RUMOR: Perfect Dark Could be Headed to PlayStation 5

<v Speaker 1>It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for February third,
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five. For the next hour or so, let
<v Speaker 1>me help you sort through the world of gaming on
<v Speaker 1>Games Mornings Live with me Jeff Grubb. Today, Civilization seven
<v Speaker 1>reviews are in and it's divisive and when is Sony
<v Speaker 1>going to start talking about games again? But first please
<v Speaker 1>join me and welcomeing today's co host, the Game mess Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>It's Emma Fife. Everybody, Emma, how are you doing?
<v Speaker 2>You know, I'm just great. Yeah, live in day to day.
<v Speaker 3>I hope to tell you I watched Cybermania ninety four,
<v Speaker 3>that's a.
<v Speaker 2>Fun one, the other day and it was great.
<v Speaker 3>Honestly, if I were producing the Game Awards, I would
<v Speaker 3>study that.
<v Speaker 2>Very hard at yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And because there's like a lot of things that
<v Speaker 3>they did, right, it's this weird combination of not taking
<v Speaker 3>it seriously enough and taking it to like, yeah, it's
<v Speaker 3>super interesting.
<v Speaker 1>That's the one that also, like Jeff Healy was a
<v Speaker 1>consultant on right, he.
<v Speaker 3>Was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, like it's it's
<v Speaker 3>so weird because the hosting duo is Leslie Nielsen and
<v Speaker 3>Jonathan Taylor, Thomas.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, man, what I mean, what like those are
<v Speaker 1>the rules in ninety four you can't have a show
<v Speaker 1>and not have them host it.
<v Speaker 3>It was like really amazing. I literally like texted Jan
<v Speaker 3>when I was watching it. I was like, wait, this
<v Speaker 3>is kind of awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it's it's incredible. Yeah, I would Uh, We've watched
<v Speaker 1>a couple of shows like that, me and Mike on
<v Speaker 1>our game mess channel, And yeah, I always wanted to
<v Speaker 1>get around to old Cybermania ninety four recommend. Yes, there's
<v Speaker 1>there's a there's some really good. There's some ones that
<v Speaker 1>are like really tough to watch, not even like like
<v Speaker 1>Keeley related. There are some, like the other other award shows,
<v Speaker 1>even from the last several years, that are really rough.
<v Speaker 1>Uh those are a good watch too. So yeah, so
<v Speaker 1>Cybermania is coming back. You think we're gonna get a
<v Speaker 1>Cybermania twenty twenty twenty five this year?
<v Speaker 2>I just I think, Yeah, I think it's time we
<v Speaker 2>bring it back.
<v Speaker 1>Honestly, it's I think we should just do it. We
<v Speaker 1>should just call something Cybermania.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we'll just call We'll do something drive on We'll
<v Speaker 3>just call it Cybermaniasis Dead.
<v Speaker 1>I think Leslie Nielson might be dead. Is he dead?
<v Speaker 2>Thinks? So all right, well we'll get in, but we
<v Speaker 2>could get JTT.
<v Speaker 1>What's he up to? We can? We can get JTT.
<v Speaker 1>When I was young, everyone and and that show is
<v Speaker 1>very popular. Everyone told my brother he looked like Jonathan
<v Speaker 1>Taylor Thomas for years. We could just we could just
<v Speaker 1>get him and have him do it perfect.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we'll just pretend he's j.
<v Speaker 1>No one gonna no one knows what he looks like today,
<v Speaker 1>kidding me exactly. Yeah. I'm also kind of just like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>getting through things, kind of glance up, You're like, oh
<v Speaker 1>my god, kind of very frequently, but then I'm glancing
<v Speaker 1>back down and trying to, I don't know, take care
<v Speaker 1>of what I can take care of. It feels like
<v Speaker 1>eventually they it's like a you know, a toddler tantrum,
<v Speaker 1>they'll wear themselves out. I definitely saw a TikTok or
<v Speaker 1>whatever Instagram reel recently that kind of said the term
<v Speaker 1>that I've been thinking about for a long time. There's
<v Speaker 1>a podcast called I can't remember what it's called, but
<v Speaker 1>it's about brain science, about the like studying the brain
<v Speaker 1>and all the various things that we have. And it's
<v Speaker 1>there's a thing called an extinction burst, where when you
<v Speaker 1>try to stop a behavior, that that behavior flares up
<v Speaker 1>one last time before it actually before you're actually able
<v Speaker 1>to extinguish it. And so that's why it's so hard
<v Speaker 1>to quit so many things that are addictive. And we're
<v Speaker 1>having that definitely on a cultural scale right now. It
<v Speaker 1>feels like there is an extinction burst of people who
<v Speaker 1>feel like they are cornered and they are are lashing
<v Speaker 1>out and destroying everything. And you know that doesn't mean
<v Speaker 1>we just got to sit there and take it. But sometimes,
<v Speaker 1>like it's like forty atrocities a day, I'm gonna have
<v Speaker 1>to just sort of yeah, grand and Barrett a little
<v Speaker 1>bit because I can't even keep up with it.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, you have to take breaks too, you know.
<v Speaker 3>It's like you gotta you want to be involved where
<v Speaker 3>you can, And like, I think a lot of what
<v Speaker 3>we can affect is very much in our like personal communities,
<v Speaker 3>our communities around us. And yeah, I think that that's
<v Speaker 3>that's like a good way to look at it.
<v Speaker 2>Again. It's like I I focus again on how.
<v Speaker 3>Like helpful the response was locally when we had the
<v Speaker 3>fires in La you know, it's like people showed up
<v Speaker 3>to help each other.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, exactly, Yep. I'm gonna do what I can and people,
<v Speaker 1>you know, people can tell them like, hey, it's getting
<v Speaker 1>to me. And when I talked about it the other day,
<v Speaker 1>I was like, yeah, it's getting to me and I
<v Speaker 1>am lashing out. It was more like I am not
<v Speaker 1>happy with my behavior of my reaction. But there were
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of shows like hey, hey, checking in on you,
<v Speaker 1>making sure you're doing all right, and I love that.
<v Speaker 1>Sots and lots of nice people out there. All right,
<v Speaker 1>let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes
<v Speaker 1>breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
<v Speaker 1>For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
<v Speaker 1>bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If
<v Speaker 1>you are watching live on twitch welcome. You can always
<v Speaker 1>listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
<v Speaker 1>for Game Mess Mornings or find the Rsson Giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot com. You can also catch the show later with
<v Speaker 1>chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we
<v Speaker 1>have a lot to get into, so let's start the
<v Speaker 1>Morning Mess with those afore mentioned Civilization seven early reviews.
<v Speaker 1>This headline from Darren bonce Use at GameSpot does point
<v Speaker 1>out that he's finding them to be divisive. Civilizations seven
<v Speaker 1>reviews have gone live in the new entry in the
<v Speaker 1>series is proved to be quite divisive with critics. A
<v Speaker 1>four X turn based strategy games, Civilization seven offers a
<v Speaker 1>familiar foundation for returning players, as you'll pick an influential
<v Speaker 1>leader and from human history, expand an empire through various eras,
<v Speaker 1>and aim to reach multiple societal milestones along the way.
<v Speaker 1>The different sias that developer practis shakes up the formula
<v Speaker 1>with big changes, with these tweaks ranging from impactful to
<v Speaker 1>possibly controversial for veterans of the series. It's also worth
<v Speaker 1>noting that all these reviews were done on PC, at
<v Speaker 1>the platform that's generally considered to be the best for
<v Speaker 1>traditional four X strategy games like this. The metacritics score
<v Speaker 1>right now is seventy nine. It is coming out to everything.
<v Speaker 1>On the eleventh, Game Spot gave it an eighty. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Jason Rodriguez over there saying sid Meyer Civilization
<v Speaker 1>seven's one more turn aspect is still as engaging as
<v Speaker 1>ever and I enjoyed huge portions of my playthrough several facets,
<v Speaker 1>such as such as those related to diplomacy, espionage, crises,
<v Speaker 1>and combat, address long standing concerns. Legacy and narrative events meanwhile,
<v Speaker 1>offer rich and rewarding avenues for advancement through the ages. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>as someone who's seen the heights that the previous series
<v Speaker 1>entries have reached, the Vanilla Civilization seven experience still needs
<v Speaker 1>a few tweaks, as it's held back by aforementioned issues
<v Speaker 1>that occurred during brief but crucial era transitions. Granted, the
<v Speaker 1>changes this series has undergone over the years, whether it's
<v Speaker 1>the square tiles or Hex's debate the one unit per
<v Speaker 1>tile drama, or city planning with districts, have been for
<v Speaker 1>the better, have been improved for the better. Now is
<v Speaker 1>what he's getting at. VGC gave it a five out
<v Speaker 1>of five. Windows Central gave it a four point five
<v Speaker 1>out of five. VG twenty four to seven gave it
<v Speaker 1>a four out of five. Games Radar gave it a
<v Speaker 1>four out of five. I Engine gave it a seventy,
<v Speaker 1>and then Eurogamer gave it a forty out of one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>I believe, so let's go with this negative review here
<v Speaker 1>from Sindage. Civilization seven is pretty and detailed and sounds fine.
<v Speaker 1>I caught that one tune from Colonization that's an older
<v Speaker 1>Sin Myers game. AI turns Out or Turns are perhaps
<v Speaker 1>the fastest I've ever seen, and it's ui has enough
<v Speaker 1>potential to make some of my complaints feel patchable. It's
<v Speaker 1>designs broadly work and a certain kind of city optimizing
<v Speaker 1>fan may even love it, but its lack of character
<v Speaker 1>is endemic endemic, and the extent of its annoying habits
<v Speaker 1>and oversights shocking or shocking for a series of such pedigree.
<v Speaker 1>It's a dull, condricted, contradictory game. Excuse me, and instead
<v Speaker 1>of showing everyone how it's done, it's felt since our
<v Speaker 1>one like a game that leaves the four x thrown empty.
<v Speaker 1>I've been playing this. I've been playing this game on
<v Speaker 1>my skin deck mostly and nice. Uh yeah, I get
<v Speaker 1>I was. This is not surprising to me. I'm playing this.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, this is gonna be divisive now. I think
<v Speaker 1>it is solid from the point of view of when
<v Speaker 1>these games come out, they usually go through the ringer
<v Speaker 1>a little bit where people are unhappy with the first
<v Speaker 1>Vanilla entry, as as one of the reviews mentioned, and
<v Speaker 1>I think, like comparing it to other launch versions of CIV,
<v Speaker 1>this one's pretty good. They've got most of the stuff
<v Speaker 1>kind of figured out. I think the problem is I'm
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'm I'm one game in, right, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>even even completed my first game, so I'm still learning
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the stuff. So I'm in that weird
<v Speaker 1>early relationship period where I'm like, is this stuff not substantial?
<v Speaker 1>Or am I not understanding how to engage with it?
<v Speaker 1>Both are a possibility, and I always keep that open,
<v Speaker 1>and I you know, I think it's always going to
<v Speaker 1>be hard to review a game like this in a
<v Speaker 1>few days, a game that people are going to play
<v Speaker 1>for years and years. But I think I've kind of
<v Speaker 1>settled in on like, hey, i think this game is
<v Speaker 1>still very like, very playable. There are a lot of
<v Speaker 1>good aspects to it. I think the era system, where
<v Speaker 1>it's like you are picking a leader at the beginning
<v Speaker 1>of the game, and then you play through like one
<v Speaker 1>era and it's almost like a period and a in
<v Speaker 1>a sport, and a sport like like hockey, it's okay,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna like finish this period and then we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>kind of wipe everything. Not everything. You're gonna keep your
<v Speaker 1>sales where they are mostly, but you know, uh, and
<v Speaker 1>a lot of them are going to revert to a
<v Speaker 1>more starting state. So you could do that early part
<v Speaker 1>of civilization that does work really well over and over again,
<v Speaker 1>and I think that works, but it's it also makes
<v Speaker 1>it feel like you lose a little bit of the
<v Speaker 1>character of your civilization. It also feels like some of
<v Speaker 1>that in game stuff you're working toward where it's like
<v Speaker 1>I'm a behemoth now and I could just steamroll everybody
<v Speaker 1>you might, it doesn't feel like you'll necessarily get to
<v Speaker 1>that point in the same kind of way. And then
<v Speaker 1>I think like stuff like these the crises are uh,
<v Speaker 1>there's not much to them. Like every you know, handful
<v Speaker 1>of turns, every twenty five turns, every fifty turns, one
<v Speaker 1>of my cities starts getting sick, they have an outbreak
<v Speaker 1>or something like that, and I got to deal with that.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, okay, to deal with that. I got to
<v Speaker 1>start training doctors, and then I got to send the
<v Speaker 1>doctors to the other side of the world because I've
<v Speaker 1>started expanding to the other side of the world, and
<v Speaker 1>I can't build doctors over there yet, but my cities
<v Speaker 1>won't do that fast enough. And so far, by the
<v Speaker 1>time I've been ready to deal with the crises, they've
<v Speaker 1>ended and we've moved on, and it felt like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this is I mean, I think, you know, it's not
<v Speaker 1>the worst thing in the world. It adds some like
<v Speaker 1>obstacles pushback from the game, sure, but I think it's
<v Speaker 1>pretty good. But it's like, I think a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the stuff is just insubstantial, where you are going to
<v Speaker 1>get these narrative choices, similar to the crises, where it's say, okay,
<v Speaker 1>pick these two things and it's some text and there's
<v Speaker 1>a little bonus that you might get from like oh,
<v Speaker 1>plus twenty percent on your science research for the next
<v Speaker 1>ten turns, and like that's the thing that's going to matter,
<v Speaker 1>and it's not. It's so far away from something like
<v Speaker 1>a Crusader Kings that is like all about making you
<v Speaker 1>feel like you have this lineage going from the beginning
<v Speaker 1>of the end of the game that it's like, uh,
<v Speaker 1>this is gesturing towards an idea and not really a
<v Speaker 1>substantial idea itself. Soper. Yeah, I think it's I think
<v Speaker 1>it's solid fun. I'm enjoying myself, but a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the new ideas are not hitting for me.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, So it's it's like you are, it's yeah,
<v Speaker 3>as you say, it's kind of like each era is
<v Speaker 3>like a chapter or it's like another part in a
<v Speaker 3>book series where it's like, oh, there's a lot of
<v Speaker 3>related stuff, but you have it's not necessarily building on
<v Speaker 3>the foundations that were established in the previous era.
<v Speaker 2>For this, the purpose of this simile the first book. Yep, yeah, interesting, interesting.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I'm still interested in it.
<v Speaker 3>And Mike Manati I saw in chat wants people to
<v Speaker 3>know that he's played it and he likes it. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>but you know, look, I I like turn based strategy games.
<v Speaker 3>I have never played CIV, but this is you know
<v Speaker 3>that sounds up my alley.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean I think the really good thing here
<v Speaker 1>for me is this thing works great on the Steam deck.
<v Speaker 1>There are some there's some bugs ui bugs, Like I'll
<v Speaker 1>be hovering over a bunch of options in a list
<v Speaker 1>and then eventually the highlighted part, like the thing that says, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you are hovering over this option will just kind of
<v Speaker 1>like double itself and then stay on one of them.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like they're there's two options I might be
<v Speaker 1>clicking on. I'm not sure which one it is, so
<v Speaker 1>I have to go up and down until it goes
<v Speaker 1>away on the dead sort of highlight here there is.
<v Speaker 1>It's kind of hard sometimes when, especially once the cities
<v Speaker 1>get very populated with different buildings, to tell which cell
<v Speaker 1>of the hexagon that you're highlighting, and that's a little frustrating.
<v Speaker 1>I imagine that could be as much of an issue
<v Speaker 1>on PC as it is on Steam Deck. And so yeah,
<v Speaker 1>just little things where it's like, Okay, I think they're
<v Speaker 1>going to be able to improve this over time, but
<v Speaker 1>as it is right now I have I kind of
<v Speaker 1>can't put it down. It is still Civilization. It's still
<v Speaker 1>one of those games. And I think the real story
<v Speaker 1>here is this is a good start, and in a
<v Speaker 1>lot of ways it's a better start than many recent
<v Speaker 1>Sieve games have had. And so if you have faith
<v Speaker 1>that the studio will continue to support this game, which
<v Speaker 1>you should have based on their track record, you're in
<v Speaker 1>for a nice, long, well supported game that is going
<v Speaker 1>to be there for you for quite some time. Let's see, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>real quick Kingdom come delivering reviews came in as well.
<v Speaker 1>It's doing very well. I'm going to refresh on Open
<v Speaker 1>Credit guy. It's at a ninety one right now on
<v Speaker 1>Open Credit. PC Gamer gave it a ninety out of
<v Speaker 1>one hundred, says Kingdom Come Deliverance two is a big, bold, bold,
<v Speaker 1>unnutterably weird thing. I don't know what that means, and
<v Speaker 1>it's a new RPG. Classic Game Rank gave it a
<v Speaker 1>ten out of ten, says with Kingdom Come Deliverance Too,
<v Speaker 1>where Her Studios delivers one of the first great games
<v Speaker 1>of twenty twenty five. Game Spot gave it a nine
<v Speaker 1>out of ten. It says it is a Triumph sequel,
<v Speaker 1>improving upon its predecessor with an open world RPG that
<v Speaker 1>delights in its complexity and emphasis on player choice. Gotta
<v Speaker 1>say this was one I'm like, and they're sitting out
<v Speaker 1>those reviews early. I got my eyes on it, but
<v Speaker 1>I'm you know, I'll play it once it's out, once
<v Speaker 1>I hear good things. These are very good things. This
<v Speaker 1>is very exciting. A lot of the reviews are in,
<v Speaker 1>so I imagine that the yeah, fifty four reviews are in,
<v Speaker 1>so this is probably where it's gonna settle in around
<v Speaker 1>like ninety ninety one, maybe eighty nine after a few
<v Speaker 1>more reviews. That's still though, that's enough to be considered
<v Speaker 1>for game of the year. A lot of the games
<v Speaker 1>last year that we're considered a game of the year
<v Speaker 1>were right in this zone on these aggregate sites. Any
<v Speaker 1>interesting Kingdom Come Deliverance too.
<v Speaker 3>I've been working on some paid projects for it go.
<v Speaker 1>You're sorry, Oh no, I think they have a lot
<v Speaker 1>of confidence in this game though, so I think, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>They're very they have a lot of confidence in this game.
<v Speaker 2>They are very particular about this time.
<v Speaker 1>I bet that's true as well. Yes, yeah, yeah, Kiko
<v Speaker 1>Manbuster says, I know one drafted it. I think I
<v Speaker 1>think you're right. I don't think anyone drafted. I wonder
<v Speaker 1>if anyone in our Fantasy Critic League is what we're referencing,
<v Speaker 1>actually ended up picking up in free agency either. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. I'll have to take a look here in
<v Speaker 1>a little bit. But yeah, that's a really good score
<v Speaker 1>for this game, and hey, I might that might be
<v Speaker 1>the next game I check out. I'm in the world
<v Speaker 1>in the mood for an open world RPG. That is weird,
<v Speaker 1>and these reviews are described and I don't know what
<v Speaker 1>makes it weird, but I'm ready to find out for myself. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>all right, let's keep moving here. PlayStation State of Play
<v Speaker 1>set to air later this month, according to a report.
<v Speaker 1>This is from George Yang at GameSpot. Sony is reportedly
<v Speaker 1>airing its next place station State of Play presentation sometime
<v Speaker 1>this month, possibly during the week of Valentine's Day. This
<v Speaker 1>comes from industry insider Nate. The hate shout out to Nate,
<v Speaker 1>who previously correctly reported when the switch to was going
<v Speaker 1>to be revealed. When asked about when the next State
<v Speaker 1>of Play presentation would air, Nate answered, what does your
<v Speaker 1>heart tell you? The heart reference might be hinting at
<v Speaker 1>Valentine's Day. Asked for what PlayStation could show off in
<v Speaker 1>a new state of Play, he talks that way, Nate
<v Speaker 1>talks that way. They mixed dropped his kinds of Sentence.
<v Speaker 1>Desk Training two and Ghost You are slated to launch
<v Speaker 1>this year. Andsomniac Games recently went through a management shakeup,
<v Speaker 1>but has yet to reveal a release date from Marvel's Wolverine.
<v Speaker 1>Given PlayStation's disastrous live service initiative, including reportedly canceling a
<v Speaker 1>live service, God of Warrens and the shutdown of Concord.
<v Speaker 1>It's unclear whether will Haven Studios, Fair Games or Bungeee's
<v Speaker 1>Marathon soon. I think both those games, I you know,
<v Speaker 1>Reckon are supposed to be out this year. Marathon is
<v Speaker 1>definitely supposed to be out this year. Who knows what
<v Speaker 1>happens with either of those, But if they were going
<v Speaker 1>to cancel those, I suppose they would have done it
<v Speaker 1>by now, But I don't know they are. They're you know,
<v Speaker 1>as we talked about with the cancelation of that God
<v Speaker 1>of War game, Emma, Sony was going around and kind
<v Speaker 1>of taking stock of what it had, and maybe it's
<v Speaker 1>in the middle of that process. Still still I'm not
<v Speaker 1>sure either way. State of play later this month just
<v Speaker 1>sounds right to me. I have not looked into it
<v Speaker 1>since this new round of rumors. I looked into it
<v Speaker 1>a few weeks ago, and I couldn't find anything that
<v Speaker 1>is not evidence of absence. There's always the chance that like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not hearing anything that doesn't mean anything. So I
<v Speaker 1>believe this sounds right. It also, just like lines up with,
<v Speaker 1>there's gonna be a lot of games coming out soon,
<v Speaker 1>and PlayStation will probably want to like promote some of
<v Speaker 1>those in a state of play thing while also talking
<v Speaker 1>about what's coming later this year for them. I think
<v Speaker 1>this does happen in the next couple of weeks, how
<v Speaker 1>about you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean, look, we're it's that time of year.
<v Speaker 3>We're getting into February where a lot of very long
<v Speaker 3>games are being released, and you know, we've got we.
<v Speaker 2>Just don't know what's coming from PlayStation at this point.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, this definitely sounds right to me. And you know,
<v Speaker 3>I think that it was also mentioned that, you know
<v Speaker 3>that we've got some television adaptations that are you know,
<v Speaker 3>based on PlayStation properties.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know, it sounds right.
<v Speaker 1>I don't much to say outside of that, Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally.
<v Speaker 1>You know. I like I've said before, when I did
<v Speaker 1>look into this, I heard that a Nintendo direct would
<v Speaker 1>be happening for the Switch one in February. Sure, so
<v Speaker 1>we've already had Microsoft do their thing. These big companies
<v Speaker 1>are looking to get out there and do their direct
<v Speaker 1>to consumer show in the first couple of months, So
<v Speaker 1>that part of me is just like, yeah, of course
<v Speaker 1>Sony needs to do this. But you know, we've said
<v Speaker 1>that before, and the company definitely seems like they're in
<v Speaker 1>a position where if they don't have anything to talk about,
<v Speaker 1>they won't talk about anything. And really then and then
<v Speaker 1>when they do do a state of play, it's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of times it can be it can feel obligatory
<v Speaker 1>where they just did this because they told some developers, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we will put you in a state of play. So
<v Speaker 1>that is us living up to our end of providing
<v Speaker 1>a certain amount of money's worth of marketing. So God,
<v Speaker 1>should we even be getting our hopes up for this.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like we should, but they're canceling a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of games. I don't know, what do you think?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean.
<v Speaker 3>It was interesting, you know, going through your list here
<v Speaker 3>and seeing things like, oh yeah, I kind of forgot
<v Speaker 3>about the Wolverine game and things like that. So I
<v Speaker 3>think that, like, there are enough things that are in
<v Speaker 3>the ether that are due for more infra.
<v Speaker 2>But as you say, there is a certain.
<v Speaker 3>Level of obligation when you have all these other companies
<v Speaker 3>like Xbox, like Switch doing their you know, first party
<v Speaker 3>like dev streams, and especially with things like Nintendo coming
<v Speaker 3>out with.
<v Speaker 2>The new hardware.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that yes, we
<v Speaker 3>may see this, but also it may not be anything
<v Speaker 3>that is too.
<v Speaker 2>Exciting.
<v Speaker 3>It'll just be like, oh, here's what we have to
<v Speaker 3>show of Ghost of Bota or something that you know,
<v Speaker 3>we we know about that we've seen a little bit of.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I think you right. They'll definitely have like
<v Speaker 1>Ghost of Yote information there. They will, Yeah, probably, you know,
<v Speaker 1>talk about like this does happen Valentine's Day, Monster Hunter
<v Speaker 1>Wilde could just pop in there because that's coming out
<v Speaker 1>later in the month, that sort of thing, updates on
<v Speaker 1>big games that are coming soon right date, on a
<v Speaker 1>game they've already announced, and then maybe one other surprise,
<v Speaker 1>I mean for a while there, Like we could have
<v Speaker 1>one of these shows on the horizon and be like,
<v Speaker 1>and this is where we hear about the new Blue
<v Speaker 1>Point game. Well, as far as we're aware, that game
<v Speaker 1>was canceled and uh and they made you know, and
<v Speaker 1>as far as we're aware, they didn't have anything else
<v Speaker 1>in the works. Maybe they maybe they did. Maybe this
<v Speaker 1>was a separate project from the Hey they're working on
<v Speaker 1>an entirely new game, and maybe you could we could
<v Speaker 1>read into that meaning well, couldn't that couldn't be the
<v Speaker 1>God of War things that's not entirely new, But I
<v Speaker 1>don't think that's what they meant. So yeah, it's kind
<v Speaker 1>of hard to like imagine what they're going to fill
<v Speaker 1>this in with, uh other if it's not like something
<v Speaker 1>like Wolverine. And I still I'm still not sure if
<v Speaker 1>that Wolverine game is coming out this year.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I truly forgot about it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like, I just don't want to get my hopes
<v Speaker 1>up for it, like like, and so I do I
<v Speaker 1>put in the back burner, not even on the backburn
<v Speaker 1>it's completely off the stove. And and you know, those
<v Speaker 1>leaks come out and say, hey, they might have that
<v Speaker 1>Venom game first, or maybe they canceled that or moved
<v Speaker 1>it down the line or aren't going to do it
<v Speaker 1>right away, and say, okay, so that was going to
<v Speaker 1>come before Wolverine. So Wolverine was kind of never planned
<v Speaker 1>for this year. I not getting my hopes up for
<v Speaker 1>something like that. Yeah, okay, let's keep going here. Community
<v Speaker 1>testing plans for EA's new Battlefield game have seemingly leaked.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Tom Iven at VGC. The first details
<v Speaker 1>of EA's community testing plans for the next Battlefield game
<v Speaker 1>have seemingly leaked ahead of an eminent announcement on Sunday.
<v Speaker 1>I think this announcement has now happened, by the way, everybody,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure, but I think it popped off while
<v Speaker 1>we were doing this on Sunday. The publisher told fans
<v Speaker 1>to tune in on Monday, February third at five pm
<v Speaker 1>Central European time eight a m. Pacific daylight savings time.
<v Speaker 1>That's you know now for information about the upcoming Battlefield
<v Speaker 1>community testing program. According to a Reddit user, details about
<v Speaker 1>the program were added to Battlefield for end game ahead
<v Speaker 1>of schedule. Battlefield Labs is a new exclusive testing environment
<v Speaker 1>connecting a selected number of players directly with our developers.
<v Speaker 1>Reads a message when they booted up the game. You'll
<v Speaker 1>test while providing us with crucial feedback in order to
<v Speaker 1>make the best Battlefield possible, or kicking things off with
<v Speaker 1>players in Europe and North America before looking to expand
<v Speaker 1>in the future. While spaces are limited, we encourage everyone
<v Speaker 1>to sign up. The next Battlefield game has been in
<v Speaker 1>production at multiple internal studios for several years. He revealed
<v Speaker 1>that the first details on the new Battlefield late last year,
<v Speaker 1>alongside confirmation it would hold testing in twenty twenty five. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield's in a weird place where it's not call of duty.
<v Speaker 1>It never was call of duty, but it was trying
<v Speaker 1>to be and where they could just be pulling out
<v Speaker 1>put out one every year and get a huge audience
<v Speaker 1>of people that will just show up. They definitely got
<v Speaker 1>to a situation where they were putting out battlefields and
<v Speaker 1>they were backfiring or missing the mark and people were happy.
<v Speaker 1>And more recently it feels like there were more misses
<v Speaker 1>than hits, not that they haven't had hits. I think
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield one is still very well regarded among that community.
<v Speaker 1>Things like that people In fact, people go back to
<v Speaker 1>that one instead of playing some of these other more
<v Speaker 1>recent battlefields like twenty forty nine. I want to say,
<v Speaker 1>it's probably not the right number. So okay, I get like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we got to shift this and try to make it
<v Speaker 1>work by working with the community. I wonder if that's like,
<v Speaker 1>if this is just a marketing thing, or if this
<v Speaker 1>is really how they're approaching this game where it's say, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we got to work with them, kind of build up
<v Speaker 1>goodwill and find out what's going to work and let
<v Speaker 1>them know that we're prioritizing what they want first. Do
<v Speaker 1>you think that's real here.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, do I think it's real? I'm not one
<v Speaker 3>hundred percent sure. Do I think it ought to be real? Yes, because,
<v Speaker 3>as you say, if you are, because again it's the
<v Speaker 3>idea of it was never call of duty, but it's
<v Speaker 3>kind of trying to be call of duty. So I
<v Speaker 3>think that again, it's like the way that you build
<v Speaker 3>up goodwill with the community is.
<v Speaker 2>To collaborate with them.
<v Speaker 3>And also again you're putting yourself in a position of
<v Speaker 3>being able to listen to your players and go, okay,
<v Speaker 3>while what is working about this game, what isn't working
<v Speaker 3>about this game? And in you know, I think you
<v Speaker 3>just build up a lot of loyalty that way of
<v Speaker 3>people who feel like they had some sort of contribution
<v Speaker 3>to the process and felt like they were listened to
<v Speaker 3>by the devs. I think that that is a hugely
<v Speaker 3>important part of game development these days. I mean, especially
<v Speaker 3>we see with so many indie titles them going out
<v Speaker 3>in like early access, and you look back on something
<v Speaker 3>like you know, we talked about many times the disaster
<v Speaker 3>that was concered, It's like, well, I think a way
<v Speaker 3>to sort of attempt to future prove yourself against something
<v Speaker 3>like that is to again be in there, you know,
<v Speaker 3>with the community to offer up these opportunities. I'm looking
<v Speaker 3>at an article in Eurogamer right now about this and basically,
<v Speaker 3>you know, you have to sign up and sign an
<v Speaker 3>NDA to test out some of the classic modes that
<v Speaker 3>they're planning to put in this, like conquest and breakthrough.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, I mean I think that that the idea
<v Speaker 3>of having these test periods that include the community and
<v Speaker 3>have those times for player feedback are Yeah. I mean
<v Speaker 3>it's like, that's that's what they should do, and they
<v Speaker 3>should take that seriously and not just use it as
<v Speaker 3>a marketing play.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I think, you know, the most optimistic way
<v Speaker 1>to read this is, hey, Vince Sampella, this is really
<v Speaker 1>his first battlefield where he's taken over. Twenty forty nine was, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the you know, the last leadership group's last chance to
<v Speaker 1>really say, hey, we have a good handle what battlefield
<v Speaker 1>is and what it needs to be for the future,
<v Speaker 1>and we're going to deliver that with this game and
<v Speaker 1>people are going to be happy. And it didn't really
<v Speaker 1>go that way. And now Vince Sampella fully in charge
<v Speaker 1>and he is maybe bringing in some of that that
<v Speaker 1>that old Respawn idea and energy and really, you know
<v Speaker 1>that the Respawn way of doing things. We talked about
<v Speaker 1>this before on the show is something that did look at,
<v Speaker 1>especially after a Peck's Legends, like we want more of
<v Speaker 1>that now. Their way of doing things is we're going
<v Speaker 1>to have half a development be come up with just
<v Speaker 1>every great idea you can pop possibly think of. We
<v Speaker 1>are going to It's not don't worry about what if
<v Speaker 1>it can work in the final game. Every great idea
<v Speaker 1>you have, let's get it up, let's test it for years,
<v Speaker 1>and then the second half development is take the best
<v Speaker 1>of those and make a game based on it. And
<v Speaker 1>you know that this is not exactly that, although I
<v Speaker 1>get the idea that they're also doing that as well
<v Speaker 1>as reaching out to fans, but it's like, okay, well,
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield is a legacy franchise that has, excuse me, has
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people who have a lot of preconceived
<v Speaker 1>notions about what it should be. If you are bringing
<v Speaker 1>in every great idea you have and that is going
<v Speaker 1>to change things up for Battlefield, Maybe slowly introducing them
<v Speaker 1>to the community, let them get used to it or
<v Speaker 1>give their feedback, and if they really hate it, letting
<v Speaker 1>them say so. Is a good way to like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we're going to try to feel this out. So I
<v Speaker 1>am I have faith in this team just because hey,
<v Speaker 1>they have Vince Appella in charge, and he's like one
<v Speaker 1>of the few senior executives that seems like is not
<v Speaker 1>constantly mismanaging projects. So I'm hopeful on that side of things.
<v Speaker 1>You know that this is them fully come out there
<v Speaker 1>and be like, hey, it's happening. And as always that's
<v Speaker 1>probably a part of it is Hey, we would like
<v Speaker 1>you to come work at our studio if you want
<v Speaker 1>to make this game. So we're probably years away still
<v Speaker 1>from seeing this thing finally delivered. And really you know
<v Speaker 1>that this is now EA doing this with a second game.
<v Speaker 1>They did this with Skate as well. Skate four is
<v Speaker 1>another game that has been in development with a lot
<v Speaker 1>of public testing for years. So if this is Thea's
<v Speaker 1>a new way of doing things, okay, I mean, I
<v Speaker 1>just don't know if it's really going to be enough
<v Speaker 1>to undo what EA has become when it makes these
<v Speaker 1>kinds of games.
<v Speaker 3>You know, Yeah, I mean, e A they've got a
<v Speaker 3>reputation working against them at this point.
<v Speaker 2>Should always say.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, definitely, that's the right way to put it. All right,
<v Speaker 1>let's take a quick break. When we come back, plenty
<v Speaker 1>of more headlines to get into, including EA is currently
<v Speaker 1>investigating numerous issues with SIMS one and two, just like
<v Speaker 1>we kind of predicted when we talked about that last week.
<v Speaker 1>We'll talk about that right after this. All right, let's
<v Speaker 1>get right back into it. And that SIMS one and
<v Speaker 1>two rerelease did happen. And I remember liked last week
<v Speaker 1>being like, you know, the fans will take a look
<v Speaker 1>at this and they'll let us know what's really going on. Well,
<v Speaker 1>they've done exactly that, and according to Chris Scullion at VGC,
<v Speaker 1>there's been some issues. EA says it's investigating reports that
<v Speaker 1>its recent re releases of the SIMS and SIMS two
<v Speaker 1>have numerous issues. Last Friday, EA re released the SIMS
<v Speaker 1>one and two as a new legacy collection versions with
<v Speaker 1>all that included all previous DLC except the IKEA pack
<v Speaker 1>release for the SIMS two. Apparently, However, over the weekend,
<v Speaker 1>players have began reporting numerous issues with the game, ranging
<v Speaker 1>from gameplay bugs and graphical errors to the game simply
<v Speaker 1>not loading at all. At the end of the writing,
<v Speaker 1>the official SIMS forms are full of separate threads from
<v Speaker 1>user experience, users experiencing crashing file the file deletions, disappearing
<v Speaker 1>food and furniture direct ex conflicts, game save issues, and
<v Speaker 1>both games not booting in the first place. Now Eya
<v Speaker 1>has released a statement acknowledging the problem problems, telling players
<v Speaker 1>it's looking into solutions. So, I mean this always happens.
<v Speaker 1>So at a certain point, I'm like, this just must
<v Speaker 1>be kind of how software works sometimes, where you kind
<v Speaker 1>of try to piece it together and you're like, we
<v Speaker 1>got to just put it out so that people can
<v Speaker 1>try it on all their various systems and then we'll
<v Speaker 1>fix it at that point. But also, like SIMS one
<v Speaker 1>and two, this re release, people are telling me, I'm
<v Speaker 1>not super tapped into the sim scenes, but people are
<v Speaker 1>telling me, hey, this is for those people who find
<v Speaker 1>SIMS four too complicated and are nostalgia for SIMS one
<v Speaker 1>and two and they just want to go install those
<v Speaker 1>and play the games that they knew, and giving them
<v Speaker 1>this sort of rough experience out of the gate has
<v Speaker 1>got to be it's got to take the wind out.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of those people's sales were like, Okay, PC
<v Speaker 1>gaming is broken, and I.
<v Speaker 3>All right, yeah, I mean, look, again, as we say
<v Speaker 3>EA reputation working against them, sounds like the SIMS just
<v Speaker 3>releasing and having all kinds of issues. And again it's like,
<v Speaker 3>I feel like we've had this conversation like a week
<v Speaker 3>ago where we were talking about like the appeal of
<v Speaker 3>a of a like console versus a PC, and to me,
<v Speaker 3>this sounds like, you know, your sort of classic PC
<v Speaker 3>gaming issues that come up, which is why you know,
<v Speaker 3>you do have people that really gravitate towards consoles. And again,
<v Speaker 3>like consoles are becoming more finicky as they become more
<v Speaker 3>like PCs, however, they still are very much a plug
<v Speaker 3>and play out the gate kind of thing.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, I mean, look, I.
<v Speaker 3>Get that this is for people who are I don't know,
<v Speaker 3>overwhelmed by the amount of options and things to do
<v Speaker 3>in the more recent SIMS titles, But they're not going
<v Speaker 3>to show up for that's not loading.
<v Speaker 1>You know, they're not. I mean, at a certain point
<v Speaker 1>it's like, hey, I wanted to sit down and enjoy this,
<v Speaker 1>and if it's going to be broken that they went out,
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, uh in chat At points out
<v Speaker 1>that EA needs to win before earnings tomorrow, and really,
<v Speaker 1>I think that's what a lot of these things happening
<v Speaker 1>recently with the A are about. Last time we were
<v Speaker 1>talking about ya, it was FIFA or EA football Club
<v Speaker 1>now football Club and Dragon Age the rail Guard both
<v Speaker 1>missing their marks. You know, that was definitely much more
<v Speaker 1>on Football Club than the Veil Guard, but both missed
<v Speaker 1>their mark and the EA stock took a pretty big hit.
<v Speaker 1>And they announced that in the lead up to this
<v Speaker 1>earnings call because they were trying to like get ahead
<v Speaker 1>of it and be like, hey, expect some bad news.
<v Speaker 1>So they're trying to like build up some momentum now,
<v Speaker 1>but hey, there's a new battlefield coming where this is
<v Speaker 1>us officially announcing it. And and don't forget about the SIMS.
<v Speaker 1>We have that that prints money. And look we're getting
<v Speaker 1>a lot of these older fans back in the mix,
<v Speaker 1>and that you get the sense that that's why something
<v Speaker 1>like the SIMS one and two maybe comes out hot,
<v Speaker 1>comes out a bit like unfinished, and it's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>you need these wins, But what happens when it's when
<v Speaker 1>we actually just put this one in the lost column
<v Speaker 1>like everything else because you messed it up again because
<v Speaker 1>you rushed it out. Uh, this is mismanagement once again,
<v Speaker 1>and uh it feels like a symptomatic of EA as.
<v Speaker 2>A whole, right, absolutely, yes, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I uh, I think SIMS is going to be just
<v Speaker 1>fine in the long run for sure. Oh yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>next SIMS game that they're working on, whatever that turns
<v Speaker 1>out to be okay, that actually is more of a
<v Speaker 1>question mark because they they're saying it's not SIMS five.
<v Speaker 1>They want to keep SIMS four going forever. SIMS four
<v Speaker 1>will definitely be all right, I think, but like whatever
<v Speaker 1>that next SIMS thing could, it could blow up in
<v Speaker 1>their face if it's too different or doesn't deliver the
<v Speaker 1>experience that people are looking for, especially now that there
<v Speaker 1>are a lot of competitors in this scene coming out
<v Speaker 1>of like Asia that are very good and have a
<v Speaker 1>very different style, very realistic style that some people are like, no, this,
<v Speaker 1>this is actually what I want now. Yeah, But in
<v Speaker 1>the meantime, SIMS four, I think we'll continue to just
<v Speaker 1>find but it's not the Hey, we are introducing this
<v Speaker 1>franchise to an entirely new audience or bringing back a
<v Speaker 1>massive older audience, which is kind of what EA needs
<v Speaker 1>for growth. Once again, and yes, this franchise might not
<v Speaker 1>be the answer that they're looking for, although they're treating it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Well, because again, you know, you bring up the idea
<v Speaker 3>that this is not bringing new people to the SIMS.
<v Speaker 3>This is bringing the original SIMS players back to replay
<v Speaker 3>the games that they preferred to SIMS four.
<v Speaker 2>You are not expanding your audience this way.
<v Speaker 3>You're better off trying something new in SIMS four to
<v Speaker 3>try to expand your audience. So yeah, I just I
<v Speaker 3>think it again, this to me just feels like a
<v Speaker 3>miss in general for EA not to say that there
<v Speaker 3>isn't and you know, value in rereleasing these games, and
<v Speaker 3>particularly something like the SIMS which.
<v Speaker 2>Never had a digital release.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you literally would still need your disk to
<v Speaker 3>play it on PC, and what PC has a disk
<v Speaker 3>drive anymore. So again, like from a video game history
<v Speaker 3>conservation standpoint, I think that this is important, but I
<v Speaker 3>don't think that EA is in a position wherein that's
<v Speaker 3>what they should be focusing on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think you're right. And I imagine that this
<v Speaker 1>game is going to get fixed up over time, that
<v Speaker 1>they are going to patch it up and it will
<v Speaker 1>in a few months be like, oh okay, don't worry,
<v Speaker 1>this is all good now. But people will remember this
<v Speaker 1>moment more than that for the most Yeah, all right,
<v Speaker 1>let's keep moving here. There's a rumor that Perfect Dark
<v Speaker 1>could be come into PlayStation five and switch to This
<v Speaker 1>is from Ryan Parino at Game Ranks. Since it was
<v Speaker 1>announced in twenty twenty, Microsoft has been eerily quiet about
<v Speaker 1>the progress of the project. Rumors swirled that the game
<v Speaker 1>was in a very rough state right until Microsoft showcased
<v Speaker 1>the gameplay trailer for it last year. Xbox developed direct
<v Speaker 1>that was my fault. Some people definitely still felt that
<v Speaker 1>way at the time, but in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 1>it was coming together as the first original game in
<v Speaker 1>the franchise after two thousand and five's Perfect Dark zero.
<v Speaker 1>Expectations were high, but a lot of fans also expecting
<v Speaker 1>Microsoft to falter in development. That trailer was such a
<v Speaker 1>good showing that it did quiet down a lot of
<v Speaker 1>that fud. Subsequently, we reported last October that Perfect Dark
<v Speaker 1>surprisingly picked up a new creative director in Brian Horton.
<v Speaker 1>Brian was previously creative director from Marvel's Wolverine until he
<v Speaker 1>quit Insomniac Well. While Insomniac did have people ready to
<v Speaker 1>take over that position with Insomniac founder Ted Price now
<v Speaker 1>leaving the studio that FUD certainly seems to have switched
<v Speaker 1>places between the two projects we'll see. As shared on
<v Speaker 1>the Gaming Leaks in Rumors subreddit by user Jason versus
<v Speaker 1>Freddy versus nothing, the Initiative has a new job listing
<v Speaker 1>on their website looking for someone who can optimize and
<v Speaker 1>ensure the scalability of the rendering features to support multiple
<v Speaker 1>platforms and quality settings. Subsequently, ex Asists, who is a
<v Speaker 1>relatively well known leaker who is a pretty good track record,
<v Speaker 1>claims that this is evidence that Microsoft plans to publish
<v Speaker 1>Perfect Dark on the PlayStation five and the switch to
<v Speaker 1>and at this point, with Forts or Horizon getting announced
<v Speaker 1>for the PlayStation five last week, Emma, this sounds like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>of course Perfect Arct is coming to PlayStation five. They've
<v Speaker 1>spent a long time making that game. They want to
<v Speaker 1>make money.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 3>They want this to be as accessible to people as
<v Speaker 3>humanly possible, like anybody that owns a console, a PC
<v Speaker 3>and anything that can buy it.
<v Speaker 2>They want them to.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. And I think at this point everyone accepts that
<v Speaker 1>that's kind of what Xbox is, even the fans, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they're still they permo kind of constantly still, but I
<v Speaker 1>think even they are really starting to get it.
<v Speaker 2>No totally.
<v Speaker 3>And it's like I even saw, you know, some discussion
<v Speaker 3>in the chat when we were talking about the upcoming
<v Speaker 3>PlayStation showcase and how one of the things that you know,
<v Speaker 3>people predict could potentially be included is that, oh, Starfield
<v Speaker 3>is coming to PlayStation, which is again just kind of
<v Speaker 3>going back to that point that Xbox doesn't have exclusives.
<v Speaker 2>They just don't. They don't bear it doesn't matter.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and it's a I think they're at a point
<v Speaker 1>where like, hey, we made these games and we just
<v Speaker 1>just want to make money. We had this company, we
<v Speaker 1>had a million times and I think even even if
<v Speaker 1>we didn't have like these rumblings or whatever, even like yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Jesse and chapoints out this is an old old job
<v Speaker 1>listing even without this stuff. If you asked me do
<v Speaker 1>I think perfect Ark is come into PlayStation, I would
<v Speaker 1>say yes, yeah, I don't know if it's going to
<v Speaker 1>be day one. I don't think it's gonna be day
<v Speaker 1>one station. And at a certain point, why not switch
<v Speaker 1>to if you could support it, because I mean Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>lineage that they would want to capitalize on it.
<v Speaker 3>It does absolutely, I mean I I but that being said,
<v Speaker 3>as somebody who did not have an N sixty four,
<v Speaker 3>I would have bought Perfect Dark for the PlayStation, or
<v Speaker 3>you know, I would have made my parents buy it
<v Speaker 3>for me, because I was a child and didn't have
<v Speaker 3>disposable income at that point of course. But yeah, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>look that the era of having anything be exclusive exclusive
<v Speaker 3>forever is just shooting yourself in the foot yep at
<v Speaker 3>this point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and uh, you know we've said it a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of times on here as well, that it seems like
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation is mostly one the what we thought of as
<v Speaker 1>the console war, and they are like, now what and
<v Speaker 1>now what is we got to gathering on PC? That's
<v Speaker 1>what's yep, that's now what? And so they're looking for
<v Speaker 1>more ways out and so of course Xbox is here
<v Speaker 1>and there's just no going back that it is a
<v Speaker 1>very old battle and uh, Perfect Dark being a big,
<v Speaker 1>expensive game that they partnered with outside major third parties
<v Speaker 1>and Crystal Dynamics to work on, this is probably a
<v Speaker 1>project that is going to end up costing them a
<v Speaker 1>lot of money. And I think it's also going to
<v Speaker 1>be a very good game based on like what we
<v Speaker 1>see of it, and yeah, the promises of like what
<v Speaker 1>it's trying to do where it's like this first person
<v Speaker 1>maybe hit Man like adventure with a bunch of different
<v Speaker 1>affect the world. That sounds awesome. You want that everywhere?
<v Speaker 1>Make as much money back on that as possible.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo Switch Online price hikes, this is a possibility. A
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo Switch Online is reportedly becoming more expensive in Latin America.
<v Speaker 1>While geographically limited, the price hikes itself is understood to
<v Speaker 1>be significant, with exact increases of varying across Nintendo Switch
<v Speaker 1>Online membership tiers. Nintendo subscription service will celebrate its seventh
<v Speaker 1>anniversary in September. Since twenty eighteen release, Nintendo Switch Online
<v Speaker 1>has been priced at approximately twenty dollars per year, depending
<v Speaker 1>on your exact region. A more expensive tier of the service,
<v Speaker 1>called NSO Plus Expansion Pack, was launched in October twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty one, priced around fifty dollars per year. Although Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>has raised NSO prices over the years, such as adjustments
<v Speaker 1>where and such adjustments were infrequent and never global. For example,
<v Speaker 1>as of early this year, US consumers can still purchase
<v Speaker 1>either membership membership tier at the original price. There is
<v Speaker 1>a chart here of like, Okay, this is happening in Brazil,
<v Speaker 1>and I think it's happening in Mexico. Yeah, here's the list. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico,
<v Speaker 1>and Peru are all seen increases and they're around ten
<v Speaker 1>percent to twenty five percent, depending on exactly how you
<v Speaker 1>look at it. So NSO standard is going up about
<v Speaker 1>twenty percent in Brazil. If you get the family pack,
<v Speaker 1>it's going up twenty five percent. If you get the
<v Speaker 1>expansion pack not as a family packet's going up fourteen percent.
<v Speaker 1>And if you get Nintendo Switch Online Plus Expansion Pack
<v Speaker 1>for an entire family that's eight people, it's going up
<v Speaker 1>eleven percent. To about eighty dollars per year is like
<v Speaker 1>kind of the general range. So it's like it was,
<v Speaker 1>let's see, like fifteen dollars for the base one. Now
<v Speaker 1>it's like twenty dollars and forty cents in Brazil, So
<v Speaker 1>that that's kind of the range they're in now twenty
<v Speaker 1>to about eighty, where previously was about fifteen to about
<v Speaker 1>probably about sixty dollars. So yeah, this is not too
<v Speaker 1>surprising they haven't raised the price globally yet.
<v Speaker 3>No.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and we're going into the switch to it's it's now, right,
<v Speaker 1>They're just gonna they're gonna start this process now because
<v Speaker 1>nintenda switch all mine is probably going to be more
<v Speaker 1>expensive as we get to switch to.
<v Speaker 2>Of course it is. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Well, and also, like every subscription service, I feel like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, every other day, I'm getting an email from
<v Speaker 3>a Netflix or a Hulu or a whatever saying, oh,
<v Speaker 3>your prices are going up. I mean, yeah, this is
<v Speaker 3>this is the world we live in.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. The Netflix one, more recently was the one that
<v Speaker 1>finally were like, all right, I'm gonna do that true
<v Speaker 1>bill thing or whatever it's called now and I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to see my subscriptions and there were actually quite a
<v Speaker 1>few on there. I'm like, what I know is this?
<v Speaker 1>I got to the meta uh Oculus rift store thing.
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember doing that. Did I do like a
<v Speaker 1>free thing? And I didn't even realize it and then
<v Speaker 1>it just clicked over. It's like, oh, yeah, probably it's
<v Speaker 1>exactly what they want you to do. So I found
<v Speaker 1>a bunch and then I can't. I can't sold YouTube TV,
<v Speaker 1>so on no cable again, yeah, it was it was overdue.
<v Speaker 1>That's too expensive as well. Yeah, but everything is going
<v Speaker 1>to keep going up in price. I think Nintendo will
<v Speaker 1>be like maybe a little bit more aggressive with that
<v Speaker 1>this generation. But they've also treated nso as it's a
<v Speaker 1>bit extra and you can use this to play our
<v Speaker 1>games online, which is the real reason I'll do any
<v Speaker 1>of these things. And so we're going to sell a
<v Speaker 1>base number no matter what. And I don't know if
<v Speaker 1>the effort they put into it beyond that is going
<v Speaker 1>to increase commiserably with their the amount of money that
<v Speaker 1>people are going to have to pay with the increases.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I think they'll be a little bit more aggressive,
<v Speaker 1>but they're not going to be like Netflix or Xbox
<v Speaker 1>Game Pass where it's like, oh, an increase every year
<v Speaker 1>and a half.
<v Speaker 3>No. Yeah, as you say, this is very much a
<v Speaker 3>it's you know, I think Nintendo only discovered the existence
<v Speaker 3>of the internet maybe in twenty twenty.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so someone about it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, exactly, like it's it is never going to
<v Speaker 3>be Nintendo's main thing there. You know, Nintendo is always
<v Speaker 3>going to rest on the laurels of their IP that
<v Speaker 3>will always be exclusive to Nintendo. Uh, And they literally
<v Speaker 3>have the Internet because everything well, they have Internet connectivity
<v Speaker 3>because they like all all game systems have Internet connectivity
<v Speaker 3>and online gameplay options, and so that's yeah, that's like
<v Speaker 3>Nintendo going to Nintendo. They're going to raise the prices
<v Speaker 3>when they remember.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, it's uh, I think that we like if they
<v Speaker 1>do improve anything is maybe a new like Turbographics sixteen
<v Speaker 1>gets added to the base version. And I don't even
<v Speaker 1>know what they would add to the expansion path for
<v Speaker 1>the Nintendo Switch online games, And really there's not a
<v Speaker 1>much not a ton of options there. I mean, so
<v Speaker 1>they could bring Sega back in and do something with
<v Speaker 1>like Genis, or they have Genesis but like Sega Saturn
<v Speaker 1>and maybe Dreamcast, but that feels unlikely, and it's like
<v Speaker 1>what else can they do? I mean a new thing
<v Speaker 1>like Tetris ninety nine, They'll probably have that, sure, but
<v Speaker 1>very few have hit like Tetris ninety nine. So again,
<v Speaker 1>they're just not gonna have a lot of options available
<v Speaker 1>to them to make this service feel any better than
<v Speaker 1>it has. And yet they know people will bear a
<v Speaker 1>slight price increase to be able to continue to play
<v Speaker 1>Mario Kart online if that's what they really want to
<v Speaker 1>do yep, Okay, let's get through these last handful of stories.
<v Speaker 1>Roll Seven's games Ali Ali World and roller Drome have
<v Speaker 1>seen have been delisted from Steam and Xbox. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Chris Scullion at VGC. The two final games released
<v Speaker 1>by shuttered developer Role seven have have been delisted from
<v Speaker 1>Steam in the Xbox Store. As spotted by PC games
<v Speaker 1>in Ali Ali World and roller Drome are no longer
<v Speaker 1>available to buy on Steam. VGC can also confirm neither
<v Speaker 1>game could be purchased on the Xbox Store, though both
<v Speaker 1>are still present on the PlayStation Store and Ali Ali
<v Speaker 1>World is still on the switch E Shop. It's not
<v Speaker 1>yet clear whether the game's delistings are a temporary issue
<v Speaker 1>or the result of Tape Two's decision in November to
<v Speaker 1>sell the Indie Private Label or the Indie Label Private Division,
<v Speaker 1>which published both titles. Following months of speculation, Tape to
<v Speaker 1>announced in November that it had sold Private Division, including
<v Speaker 1>most of its existing and unreleased titles, but it didn't
<v Speaker 1>disclose who had acquired the label or for how much.
<v Speaker 1>Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the buyer was Heveli Investments,
<v Speaker 1>a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas. The report
<v Speaker 1>claimed that Hevelli intends to launch a new company that
<v Speaker 1>will publish Private Division's remaining games started by former Anna
<v Speaker 1>Perna employees, but didn't reveal what has what was to
<v Speaker 1>happen with the games recently published by Private Division, such
<v Speaker 1>as Ali Ali World and roller Drome. So these games
<v Speaker 1>seem like they're in a purgatory and we don't know
<v Speaker 1>if there is like, oh, something is happening in the
<v Speaker 1>background that will get these games back up there and
<v Speaker 1>make sure the people that have the rights of these
<v Speaker 1>games continue to get money from them. We don't know.
<v Speaker 1>And it's just like, oh, man, this is more fallout
<v Speaker 1>from the weird world of major companies getting the world
<v Speaker 1>world of indie game publishing and then they get bored
<v Speaker 1>and distracted, and these games are the victims of that, right.
<v Speaker 2>Right, and also the.
<v Speaker 3>And it contributes to the larger conversation about physical media,
<v Speaker 3>which we talked about, I think last week, and the
<v Speaker 3>fact that I don't want to own physical copies of
<v Speaker 3>things because I'm just playing it on a computer screen.
<v Speaker 2>Anyway.
<v Speaker 3>It's very different with books, as you say, with a book,
<v Speaker 3>it's like that is the experience, even though I have
<v Speaker 3>a kindle as well. But here is your argument for
<v Speaker 3>the importance of physical media is because they can't just
<v Speaker 3>delist that and take that away.
<v Speaker 2>And there is a physical switch version of Ali Ali World.
<v Speaker 1>So it's I think if you have these games already
<v Speaker 1>in your digitally, I think you can continue to download
<v Speaker 1>them as sure. Yeah, yeah, sure, but you're right now.
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of people just count on, well,
<v Speaker 1>I'll get around to those eventually, so I'm not gonna
<v Speaker 1>buy it now, I'll buy it then, and and that
<v Speaker 1>that safety net is not as safe as you might think.
<v Speaker 1>And that's where it's like, if you just have the
<v Speaker 1>physical copy and you buy that, you don't have to
<v Speaker 1>worry about any of this.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, And I mean also like the used games marketing.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, there are benefits, and we don't want that.
<v Speaker 1>We don't want physical games to go away. That they
<v Speaker 1>offer this pressure on publishers to keep prices down a
<v Speaker 1>little bit more than digital games do.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So in the meantime, though, I hope that this team
<v Speaker 1>of people that worked at Annapurna, which you know, they say,
<v Speaker 1>they seem to be very good at their job, and
<v Speaker 1>that when that thing blew up for a bunch of reasons.
<v Speaker 1>They all left together, and now they're all going to
<v Speaker 1>work together again. Uh, kind of taking over what happened
<v Speaker 1>with Private Division. So hopefully this stuff gets sorted. And
<v Speaker 1>it's just weird that these games are not down on
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation and one of them not down on Switch. So
<v Speaker 1>I just I wonder what even prompted this in the
<v Speaker 1>first place could be So it to be like every
<v Speaker 1>once in a while on the back I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm guessing everything on the beck and you have to
<v Speaker 1>go in and someone has to like sign something like
<v Speaker 1>click something to like, hey, yes, yeah, keep.
<v Speaker 2>Playing the money to hear licensing agreement or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, maybe I just expired something along those lines. So
<v Speaker 1>who knows. Yep, very very weird thing. Finally, speed Runner
<v Speaker 1>takes Donkey Kong Run to new heights by beating the
<v Speaker 1>kill screen. And this is from Jim Norman at Nintendo Life.
<v Speaker 1>Forty four years after its release. You'd think that speed
<v Speaker 1>the speed running community would have pushed the Donkey Kong
<v Speaker 1>arcade game to its limits. It's not fair. It's not
<v Speaker 1>the speed running community. This is the arcade competitive gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Seeing they're two different things. But as it turns out,
<v Speaker 1>there are a handful of extra levels hidden behind the
<v Speaker 1>game's a long assumed unbeatable kill screen. All you got
<v Speaker 1>to do is beat it. That's the challenge that was
<v Speaker 1>recently undertaken by Super Mario Brothers speed runner Cosmic. In
<v Speaker 1>a twenty nine minute YouTube video, the Mario pro explains
<v Speaker 1>that Donkey Kong's US arcade release, the one used for
<v Speaker 1>competitive play max, is out at the first barrel stage
<v Speaker 1>of level twenty two. This comes as a product of
<v Speaker 1>a glitch in the game's bonus timer algorithm, where the
<v Speaker 1>game will prematurely end after just four hundred bonus points
<v Speaker 1>have passed, nowhere near long enough to make it all
<v Speaker 1>the way to the topauline at the top of the tower. Now,
<v Speaker 1>this was understandably assumed to be the game's natural end,
<v Speaker 1>but inspired by a discord message from another DK speed runner,
<v Speaker 1>Cosmic worked out that you could hypothetically use another glitch
<v Speaker 1>to overcome the premature kill screen. Fighting fire with fire
<v Speaker 1>and all that. The glitching question is one that allows
<v Speaker 1>Mario to eternally climb the screen thanks to some coordinate
<v Speaker 1>coordinate manipulation on a broken ladder. If you could ride
<v Speaker 1>this exploit all all the way to the top. He
<v Speaker 1>theoretically make it before the dodgy bonus timer expired, booting
<v Speaker 1>up the game in an emulator and using frame advance
<v Speaker 1>to slow things down for a frame perfect inputs. Cosmic
<v Speaker 1>got to work climbing DKSE tower in this weird floating manner,
<v Speaker 1>and it works. Speed Runner was able to make it
<v Speaker 1>past level twenty two's first barrel stage and progress through
<v Speaker 1>a further five stages to get to twenty two to
<v Speaker 1>six Rivet stage. So yeah, this is this is fun.
<v Speaker 2>I always it was fun.
<v Speaker 1>It's always cool to see like, oh man, they're still
<v Speaker 1>discovering new tech and these very old games. I will
<v Speaker 1>see if someone is actually able to do this in
<v Speaker 1>a live setting, that might be a little bit more challenging,
<v Speaker 1>especially if I have a frame perfect. But what we've
<v Speaker 1>see in is where some where something is possible, usually
<v Speaker 1>someone's able to do it. I mean that's how it's
<v Speaker 1>worked on Super Mario Brothers, where that that didn't been
<v Speaker 1>refined down to Basically, humans are playing like a tool
<v Speaker 1>assisted speed run computers. So if it's possible, they'll find
<v Speaker 1>a way to do it. But yep, again, I would
<v Speaker 1>like to see that live and see someone said a
<v Speaker 1>whole new high score. It's going to be fun.
<v Speaker 3>Somebody is going to be able to I truly believe it.
<v Speaker 3>I mean again, it's like, yes, you have to be
<v Speaker 3>frame perfect, but there are people that can pull that off.
<v Speaker 3>And I just god, I love speed running. I love
<v Speaker 3>people figuring out just ways to break games.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and there's like, you know, this is I'm saying, oh,
<v Speaker 1>the Arcade committitive scene, but like, these are our speed
<v Speaker 1>runners figuring these things out as what that's normally how
<v Speaker 1>it goes where the speed runners are just so obsessed
<v Speaker 1>and so meticulous and have such a strong community like
<v Speaker 1>and that's you know, someone always is like, hey, I
<v Speaker 1>have an idea and then some spirit letters check. That
<v Speaker 1>gets me an idea. Let's try to do this. And god,
<v Speaker 1>that's the best part about it. For sure.
<v Speaker 2>It's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, the comed denominator is that they're sick os. That's right,
<v Speaker 1>frantic faness Uh, all right, I think that's going to
<v Speaker 1>do it. For the headlines, we got a pull question.
<v Speaker 1>Let's bring that up from last week. Would you still
<v Speaker 1>be surprised if Halo came to PlayStation Seventy nine percent
<v Speaker 1>said no, and twenty one percent said yes, they'd still
<v Speaker 1>be surprised. Let me refresh that and make sure that
<v Speaker 1>is uh the latest on there. Yes, Okay, there we go.
<v Speaker 1>That is indeed. Yeah, I I hey, one in five
<v Speaker 1>people still being surprised. I guess it's not crazy, but
<v Speaker 1>I think people should stop being surprised by this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think seeing eighty percent basically if people be like
<v Speaker 1>know no longer, would that surprise me? That's the sign
<v Speaker 1>that Microsoft's messaging is finally syncing in, right, Yes, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>at this point, I think we probably get like Halo
<v Speaker 1>the Master Chief collection on switch to and PlayStation five
<v Speaker 1>this year. Yeah, that wouldn't suppress.
<v Speaker 2>Me at all, wouldn't surprise me at all.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Again, like I've said it before, weirdly enough, Xbox not
<v Speaker 3>in the business of selling xboxes.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, they'll keep making them and they'll sell
<v Speaker 1>you one, but now they're selling much bigger things than that,
<v Speaker 1>and that's all good. All right. That does it for
<v Speaker 1>that poll question. I have another one to go up
<v Speaker 1>here very soon. In the meantime, though, Emma, why don't
<v Speaker 1>you tell people where they can find you on the
<v Speaker 1>internet what you have going on all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Well, well, I deleted Instagram from my phone, so really
<v Speaker 3>just blue Sky I've got that. I recommend to anybody
<v Speaker 3>that you I now when I go to try to
<v Speaker 3>open Instagram, it's my Pinterest, and my Pinterest is very lovely.
<v Speaker 3>It's nicely curated. It's all home decor and fan art
<v Speaker 3>of video game.
<v Speaker 2>Characters that I like, sometimes smooching. It's great.
<v Speaker 3>Pinterest is wonderful, and I recommend that for your mental health.
<v Speaker 2>There's less news on Pinterest, So yeah, and then yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>I'm I'm around, I'm doing stuff. I'm traveling a lot
<v Speaker 3>for work in the next couple of weeks. So I'll
<v Speaker 3>be in New Orleans this week. I'll be in San
<v Speaker 3>Francisco the week after that.
<v Speaker 2>What a time.
<v Speaker 1>Yep on the move. IM a fife always and everybody
<v Speaker 1>you'll never been with a catcher, always one step ahead,
<v Speaker 1>all right? New Pool question, Elder Ring Night Ring is
<v Speaker 1>apparently a roguelike. Does that make you more or less excited?
<v Speaker 1>Your options are more or less. So we'll get the
<v Speaker 1>results of that and talk about it here on Game
<v Speaker 1>Mess Mornings on Giant Bomb on Wednesday. Speaking of Giant Bomb,
<v Speaker 1>the bomb cast will be back on tomorrow or looking
<v Speaker 1>forward to that, talking to the team about Civilization seven
<v Speaker 1>and a few other things that have been happening. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>I'll get a chance to play some Kingdomcome Deliverance too
<v Speaker 1>and talk about that before we go live. And then
<v Speaker 1>you know, this week we should have more Blake Club,
<v Speaker 1>more Voicemail, dumb Truck, more UPF, maybe a BCR a
<v Speaker 1>few other things, and then we'll try to do some
<v Speaker 1>other fun streams for you all as well in between
<v Speaker 1>all of that. In the meantime though, and I think
<v Speaker 1>that's a show. Thank you so much for hanging out
<v Speaker 1>with me today talking about video games. I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>You're so welcome.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, we'll make it again happen again next Monday. Thank
<v Speaker 1>you all for watching and listening. You are the best
<v Speaker 1>audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
<v Speaker 1>take care of yourself, and goodbye.