Uh, and I just like this is for mind Attendo News.
So they picked up the Nintendo aspect of it. But uh, eight
percent, I don't know, it seems low to me. I don't know,
it just feels like it seems like, you know what, right now,
I'm making a game in the switchure success in my mind, Yeah,
let's fucking go. Yeah, that's all it took to move it tone it.
So we had the MPD report yesterday and uh, it's just a quick
correction on that. Uh the MPD report, I mentioned that it doesn't have
full tracking data that's just for title sales. When it comes to like the
overall market sales, all that data is whole, like is complete. Especially
because they're like they work with like directly with platforms on that stuff. They
just can't include stuff like Larian game data on the title charts because they don't
have a deal with Larryan include that that sort of thing. So yeah,
again, Like, I think the weirdest part of this is it's only eight
percent. I think that's probably because people are actually saying I'm working on this.
There's a whole lot of people who have been like, you are never
catching me break. Potentially, I think that's a possibility too. And like,
the reason I brought up the MPD is because yesterday we were like Mapis
can tell in one of his quotes, was saying, there's a lot riding
on the switch success successor, Like the industry is kind of stagnating a little
bit. It's not like collapsing, but it's not growing as fast as we
thought it was going to grow. It was good, it grew one percent.
We were expecting three percent. So now everyone's kind of like, Okay,
the switch too needs to hit, and it's like, oh yeah,
I bet a lot of developers are looking around being like, oh, right,
once the switch two hits, we're gonna jump on board that and try
to get some momentum going right away. And then we see, oh,
eight percent or make it make it switch successor games with the Switch Successor.
It's like, yeah, I think you're probably right. Most developers are like,
no, man, I'm trained I'm I know not to say shit about
shit. Yeah, I have heard a tale of Nintendo tail and I will
not be putting myself anywhere in error. Let's see, let's start getting through
these last few ones. A third of developers saw layoffs at their workplace last
year. Fifty six percent worry it'll happen this year. This is from Chris
going at VGC. This is also part of that GDC State of the Games
Industry survey. It can't be a good thing for the industry that more than
half of game developers TAM are worried that they're going to lose their jobs.
That is no place for the industry to be in. I think back to
EWATA talking about like, hey, we need people to be joyous when they're
making these games, and they just can't do that if they're worried that they're
going to be losing their jobs. So I'm going to take a pay cut
instead of laying people off so that we can keep making good games. Absolutely
just to all time move just a hell of a guy. And then we
get to like, you know, years later, rippy water, we're looking
in the industry that's just like any one could lose your job at any second,
and everyone's worried about it. I think it. You know, we
talk about okay, yeah, the layoffs and in the pandemic, these things
causing delays and games. Uh, people just having low morale is also going
to hurt games in the long run. Uh. This is something we got
to get past. I feel like we've talked about this a bunch of times
before, But like these, the overreach of executives resulting in the everyday developer
who just wants to make games and make art and you know, impact the
lives of others suffering for it is bad enough as it is, but like
these, the result of this is far reaching in that it is creating,
both actually and in terms of perception, the image that the video game industry
is completely unreliable, unstable, and a bad decision to invent in both from
actual people who want to invest in games and that kind of stuff and also
people who want to invest themselves through educating themselves and joining the industry. Is
awful. We are the amount of people who have probably looked at this industry
and been like, I want to make video games and then seeing all the
shit going down and being like this would be the worst decision of my life.
The talent we're probably not even aware of the fact that we're losing is
unbelievable. And the thing is, the people who are making the decisions at
the top of the executives, who are chasing the money and the trends and
that kind of stuff, they're never going to think about this. They do
not care about the future of the industry. The only thing they care about
is right now, how do they make the money, satisfy the investors,
chase those trends, and then give them enough runway to get out while they
can and get out on top. Is I do not trust the big cooperations
at all to think about the future of the industries. I think I'm hoping
that the smaller studios that are popping up are where it's going to happen.
Like I want nothing but the most successful these new studios that are popping up,
just so that it's proof that it's viable and you can join a smaller
team and you can be successful, and you can earn a good wage and
have a good work life balance, and also you know, engage in that
creative game making that you desperately want to do and you don't have to throw
yourself become like join the meek, random machine of the corporate world just to
just to have the chance at these dreams. Yeah, the you write,
the corporations have built this sort of mode around them where it's they don't have
they don't think about it. Whole the whole system works this way, where
it's like layoffs are normal and it's just a levery pole and because of that,
they like they can dehumanize the act in a way and just these are
human resources and we need to reduce that because it's a cost and that's a
risk, And it's all these words terms that never really bring the humanity into
it, and that it feels normal to us now. But I bring this
up. I brought it up all week and I'm gonna keep bring it up.
It's not normal. This is not how humanity works. It's not how
markets worked, it's not how industry worked for the vast majority of our history.
This is a relatively new phenomenon of wighoffs just being a tool you can
use. But the system is here now and it's it's hard to undo that
in these companies. It does benefit these corporations to be that way because it
enables them to take bigger risks because then who gets to pay for it,
Well, you just cut you cut jobs, and then the people pay for
it and not the corporation itself. I also, like, I think that
it's worth saying and it's worth being aware of the fact that it is not
normal, but there is an effort to normalize it, like there is a
there are discussions happening, and the way it's treated, the way it's done
is designed to just become a low hum in the back of this industry that
people, certain people want you to think is normal. And I have seen
much to my life like chagrin and disheartenment, like random everyday people getting behind
this kind of stuff where yeah, I know Twitter is not a good indicator,
but I've seen it beyond there where it's just like, well, maybe
these developers deserved it. And that is the most terrifying part of it.
When the everyday person who loves video games is like glazing up corporations that are
just cutting people to hit number market numbers mouthstones, and then you've got the
gamers being like, I think they deserve this because the last update was terrible
or they did not give me this game that is the scariest part of it.
And what the reason I say that is because like I feel like we're
talking to our audience here, so I know that this is how they are,
but like being able to empathize and understand the plight of these developers who
spend their entire lives trying to make games the best as they can and a
lot of the key decisions are taken away from them, showing them support and
help and understanding that you know, the industry as a whole is hurt by
these layoffs. Is the way that the only way that it stands a chance
of bouncing back if we just get behind this shitty kind of normalization that is
happening. We are just fast tracking the demise of this industry, and you
do not want that. That is how shit like AI takes over. That
is how like artists are pushed out of the roles that you know they need
to have to make sure games are interesting and not homogenized by fucking, you
know, typing into computers and letting it do all the work for you.
Like, you've gotta remember the human element of game development, which somehow I
can actively see being lost in front of me. Yeah, Corporation's never made
a video game. Never, Nintendo's never made a video game. It's the
people that made the games. And god, we got to just keep remembering
that because otherwise we do end up in like letting the system is ever present.
It's hard to notice. It feels like it's natural. It feels like
it's always been there. But like lock of Chat's like, you know,
I'm a kid of a steel worker. This isn't new. It's it's no.
I mean, yeah, that's kind of right. Right when it started.
That's when that's when it began. Where like this generation of corporations that
have just began laying people off in mass starting around like the late seventies early
eighties, and then ever since, it's just been like these companies been like,
oh, we got away with that, we can keep doing that.
And we succeeded that ground and we you know, the strength of unions became
become pretty weak, and it was hard to fight against that, and it's
like we got to stand our ground somewhere, and at a certain point,
the like standing in our ground at that the humanity recognizing the humanity of the
people responsible for these products that we got to stop there the line must be
drawn there, agreed. All right, let's see, we got to get
to the poll question. We have this from yesterday. Have you played Plants
Versus Zombies? Seventy six percent say yes, twenty four percent say no.
They new Plants Versus Zombies coming out. That's a pretty high number, a
pretty big ratio. I suppose Plants Versus Zombies is one of those games where
it's like, yeah, everyone just played that, and seventy six percent yeah,
I guess everyone did just play that. I mean that's why there was
a period of time early in the iPhone's kind of lifetime relatively speaking, where
it was the game to have on your iPhone. Remember, it was like
it had a I think it was a summer or like a year where it
was this is the game that everyone played, in the same way that Angry
Birds and Cut the Rope had it. I think Plants for the Zombies definitely
had a period where it was like this is every every everyone is playing this,
and it was on Facebook, it was on iOS. So I am
completely unsurprised that probably everyone on Earth that has a iPhone probably played at one.
And as we mentioned with that, Plants Versus Zombies three news Plants for
versus Zombies is one of the biggest brands in China, huge massively popular in
that massively populated country. It's also playable on the shitty device that you pay
on on all of gotten. Oh that's right, yeah, I always get
that. They're like two nine and a half games. I'm like, that's
future Jeff's problem. I'm paying the later the time I get that stuff,
ADHD, What can I do about it? All? Right? A new
Pool question here in a second. In the meantime, Tam, what do
you got going on? What should we tell people about Giant Bomb and game
Spot and all that good stuff? You know what? We've got Polwood coming
up in a bit. The season or the finale of the Cowboy Bebop kind
of side story of jeffef Bizarre Adventure is now available is the very very end.
So we watch it kind of we did it in a different way.
We we record a bit, watched the episode together and then record after again,
and it's kind of like an immediate before and after reaction from everyone.
So we will be returning to Jojo very soon. Beyond that, that's pretty
much everything I can think of right now. We've got stuff cooking for next
week obviously, but we'll leave that for next week. Yeah, yeah,
some fun stuff happening. Dance fingers are gonna heal, and we might do
some uh Mario Mario kart racing, something along those lines. I've got a
bunch of ideas. I'm trying to figure out a game to stream like regularly
on the site. It was going to be deaf stranding, but it could
be fun. I don't know. I just wanted to have like a slot
where ice stream a game. Let's see anyone in the chat, Yeah,
check out what you want recommendation. So let's come over with a bunch and
next next Dregs Day, maybe we can uh, maybe we decide something.
There's there's like something, there's probably perfect. There's probably a perfect Yeah,
hit me up on Twitter as well. Just send me, send me what
you reckon? All right, everybody, let's see here. New poll question.
I did do? I did buy a hip Box style leave a less
controller yesterday, so excited. I got the casun out for reasons and uh
boy, I like that thing a lot. How are you enjoying yours?
I have one from Ali Express. Oh really? Oh no, that's awesome?
Is it, like, so, how did it hold up? It's
I haven't got it yet. I saw someone that I follow was like,
I got it from oly Express for eighty dollars and I was like oh,
and he was like playing it and he was like, this thing rules.
I did a bunch of reviews. I read a bunch of reviews and videos
on it, and they were like, yeah, this is a this is
a budget version of these Labalist controllers, and it is better than most of
the like high end ones because you know, it's easily remappable and all this
kind of other business. I'm trying to remember what it was called, said
a sally Box in chat. Is it the sally Box? Sally Box?
Yeah, no it is. What is it called? I've got I've got
a YouTube video here. It is by a company called There's a Ton of
Them bur Garden. Yeah, okay, hot h a U t E forty
two Okay, that is that is the one. It's the it's the company
that makes them, and and yeah it is. It is very good.
The one that I got is called a let me grat it so cool.
I'm just lovingly holding my kidsune with its archie being forty two m sixteen.
Okay, h a U T e forty two eighty dollars is eighty dollars early
express, which is pretty cool. Uh yeah, and it's got a rathererry
pie in there. Okay you yeah, yeah, it is like super easy
to customize as well. I feel like, worst case scenario, it works
for a couple of months, and if it is like cheap ship and breaks
at least by then I'll be like, I know how to I'm good comfortable
using these now and I can switch fully because I still have my Victrix pro
f s, which I adore, but my hands are crippled now, so
you know, be careful when you start using it, because that I did
have some pain, like switching. It took took a second to like figure
out what was comfortable and how to relax the hands in the right way.
So going there, ger I got. Yeah, the one I got is
actually pretty big, so it's got a lot of handspace to like get comfortable
that. There's a smaller version of it which apparently has like much better feeling
buttons, which I almost got, but like it doesn't have a lot of
handspace. But so what I'm gonna do is I also bought some separate like
buttons and stuff. I'm just gonna switch them over. Very excited to hear
about your exploits with this. Maybe when we get together play some fighting games
on this website here pretty soon. That would be a lot of fun.
But yeah, people let me know what they want me to stream on a
regular hit us hits up on Twitter like tamda on Twitter. And then if
you want to bring your suggestion next next Friday for Dregs Day in chat,
we'll keep an eye open. All right, are you going to play Power
World? Yes or no? That's the new poll question. We're going to
talk about that on Monday. My answer is yes, I'm I'm I think
I think this is I guess I should have realized at some point there would
be like one of these Pokemon games that would know this has a big advantage.
It's going to be big in China, and I think that they're gonna
like really kind of give this thing a boost at the beginning here and then
it could take over the world. I could see that happening. We'll see.
I don't know. There's been a bunch of Pokemon style games, right
there was that? Yeah, yeah that that like they do they do well
for a little bit, and then they just like yeah, and then both
of them like, don't ever remember, right? That one actually was like
people are like, yeah, we'll see you, and then never really didn't
much. I think it was still one of the bigger ones though, this
one three hundred, three hundred and fifty thousand current players that I've seen that
I've seen a picture of what looks like an electro buzz with a mini gun,
so I have to at least give it a try. Exactly. All
right, everybody, we're gonna get out of here. Tam, thank you
so much for hanging out with me today and talking about video games. I
really appreciate it. Look at my T shirt. Oh there he is.
He's got to come here son with vegeta going super Saiyan. And then on
the bat is a let's see it can't see the booty. There's a very
small, sad looking trunks on the back because it's it's from that episode where
the is like coming son and then he just fucking absolutely smacks his son into
Alright, that is Mondo cool and thank you everybody for watching. Yes,
all right now, I do just have my hands resting on my consune because
it makes me feel happy. Until next time, have a good one and
take care of yourself and goodbye.