GrubbSnax Ep. 01: Dead Space, Kojima and Microsoft

It's the Internet. You're busy, let's do this. I'm Jeff Grubb I
right for GamesBeat dot com. I'm now doing a show for Giant Bum.
I also run something called Jeff Grubbs Game mess on Twitter, which is kind
of like a calendar that tells people basically what's happening with summer game events or
gaming events throughout the year. And you know what, We're going to start
right there? You know, I said, we're busy, let's do this.
Let's actually jump into something immediately. EA Play right now. Actually the
embargo just went up announced today that they are going to do multiple events throughout
July for basically what is going to be their E three show that's going to
start with here, I got, I got the run down right here.
Why I just bring it up so you can all see it, and then
afterwards I'll do more of an intro. But I didn't want to miss out
on this opportunity to get those hot hot embargoes. This is EA Play Live.
They're gonna start with something on July Ain't at ten am called the Future
of First person Shooters, which, all right, so I guess this is
gonna be kind of panels I don't know what to expect from that. I
would imagine you have like Dice and maybe you know, Respawn and a few
other come on there and talk about their games and talk about what they're doing.
Then on July thirteenth, at ten am Pacific time, they're gonna have
EA Heart's Independent Studios. I would imagine to see a lot of Joseph Ferris
at this thing, Joseph Ferris coming off It Takes two, which was very
successful for EA, and yeah, that worked out very That worked out very
well for them. So I would imagine like they, hey, we're probably
gonna do more of that. On July nineteenth, they're gonna have Madden NFL
twenty two all Access scouting how the community is shaping in Madden NFL twenty two.
And then I think there's gonna do more more EA sports on July twentieth.
So right here on this image, right here, they just says in
Madden NFL twenty two on the email we got sent, there is more stuff
happening on July twentieth, and it just says more EA Sports. So I'm
sure that's gonna be Hey, Bacalar, don't worry. I'm sure it's going
to be all NHL for you. Then July twenty two is actual EA play
Live. That's ten am Pacific time. Okay, let me get this off
of here and now let's actually talk. Let's vibe everybody. Uh, this
is grub Snacks. It is a new show about gaming news. But you
get to ask questions and I'll take those questions at the end of the show.
You could send them in. There's on the jibomb dot com slash chat
page where you are watching this, you can hit hit There's a thing right
at the top, ask a question. Click that send me a question.
Just use it for questions you actually want me to see, because I don't
want it to kind of clog things up. You'll see it's gonna come up
on the screen. So yeah, let's let's respect that and just kind of
sending stuff that you think that would be good for me to answer for this
show. In addition to that, though, I plan to try to bring
in topics each week where we could talk about what's happening, you know,
sometimes breaking news, sometimes news that we will break here that won't happen every
week. It's not like you know a thing where I could just press a
button and more snacks come down for everybody. The grub snacks will be intermittent,
but we we are going to have a few today and I'll get to
those in a moment. Those are going to involve an update on the Hideo
Kojima story that I've been talking about recently, and there will be an update
on the dead Space story that has been going around. First though, I
want to thank jian Bob for having me. I want to thank games Beat
for letting me do this. You know, I write over a games Beat.
They'll let me do this video stuff over on jian Bomb and I think
that's super nice. I also want to thank you everybody for tune and in.
It's you know, really nice that you're gonna take your time out of
your day to watch this. I think everybody, like I think a lot
about video games, and that's kind of what the show is going to be
about. Hey, I think about this stuff a lot. Let's talk about
that. But that doesn't make me very unique among this audience. You and
I, I'm sure both think a lot about video games. But I think
that's why it's gonna be good. This is gonna be kind of conversational.
You guys will bring ideas and we'll discuss it and we'll say, hey,
it does that make sense, and we'll try to figure it out. And
I also don't have all the answers, so I think the most frequent thing
you'll hear from me when you ask something is I don't know, because I
don't know everything. I barely know anything I feel like. But I think
that's also okay, because again, this is just about us trying to figure
stuff out. When we do no information, let's talk about it. But
it's not going to just be like, hey, we are putting this stuff
out there to spoil things. Let's try to understand what's happening and why.
And yeah, I think that does it for the preamble. Oh yes,
this first version, this first episode is free right now. You're watching on
Giantbob dot com slash chat or you're watching the VOD Later future episodes will be
premium, so if you want to do that, I think it's Giant bomb
dot com slash upgrade, so please check that out. Okay, let's get
into Coojima. I have here on my little rundown. It just says Cogima
and then the next line is letter of intent, and that's the story.
Hideo Kojima and Microsoft have signed a letter of intent. This is news is
when I'm bringing to the show. I've talked about this story a lot.
They have moved to what is basically a key milestone and the negotiations between the
two parties to ensure this deal gets done. The letter of intent basically says
we both signs in good faith, are going to see this through as long
as the certain you know, criteria is met. But that criteria is basically
pretty basic stuff, and now the lawyers on each side are just hashing out
the details. I think that this is something that probably will get like officially
closed and announced by the end of the year. But the things so,
you know, I think this is going to be a pretty big move for
Microsoft. And what does that mean. I don't know anything about whether or
not Microsoft's going to invest money directly in Cojima Productions. I think that's maybe
on the table. There's some weirdness there because Japan is weird for American Western
any Western company trying to come and invest in Japan. It's it's challenging.
But I think there's a possibility that they might figure it out in this instance,
at the very least, though the publishing deal would be for Kojima and
Cojima Productions to come in and make a new cloud based video game. What
does that? What is that game? I don't know, I don't know.
Nobody knows. I've asked the route a couple of places, and the
first dance everyone gives is no one knows, and most people don't believe Kojima
even fully knows at this point. And you know, I think that's that's
funny, but also that's not the point. The point isn't to, hey,
oh, Cochima has this really good idea, the specific idea that we
want a green light. It's not about that. It is about enabling Kojima
to do something with the technology that Microsoft has, and Microsoft wants to see
this through, and that Kim Swift and I've announced I've reported this separately on
games Beat that you know, when they hired Kim Swift, I had heard
that that hire was specifically about ensuring that Kojima would have someone to work with,
to to work like, to figure out the cloud and be able to
make this game a reality. So they're putting the pieces in the place.
Everyone seems to believe the deal will go through, and the letter of intent
makes it very unlikely that the deal is going to fall apart at this point.
Still could, but the letter of intent kind of, like I said,
a key milestone in a turing that this thing becomes a reality. What
does that mean for Kojima working with PlayStation right? That's the thing that I
think a lot of fans, especially PlayStation fans or Coajima fans, A lot
of times those are one and the same. They worry like, what does
this mean for that? I don't think it would necessarily prohibit It would not
prohibit Kajima from working from with PlayStation. Microsoft would not have like a non
compete clause or something in this deal, at least as far as I understand
it. And you know, we know for a fact that right now Kajima
is still working with PlayStation on desk stranding director's cut right now at this moment.
Now, is that something he wouldn't be able to do after his Scienceist
deal? I personally still don't think so. And from what I understand from
what I've heard, if he wanted to go make other deals with other companies
and like expand his team, and I think as long as he would was
meeting you know, the key the key milestone markers. Again, I'm using
that word too much, key milestone markers for production with Microsoft. Microsoft is
not going to stop him from doing that, so he would always be free
to go ahead and do a weird conspiracy theory with you know, a Netherlands
studio in Amsterdam abandoned. What was that? Sorry, I shouldn't even brought
it up. Okay. Second big story that I wouldn't bring to you is
dead Space, and it's less of a big story because everyone apparallely knows this
one already. I was like teasing it on my podcast and we didn't say
the name exactly, and yet immediately that weekend, dead Space started trending,
and then euro Gamer did a story, Jamatsu did a story, and a
person named Jeff Gersman on the Giant Bomb cast was like, I heard it's
a reboot, and I'm like sitting there nodding along. We'll listening to that
episode. It's it's a reboot, it's a it's a revival reboot, and
but think of it also like a remake. And I think the point is
that it's going to be very similar to I think here's what I think happened.
Electronic Arts was like, hey, we're scared of making single player campaigns.
We're gonna do all live service stuff. And then they looked over at
Capcom, who is doing stuff like Resident Evil to remake and having huge success,
and they say, hey, we could do exactly that with Dead Space.
Why aren't we. I think they're going to do exactly that with Dead
Space. I think Dead Space remake is going to look and feel a lot
like that. It's going to have modern visuals. I think it's going to
be very impressive when people see it and it's and it's also going to not
try to be a one to one recreation. This is not a remaster.
It is a chance for them to also reboot the franchise because if you remember,
in I think Dead Space three DLC Viscerrole before they got shut down,
we're like, hey, let's just destroy this entire universe, and they killed
every single human in the universe in that game. So that's not exactly you
could something that you can build a sequel onto. I'm sure you could find
creative ways around that or whatever. But instead they are going back to the
beginning and they're like Hey, let's take debt the bones of dead Space one.
Let's remake that. And as we look around the series and we see
other area is where things could make sense. Let's bring some stuff from like
dead Space two in here and and kind of beef up the gameplay mechanics and
the story of dead Space one to make sure we have a very strong foundation
going forward, so that when we make a new dead Space two we have
something to build on. And I think that is very I think it's something
very likely we will hear about at EA play that you know, I'm not
things change. This is where like there's gonna be caveats and people get frustrated
with this stuff. But it's just the reality. We You know, if
you don't want to hear about the stuff, you don't want to worry about
the caveats, just don't watch the show at all. It would be my
recommendation. But the caveats are these things could change. This is what happened
with Mass Effect Legendary Edition last year. I said I was going to get
announced October, right and then they moved it. And I said they moved
it, but they moved it and it was you know, it was frustrating
for them. It was you know, it's looked bad for me, but
that's the kind of thing that could happen here as well, So just kind
of keep that in mind. Last thing I want to talk about before I
started getting into questions, and I see them coming in and again, if
you want to ask a question and we're gonna do a long question and answer
session, that stuff can go for a long time, so feel free to
send them in. Any any ideas you might have, let's talk about them.
But ask a question button there at the top of the page. Click
that if you have a question you want me to answer, and I'll answer
that in the next section. So this morning, PlayStation announced that it acquired
another studio, studio, Nixxy's, and Nixx's is a European studio, and
I think that's, you know, part of it. Like I think it's
a European studio that specializes in doing ports of games two PC from console to
PC, and I think that what Jim Ryan was looking around and saying,
Hey, can we find someone to just do that so we don't have to
contract out every single time we want to do this. I think Nicky's being
in Europe probably helped with that because Jim Ryan loves Europe. I think I
think we can all admit that Jim Ryan loves Europe and and he looked around
saw the studio that was like ready and willing, and was probably saying,
hey, yeah, we're ready to be acquired. We are at the top
of our game, and we know that you need this really bad and you
don't want it to start from scratch every single time you want to pour a
game. You want to build this into your workflow going forward so that maybe
you could do this stuff quicker in the future. That's an option. I'm
not saying that's what this is. I'm not saying that like God of War
two is going to come to PC like a year later. I still don't
know like how that would change. I'm sure there, I'm sure there's a
lot of business considerations instead of just like technical hurdles that they're worried about there.
But if they wanted to release a game on PC more quickly, Nixy
seems like an acquisition that would be able to enable that. And I think
it's you know, I think this is a company that I've seen it's logo
in a lot of places it's very busy, and so I think that's the
other side of it, where this studio where when Sony had a project,
I said, hey, can we make this game? Go to PC Nixy's
a lot of times could have been like, hey, we're very busy.
If you want to be moved to the top of the queue, you have
to pay a premium. And at a certain point, I'm sure it just
made sense to sort of just buy the cow instead of trying to rent it
every time. And especially as these studios I think are becoming more and more
rare in terms of they're they're busier than ever. You know, these studios
are making more games themselves, they are always looking to expand, and they're
always looking for other partners. And I believe that this studio working exclusively with
PlayStation going forward is going to make a lot of sense. All Right,
Okay, so I see a bunch of questions. I think it's time to
get to that stuff. Let's do that. Let me try, let me
try the little stream deck. Let's see if this is gonna work. Hey,
look at that. It worked. Okay, So I'm gonna scroll down.
I think it's going from bottom to top. So here's one from Eric
von Wolf, but you guys actually can't see, so I got a camera
in the way. How long will the average Grub Snacks episode be estimated?
So I'm aiming from like sixty minutes to like ninety minutes. It's gonna depend
a lot on the conversations that we have starting now. So like we're about
fifteen minutes in right now, That's about how long I expect most of these
early sections to take, where if I bring some news, if I bring
a topic, we'll talk about it for like fifteen minutes. That's I think
it's about the maximum you can go with a monologue like that before we start
interacting with people, before people start zoning out. So you know, obviously,
if there's a really big important topic, if there's like a lot of
news, it'll go longer. But then I expect the question section now to
go for a long time where we will I'll look at the questions you have
answered them, and we'll talk about them each for a very long time,
and then that will go for at least sixteen minutes, and then after that
we'll kind of see how we're doing. We'll do like a we'll do a
check we'll check the gas tank and see how old Jeffrey boys doing. All
right? Any word on mar now this is gonna jump up on me is
and maybe I should work the other way. Any word on Mario Striker games
on a Mario Striker's game being worked on soon, So that would be it's
not a Nintendo software technology, it's is a left field. I can't remember.
It's a studio. It's the Luigi Luigi's Mansion studio that makes those games.
Uh, there's no word that I've heard, and I think that rhymed.
I'm sorry, there's no word on that, but that doesn't mean I
think it makes some sense. But my Nintendo has been spacing out their sports
games and Luigi's Mansion did very well Luigi's Mansion three, And I think that's
studio is in a position where they'll probably try to figure out another way to
do another Luigi's Mansions, like in the next for the you know, in
the next couple of years, and then what do they do on the side
and between that, which I think they probably will lease something in between.
But is Mario Striker's the right choice that like, they're definitely going to make
another Luigi's mansion when they're given a choice about what to make in between now
and then, does Mario Strikers make the most sense? I think it's at
the top of the list, but who knows. There could be someone at
that studio that has That's like holding a torch for punch Out, which is
another studio, another game that studio worked on, and maybe they bring that
back. I would love a chat personally, but I think that Mario Strikers
is a game that might have more of an appeal. It's a game that
you hear a lot about when people talk about their favorite Mario Sports games.
So I think it's possible. Okay from Tolkoto, we'll square Nix fix the
font in the pixel remasters or do they just not care? Listen, this
is Mike Manati, my coast on games Beat decides, Mike, I don't
think they I don't think they care. Man, I'm sorry. You tell
me you're the fan, Like, do you feel that they care about you
enough to care about your eyes while you're playing this game? Uh? When
I look at that, that looks to me like they're afraid of old fonts
for some reason, old pixel fonts. I think they think that they've heard
one, or maybe someone at the Square Nix just like, no, that
hurts my eyes. That old stuff hurts my eyes. I just make something
look normal, it's it's it's text. People only care about the way the
game looks. They don't care about why the font looks. But it looks
real bad And I hope they fix it, but I don't have high hopes
that they will. I mean, what did they ever fixed the way that
the Steam releases looked before they just delisted them, or that they're about to
delist them? So now I don't think so. Do you have any more
info about the fress Marvel xcom type game? No? So when that happened,
that that two K league happened on Reddit, and what I did is
I was like, hey, someone, is this league real? And they
were like yeah, and here's a few more details, but not like a
lot more details on what was happening there. So I was able to confirm
that all the stuff and that in that two K leaku was was accurate,
but asked for like what we like when this game is coming out, where
you'll be able to play it when we're gonna get it announced, I haven't
been able to dig in that stuff yet. I'll look a little bit more,
But I was. I guessed that we would see it at E three
because Take two had their their panel, which we did not know it was
just going to be a panel at the time, and so I assumed that
we were here by any three. So I didn't look into it that much,
feeling like, why would I try to go out there and spoil this.
We're gonna hear about it in a week, so I guess now that
we haven't heard about it, maybe we'll be time to kind of just check
in on it and see how it's doing. It's a game that I'm very
interested and I hope we hear more about soon. How do you feel it's
hot? You know from mops Tony Hawk remake on Steam? Win? Is
it not on Steam? I thought it was on Steam. I guess it's
not always it on Epic. It's on Epic. Okay, so like a
year later, right, that's how those usually go. They usually take a
full year. Uh okay from the digital tastic digital digitalistic. What's up with
Sony and the event people think is happening? So that's a good question.
I haven't heard anything. Still. Last year, I heard a date real
early. I haven't heard a date for Sony yet. I also haven't necessarily
been digging too much just because getting Sony information right now it's kind of hard.
They've really locked down stuff pretty fiercely. But a lot of people seem
convinced that July eighth is happening, and I to me that just like there's
going to be something in July or August, that just makes sense. They're
not gonna let that time go by without telling us what's happening in this fall.
They're not Nintendo. Sony has a marketing scheme in its head and it's
going to you know, it's going to activate that at some point, and
it's just the question is are they ready by early July or do they need
more time? So I guess we're already in July now, July first,
so a week from now. That means we probably hear about this if this
is a big event, If this is a big ninety minute event, like
some people are saying, they will tell us by the end of this week.
So I don't think we're gonna have to wait long to know if it's
real. Personally, I still don't know, Okay, what are the chances
they talk about the future of true Titan Fall during that first person shooter panel
that's from the Match three two eighth, and that's a I think the chances
are pretty low personally right now because and then that's based on a few things.
They're very busy with Apex Legend still, and then the other side is
very busy with Jedi fall and Order and Fallen Order two, which I don't
think they're going to announce that here at this e three. I don't think
maybe they do. That could have changed since I last heard. I think
they're gonna start talking about that game next year, and you know that means
does respond really have the bandwidth then to start working on Titan haall three.
I think maybe it comes up right This is a panel where they're asking questions
by a moderator, and they know that if they were like in a in
a complete open like session and we're getting questions from the audience, that's someone
would bring up Titan Fall three and they might feel like obligated to touch on
it. We might get it mentioned in that way. But as for telling
us anything about the real true future of that side of the franchise, I
think it's unlikely we hear anything about that anytime soon. It's magical Neil any
thoughts on the PS store discourse going on related to some Kataku reporting. So
yeah, this this came up yesterday, and this was based on a couple
of people on Twitter who are publishers basically indie games or developers of indie games,
and they were saying that they make less money on PlayStation than they do
even on Xbox or Nintendo, and they they were being coy about it.
They weren't using exact platform names, but if you looked at their pie charts,
pretty sure the red was Nintendo, the blue was PlayStation, and the
green was Xbox, and black was Steam. And the one pie chart that
really stuck out to me was the publisher who published a lot of indie games.
The PlayStation section was even smaller than Steam, and the Xbox section was
almost as big as Switch with you know which, if you know anything about
indie games, they do very well on Switch. People who have switches right
now, they like games a lot. They're spending a lot of money on
games. They're buying multiple games all the time. They go in the shop
and they look for new games like this is just and so games, indie
games do very well on the Switch, better than anywhere else. So I
was actually more surprised that Xbox was so close to switch. I'm like,
how does that? Like that didn't seem possible that I think that's like And
I went back and looked at a Shovel Night pie chart, and this is
stuff I put on a story yesterday on Games to Be But I looked at
a pie chart from twenty eighteen for Shovel Night and Xbox was pretty small,
and this was Xbox one. Xbox was pretty small, and then PlayStation four
was like nine percent, and then the WU was like fourteen percent and the
three DS was like twelve percent or something like that, and I think they
might have put the switch in there, and the Switch was already at like
ten percent. So yeah, Nintendo platforms very good for indies. You could
argue like, oh, there wasn't a lot to play, but I wouldn't
buy that because I think the WU had a lot of games. I think
that that audience just really jives with that. So basically the point was,
though, that these developers and publishers were trying to make, is that publishing
games on Sony is a challenge, and then once you're on there, it
is a black box in terms of being able to figure out how to make
the game of success. And their argument was there's not a lot of tools
for understand like who's getting the game, who wants to see your game,
there's not a lot of tools for advertising. It's just and then basically you're
not empowered as a developer to figure out this platform yourself. And so then
what does PlayStation have, Well, they have these managers, and the managers
of each game is determined by and this is according to them. This is
not based on my own reporting. This is based on what they said on
Twitter yesterday that the managers for each of these games are determined by an evaluation
process that is also a black box that people do not understand what criteria is
being used to determine like the final evaluation of a game. But that final
evaluation determines how much resources Sony gives your game, and that includes like how
much attention from this manager and how much how much like the best placement that
you get on the PlayStation store, and then if you wanted you know,
and then if you want better placement, you have to pay for it,
and I think a lot of people focused on having to pay for that placement.
But stores, I mean, you got to pay for better placement,
and Kroger, I think I would imagine that's how it works at Kroger,
So I think it's probably how it works at PlayStation and Xbox and everything else
as well. So the tougher side for me, like, okay, paying
for placement is one thing I think Jess Cordon from Window Central was saying,
I couldn't find anywhere where it says that Microsoft does that same thing. I
would bet that Microsoft lets you pay to get better placement in the store.
But the issue for me was that that does sound frustrating where if you are
trying to publish a game on PlayStation and you feel like you don't have the
tools to handle it yourself and you're not getting answered it like they were saying
it takes months to get answers from these managers on the PlayStation side, that
sounds like a very frustrating experience where you have a huge platform of people playing
games console with one hundred and fifteen million players. You hear that all the
time, and yet you're selling less on there than you do on Steam.
Where Steam does have a lot of people, but not a lot of a
lot of people on Steam just play free to play games. So when you
see like seventy million people using Steam or whatever, a lot of those are
just there for the free to play games, and so it's not a lot
of people spending money at it is on PlayStation, and so yeah, I
get that frustration. Now. I also saw some some other indie publishers saying,
hey, if you can't find out how to make a game succeed on
PlayStation, you should probably be thinking twice about publishing other people's video games.
And I think there's probably something to that as well, where there are clear
indie successes PlayStation. Excuse me, and so you know, at a certain
point, why why are you not succeeding, Like, Okay, yeah,
maybe the platform is more challenging than the other ones, but we have seen
indie succeed on PlayStation, so we know it's not an impossibility. Maybe it's
a little bit more challenging, but the science of the audience you would think
would mean like you would still be able to find some people who want to
buy this game on there. So I don't think this is necessarily all on
PlayStation. And I also don't think Sony has a lot of motivation to change,
right, because this is what I wrote my story yesterday, that Sony
has been more consistently profitable now than it ever has an it's past. We're
in a console generation transition, and traditionally it's it's it's revenues would have plummeted,
it's profit only would have would have like turned to negative, it would
have gone into the red. And now it's not seen it at all.
It's like making more money this year than it did at the height of the
PlayStation three or even like the PlayStation two. And so Sony's looking in around
and saying, hey, we got there through services, by making money off
a Fortnite and by making really giant blockbusters. It's not because the indie games.
And we're sorry this is frustrating to you, but we got to look
out for number one, you can get our games on our service. We
have such a huge audience you seem to keep you keep putting games on our
service, Like if it's so challenging, I mean, you still do it.
So people want to buy these games they can I don't think Sony has
a lot of motivation to change that. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't.
And I get the frustrations of publishers who feel like they are being left out
of the success of the PlayStation. Uh, but yeah, I think this
is this is kind of just where it's going to be for a while less
unless these developers publishers built up noise to kind of get people talking a little
bit more. Okay, let's see here, just right said I had to
Wonder World because I lost a bet. How do I cope? You don't.
I had to play that game because Tolkoto and the chat made me review
it and I got to the end, and then I and then it was
like, oh and now here's the third level in each stage unlocked to go
back to. And I've put the game down. I never touched it again.
I'm sure. I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point as
some sort of self punishment thing. But yeah, you don't cope, You
just you have to. Here's here's the good news. Just right, there's
a novelization of mallon Wonder World that I said I would read if someone bought
for me, and someone bought it for me, So just be happier not
doing that from sir Link, is the Nix's acquisition by PlayStation going to hurt
Square nix Japanese PC ports going forward. I don't know, it's possible.
I bet they'll figure it out. I bet I bet that Nick. I
don't know. I actually didn't read the full blog, and I apologize for
that, But I wonder if there's like a possibility that Nixy's could still take
on some stuff for Square Nix because PlayStation and squareis are still so close.
They'll they'll figure it out. It could slow down some of the ports a
little bit going forward. From Jeff Hey, which other Warner studios do you
think are for sale? And where do you think they'll go? So I
think that most of them are probably like up for discussion. You always say
this, Gersman, that everyone's always talking about buying other other companies all the
time. And I think that there's like a lot of links between Warner and
Microsoft. Because Matt Booty used to be at Warner, He's very familiar with
like the way those studios work and what they would be good at even if
they didn't come with the IPS, and so I'm sure that he has had
a lot of those conversations whether that that clearly hasn't turned into any into anything
yet, but I still think maybe it could. But I haven't heard anything
new since all of those pre weird E three rumors, which I always said,
we're just rumors. I never confirmed that I heard anything directly about any
of them. But there was rumors about rock Steady, Another Realm, and
all these other ones. And now that stuff's gone real quiet now that E
three is over. But I wouldn't. I mean, I get that Discovery
is going to keep Batman, I still don't fully understand how this stuff is
gonna shake out. I think like Discovery's gonna keep DC and Batman, and
then that makes sense to keep rock Steady and w B Montreal and stuff like
that. But does this company really want to be in the game development business
going forward? Like it's it's a big expensive endeavor that you have to really
sort of oversee and kind of micromanaged to make sure that it goes well and
that it's not going to backfire on you, because these projects can balloon become
very expensive, and then suddenly a couple of years later, you're looking at
a balance sheet and you're like, we spent this much, and we still
don't have this game is still not ready. It's still going to get to
Layed another year. I'm always, I'm always I'm wondering do these companies,
these giant conglomerates really want to be in that business because it seems to only
really work well if you have dedicated leadership like Microsoft does, or if you
are just a video game company like ub Soft or Nintendo. Obviously, Sony
also has that dedicated leadership, So uh, we'll see as for like where
else it could go other than Microsoft. I'm sure that Sony sniffing around too.
But I'm if those if those studios do not come with IP, they
are not very valuable and they're kind of actually just a headache for a lot
of these companies. I think we saw I'm not gonna be able to remember
than the studio right now, but there was one of the key people from
a from a WB studio just left and started a new team and he's already
doing that, and like it's like, Okay, that's probably gonna happen more
frequently than these acquisitions. Okay from Final DASA. On this same topic,
it looks like are those PREE three rumors about Xbox buying a couple more you
still in the works or were those wishful thinking? Ah? So I here's
how it breaks down from me. Like I said, I never heard it
directly from any of my sources. What I heard is I've heard from other
people secondhand. You know, people, a lot of people talk, a
lot of leakers kind of get together and we have our cabal and over tea
we discussed, you know, whose day we're going to ruin next, and
some someone mentioned something like, oh, the avalanche deal is done, and
I maybe I just haven't heard that. And when I heard before You three
was hey, I'm when I was there, no one was his talk about
acquisitions at all, And this was a week before you three. So for
me, it's like hard to believe. But that doesn't mean like just because
I don't believe something, just because I haven't heard it, doesn't mean it's
not happening. And I'm hesitant to say it drifts into wishful thinking. But
because we clearly know that these companies want to be spending money, they want
to get this money off their sheets because it's because of inflation. Inflation is
gonna get pretty intents over the next year. These companies want to spend their
money now while it's still worth a lot. The studios want to be bought.
This is stuff I've talked about a lot. I should repeat it here
because I haven't said it on this show before because this is the first episode.
But there's a lot of reasons why acquisitions make sense right now more than
they have in the past, and why they probably won't make so much sense
in the future. That these companies have a lot of money in their bank
accounts. There's not a lot of good places to put it because, yeah,
inflation is one thing, So you know, where are you going to
put this money to sort of invest and see it return on it? Well,
interest rates are super low. Some places had negative interest rates through parts
of last year. There's just not a lot of good places to put this
money right now. So how do you make that money work for you?
Buy a studio, Buy a studio that could start producing something. That's why
the Minecraft thing always made so much sense for Microsoft. They had that two
point five billion dollars or whatever it was just sitting in the bank not really
getting any interest, and instead they could buy Minecraft. And now every time
someone buys Minecraft and that game makes like so much money per day. It
was making way more money per day than the interest Microsoft was getting on that
money in the bank account, so that money was working for them in a
way that made a lot of sense. All that stuff is more true now
than it has ever been really in the industry. And then on the development
side, these developers are worth more money now than they have ever been worth.
I think games are selling super well because of the pandemic. And so
when you do go present yourself to one of these suitors and you say,
hey, look at our sales going up, up up. That looks very
good, and it bolsters your reasoning why you are worth more than you've ever
been worth before. So I all that stuff lines up with all all these
studios being yeah, if they're on the you know, the off frame block,
like, I'm sure there are people asking, hey, can we buy
you? But whether or not that mean that actually anyone sees that through,
that's a whole other thing, and that does require actually like forethought and thinking
about how to use these studios properly. And the Warner Brothers studios are specifically
pretty confusing. There's some other studios that we're up for talks and stuff,
but I don't know, we see so buying. I'm sure that's going to
get Microsoft moving as well, So yeah, we'll see. Okay, let's
see. This is one's from the Invincible Mark. Why do into the next
generation sports games with PC versions? Madden and NBA two K opt to make
the PC version the last gen version. I managed way two PCs the equivalent
of the PS four version. It's disappointing to have the last versions on better
hardware. I'm sure that's just a budgeting thing. I guess. I'm not
sure. I would guess that's a budgeting thing where Yeah, the PC versions
do well. I bet the NBA two K makes a decent amount of money
on PC because basketball is such a global sport, but it's just not worth
the upfront investment. They got to make sure the consoles. Basically, the
console versions make way more money, so they're going to invest way more in
those, make sure those are good, and then when they're ready to deal
with the technical issues of getting the current n GIN versions to the PC,
which you would think wouldn't be that tough. But I bet they have a
very smooth pipeline of getting the last gen versions on the PC. Already set
up, so why mess with it? I think it's probably just a case
of that feature creep any news about the Konami Blueber thing. So you're gonna
go talk to Andy Robinson over at Video Games Chronicle and you're gonna ask him
because he's got the insight on that, and then Special Special Nick on Twitter
or no way, I'm sorry, Nate the hate they're the ones that are
all in on this Silent Hill Hill stuff. I'm I do not have good
insight on that. From what I understand, I would think that this seems
like it makes some sense. I mean, Konami working with a team that
has made some more games frequently and all the fans going, oh no,
not Blueber. They're like, they make some games, but I don't think
they'd be good for a Silent Hill game. And do you think Konami hears
that understands that cares about that. I doubt it. Okay, the brown
Berry has done it. Do you have any idea what's up with the rumored
switch? Prouh? So I heard from a good source earlier this year that
it was twenty twenty two, but that was sort of like I felt like
that was secondhand like I was getting like like I was getting that stuff secondhand
from from them, and I think they would when I go to ask about
that, they're like, yeah, like that's why I didn't publish it.
And they would be like, yeah, don't publish that. I'm not a
good source for this. But I think there's a lot of smoke. And
I think that the one thing you need to keep in mind with a console
revision like this is there's a lot of reasons to do it, and once
that train starts moving, it's very hard to stop. So there's two factors
there. The good reason the reasons it's good to do this for Nintendo is
they can revise the hardware in such a way that it is actually probably maybe
cheaper to make or at least the same amount of money. And if it's
the same amount of money now, when they go to make a new switch
in the future using basically what is probably going to be the new design,
the new chip process, the new like it's going to be probably enough six
animeter seven animeter design process or something or maybe the Samsung eight an animeter.
And if you don't understand what I'm saying right now, all this matters is
the chips will be more efficient, and they're going to use next GIN chips
basically, and so you want to get the next GIN chips into production now
so that when you are ready to move on to the next GIN, that
that line is ready to go. And you could switch that up to the
new architecture at that point and probably still using that same design process and it
will be cheaper, and then you'll be ready to go, and you've worked
out a lot of the kinks already. And this is something that Nintendo has
done a lot in the past. And part of the reason that they do
this is is, you know, you know, the other side of why
it makes sense to do it is that they are selling a lot of stuff
directly to Nintendo fans, and then then Nintendo fans sort of let their stuff
filter out to everyone else. So if you look at the three D S,
there were six three dss. Uh, there's you know, three D
S, three D S light whatever. And they do that because the hardcore
us, the people watching the show myself, go out and buy a lot
of those new systems, even though it's the same system, but we buy
a lot of them, and then either the old one it might sit in
a drawer, but more likely you're going to sell it or hand it off
to a sibling or to a family member or to a friend. And when
you do that, you create a new a new user in the ecosystem,
someone who might start buying games maybe. And so what Ninten was actually doing
it is using us to subsidize it's hardware growth and it's install based growth.
It doesn't have to sell hardware to the casual people. Those people will get
secondhand systems. They can instead sell hardware to us again and will help facilitate
that process. I think a lot of people understand this. I'm probably again
we all think a lot about video games. I'm sure you've thought about this
too. It just makes sense, so I think that doing this. I'm
surprised there hasn't been another revision since the Light and the Battery one because Nintenos
did one every year with the three DS. The reason not to do it
the switch is, I mean, one in video is pretty busy working on
some other stuff. Getting those new you know, process lines set up is
more difficult now than it's ever been. Obviously with the chip shortage, even
more difficult. On top of that, also the switches sold so well,
they haven't had to boost sales through the subsidizing used in US to subsidize hardware
growth. But still it's something that Tindo has done and will want to do
again, and so all it always has made sense. So do we get
one this year? Like, I think that's really what you're asking, because
that was the rumor. I still think it's possible that we hear about it
and get it before the end of the year. I still think it's possible.
That Bloomberg story seemed very confident. There were some other people that I
think Eurogamer also sort of echoed it. But I don't think it's going to
like line, it's obviously not gonna line up with Zelda, like, they're
not going to push it out to go with Zelda at the end of next
year now, right, and they don't need to rush it out. If
there's any sort of like kink in the road, they don't need to rush
it out now. The other side of the other thing I mentioned at the
beginning of this was once the train starts moving, it's hard to stop.
And that means if they've already begun like any part of the production, if
they do have these new chips in production. You sort of you just can't
stop that. You got to keep it going because if you get out of
line, if you step aside and say, okay, actually, can we
pause this because we don't want to do this switch pro right now, that's
not going to be very good because you're going to go to the back of
the queue and TSMC or Samsung whoever end up ends up doing the doing the
production of the actual chips for them, it's gonna say, Okay, we
have fifty other customers who will pay the same or more to get your spot,
so no problem. Go to the back of the line. And then
if Nintendo looks around and says, oh, actually we do want to do
a switch pro, or even more importantly, if we want to do the
next switch in a couple of years, let's get that going, there could
be production issue, production issues because they got out of line now. So
I think that they're if they were kind of moving forward with this and they
were getting partners involved, if they were getting pub bushes well and say hey,
get your games ready, they just sort of cannot pull the rug out
from underneath them. Now. I think they can have like a six month
window where it comes out. Oh, just to come up this fall or
early next year. That seems realistic. And that's where I think we've why
we've heard so many different things. Why Bloomberg is hearing one thing? Why
I'm here in twenty twenty two. There, I think there's still a lot
of wiggle room. I do think it's going to happen. I do think
at the latest it's twenty twenty two. It also just makes sense because the
video games needed, the games needed, Lysis would help that system a whole
bunch. I think that is almost a certainty for that thing. It's just
a matter of time now before we hear about it. Okay, Sorry,
went along on that one. It was fun, all right, I'm reading
this one from stern one. Warner Brothers is obviously in a bit of a
situation. I think for many of us here, we are deeply interested in
the future of Nether Realm and Mortal Kombat. What kind of purchases might Slash
could be interested, could be interested? Okay, so like Microsoft Iron Galaxy,
what have you heard about the future of Mortal Kombat? Here's the one
thing I could like. Nether Realm is a very very successful fighting game studio
they make a lot of money from all of their games. They know how
to make a lot of money, They have a lot of clout, and
I think that they would be pretty expensive to acquire because of that. But
also they would be highly sought after because they clearly know what they're doing.
I just you know, there's there's some issues there where it's like, oh,
yeah, Microsoft might want to acquire that. But like now Microsoft is
his Mortal Kombat and it's got Killer Instinct, which is it's said it wants
to bring back. And also so now they have multiple fighting games, and
now is it going to compete in the fighting game space like and like the
esports side of things with PlayStation I guess that wouldn't be too much of a
consideration for a giant corporation, but it's something they're gonna think about. And
do they, like just do they have the appetite to like pursue fighting games
that intensely? You know, maybe not now, I know so I think
it's Phil Spencer on a podcast recently did say they want to bring back Killer
Instinct, and you know, you know, but that then that immediately brings
up, hey, would Iron Galaxy do that? I think Iron Galaxy is
too busy right now to do that. I wonder. I know that they've
said that they would love to do it, but I think they're very busy
doing other stuff, so I just don't know if they would be available,
And you know, maybe that means much stuff just waits until they are or
something else happens there. I don't know for sure. Uh from Selene Kawar,
does Nintendo ever make a brand new console or is everything from now on
simply revisions of the current switch idea. It's Nintendo, They'll probably make something
new. I hope they stick with this switch formula, But Nintendo doesn't.
They get antsy if they want to try new ideas. I think they are
getting some of that out of their system with stuff like Labo and Ring Fit
Adventure and now game Builder Garage, and so maybe they'll admit that they could
find cool ways to do this on the switch and just keep updating the switch.
But eventually they're gonna say, hey, we have the next pillar of
our business and it's gonna be something that's very different from the SWITCH, and
they'll they'll try it, and hopefully they just realized they can also keep the
switch going instead of killing it off. Okay, let's see here, Let's
keep going. How's everybody doing? Get laying on the case, says Chat.
Yeah, we'll get a Nintendo phone, We'll get the Nintendo gauge.
Nilock says there's no reason to bring back Killer Instinct. Yeah. I'm not
a big fighting game guy, so I'm I think there's some people who really
like hold a torch for that series and some people who don't. Yes,
Christian says Lang is too busy feasting. I don't know what specifically Iron Galaxies
working on, but I know they're busy. Okay, let's get back to
some of these questions. What happened between Kiely and E three. He talked
about this a little bit on one of his Twitter streams, and it's I
think it was basically E three was talking about I think he knew E three
was going to be disappointing. I think last year they're probably planning to do
an even more discipline and version of what they did this year. And I
think he's like, hey, you should just do one big show like my
Opening Night Live and get everybody involved, and it has to happen over a
couple of days. That's fine. And then he three is like, well,
we're gonna we're gonna do panels and we're gonna let we're gonna let Tommy
Tealrico come in here and talk to people about the end of television because he's
gonna pass money and not that Keiley. It doesn't take advertisement advertisements as well.
I think he does a little bit more nonademic, but obviously he takes
stuff like obviously he advertises games. But I think that he was just like,
I think you just disagreed with the way they presented it. I don't
know for sure, you should probably ask him, but the way explained it,
that's what it kind of made it sound like from Blackheart Vinyl. When
you say cloud based game and I'm sure this is about Cogima. Do you
mean only playable as a streaming game or more like using cloud computing and again
those kinds of specifics. I don't know, but I think it's going to
be like it's using cloud computing, and I mean it's Cogima, Like he's
the guy that like helped oversee buck Tie a game you had to play outside
so you can get the sunlight on the little censor on the back of your
game Boy advanced cart so you could fight vampires. I think he's probably gonna
bring some of that Cogima energy. He's the guy that like wanted everybody to
disarm their nukes in their own copy of Metal Gear Solid five. So that,
yeah, so that everyone could achieve global piece in unlock a cut scene
for everybody in the game. Expect that sort of that sort of thinking,
but applied directly to the cloud. And I don't think that means like,
oh, it's going to be streaming in from the cloud necessarily. I think
some data will be streaming in from the cloud, like flight sim. But
this is just me speculating because no one knows there anything swirling about who the
Japanese studio working on Silent Hill is not that I've heard. Back back when
the first when that first broke, and this is from not bothered. Back
when that first broke, my assumptions were either Cojima or the Siren team at
a japan studio, but both those looked pretty unlikely. Now huh, yeah
those are both pretty unlikely. Yes, they're unlikely. Uh from clovie pre
your understanding for Cogima, what this deal mean a Microsoft exclusive game or just
a multi platform game that is mainly developed for Xbox. I'm pretty sure this
would be an exclusive Microsoft game. We could talk about this a little bit.
This is something I mentioned on the BombCast. But Microsoft has looked at
the cost benefit analysis for making games multi platform and versus making them exclusive,
versus like timed exclusivity. They've looked at a bunch of different scenarios, and
this was obviously pertaining to Bethesda, but they they looked at the one that
was the games are exclusive to Microsoft forever, to game Pass basically forever.
And they're like, Okay, listen, we see how much money we're losing
here, and that losing that money is not that much different than like spending
money to acquired users or game Pass, Like it's in that range like over
a matter of like five years. And so we're just going to make things
exclusive because it makes the most sense for what our end goal here is.
And uh, I think that when they're doing a publishing deal like this,
they're gonna kind of come to that same conclusion. Uh, what is Epic
doing with that one billion dollars they raised from Paul W. Graham? I
don't probably going to fight Apple again or something. I don't know, they
make a lot of money for Fortnite, What are they in a billion dollars
for? You know, this is like it's just upfront money to probably hire
a lot of people, build a studio out there like that. They bought
that mall, so like you're gonna spend like a billion dollars like buying hardware
to fill out that mall so that people can get to work on stuff.
And then it's probably gonna be building out new teams dedicated to specific you know,
different verticals for Unreal. They've built a real, real big relationship with
Hollywood, but they probably want to make sure that they are cementing themselves in
place there and they'll probably use a lot of that money to do that.
Yeah, what if anything? Have you heard about a potential legacy of Cane
remake Slash remaster? There's some Shodo drag had that. So I when I
first heard the name Omen, which was the code name for Red Fall,
I was like, and I saw I actually saw an early image of it.
It was blurry and there was like a bat flying in front of the
moon, and there was these two creatures down at the bottom that kind of
looked like they could be like cane or something, and it obviously was not
that. It was a blurry image. But I'm like the name omen like
it all like fit in my head. I'm like, but that doesn't make
any sense. No one involved owns that I piece, So what is happening
here? Obviously that's not what it was, so beyond my own wild imagination,
I've not heard anything about Legacy of Kane remake or remaster. I hope
it does. I hope it happened soon, but I have not heard much
about it. Okay, let's keep going. I've seen chat up here.
How how's chat doing? You guys having fun? We're figuring this out.
We're coming up with some news, all right, transferring too, says PM
Zenos for what we should expect from the cloud gaming tech in coachy ABA's new
game, and please, I would love that, all right, scrolling around
the questions, okay from a ridium, didn't they already try cloud based stuff
with Crackdown and it was a big disaster? Yes? And yes, absolutely,
Yeah. I think they're in a different place now than they were when
they announced Crackdown three, right, so they've done some more cloud based stuff.
I think, you know, I mentioned flight sim. But flight sim
is a good example. It Like they said, if all that was on
disc or was done on your hard drive, it would be like a petabyte
of information or like some multiple zetabytes or something like that. It'd be a
huge amount of data. But they could just stream that stuff in from the
cloud. And I think, you know, that's a really smart and obvious
use for that, where it's like, Okay, now we can make you
fly around the whole earth in a way that was never possible before. I
think if you say, like that sentence to Kojima, light bulbs start going
off and they just he just goes wild, like the entire earth, huh,
And and then you have to like, he's just gonna go wild from
there. So they're building off of what they did with flight Sim and not
what they failed with with Crackdown, although I'm sure those failures will inform how
this works. But I mean that's why they brought in Kim Swift, right.
Kim Swift is specifically here to set be someone who worked at Stadia,
understands the pitfalls, has worked with studios already dealing with these challenges. They
didn't ship a whole lot, but she at least understands better than most people
on Earth. Like, first of all, she made Portal and Left for
Dead, Like she oversaw those games, so she knows how to make and
ship a game, and she knows how to work with the cloud. They'll
figure this stuff out. And now Microsoft has some positive examples with flights M,
so it'll probably be a lot better than what happened with crackdown. But
you're not wrong. They've tried some of this stuff before and it didn't go
well. All right, music, go back down. Hey, it's Louis
Pozelli. It's my buddy here. I'm just here to sport grubs necks and
grubs necks the only congrats on the new show. Thank you, Louis Pozlli.
I appreciate that he said I could said his name like that. All
right, this is not me going out a line here. Yeah, there
we go. Okay, anyone else scared that Sony is cracking down on leaks?
After and after Sony. I've heard a little bit that Sony's like kind
of yeah, like if you sort of don't if you're not not just if
you're the source of leaks, but if like you are, I don't know
if if you like, publish something early or if something gets out and involves
your game, they might like not let you in their next showcase. Now
I don't personally, I don't think that's a big deal. Some people hear
that and they're like, Oh, Sony's like, oh, I'll ruin with
an iron fist, And I'm just like, they think it's very important to
protect leagues, and if you're the source of the league, they don't,
you know, they're not They're gonna take it seriously. One of the reasons
why I sort of backed off on that stuff because I don't want to be
the reason someone gets in trouble on those on those things. But and you
know, I think it's a I think it's reasonable. If that's if you're
a company who wants to control that stuff, then it's your you know,
that's your purview. I think that's okay. Yeah, yeap up Panda.
I did speak about this the series of Kato Kotako Artists about Sony and Indies.
I wrote about it a little bit myself on games Beat, and then
I talked about at the beginning of this episode. One of the first questions
was about that any knowledge on the WBC situation is what happened with those studios.
We answered that one. Any further news on Breath of the Whild too,
thank you. No new news. I'm just very much in the camp
and that game is probably barely gonna make twenty twenty two and could very easy
at least, I mean, after one thinks that game could slip into twenty
twenty three. From Stewie is the Cojima letter of intent, which is something
I reported on early in the episode. If you're just joining us, that
Microsoft and Cogima have signed a letter of intent for a publishing deal between the
two, and Stew's asking is that for a single game or does it imply
a longer term arrangement that the letter of intent, As far as what I
can confirm, I don't know one way or the other to answer your question.
There are some other things that I've heard, unconfirmed, that make me
think there will be a longer term arrangement. But let's just wait. Like
that's just kind of where I'm leaning right now. It's a gut feeling,
so don't go right that into a new story anybody. But I'll look into
that more. We'll come back, we'll talk about it and see if there's
anything more to that. But there's a chance that there could be something longer
term happening there. I've tell you it. Stintendo Switch Pro just isn't real,
right, you know what? Let's that's that should be. This is
the first episode of grub Snacks. Let's plan our flag in the ground right
now, Nintendo Switch Pro is fake, just like Elegant Ring was. Now
that Integrate is now. When should we expect news about Final Fantasy seven remake
Part two? This is a tough one because we know that Final Fantasy sixteen
is like close, right, we're probably gonna hear about I think if there's
a Sony event in July August, we're gonna hear a lot about Final Fantasy
sixteen. Does that leave room for Final Fantasy seven remake Part two? I
don't know, maybe, but I doubt it. Do you think that the
Kojima thing? Is Microsoft still trying to get into the Japanese market or are
they done with that now? So there's a couple things here. This is
a good question. Shown baby, excuse me. Microsoft is well aware of
the stats and the data coming out of Japan. People during the pandemic in
Japan played way more video games than ever. Most of that was on the
phone. But Microsoft has an inkling that they can make game Pass work on
the phone for the jap news audience. Whether or not that's true, I
don't know. I don't necessarily think so. But I don't have you know
vision, I don't have you know so whatever, but to me when it
comes to the deal specifically, And I think I wrote this originally when I
announced this deal, that Kojima was central to microsoft strategy to leverage Japanese talent.
I think is how I wrote it, And my point there was that
Microsoft sees a lot of value in bringing Japanese games into game Pass on a
global scale. They see that there is a lot of hunger among gamers for
Japanese games in America and the North America and Europe. People really like like
Dragon Quests eleven did very well, I think a game passed. I think
Octopath Traveler I think did very well in game Pass. And I think Microsoft
wants to ensure that they have a good pipeline because we see what happens like
that that Falcom news recently where all those games are getting ported to switch PlayStation
and PC and no mentioned in Xbox. Microsoft doesn't want to miss out on
that stuff like that going forward. That's why they've been so heavily like working
with Sega to get Yakuza, and now Sega is in low with game Pass.
Sega's having a really good relationship with game Pass. But it's not about
necessarily winning over Japan and succeeding in Japan. They think there's a possibility there,
they think it's possible, but that's not the primary goal. The primary
goal is to make game Pass appealing to gamers everywhere, and they think Japanese
games can really help with that, and they think Kojima will really help with
that as well. I think by saying Kojima is there, it's another big
reason why, Like Kojima is a big deal everywhere, and they want to
leverage that part of things. The other the other reason I said that sentence
about about Kojima being central is Kojima is like the biggest thing Microsoft is doing
in Japan right now. And that's a way of saying they're not acquiring a
lot of other Japanese they're not acchoiring Japanese studios right now. Those deals just
aren't in the works. I imagine that they think if this Kojima deal goes
well, maybe they can use that as a springboard to prove that they work
well with Japanese companies. And I do believe that the laws for Western companies
investing in Japanese studios has been has been like pulled back a little bit,
and last year I think it was so maybe like the window opens up for
them there and that they do start getting in more studios and then that makes
them more appealing to Japan. But to me, it's much more about everywhere
else and using the talent Japan and enabling them, enabling them to keep making
console games and not forcing those studios to have to retreat to mobile, which
many of them don't want to do. All Right, so we're at an
hour now. I'm still feeling pretty good. I say let's keep answers with
questions. I'm having a good time with everybody. I hope everybody's enjoying the
show. You know this is it'scrub snacks if you're just tuning in them now
or recently. I've answered. I started with some news about what was it?
Yeah, dead Space kind of confirms some of the reporting there, and
Kojima and Microsoft signing the letter intent that will be in the VOD and the
best way to catch up on the show is to go to GiantBomb dot com
slash upgrade and join the premium so be able to watch this show in the
future and be able to watch all the odds as they come forward. Okay,
I want to answer at least a couple more questions. Let's say,
if there's any good ones. You know what I'm gonna do. I know
a lot of people standing questions already. I'm going to scroll to the top
and if you want your question answered again, you have my permission to hit
that button again and send it in a second time, and I'll try to
answer it because that way I know you're serious about to get it answered.
Or maybe it's something I already answered and so you're like, oh, I
don't need to actually ask it again. So let's do this. From Dominito,
does Sony have an answer to game Pass? I think that Sony is
and have strong position to keep just doing what it's doing. And it's working
fine for Sony, and it doesn't and it should not answer game pass.
I think right now it should not try to answer game Pass. If it
tries to fall though Microsoft down that path, it will not be able to
do it as well. It doesn't have enough money, it doesn't have the
infrastructure in terms of like supporting that stuff on the cloud. Yeah, they
don't have enough studios at this point, like let's go head to head and
they don't want to and what's working. And here's the point that I think
gets missed a lot with this stuff is it's not just about what Sony and
Microsoft want. You actually have to listen to what the fans are saying.
And because Microsoft is doing game Pass, Sony fans are very much like,
don't do that. We specifically don't want you to be like Microsoft. Keep
being Sony, keep making these giant games, and we're going to support them.
We're gonna go wild for these games. I think, like we saw
Returnal, I think Reternal got in part got turned into a big hit because
a lot of PlayStations. Sony fans proved that or we're trying to prove that,
hey, we will buy this game for seventy dollars. This is a
game that we think is this is what we want. We don't want the
stuff that's going in game Pass, don't Microsoft. And so because Microsoft exists
and is doing this stuff over here. It creates an opportunity for Sony to
be different. Sony just has to embrace that and keep going down its own
path, and it's doing that. I think they. I think Sony fully
understands this stuff. I don't think anything I'm saying is going to be a
news flash to Jim Ryan. I think he fully appreciates this and is trying
to do that. And that's why instead of investing in PlayStation now, they're
investing in PlayStation Plus and making people feel good about that stuff and just kind
of giving away last gen big boxbusters to people who get a PlayStation five and
PlayStation Plus. Yeah, they're they're going their own way and they're going to
keep doing that. And the way that they're looking to make more money according
to Jim Ryan, and that big thing he that like big prospectus he sent
out to investors a couple months ago, a couple of weeks ago, is
we're gonna put more games on PC. We're going to spend more of our
first party budget on live service games, and we're going to do more stuff
on mobile. That's where they're looking for their growth, and that nothing none
of that has to do anything with a game Pass response, and to me,
that makes the most sense. I would not if I were them,
I would not be trying to compete directly with game Pass from apathesian apathetic apathetic
Man's VR dad. I've used this analogy before, but what the hell do
you remember it? You remember it the it before it was announced as the
segue. That's what VR kind of self felt like to me. Where before
VR kind of got out there, we were getting all hyped up and we're
like it was going to change the world, and it was going to change
the world, and then it gets announced and it's a scooter you stand on
and business has bought a lot of them. It worked a lot for enterprise.
Enterprise used a lot of it for like their security guards or for like
renting two people at a theme park or whatever. And VR is exactly the
same where it was hyped up it was going to change the world. Most
people didn't buy it, but theme parks bought it, and they and people
you could go rent them at at you know, at locations, and businesses
and enterprise are using it, And now where is where's the segue? I
think they shut it down. I think VR probably won't get shut down.
It will morph and continue to change into new display technologies and new ways of
interfacing with computers. Uh, but it's it's definitely we're not. VR is
not an endpoint. It's not an endpoint. It's it's it's a step along
the way and we'll figure out what's next. Okay from et Tuh do you
think the meme slash game stop slash AMC stock hype will spill over into gaming
stock? It's something I've been wondering. The most gaming stocks are not being
shorted right now. That's a big part. That's the big issue. It's
the big that's a key thing there. We don't have to spend a lot
of time on this. I think either you care about the stuff or you
don't. And if you don't, you don't care about anything, Like you
don't even understand what I'm saying right now. That's not a judgment. I
don't blame you, but yeah, I think the key thing is like many
of those stocks are kind of exactly where investors expecting them be, and like
no one's really shorting EA, so you kind of can't go and meme stock
EA because you need to be able to short squeeze those sellers, and that's
just not an option from Giggie. Is game pass on switch a dead wish?
Uh? You know it's I Phil still wants it. He still wants
to Phil Spencer from Xbox, the boss of Xbox, still wants to get
game pass everywhere. I think he is working the long game. I think
he is trying to make Microsoft invaluable to these companies and saying, Hey,
we're gonna provide your cloud infrastructure. We're gonna make that work really well for
you. Come and partner partner with us on that stuff, and then hopefully
they can sort of parlay that into the next step and then the next step
and then say, hey, come on, we're so close, like,
let's get game passed on here. We already have a bunch of deals in
place. We'll give you a really good deal, give you a good cut
on all the stuff that we make from this. Let's just make it happen.
I think he's I think he sees that future. Whether or not that's
possible is I have no idea. What's up with a new BioShock. I
don't know. At last I heard it was it's still coming along and but
I don't think we're gonna hear about it anytime too soon. I haven't looked
into it too closely recently. It was kind of that same thing where we
got all of those two K announcements leaked, and I'm like, okay,
so this is what they have now. That BioShock thing is probably just anytthing
we hear about later, And so I didn't look into it too closely.
I'll look around and if there's anything interesting, I'll come back with that and
then the next couple of weeks do you think respond will make another VR game?
Now? They were kind of they started at VR game before EA acquired
them, so they had to see it through. And it took a lot
of work to like get Oculus to agree to even make that game a modern
middle of honor game, because like E's like, well, we kind of
make it something something of ours. We own this studio like this, let
us do that, And it took a lot of work to get them to
agree to that, and they don't want to, like that was a hassle.
And I don't think EA has a lot of like they're not looking around
a lot ip like, oh, we need to make that a VR game.
Okay, probably gonna start wrapping up soon, but I'm still looking at
some questions. We're still gonna go for a little bit longer. If anyone's
got a hot question, be sure to ask it. H Durfeef, is
Dinal Crisis is really dead? I doubt it's dead dead. I think Capcom
will eventually get to a point where that Dinal Crisis Games makes some sense to
bring back. Maybe I'm overlooking something there, but I think they'll do at
least one because it seems like the R engine is a very I think they're
very adept, you know, adroids at using that engine, and I think
once they get through the Resident Evil, it'll be like, hey, we
can make that happen pretty quickly. Let's just give it a shot, and
who knows, if it takes off, they have a good another franchise they
can start building on. Oh Byword, justin thank your final Desk, A
Byword just announced it won't show dragon age or mass effect a EA play.
I had not heard one way or the other on that, So that's okay,
that's cool to know. It's good to know, not cool. I
think people are gonna be disappointed. I was wondering like they can't. They
couldn't just show more CG for Dragon Age, right, thank you for that
final desk, a good looking out. They couldn't just show more CG from
that. They've done sort of those teases in the last couple of years.
I guess. I guess they could have, because we've only seen like still
assets, right, or like assets like revolving around the camera, that sort
of thing. They probably could have done a CG teaser for like what the
game actually is now and got away with it. So maybe, you know,
they are just coming off a mass effect. That's the thing. Creating
that sort of asset takes time, it takes money, it takes planning,
and they're just coming off a mass effect legendary edition. They are still working
within a pandemic world, and why spend that money when next year or maybe
at maybe at you know, the Game Awards. They've they've shown up to
the Game Awards a bunch of times. Maybe at the Game Awards they could
show up and say, hey, now here's some actual gameplay up Dragon Age.
I think that could I think that could work for them. So okay,
good to know, Good to know that that's the situation with those games,
So I guess that means it's gonna be a lot of dead spaced and
a lot of skate for huh. Maybe they'll bring Paley on the stage.
I hope Pale is not dead. I don't I don't know. I hope
Pale is not dead. When I said that from Nita Nita Mac, I'm
sorry about these names. Everybody love the new show. Jeff, thank you
so much. Have you heard anything about movement on bringing back NCA Double A
football with new NIL rules going into effect, any idea of when it will
be back? So don't know what the NIL rules are. I love college
football, so I should like figure this out. But I have heard so.
I was when me and Mike on our podcast were teasing dead space and
he said dead like if we're not dead first, when I kind of felt
bad that we like because so explicitly teased it. I'm like, let's pretend
we're talking about NBA live, and then I'm like, hey, I should
check it to see if NBA last and in production before I start making those
jokes. And it's not. It's not in production because the team is focused
on n n C Double A and basketball or ncuble and not basketball and golf,
so the football game and golf, and there's one other but I can't
remember what that studio does. But the new ones are golf and nc double
A football, so they're focused on it. It seems like they're intent on
getting that stuff out soon. I don't know if that means we hear about
it at this EA play or whatever at one of these like EA play events
before the main EA play, but seems like it is well on its way
to happening, much quicker than a revival of NBA Live. So thank you
for that question. Get a little bit extra juice out of the show,
huh okay, yeah, please bring us some aw scoops. Kenny Omega is
a noted friend of the site. Never mind last D three from x June
one. Yeah, Mike's played video games with him, So I'll get Mike
to contact him for me and we'll get we'll make that happen. Don't apologize
for our names. We picked them from nijoj Salu. Should I kill the
last tiny bit of hope I have of Persona five coming out on other platforms?
Boy, Christian, I just don't know. No one knows this one.
You ask about it all the time, because what sense does this make?
Why or why is this not on other things? They must have an
exclusivity in agreement with Sony, no one. It doesn't seem like they have
an exclusivity agreement with Sony. That means the other alternative is just poor management.
I think where they did not know that Persona would sell as well as
it did on on Steam and then it like way outsold the Vita version or
whatever. And if you don't, it's like we could have told you that.
Just listen to us, please, And if they were to put these
games on Switch, they would be massive hits. They would be multimillion sellers
on Switch, no doubt. But why they're not happening, No idea I
could ask. Again. I don't think I'll find out. I think there.
I think it's too embarrassing for it to leak out. I think that's
honestly the answers. It's too embarrassing for them to actually ever let anyone find
out why these things aren't on other other platforms. Uh, any Dragon any
chance on Dragons Dogma two soon? So I think we know from the hack,
which hacks acting's bad. But we know from the hack, the Capcom
hack that Dragons Dogma two is on their calendar, or at least that it
was at the time of the hack, and it's like one of their next
big games in terms of like when you look forward to the future. But
Capcom was just at E three and they didn't announce it. So when we
hear about it, I imagine that it's something we hear about maybe the Game
Awards, maybe early next year, but it seems like it could still come
out next year. And if that's the case, yes, we should hear
about it soon, you know, as soon as in months, many many
months. Any idiot, Why it's going to take so long one to two
years for the Trails games to be localized when they're paying Geo front to do
it and they already did a high quality fan translation. I don't know.
I wonder if part of that's just like spacing these things out and part of
like a marketing thing. I honestly don't know. Uh, sorry about that.
Will we ever see Viva Panada come to PC slash Game pass us?
It's not that's a shame, I think, so, I hope. So
it's a kind of thing where it's like, oh, we should get around
to that eventually, and then they eventually do actually get around to it.
What on earth happened to deep down it? I don't know. Got it
got sent to the phantom zone. I don't know here. I mean,
let me just let me take advantage of skill XR it got sent to them.
I have no idea what that voice sounded like. Actually, I don't
have my headset on, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I messed up
there. All right, tell us everything you know about the Bloodborne remake Slash
pc port. Don't know much. I think it makes sense, right.
The thing about this is, uh, I think the Bloodborne remake Slash pc
port is something that required the attention of from Soft, and from Soft had
been very very very busy, sort of like putting out fires without a ring.
And I think they might be at a point now where they can if
they're almost certainly working with another studio, but they're working with another studio to
actually do the port. I think they from was required, but they might
be at a point where they could provide that like that support and then send
this other studio off to finish it. And so I think we're probably closer
to it happening, but I don't know for sure. It sounds like tree
Beard. Okay, hey, yeah, I got deep sixed. Okay,
let's let's do one more question. I'm gonna do one more question and we
got a good one, and then we'll wrap this up. This has been
a lot of fun. I hope people are enjoying the show. This is
a this is a good time. Who's about to have to kiss for another
lunar? I don't know, man, I'm not a JRPG guy. I'm
sorry. I think you gotta you gotta get in there and do the leg
work and make it happen. Is anyone working on a new def Jam game?
I doubt it. No, Sorry, what fires with elden ring?
I don't understand the question. If you want to ask a question, make
sure you're using to ask a question button at the top in case you missed
that. But I see someone in the chat added me it's Hello Games at
a point where they feel comfortable releasing a paid expansion for no man sky Will
that ever happen? I don't know if it will ever happen. I think
that they see enough of a bump in sales from the base game every time
that that's been working for them and that a paid expansion might I think they
might be wheady, might spoil that where people are like, well, yeah,
I could buy the Bass game, I got this free update now,
but also there's an expansion I have to buy and that's still full price or
something I don't I guess they could always release a you know, an all
encompassing version for like ten more dollars and that's just the version people buy,
and then stop the base version, as they could do the medium popcorn thing.
You go to the movie theaters and the large version is the large popcorn
is seven fifty and the medium popcorn seven twenty five, So you're staying up
yourself only twenty five cents. I'm gonna get the large and you don't think
about the fact that you're actually spending seven dollars and fifty cents. So they
could do that with No Man's Guy where they released they still had that on
Steam or wherever for what we have fifteen bucks and then have twenty dollar version
that has the DLC and then people feel a little bit better about spending a
little bit extra money because they're also getting extra content. They could do something
like that. I don't know if they're in a place where they feel like
they'll ever do that. All right, Black Art Vinyl asks Arby's. Apparently
they're sending me something. I don't know what. They got my DMS yesterday
and they're sending me something. So I don't know. You know that I
am an Arby's shill. Absolutely is Tommy tell Rico. Okay, I hope
so, I hope so. I don't wish any I don't wish ill on
him at all. I he seems like an emotional and passionate guy, and
I don't know if that's good or bad for what the end television is going
to turn into. And a battle of Jeff's who would reign supreme? Uh?
Probably Jeff. It's gonna say Jeff Lebowski. But that's not that's a
fictional character. So that's not a real person. Jeff Goldbloom or did he
get canceled? I can't remember of the Jeff's here. Listen, we work
together, we collaborate. We are just in a fight against against the Geoffs
of the world, against Kiely. We have to do something about him.
Rate this next toffee popcorn? Uh? Yeah, that's that. That's gonna
get a four out of five. I love me some toffee popcorn. All
right, everybody, I'm gonna start wrapping this up. Thank you for watching.
Thank you so much. This is Grubs Next. I'm Jeff Grubb,
a right for games Beat. You can find more for me, more of
me on Jeff Jeff Grub on Twitter. I tweet too much, so don't
actually follow me. I I'm gonna do the show every week on Thursdays at
ten am Pacific time one pm Eastern. But if you want to watch the
future episodes, you're gonna need Giant Bomb Premium. Get that go to giant
bomb dot com slash upgrade. Uh I guess that does that. You're thinking,
Hey, Jeff, does that mean you're gonna like lock down everything to
Giant Bomb, Like, No, this is about us having a conversation.
If you want to participate in the conversation, that's what you're coming here for.
And I think that it went really well. I think you all provide
really good questions, and you provide stuff that's like this is good stuff to
riff on, and honestly, you guys like shook some stuff loose for my
brain, like, oh, I can't remember now, but stuff like uh,
I think yeah, the stuff like a NC double A getting worked on
pretty actively right now. That's the kind of stuff that we can work on
together. And that's what you're gonna show up for. And I think I'll
make a great idea if you kept doing that. But if you ever want
asking me a question on Twitter, feel free. If I'm not too busy,
you can do that. I have a discord discord dot gg slash game
mess you can ask me questions there. I'll do my best answer. Most
of the time. This is about us hanging out and I was figuring out
some of this stuff and a sort of collaborative atmosphere. All right, I'd
never let my hair down. I want to do that before the show started.
Get people, give the people what they want, all right. I'm
gonna wrap this thing up. I'm gonna try to go to the one because
there's because Dan Hour sent a new thing where the Grub's next logo gets bitten
away and I don't have the sound effect for that, or maybe I might
have a sound effect built in. Actually I never I didn't listen to it.
I'm gonna try to go that and then that fades the black and I'm
gonna stop the recording. So thank you everybody for showing up. Come back
next week. Let's have a good time and have a good weekend. Uh
and yeah catch until then, goodbye, here we go. I'll see if
it's gonna work.