Battlefield 6 Jumps Up Steam Charts

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff
<v Speaker 1>Grab your host from giant bomb dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 1>In this episode, we're going to be talking about PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>going multi platform and Xbox canceling another game. It's gonna
<v Speaker 1>be a good one because we have Reese Elliott on
<v Speaker 1>the show. Reese, how are you doing?
<v Speaker 3>Jeff doing well here? Just get him with ducks in
<v Speaker 3>a row for games Com. So pretty busy. But I
<v Speaker 3>believe just talking to you before the show, I've had
<v Speaker 3>a bit of a downfall since our last chat.
<v Speaker 1>Even assessed, I think that's an understatement. Yes, you're obsessed
<v Speaker 1>with roadblocks, it's more that's more than a downfall.
<v Speaker 2>What's going on? By what happened there? Like what even
<v Speaker 2>got you started?
<v Speaker 3>So last weekend, my young nephew, who still lives in
<v Speaker 3>the UK, came out to Amsterdam to visit me. You know,
<v Speaker 3>he's still young, so I haven't I'm quite shown him
<v Speaker 3>the things the city has to offer. But we were
<v Speaker 3>playing some games together as we do, and he shows
<v Speaker 3>me grow a garden, so like I play it, I
<v Speaker 3>think like what is this? Like absolutely shite game? And
<v Speaker 3>while all this is happening. My backlog is growing, you know,
<v Speaker 3>the battlefield five betas calling my name. But all I
<v Speaker 3>can think of now is like checking what seeds are
<v Speaker 3>available in this like shite roadblocks game. I've hit rock bottom,
<v Speaker 3>like I can call it like a professional curiosity, but
<v Speaker 3>I'm just I'm in the loop.
<v Speaker 4>I'm hooked, and I need to wean myself off.
<v Speaker 3>I've fallen off like it sucks.
<v Speaker 1>So when the time comes from me, because my kids
<v Speaker 1>right now Minecraft, they ask about roadblocks every now and then.
<v Speaker 1>I've mostly and I think I plan to try to
<v Speaker 1>continue stirring them clear of it. Minecraft is enough money
<v Speaker 1>out of my pocket. But when it does happen inevitably,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to be coming to you for hints and
<v Speaker 1>tips and stuff like that. Are you like finding different
<v Speaker 1>games instead of roadblocks? Are you going back to this
<v Speaker 1>one to grow a garden game?
<v Speaker 3>So like, I tried a few other games and they're
<v Speaker 3>so much shit, Like I don't know if I can swear,
<v Speaker 3>but you.
<v Speaker 2>Could swear, especially a couple of roadblocks.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, nothing else is sticking.
<v Speaker 3>Like I think the games that they serve on the
<v Speaker 3>front page are the ones that make them the most funny.
<v Speaker 3>So they're the ones that are like the most horrific
<v Speaker 3>to play, because honestly, there are like they're just scamming
<v Speaker 3>kids in this game, like yep, literally even in Grow
<v Speaker 3>a Garden, like you open it, like the intro is
<v Speaker 3>like five minutes, and they're like, pay for this, pay
<v Speaker 3>for that, pay for this, pay for that, and you know,
<v Speaker 3>I'm an adult, like badly, but they're like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>I have will now if you're a kid, like like, man, sorry,
<v Speaker 3>I digress, I don't want to no, no.
<v Speaker 2>I'm interested.
<v Speaker 1>I know, like I'm like, I definitely have a professional
<v Speaker 1>curiosity about it, especially someone from your perspective kind of
<v Speaker 1>checking it out. I am still shot. I mean, like roadblocks. Clearly,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's part of kids culture. It's it's massive. The
<v Speaker 1>fact that they have had multiple McDonald's Happy Meal tie
<v Speaker 1>ends for stuff like Adopt Me and things like that
<v Speaker 1>still shocks me. And but you know, then you look
<v Speaker 1>at the numbers, it's like, well, of course they have that.
<v Speaker 1>There's millions of players, so many more than just about
<v Speaker 1>anything else. And yeah, the game is making a ton
<v Speaker 1>of money and they always plain out they make a
<v Speaker 1>ton of money for people who make the stuff. But
<v Speaker 1>they keep most of it roebucks a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>a yeah, a bad company in a lot of ways.
<v Speaker 1>All right, you know what, let's get on with it.
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<v Speaker 1>with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the Morning Mess with Sony goes. Multi platform
<v Speaker 1>exclusives no longer the priority. And I have put a
<v Speaker 1>question mark at the end of this headline because it's
<v Speaker 1>they're saying some stuff. Are they saying that exactly? Well,
<v Speaker 1>let's read what Marcus Person from a Game Reactor wrote
<v Speaker 1>over here. It's been in the air for a while,
<v Speaker 1>but during its quarterly earnings report, Sony finally confirmed that
<v Speaker 1>it officially plans to move away from exclusivity and instead
<v Speaker 1>focus on a multiplatform business model, In simple terms, doing
<v Speaker 1>what Microsoft has done and releasing its games to as
<v Speaker 1>many players as possible. Speculation around Hell Divers two and
<v Speaker 1>what it meant that that game would soon be released
<v Speaker 1>on Xbox has now proven true. Sadihiko Hayakawa, senior vice
<v Speaker 1>president at Sony, explained that the goal is to build
<v Speaker 1>larger communities and increase engagement even among players who don't
<v Speaker 1>own a PlayStation. Here's a quote in the gaming business,
<v Speaker 1>we are moving away from a hardware centric business model
<v Speaker 1>more to a platform business that expands the community and
<v Speaker 1>increases engagement. Sony stresses that this doesn't mean that this
<v Speaker 1>is the end of the PlayStation as a console. Both
<v Speaker 1>the PlayStation six and the next generation Xbox are as
<v Speaker 1>we know, already in development, so the rival rivalry between
<v Speaker 1>the companies will continue.
<v Speaker 2>Well kind of, I guess.
<v Speaker 1>Not really, Okay, the quote there is what people are
<v Speaker 1>extrapolating from. In addition to Reese, there was a job
<v Speaker 1>listing a couple weeks ago where they were hiring for
<v Speaker 1>someone and it said, you know, over oversee and understand
<v Speaker 1>our multi platform strategy. So those two pieces of information, PEP,
<v Speaker 1>we're kind of piecing together, as you know, well, as
<v Speaker 1>well as a lot of circumstantial evidence of kind of
<v Speaker 1>just the way the gaming economy is working right now
<v Speaker 1>and kind of the way the paths towards growth, especially
<v Speaker 1>as live service games have not all worked out the
<v Speaker 1>way that these companies needed them to and been like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, it just kind of makes sense that maybe
<v Speaker 1>Sony's thinking on a more multi platform strategy.
<v Speaker 2>The console war is dead, as we keep saying.
<v Speaker 1>The way I read this, though, Reese, and you tell
<v Speaker 1>me if this sounds right to you, is that when
<v Speaker 1>I see this quote, it sounds to me like they're
<v Speaker 1>just saying, look, we are not console centric. We are
<v Speaker 1>maybe going to center our efforts on building games as
<v Speaker 1>a platform because that's just where gaming's at. Like that
<v Speaker 1>is just them acknowledging reality. And then whether or not
<v Speaker 1>that means those games are quote unquote multiplatform games or
<v Speaker 1>all go to Xbox, I think is an entirely different question.
<v Speaker 2>Does that sound right to you?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? Yeah, I agree.
<v Speaker 3>I think a lot of the takes on this, sadly,
<v Speaker 3>including Marcus from from Game Reactor here, have been a
<v Speaker 3>little bit over the top. I think the time it's
<v Speaker 3>it's just a continuation of what PlayStation has been doing already. Right,
<v Speaker 3>it releases everything on PC about a year later, you know,
<v Speaker 3>hell Divers has come into Xbox. We knew that hell
<v Speaker 3>Divers came to Steam day and date.
<v Speaker 4>It's just something.
<v Speaker 3>And you know PlayStation has also had switch games with
<v Speaker 3>Lego Horizons day and date, and so it just it
<v Speaker 3>just makes sense, right, Like in general, the number of
<v Speaker 3>console players has been stagnant where it's growing like hardly
<v Speaker 3>anything at all. But like these you know, PlayStation still
<v Speaker 3>needs to grow its revenues and increases we say, like
<v Speaker 3>it's total addressable markets audience basically, and so that's why
<v Speaker 3>it's expanding to other platforms, you know, including other consoles.
<v Speaker 4>PC and even mobile.
<v Speaker 3>So it just kind of like needs to happen for
<v Speaker 3>a PlayStation to continue like growing its revenues. And they
<v Speaker 3>will still have their box and they will still have
<v Speaker 3>timed exclusives for the single player games. You know, your
<v Speaker 3>your Ghost of Yotas, your Naughty Dog game, other Sucker
<v Speaker 3>Punch games, et cetera. But they will they will come
<v Speaker 3>to PC and you know they will come to.
<v Speaker 4>Xbox because Xbox is.
<v Speaker 3>Going to be a PC two years from now. It
<v Speaker 3>is just a PC that's branded as Xbox yep. So
<v Speaker 3>you know that that's yeah, yeah, I mean it's not confirmed,
<v Speaker 3>but you know, let's let's be honest. We can see
<v Speaker 3>where the where the wind is turning there, so yeah,
<v Speaker 3>they're they're just gonna they need to grow their revenues.
<v Speaker 3>And like if we look at forts from PS five
<v Speaker 3>as an example, now it's sold like almost three point
<v Speaker 3>four million copies of the station. It's wild. It's it's
<v Speaker 3>the it's the best selling new PlayStation game of the year.
<v Speaker 1>Like, yeah, we saw, I saw your we talked about
<v Speaker 1>your report on that when it was like and then
<v Speaker 1>was basically confirmed after you did that, so it's like, wow, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>good work, rease uh And it's like that's still shocking
<v Speaker 1>to see in some ways, but it's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>of course the demand was there for these Xbox games,
<v Speaker 1>and the PlayStation vans were downplaying it, so it was
<v Speaker 1>like in front of them, and then of course they
<v Speaker 1>rushed out to get it. I think like when it
<v Speaker 1>comes to them acknowledging reality here it is we started
<v Speaker 1>the show off talking about it roadblocks, and these companies
<v Speaker 1>see what the stock is doing for Roadblocks, and they
<v Speaker 1>see the kind of money that's able to make in
<v Speaker 1>the number of players that's able to grab and a
<v Speaker 1>five hundred dollars and you know that numbers increasing. PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>five Slash PlayStation six simply cannot compete with a Roadblocks
<v Speaker 1>being everywhere. That's a whole other stratosphere that these consoles
<v Speaker 1>are not in. Now again, does that mean that they're
<v Speaker 1>abandon PlayStation. No, but I do think it, like, what
<v Speaker 1>does this mean for us people who are playing a
<v Speaker 1>variety of games, a lot of traditional style games that
<v Speaker 1>you go to retail and buy. It probably probably does
<v Speaker 1>mean that there is a slightly reduced focus and an
<v Speaker 1>investment in those kinds of games. But I think we
<v Speaker 1>can already feel that that has happened, and I think
<v Speaker 1>that they have reached an equilibrium there where I don't
<v Speaker 1>like the two to three games that we're getting from
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation publishing a year at this point, at least the
<v Speaker 1>two or three big ones that we're getting, Like, I
<v Speaker 1>don't think it's going to be reduced from that point,
<v Speaker 1>but I do think they are not going to try
<v Speaker 1>to ramp it up to get it back to like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>now we have seven games in a year. It'll be
<v Speaker 1>here's a handful of relatively big games, and then the
<v Speaker 1>rest of our efforts are going to go into trying
<v Speaker 1>to build, you know, having our own roadblocks, which you
<v Speaker 1>know that sounds like what are you talking about, Like,
<v Speaker 1>just look at what everyone else is doing. Grand Theft
<v Speaker 1>Auto wants to have their roadblocks, Fortnite does have theirs,
<v Speaker 1>Minecraft does have their way to play other games inside
<v Speaker 1>of that stuff. Everyone else has done this in one
<v Speaker 1>form or another. PlayStation's trying to get on board with that,
<v Speaker 1>and I think they feel like if they don't, they
<v Speaker 1>will get left behind, even though we just got their
<v Speaker 1>financials where clearly they're not being left behind in terms
<v Speaker 1>of making money, they're doing very well. But how do
<v Speaker 1>we sort of square that circle where used to like
<v Speaker 1>make that make sense?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean they're just hedging their bets right, Like
<v Speaker 3>right now they're winning, they see the winds change, and
<v Speaker 3>their positioning themselves for the future. You know, they know that,
<v Speaker 3>you know, this console stuff isn't going to last forever
<v Speaker 3>candidly because you know, younger gamers they're playing on mobile
<v Speaker 3>right they they they graduate from switch or mobile to
<v Speaker 3>PC usually, like there's there's no kind of room for
<v Speaker 3>console among this younger generation in general, so they need
<v Speaker 3>to do this right. Like Xbox has had a lot
<v Speaker 3>of flak for its decision to you know, shift its strategy,
<v Speaker 3>but like PlayStation is.
<v Speaker 4>Like, just let Xbox do the R and D.
<v Speaker 3>Let them you know, test the waters, and the waters
<v Speaker 3>are hot, so you know, now PlayStation's jumping in. So
<v Speaker 3>it's it's smart. It's a smart strategy. And also like
<v Speaker 3>people who you know, hate Xbox for going to PlayStation,
<v Speaker 3>hate PlayStation for going to Xbox, like honestly, grow up,
<v Speaker 3>like you know, just like, let like a lot of
<v Speaker 3>these guys are in their thirties and forties, just like,
<v Speaker 3>shut up, enjoy the games. Be happy that games you
<v Speaker 3>love are going to other platforms, Like what is this?
<v Speaker 4>Like why it's not bad?
<v Speaker 3>It's this is amazing, Like your favorite game gets to
<v Speaker 3>be enjoyed by more people, your favorite developer gets more revenues, gets,
<v Speaker 3>you know, more chances to get their next game subsidized.
<v Speaker 3>Like what is wrong with these fan boys? Just enjoy
<v Speaker 3>it like it's it's good, eifectly it's good.
<v Speaker 1>It's good, and it's you know, and they're like they're
<v Speaker 1>trying to sort of rationalize what they're seeing. Like I
<v Speaker 1>saw some stuff on Twitter yesterday when I locked in
<v Speaker 1>and immediately logged out because boy, it's a bummer over there.
<v Speaker 1>But what I saw was just like them trying to
<v Speaker 1>be like Okay, well yeah, sure, So Sony's talking about
<v Speaker 1>some multi platform stuff, and they're talking about focusing away
<v Speaker 1>a little bit from their console onto different strategy. But
<v Speaker 1>they're doing that because they're succeeding, versus what Microsoft's doing
<v Speaker 1>because they failed.
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, yeah, that's true. But effectively, what you're.
<v Speaker 1>Going to see is going to be a very similar
<v Speaker 1>thing from both of these companies because what they're really
<v Speaker 1>both going towards is they're they're sniffing out where the
<v Speaker 1>money's at, and they think it's in this other direction,
<v Speaker 1>at least when it comes to games. Now in Microsoft's case,
<v Speaker 1>maybe it's it's even a little bit less that and
<v Speaker 1>they smell money over AI and probably not even maybe
<v Speaker 1>that there's a lot of that, and that's a huge distraction,
<v Speaker 1>but they still have a gaming business and their their
<v Speaker 1>efforts have been put in this direction for a while now,
<v Speaker 1>and it's just yeah, effectively for put for people who
<v Speaker 1>play games, what's what this is probably going to mean
<v Speaker 1>is fewer and and even larger games from these bigger companies,
<v Speaker 1>and that is the direction all of them have been going.
<v Speaker 1>And that also means that each game is going to
<v Speaker 1>be an even bigger risk and so just all of
<v Speaker 1>the sort of holes that these companies could fall in
<v Speaker 1>might get bigger and scarier and riskier. Uh and It's
<v Speaker 1>going to be kind of a situation where if they
<v Speaker 1>have one big miss, like, how are they going to
<v Speaker 1>feel about continuing to invest in games going forward?
<v Speaker 2>After that?
<v Speaker 1>We'll have to see, you know, they've already had that
<v Speaker 1>with Concord and a couple other stuff for live service games.
<v Speaker 1>But if one of their you know, traditional single player
<v Speaker 1>games miss, I'm just afraid of like what they're going
<v Speaker 1>to feel about that after that because these games are
<v Speaker 1>just getting more and more and more expensive, and then
<v Speaker 1>that return on investment does have a visible ceiling at
<v Speaker 1>this point, and that's what they're concerned about. They hate ceiling,
<v Speaker 1>seeing that ceiling. They want to have infinite growth, or
<v Speaker 1>at least the imagination of I can see a path
<v Speaker 1>towards infinite growth and being able to be aware of
<v Speaker 1>that ceiling and kind of constantly butting your head against
<v Speaker 1>it in the way that some of these companies are,
<v Speaker 1>especially Sony, they want to find a way around it.
<v Speaker 2>And that's what this is all about.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, absolutely, And as well when you look at the data,
<v Speaker 3>and I think, you know, PlayStations look pouring over this data,
<v Speaker 3>like Hell Divers too sold twice as many copies on
<v Speaker 3>Steam than it did PlayStation, and I think that was
<v Speaker 3>a big eye opening moment for Sony because they had
<v Speaker 3>no idea what they had with Hell Diver, isn't it
<v Speaker 3>you know, is their fastest selling game ever and sells twice.
<v Speaker 4>As many right PlayStation as.
<v Speaker 3>Unsteamed than PlayStation. So you know, their eyebrows perk up.
<v Speaker 3>They're like, oh, wow, like we need to like shift
<v Speaker 3>our strategy a little bit and lo and behold that's
<v Speaker 3>what they're doing. So yeah, we're just going to see
<v Speaker 3>more of it going forward. This is the game's market
<v Speaker 3>outside of Nintendo.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and Nintendo still in the games market, but a unicorn.
<v Speaker 1>Very different situation for sure. Okay, let's keep going. Microsoft
<v Speaker 1>pauses development on Avalanche Studios Contraband. This is from Vicky
<v Speaker 1>Lake at Games Industry dot biz. Microsoft has paused development
<v Speaker 1>on its upcoming shooter Contraband. Steven Tatillo's Game File broke
<v Speaker 1>the news late this evening, but there's been no formal
<v Speaker 1>word from Microsoft or developer Avalanche Studios. The report claims
<v Speaker 1>neither Avalanche or Microsoft have responded to comment, but a
<v Speaker 1>source familiar with the matter noted that production had been
<v Speaker 1>put on hold and the announcement trailer for Contraband was
<v Speaker 1>reportedly set to private on its YouTube channel several weeks ago.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I didn't realize people had noticed that.
<v Speaker 1>It's unclear if the project had been shelved due to
<v Speaker 1>internal pressures or as a result of the nine thousand
<v Speaker 1>layoffs Microsoft made across its gaming division on July second.
<v Speaker 1>But we but we believed at the time that the
<v Speaker 1>initiatives Ever or the initiatives Everwild Okay, Vicky the Guy
<v Speaker 1>was Rare and Perfect Dark were the only two games
<v Speaker 1>canceled directly as a rest ultimate cuts. People have like
<v Speaker 1>checked in on od from from uh Coachman all this
<v Speaker 1>stuff and like, I guess that's still going. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was Perfect Dark, Ever Wild and now Contraband. It
<v Speaker 1>does feel like the Microsoft that was green lighting these
<v Speaker 1>games years ago is gone and now this different Microsoft
<v Speaker 1>with a different I is going back and reassessing all
<v Speaker 1>of these things and just being like, we don't think
<v Speaker 1>even if this does work out, that it's going to
<v Speaker 1>be worth it. How do you read this, Reese?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I read it in a similar way to you.
<v Speaker 3>You know, the context there is, like Microsoft announced those
<v Speaker 3>discussed in layoffs across Xbox Game Studios early last month
<v Speaker 3>as part of a four percent global workforce reduction across
<v Speaker 3>the whole company. And the goal in Microsoft of Microsoft's
<v Speaker 3>words definitely not mine, is to like streamline operations, protect
<v Speaker 3>what is thriving, and focus on like the most promising opportunities.
<v Speaker 3>And like I think Phil Spencer at the time like
<v Speaker 3>really emphasized the need to like focus on, you know,
<v Speaker 3>pouring resources into games with the highest potential, and then
<v Speaker 3>projects like Contraband, which had seen like very little public
<v Speaker 3>activity progress took a hit in that reprioritization. If I
<v Speaker 3>had to guess, you know, it was announced what like
<v Speaker 3>four or five years.
<v Speaker 4>Ago or four years ago? I think, yeah, four years ago.
<v Speaker 3>We haven't really heard anything now, Like you said, that
<v Speaker 3>trailer was like quietly mid private, and yeah, it just
<v Speaker 3>seems to have been a casualty in this like strategy shift,
<v Speaker 3>and like it's sad for for Avalanche. You know, this
<v Speaker 3>is a loss of a major triple A contract for them.
<v Speaker 3>You know it's going to mean like a revenue gap
<v Speaker 3>in their books. You know that they weren't expecting. They
<v Speaker 3>you know, they can shift that to other projects, but
<v Speaker 3>you know, redirect staff to other internal projects, but maybe
<v Speaker 3>they don't have that much going on, so there's a
<v Speaker 3>risk of like layoffs or restructuring. And yeah, it could
<v Speaker 3>like you know, I'm just speculating here, but it could
<v Speaker 3>be another kind of casualty in you know, Microsoft's like overreach.
<v Speaker 3>I would say, you know, they're they're making more revenues
<v Speaker 3>than ever, like partially thanks to the Activision Blizzard acquisition,
<v Speaker 3>but like, you know, Contrabrand like seemed like a cool
<v Speaker 3>game and you know, ev A Wild did and there
<v Speaker 3>was that MMO that was canceled that even fucking Phil
<v Speaker 3>Spencer loved to play. So it's, yeah, it really annoys me,
<v Speaker 3>like as a as a gamer, but like as an analyst,
<v Speaker 3>I can see where they're coming from, but it does
<v Speaker 3>upset me. And it's you know, it sucks, It really sucks,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, we're getting one fair, potentially good game here,
<v Speaker 3>you know.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>So, for people that don't remember, Avalanche's Contraband was only
<v Speaker 1>ever shown off in a brief sort of tone piece
<v Speaker 1>trailer at Microsoft Summer Showcase four years ago.
<v Speaker 2>It was like a variety.
<v Speaker 1>Of items kind of suggesting maybe someone was setting up
<v Speaker 1>a heist, and a steely dong Steely Dong a Steely
<v Speaker 1>Dan song was playing, or as we call him around
<v Speaker 1>here as Steely Dong. Oh man, hey, it's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>a long day, isn't it?
<v Speaker 2>Uh and uh.
<v Speaker 1>And then we never ever saw anything else from that game.
<v Speaker 1>So if you are not familiar with it, it's for
<v Speaker 1>good reason. There was never anything to be familiar with.
<v Speaker 1>And then a quick correction the Vicky story here says
<v Speaker 1>nine thousand layoffs made across the gaming division reaches. I
<v Speaker 1>think you mentioned like that was across all Microsoft and
<v Speaker 1>then let's see, Yeah, I think you're right, this is
<v Speaker 1>it's one less game. And you know, we do have
<v Speaker 1>this small list of games that Microsoft has quote unquote
<v Speaker 1>like canceled as like as in that's all that they've done. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>but it does go deeper than that. You mentioned the MMO,
<v Speaker 1>and then there was all of these sort of external
<v Speaker 1>projects that Microsoft was working on with you know, contract
<v Speaker 1>studios in one way or another. Whether that was similar
<v Speaker 1>to this where it's like we are going to fund
<v Speaker 1>your entire game and have some sort of exclusivity with
<v Speaker 1>it and make sure that it gets made and all
<v Speaker 1>this stuff, or it was we are making a game,
<v Speaker 1>and we're contracting your help. There was a ton of
<v Speaker 1>that just cut off. That spigot was on. Microsoft turned
<v Speaker 1>it off. So there's a lot more cancelations and a
<v Speaker 1>lot more job losses than just the nine thousand and
<v Speaker 1>we heard about, and then all these games like it
<v Speaker 1>goes way deeper than that. And it does feel like
<v Speaker 1>that is a trend for Microsoft where it's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>several years ago, during the pandemic, they were green lighting
<v Speaker 1>a lot of stuff, they were making a lot of
<v Speaker 1>contracts with external studios, and now that has reached effectively zero.
<v Speaker 1>It feels like and they're just gonna work with what
<v Speaker 1>they have. What does that mean for, you know, their
<v Speaker 1>future output? Probably like it's I don't know. It sounds
<v Speaker 1>like a gaming company that's not interested or doesn't believe
<v Speaker 1>in making games as the solution to its problems. And
<v Speaker 1>I've said that before that that's the thing that always
<v Speaker 1>really gets me, Reese, is if you're in the gaming
<v Speaker 1>business and you don't believe that making good new games
<v Speaker 1>is the solution to what ails you. You've messed up somewhere,
<v Speaker 1>something has gone wrong, and you need to reassess, and
<v Speaker 1>that when they do reassess, now they just move further
<v Speaker 1>away from making games and more towards AI, and that's
<v Speaker 1>not going to mean good things for us who play games.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Battlefield six is already one of Steam's most
<v Speaker 1>concurrently played games of all time. This is from Ben
<v Speaker 1>Lyons at Game Reactor. To say that interest in Battlefield
<v Speaker 1>six is high is in understatement. After years of middling
<v Speaker 1>to disappointing installments, the upcoming game seems to have the
<v Speaker 1>franchise back on track, with the latest player data doing
<v Speaker 1>a whole lot to reinforce that. Following the massive cues
<v Speaker 1>cues that plagued the early access portion of the open
<v Speaker 1>beta yesterday, I think it was a close. It was
<v Speaker 1>still in closed beta actually yesterday, excuse me, so I
<v Speaker 1>think it's just entering open beata today. So let's make
<v Speaker 1>these That makes these numbers even more impressive. We now
<v Speaker 1>know just how many people were playing Battlefield six at
<v Speaker 1>one moment on Steam, not that it was hard to
<v Speaker 1>get a code. After one day of action, a concurrent
<v Speaker 1>player peak of three hundred thirty four thousand, five hundred
<v Speaker 1>and forty nine players was set on Steam as per
<v Speaker 1>Steam Database, which for anyone wondering is enough to see
<v Speaker 1>it reached thirty eighth in the all time Steam Concurrent
<v Speaker 1>Players charts. It's you know, it has more than several
<v Speaker 1>other massive games that have come out recently. That is,
<v Speaker 1>like anything about three hundred thousand on Steam is like,
<v Speaker 1>oh wow, this is a big deal. And that's for
<v Speaker 1>concurrent players at one time. Reese, you're a data guy,
<v Speaker 1>You're a numbers guy. You kind of might have some
<v Speaker 1>understanding of what this might mean or what it doesn't mean.
<v Speaker 1>Like is this just like an early thing, like yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is good for this moment, but it doesn't necessarily
<v Speaker 1>translate into A or B. How do you feel about
<v Speaker 1>it when you hear this number?
<v Speaker 4>I mean it's it's great. It's amazing.
<v Speaker 3>Actually, like I've been looking into our estimates, our data
<v Speaker 3>for this and already on Steam, like you know, after
<v Speaker 3>the closed bita period started, I mean, you could get
<v Speaker 3>codes from watching Twitch streams and a.
<v Speaker 4>Lot of people did so. On Steam.
<v Speaker 3>Battlefield six now has two point five million wish lists,
<v Speaker 3>which is unbelievable for a game that was kind of
<v Speaker 3>added to the Steam client so recently, and like perhaps
<v Speaker 3>like even more shocking to me, over like four hundred
<v Speaker 3>thousand people have already like pre ordered it on Steam
<v Speaker 3>and put the money down for it. And that's not
<v Speaker 3>just your seventy bucks as well, that's the premium addition
<v Speaker 3>to so they like, yeah, has already made like over
<v Speaker 3>twenty million dollars from this game on Steam, and like
<v Speaker 3>this is it's unheared of and like you know, for decades,
<v Speaker 3>like even die Hard Battlefield fans have had to like concede,
<v Speaker 3>you know that Call of Duty is the big game
<v Speaker 3>and that you know, I mean, it feels better to
<v Speaker 3>shoot in COD But I've been playing the Battlefield six
<v Speaker 3>Beta between Grower Garden when I know when I squeeze
<v Speaker 3>it in and like it feels good, right, like the
<v Speaker 3>new approach to the like the ballistics, like the hit
<v Speaker 3>scan at close range, about the projectile drop at distance,
<v Speaker 3>Like it really like feels good to play, like when
<v Speaker 3>you're when you're up close close, cause feels like snappy,
<v Speaker 3>responsive like Cords, which is relevant because on Steam about
<v Speaker 3>two thirds of the Battlefield six wish listers have played Cords.
<v Speaker 4>Via cod HQ.
<v Speaker 3>But like then, when you're looking at the long term,
<v Speaker 3>like you know, it's the game is just like satisfying
<v Speaker 3>to play. So how's that like ranged in the like
<v Speaker 3>Battlefield players love how do they like more cod feeling
<v Speaker 3>close quarters? And but it doesn't just feel like another
<v Speaker 3>Cord clone, like it's his own thing. Like I'm, as
<v Speaker 3>you can tell, I'm pretty excited about this one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm I'm ready to get there.
<v Speaker 1>I think we Jane mentioned in chat that he thinks
<v Speaker 1>we might try to put place them before UPF.
<v Speaker 2>I think that's a good idea. We might make an
<v Speaker 2>effort to do that today.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm excited to try it out, which is not
<v Speaker 1>where I was at a little bit ago. And this
<v Speaker 1>is exclusively due to the hype from other people. It's
<v Speaker 1>not like anything I saw, Like, yeah, the trailer looked good,
<v Speaker 1>for sure, but hearing people be excited about the game
<v Speaker 1>is infectious, and I do think that is kind of
<v Speaker 1>carrying it a little bit now. A lot of jokes
<v Speaker 1>in chat about the one hundred million player number that
<v Speaker 1>they said that they wanted to reach with Battlefield six, like, well, they're.
<v Speaker 2>Three percent of the way there or whatever. It is, like,
<v Speaker 2>this is.
<v Speaker 1>A sign that this game does have the potential to
<v Speaker 1>pop off if they can line up all the pieces
<v Speaker 1>correctly right. Obviously, it's a difficult thing. There's they have
<v Speaker 1>to sell a premium price game. There's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a free to play commonent. There's all these factors to it.
<v Speaker 1>But I mean it's better to start here than from
<v Speaker 1>like a lower point, right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I'd say as well, like that
<v Speaker 3>one hundred million was like not necessarily confirmed.
<v Speaker 4>We don't know if.
<v Speaker 3>The services is that reliable, so like, you know, take
<v Speaker 3>care of a pinch of salt, because one hundred million
<v Speaker 3>for a premium game is wild. I don't think even
<v Speaker 3>like FIFA doesn't sell that much, right, Like.
<v Speaker 1>Right, that had to be like we want the like
<v Speaker 1>the free to play side of this thing, whatever that
<v Speaker 1>ends up, like how that plays out, they want that
<v Speaker 1>to be what reaches that and it' say okay, and
<v Speaker 1>they need something like that because you're right, the premium
<v Speaker 1>price game is so far away from doing anything like that. Overall, though,
<v Speaker 1>it's cool to see this game being able to like
<v Speaker 1>find its footing. I think obviously being Battlefield six feeling
<v Speaker 1>like the spiritual successor to three and four, as Vince
<v Speaker 1>Simpelis said that that's what they were going for is
<v Speaker 1>one of the keys here. And then I think it
<v Speaker 1>just as a matter of if they can make this
<v Speaker 1>game feel alive and deliver on content at once it's out.
<v Speaker 1>I think they're going to be in a very good
<v Speaker 1>place with it. But we'll see game is coming out.
<v Speaker 1>What is the release date on this? It's coming out
<v Speaker 1>later this year, right, it's coming.
<v Speaker 4>Out October tenth, I think.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that's one of the October games. A busy October
<v Speaker 1>this year. All right, we're going to take a break.
<v Speaker 1>We could skip out on this if you go to
<v Speaker 1>giant bomb dot com slash join get the premium ad
<v Speaker 1>free version of the show. The meantime, though, we're going
<v Speaker 1>to go to these breaks, we'll be right right back after.
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<v Speaker 1>a member. Now it's Game as Mornings.
<v Speaker 2>We're back.
<v Speaker 1>I'm Jeff Grubb. That's Reese Elliott. Let's continue with the headlines.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo announces My Mario, a range of products for young children,
<v Speaker 1>including Amebo building blocks. I saw a pretty good headline
<v Speaker 1>for this resell it from a dual Shockers that was
<v Speaker 1>like Nintendo begins spawn camping new consumers. It's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they're just gonna get them while they're that young. As
<v Speaker 1>soon as they spawn, Nintendo's gonna the first thing they see.
<v Speaker 1>This does come from Chris Scullying of VGC. Nintendo has
<v Speaker 1>announced My Mario, a new range of Mario themed products
<v Speaker 1>aimed at young children. My Mario range will go on
<v Speaker 1>sale in Tokyo's, Nintendo's Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto stores from
<v Speaker 1>August twenty six, with select products being released outside of
<v Speaker 1>Japan in twenty twenty six. One of the main products
<v Speaker 1>in the range is a wood block set featuring characters
<v Speaker 1>and items from the Super Mario series. These will be
<v Speaker 1>sold in three piece sets for twenty dollars or full
<v Speaker 1>thirty piece set for one hundred and thirty five dollars.
<v Speaker 1>Excuse one hundred and thirty five dollars. Each of the
<v Speaker 1>character blocks can be used in compatible games. Blah blah
<v Speaker 1>or no.
<v Speaker 2>Each of the character blocks include Mario, Luigi, Peach.
<v Speaker 1>And Yoshi blah blah blah. But they're also a mibo.
<v Speaker 1>That's why they can be used in compatible games.
<v Speaker 2>There's books, there's a bunch of other stuff.
<v Speaker 1>There's an app where you can poke at Mario's face,
<v Speaker 1>and that's maybe one of the more interesting sides of
<v Speaker 1>this is like, oh, they're releasing that on switch, but
<v Speaker 1>it's also going to be on mobile phone. That to
<v Speaker 1>me sounds like, okay, Nintendo is like rethinking their mobile strategy,
<v Speaker 1>and really they're they're sort of introducing Nintendo to different
<v Speaker 1>audiences strategy, and it's no longer like here's just fire
<v Speaker 1>emblem on mobile. It is let's get them while they're
<v Speaker 1>young and just let them know what Mario is and
<v Speaker 1>so that they're like when they're a little bit older
<v Speaker 1>and they're asking about where do I get Mario now,
<v Speaker 1>they first know to ask about it, and then the
<v Speaker 1>answer is still buy a Nintendo system and buy a
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo game.
<v Speaker 2>Uh. Pretty good strategy, right, Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>I think it's my as fuck honestly. You know, like
<v Speaker 3>for decades, Nintendo's magic was being like a kid's first
<v Speaker 3>game and experience viral Mario or Pokemon myself included, but
<v Speaker 3>that has been like disrupted a little bit, right, Like
<v Speaker 3>the early engagement battle is now dominated like by mobile roadblocks, YouTube, kids,
<v Speaker 3>all these things, All these platforms they capture like massive
<v Speaker 3>daily attention from kids who might otherwise be playing like
<v Speaker 3>switch right. So the way I see it, Jeff, is
<v Speaker 3>that like this my Mario range is like a brand
<v Speaker 3>reacquisition strategy for this, like pregame in demographic so to speak,
<v Speaker 3>so like ages between like I don't know, zero and.
<v Speaker 4>Four, like before they form like deep brand loyalties.
<v Speaker 3>Elsewhere, Nintendo is like trying to be like you know,
<v Speaker 3>to get there literally on the ground floor.
<v Speaker 4>Not literally on the ground floor. All the kids do
<v Speaker 4>crawl on the ground.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, yeah, so literally yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah exactly so.
<v Speaker 3>But it's like, you know, before they're old enough to
<v Speaker 3>hold the joy con or even a tablet, you know,
<v Speaker 3>because there's like you know, plushy toys for the crib
<v Speaker 3>and stuff like that, like a literal kid's crib, not
<v Speaker 3>the house, and like traditionally, oh god, these puns, I
<v Speaker 3>need to shut up with these. But like Nintendo's ip
<v Speaker 3>ecosystem is basically for kids like five and over, and
<v Speaker 3>like very young kids. They usually enter like through older
<v Speaker 3>siblings or you know, parents. I guess you're already familiar
<v Speaker 3>with that, Jeff. But now like with these kids like
<v Speaker 3>blocks and you know, plushies for the crib, the tiny books,
<v Speaker 3>the I mean the kid book. Sorry, you know, that's
<v Speaker 3>the first step, and then they'll go into the Switch
<v Speaker 3>games and then they're like lifetime fans, right because I
<v Speaker 3>think we talked about it, like when we chatted last, Jeff,
<v Speaker 3>like Nintendo is becoming so Disney like, and like you know,
<v Speaker 3>the Disney's Empire runs on that generational loop like you
<v Speaker 3>know in the Todd Layers or the Mickey plushies, the
<v Speaker 3>Frozen dolls, the preschool TV like the park visits, and
<v Speaker 3>then having the amoebo like the blocks be Amigo ambo sorry,
<v Speaker 3>like link in directly to Switch Games means that there
<v Speaker 3>is that link. And then there's also like stop motion
<v Speaker 3>like shorts that will probably fit into like the Mario
<v Speaker 3>movie Univeris, and like it's all just kind of like
<v Speaker 3>coalescing around like those like we call them like cultural
<v Speaker 3>cultural touch point references. And again the japan first releases
<v Speaker 3>smart as well, Nintendo can like test that concept a
<v Speaker 3>little bit in its most loyal market and then you know,
<v Speaker 3>roll it out in the rest of the globe. So
<v Speaker 3>it's pulling back attention from roadblocks and mobile and creating
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to be very consultancy minded and say like
<v Speaker 3>cradle to console engagement. Yeah, it's so smart that I
<v Speaker 3>think it's the right move for them to make with
<v Speaker 3>the threat of roadblocks and other things.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and they've always been decent about merch. They've definitely
<v Speaker 1>improved their their sort of exposure to merch over the
<v Speaker 1>years since the WU after kind of an order marching
<v Speaker 1>orders from Auata being like, we got to be taking
<v Speaker 1>more advantage of the advantages of these opportunities that we
<v Speaker 1>have to sell our stuff. And they also have like
<v Speaker 1>a partner that is very good at that generational sort
<v Speaker 1>of refresh in the Pokemon Company, that has kind of
<v Speaker 1>mastered that. And they have not necessarily done exactly this,
<v Speaker 1>but they definitely have plenty of young aimed products to
<v Speaker 1>the point where like kids, He's Pikachu, They could just
<v Speaker 1>be like I want something Pikachu before they ever play
<v Speaker 1>the game, and it just kind of follows from there.
<v Speaker 2>This can kind of do the same thing. I think.
<v Speaker 1>You know, Mario is a character that has a lot
<v Speaker 1>of appeal, but it's actually he's not necessarily like a
<v Speaker 1>Sonic or a Pikachu where a kid sees him and
<v Speaker 1>me is the media like, that's my favorite thing. Now,
<v Speaker 1>that's my I just saw Sonic, that's my favorite thing.
<v Speaker 1>I saw Pikachu. That's my favorite thing. But kind of
<v Speaker 1>like being there and giving them kids a chance to
<v Speaker 1>like learn them, I think that is going to make
<v Speaker 1>a difference here. But I also think this stuff is
<v Speaker 1>really cute. They do it, they're doing a good job
<v Speaker 1>on it. So I kind of wish it was around
<v Speaker 1>when my kids where this toddler age would have really
<v Speaker 1>gone a long way and I probably would have bought
<v Speaker 1>a lot of it, all right. Moving on Nintendo patent
<v Speaker 1>featuring Crank and a clickable wheel attachment for Joycon two surfaces.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Liam Dulan at Nintendo Life. Patents don't
<v Speaker 1>always lead to something, but it's still interesting to see
<v Speaker 1>what companies might be up to, or at least thinking
<v Speaker 1>about behind closed doors. In the case of switch to,
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo has already delivered some unique features like Joycon two's
<v Speaker 1>mouse mode, and now a few other ideas have seemingly surfaced.
<v Speaker 1>This information comes from the World Intellectual Property Organization via
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo Patent's watch on social media, which highlights attachments for
<v Speaker 1>a crank and what's described as a clickable wheel. The
<v Speaker 1>crank has a rotary disc which is tracked by the
<v Speaker 1>mouse sensor through a window, so it actually connects to
<v Speaker 1>the Joycon like the way you connect the JOYCN to
<v Speaker 1>the switch to. This connects to the Joycon the same
<v Speaker 1>way through a magnet and then you crank the thing,
<v Speaker 1>and the same way like Labbo had those like little
<v Speaker 1>magnetic those reflective strips, and the IR sensor could look
<v Speaker 1>at that and che could see if that was reflecting
<v Speaker 1>back at it. It's doing something similar, but this time
<v Speaker 1>it is the optical sensor, which is basically just a
<v Speaker 1>camera on the bottom or on the side of the
<v Speaker 1>Joycon is now looking at some material on the inside
<v Speaker 1>of this crank. And now you can add a crank
<v Speaker 1>and it really does kind of look a little bit
<v Speaker 1>like a fishing rod. It feels like this is perfect
<v Speaker 1>for a fishing game, although who knows if it won
<v Speaker 1>this thing will ever come out into, like what kind
<v Speaker 1>of games they'll release for it. As far as the
<v Speaker 1>clickable wheel, let's see here the crank has a rotary disc.
<v Speaker 1>According to the same source, the clickable wheel rotation is
<v Speaker 1>tracked by the mouse sensor via a gear train, and
<v Speaker 1>its click is transmitted transmitted to the SL button. This
<v Speaker 1>attachment also included a second button to press the SR button.
<v Speaker 1>Just another thing where they go, Okay, they could probably
<v Speaker 1>do some fun.
<v Speaker 2>Stuff with this.
<v Speaker 1>Do you feel like these are things that will we
<v Speaker 1>will actually see Like there's you know, there is a
<v Speaker 1>weird EPD EPD being when a Nintendo's internal teams. I
<v Speaker 1>think it's EPD four, one of them that does a
<v Speaker 1>lot of like game Maker Garage or whatever it was called,
<v Speaker 1>and Labo and all these odd things. Does feel like
<v Speaker 1>maybe shipping a game with some fun stuff you could
<v Speaker 1>pluck at joy Con two into seems like the kind
<v Speaker 1>of thing Nintendo would go for.
<v Speaker 2>Do you expect that?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, whether or not this pattern comes to fruition,
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, but it sounds like a fun way
<v Speaker 3>to play a Mario Party mini game or a new
<v Speaker 3>Warrior Way game.
<v Speaker 4>Or something like that.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, I don't know what the uptake would be.
<v Speaker 3>But like you know, Nintendo they always find like in
<v Speaker 3>gus ways to kind of you know, bring like different
<v Speaker 3>physical tangible mechanics to games. So if anyone can do it,
<v Speaker 3>it's them. But I don't know it's it's it's weird.
<v Speaker 3>It could be another vitality sensor.
<v Speaker 4>Or it definitely could be another Wei Moe. Who knows,
<v Speaker 4>Like we'll see yep.
<v Speaker 1>I love I love a good fishing game, so I'd
<v Speaker 1>love to see it just for that, but uh, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo will probably do something even stranger. Lego Party gets
<v Speaker 1>a release date. This is from my Nintendo News development
<v Speaker 1>studio SMG Studios.
<v Speaker 2>Anno.
<v Speaker 1>It's Lego Party and it's coming, and it's coming to
<v Speaker 1>the Nintendo Switch on the thirtieth of September. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's coming everywhere on the thirtieth of September. The guys
<v Speaker 1>played this when we were at Summer Game Fest. I
<v Speaker 1>was in another apployment. I to like see the bare
<v Speaker 1>end of it, and they seemed like they were having
<v Speaker 1>a great time.
<v Speaker 2>It looked like a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 1>I do believe Jan ended up winning that on behalf
<v Speaker 1>of Jesse Fatelli. Uh go watch that in the the travelog.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, Lego Party. I've been looking forward to this
<v Speaker 1>because it looks like Mario Party if all of the
<v Speaker 1>bullshit not all the bullshit, but a lot of the
<v Speaker 1>bullshit was taken out and it was really streamlined.
<v Speaker 2>That does seem to be Lego Parties.
<v Speaker 1>Like whole thing is we have a decent pace to
<v Speaker 1>this party game and that is exciting to see, and
<v Speaker 1>it just has a slick presentation. I like looking at
<v Speaker 1>Lego pieces and characters in video games. Now the fidelty
<v Speaker 1>has reached a point where it's like, oh, that reflection
<v Speaker 1>on that clean plastic is just so nice. So I'm
<v Speaker 1>looking forward to this, like once again, like is there
<v Speaker 1>room in the party genre for a game like this
<v Speaker 1>to pop off? Or is it like everyone just keeps
<v Speaker 1>buying Mario Party because those games. Mario Party games sell
<v Speaker 1>very well.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, yeah right. I think Super Mario Parties sold
<v Speaker 3>like way over twenty.
<v Speaker 2>Million, way over twenty million, yep, yeah yeah.
<v Speaker 3>But the Lago games as well, they sell extremely well,
<v Speaker 3>like especially on Switch, you know, the ones based on
<v Speaker 3>the IP you know, Star Wars, etc. So yeah, if
<v Speaker 3>Lego can market it right and really you know, get
<v Speaker 3>it right, I think it'll do batter on Switch than
<v Speaker 3>other places. Then they could sell Gangbusters, right. Kids love minigames,
<v Speaker 3>kids love Mario Party, kids love Legos. So this, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's a good match if it could be marketed well,
<v Speaker 3>and if Nintendo is happy for it to be marketed well,
<v Speaker 3>which they should be because they'll get you know, thirty
<v Speaker 3>percent of every sale.
<v Speaker 4>So if they can.
<v Speaker 3>Get to twenty million people with a Lego game, that's
<v Speaker 3>sixty million dollars for Nintendo.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, it.
<v Speaker 3>All depends on marketing. It all depends on the quality
<v Speaker 3>of the game. So we'll see. I know, well I
<v Speaker 3>can't say too much about that that mind.
<v Speaker 2>Keep keep it separate, keep it safe, all right. Let's yeah,
<v Speaker 2>get investor not to.
<v Speaker 1>Get reselly in trouble. Everybody, chillse Yeah, what's your problem?
<v Speaker 4>That was cool?
<v Speaker 1>All right, Well we'll save you by moving on here.
<v Speaker 1>Take two CEO, and we got some Take two earning.
<v Speaker 1>So we've got a couple of stories from Take two. Now,
<v Speaker 1>Take two CEO says good is the new bad for gaming.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. How good
<v Speaker 1>should a game? A good game be as review scores
<v Speaker 1>as review scores of seven and eights now don't seem
<v Speaker 1>all that impressive to the average gamer. The pressure is
<v Speaker 1>placed on studios to create something that feels like a
<v Speaker 1>must play title rather than a release people can wait
<v Speaker 1>for a discount to play. That's what largely seems to
<v Speaker 1>have driven the delay of BioShock four at Take two,
<v Speaker 1>at least when speaking with IGN, and that's according to
<v Speaker 1>take To CEO Strauss Zelnik, who offered that explanation for
<v Speaker 1>the sequel's recent overhaul and longer development time. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's a reflection of the fact that as entertainment business matures,
<v Speaker 1>consumers seek quality, and everyone realizes that the consumer is
<v Speaker 1>highly demanding, and properly so. The strategy of this company
<v Speaker 1>has always been to make the best entertainment, not necessarily
<v Speaker 1>the most entertainment. Of course, sometimes we fall in short,
<v Speaker 1>but frankly a precious few, precious few times, and I
<v Speaker 1>think some of our competitors have realized, maybe a little
<v Speaker 1>late in the day, that consumers are not okay with
<v Speaker 1>just okay.
<v Speaker 2>Good is the new bad. Great is the new great?
<v Speaker 1>That doesn't make any sense, Strauss, And our goal here
<v Speaker 1>is to make everything exceptional that does make sense to me.
<v Speaker 1>I think people's time is so precious now. They have
<v Speaker 1>so many distractions, so much free like slop entertainment, sure,
<v Speaker 1>but free entertainment and free stuff to keep their mind
<v Speaker 1>filled with dopamine. Back Convincing them to go spend seventy
<v Speaker 1>dollars on a game that's getting sevens and eights is
<v Speaker 1>probably a massive challenge, which is one of the reasons
<v Speaker 1>why we do see this the shrinkage and disappearance of
<v Speaker 1>middle of the road publishers who deliver games that are
<v Speaker 1>like you know, B games or whatever. That stuff's gone
<v Speaker 1>away because of this very factor, right. I always go
<v Speaker 1>back to what was the Saints Row follow up? God,
<v Speaker 1>I can't remember the name of it, but no, it
<v Speaker 1>got when they changed. It was the new series they
<v Speaker 1>did after Saints Row. Either way, it kind of came
<v Speaker 1>out and it was it didn't find any traction agents
<v Speaker 1>of Mayhem, thank you check that came out and I
<v Speaker 1>was like before the beforetime, before that game, a game
<v Speaker 1>that had any sort of marketing would have just done
<v Speaker 1>a certain level of like like return on investment, just
<v Speaker 1>sort of a bare minimum, just like automatically, because people
<v Speaker 1>are just buying games to play the games, and they
<v Speaker 1>wanted to play anything that had sort of any recognition
<v Speaker 1>or from any studio that they recognized. It would have
<v Speaker 1>just done a certain level and it completely missed like
<v Speaker 1>the top twenty of the MPD or was very low
<v Speaker 1>on that list or something like that by my memory,
<v Speaker 1>and it's like, oh, okay, things have changed. People are
<v Speaker 1>not just going to buy a game because a new
<v Speaker 1>game is out. They are expecting a certain level of
<v Speaker 1>quality and it's only gotten exacerbated since then because there
<v Speaker 1>are so many massive free to play options like a
<v Speaker 1>Fortnite and you could just go play that and spend
<v Speaker 1>your time on there, and you kind of know what
<v Speaker 1>to get and you're not going to take a risk
<v Speaker 1>of spending seventy dollars and not getting the return. Now
<v Speaker 1>does first of all, does that sound right for like
<v Speaker 1>why they're they're delaying BioShock four?
<v Speaker 2>I think it probably does.
<v Speaker 1>And then is this something that you feel like these
<v Speaker 1>big publishers like take you can contend with or is
<v Speaker 1>it just going to keep pushing them in a place
<v Speaker 1>where games are getting more expensive and more difficult to make.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, I mean like variable pricing is a factor
<v Speaker 3>in the spot. I think Sprouse here was talking about
<v Speaker 3>the seventy dollars games and even sixty dollars games, and
<v Speaker 3>when it comes to those, like expectations have just risen
<v Speaker 3>so much because the baseline quality is just like slowly
<v Speaker 3>incrementally grown over the last decade. And you know, once
<v Speaker 3>players experience a certain level of polish, it becomes the
<v Speaker 3>new standard. Right, the bar raises and then anything less,
<v Speaker 3>even if it's like objectively good, and like you said,
<v Speaker 3>among these like free to play games that give you
<v Speaker 3>those dopamine heats fucking grow a garden, like objectively good
<v Speaker 3>for seventy bucks can feel like underwhelming. And you know
<v Speaker 3>pressure is amplified by like price and constant comparison for consumers.
<v Speaker 4>Right, that was a literation, unintended.
<v Speaker 3>Alliteration Iet bars douget bars. Yeah, yeah, my MC career begins.
<v Speaker 3>But like at seventy dollars, a game play is like
<v Speaker 3>one almost like flawless execution and value. And you know
<v Speaker 3>you've got games like Eldon ring Balder's Game three. They
<v Speaker 3>keep moving the goalposts for everything and the result then
<v Speaker 3>is a cycle where like each a major release like
<v Speaker 3>hits the bar or raises the bar, so then future
<v Speaker 3>kind of triple A games need to deliver more spectacle,
<v Speaker 3>depth and polish. And that's kind of why, like even
<v Speaker 3>awesome games right like a Vowed, they're not hitting like
<v Speaker 3>they would have maybe ten years ago, because they come
<v Speaker 3>out like after a game like bald Escape three or
<v Speaker 3>Elden Ring. It's just you know, it's the frame in effect, right,
<v Speaker 3>you just it's just the bar keeps raising.
<v Speaker 4>It's it's difficult.
<v Speaker 1>You know what I think it is is it is
<v Speaker 1>GPU versus CPU. There was a time when we were
<v Speaker 1>just getting more powerful graphics each generation, and that is
<v Speaker 1>an easy thing for a studio and a publisher to
<v Speaker 1>understand how to take advantage of. We can do more visually,
<v Speaker 1>and that enables us to represent certain actions in a
<v Speaker 1>more realistic way or in even a more fun way.
<v Speaker 1>It's like just jumping can be cooler because now you
<v Speaker 1>can move around in three D at a certain frame
<v Speaker 1>rate whatever. And then we have plateaued on the GPU
<v Speaker 1>side of things, and in the meantime, the CPU has
<v Speaker 1>kind of caught up and taken off, and it's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>this is this CPU that can run logic and physics
<v Speaker 1>and simulations has gotten way better, and that shit is
<v Speaker 1>hard to take advantage of.
<v Speaker 2>That requires a lot of creativity.
<v Speaker 1>It requires a lot of like what can we do
<v Speaker 1>with this that we couldn't do before? Whereas like before
<v Speaker 1>with the grap with the GPU side of things, it's like, no,
<v Speaker 1>we can keep doing what we were doing before, but
<v Speaker 1>even better now, and people are going to be excited
<v Speaker 1>because it looks better. And it's like the trying to
<v Speaker 1>come up with a new game idea that takes advantage
<v Speaker 1>of a more powerful CPU is challenging, and I think
<v Speaker 1>a lot of and expensive and risky, and it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>necessarily pay off the way making a game that looked
<v Speaker 1>better paid off. So I think developers are just in
<v Speaker 1>a weird spot where they don't know how to just
<v Speaker 1>naturally take advantage of the hardware that's put in front
<v Speaker 1>of them, and so they are left to be like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>if we had more time or money, And then that
<v Speaker 1>leads to this, Every game is more expensive than the
<v Speaker 1>last one and is taking longer than the last one,
<v Speaker 1>and that's a huge challenge that these developers and publishers
<v Speaker 1>are still trying to shake. Meanwhile, Take two also said
<v Speaker 1>BioShock four won't be canceled, and that's the promise of
<v Speaker 1>Take Two's boss as well. This is Blair Marnell. It's
<v Speaker 1>going to come out. Zelnick told IgM that I could
<v Speaker 1>say hand on heart without question. We don't talk about
<v Speaker 1>how long our development cycles are. We have had some
<v Speaker 1>ups and downs along the way, that is accurate, and
<v Speaker 1>we have had changes in studio leadership. That said, we
<v Speaker 1>have very big shoes to fill on BioShock because of
<v Speaker 1>the legacy of Kim Levin, the legacy of what has
<v Speaker 1>gone before, which has been so successful, and we need
<v Speaker 1>to make sure that this experience is true to the
<v Speaker 1>BioShock DNA on the one hand, and a massive step
<v Speaker 1>forward on the other hand. That's always challenging. We think
<v Speaker 1>we're up to the challenge, but it has not been seamless. Honestly,
<v Speaker 1>it feels like he just said what I was just saying,
<v Speaker 1>like it's they want to make something new and familiar
<v Speaker 1>or familiar but new in some exciting ways, and that's
<v Speaker 1>such a challenging thing to pull off. Now, the report
<v Speaker 1>we got on BioShock for Reese was that it was
<v Speaker 1>there were some narrative issues. It sounds like the way
<v Speaker 1>they're talking about it publicly sounds like it's more than that.
<v Speaker 1>Sounds like just straight up quality issues with the game.
<v Speaker 1>Like what a studio delays something like this, This does
<v Speaker 1>cause them a significant amount of money, right because apparently
<v Speaker 1>this game was supposed to come out relatively soon and
<v Speaker 1>they did push it back and they are changing leadership,
<v Speaker 1>so that just comes with a significant delay.
<v Speaker 2>Probably that's a very expensive thing to do.
<v Speaker 1>So they must believe in this game still if they're
<v Speaker 1>going to invest that much more in it, right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, absolutely, Like the developers making this game live in
<v Speaker 3>very expensive cities with very high salaries, so even a
<v Speaker 3>delay by six months a year can really really, like
<v Speaker 3>you know, cause a lot of trouble for for Take
<v Speaker 3>Two's accountants. But luckily for them, they have the biggest
<v Speaker 3>game in the universe.
<v Speaker 2>About some money on the side there, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, so they can take that hit. And you know,
<v Speaker 3>like we were just saying, like the bar has raised
<v Speaker 3>for these kind of games, and BioShock is one of
<v Speaker 3>those franchises known for number one, it's like narrative just finesse,
<v Speaker 3>and number two it's like polish. So if either of
<v Speaker 3>those things are missing, and the reporting shows that both
<v Speaker 3>are currently missing. For BioShock for maybe both are good,
<v Speaker 3>but they both need to be great. It just needs
<v Speaker 3>more time, more time to cook. So I mean they've
<v Speaker 3>committed now to bring it out no matter what. So,
<v Speaker 3>like you said, they must see something in it. So yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I hope it is, you know, a game that lives
<v Speaker 3>up to the highs of BioShock one and BioShock Infinite.
<v Speaker 3>Even BioShock two like gets flack. But it's an amazing game,
<v Speaker 3>I think. But yeah, the bars raised they need to
<v Speaker 3>come up with something special. Maybe they have that. The
<v Speaker 3>way they're talking about it shows that the idea is there.
<v Speaker 3>They just need to execute on it.
<v Speaker 1>And then, speaking of their money and where it comes from,
<v Speaker 1>Take two CEO won't reveal Grand Theft Auto six price yet.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. As speculation
<v Speaker 1>looms around the price point for Grand Theft Auto six,
<v Speaker 1>Take two CEO strauss Zelnick refuses to reveal anything major
<v Speaker 1>just yet, but he does comment that Rockstar and Take
<v Speaker 1>two like to deliver more value than what they charge,
<v Speaker 1>just like Mario Kart World. Right, Oh, it's so big
<v Speaker 1>so much stuff in there, it's got to be eighty dollars.
<v Speaker 1>So now that the announcement will come from Rockstar in
<v Speaker 1>due time, Zelnick told Variety when asked about the price
<v Speaker 1>point of GTA six. Our goal always is to deliver
<v Speaker 1>more value than what we charge, so we've had variable
<v Speaker 1>pricing at the company for forever. Rumors of this is
<v Speaker 1>no longer quote. Rumors of a one hundred dollars price
<v Speaker 1>for Grand Theft Auto six have been floating around the
<v Speaker 1>Internet for a while, with some analysts believing that could
<v Speaker 1>be the base price for the game. Others think that
<v Speaker 1>Rockstar will aim for a higher price with special collectors editions,
<v Speaker 1>something that Zelnick may have hinted at. As you know,
<v Speaker 1>the approach of the industry is to launch at a
<v Speaker 1>premium price, sometimes with special additions and overtime, typically to
<v Speaker 1>reduce the price to enhance the overall size of the market.
<v Speaker 1>We do the very same thing, I think, probably more
<v Speaker 1>than most were high focused on making sure that the
<v Speaker 1>experience is great, not just because the game itself is great,
<v Speaker 1>but also because the consumers have paid a fair price
<v Speaker 1>for it. Sure, Okay, Reese, what is Grand Theft Auto
<v Speaker 1>six is?
<v Speaker 3>Gonna cost, so I think it's gonna be between seventy
<v Speaker 3>and eighty. I think the one hundred dollar base edition
<v Speaker 3>is kind of crazy, Like I.
<v Speaker 1>Was not necessary, right, because they can just do one
<v Speaker 1>hundred dollars early access Deluxe Edition and sell several million
<v Speaker 1>there and then still have the new news of.
<v Speaker 2>Oh this game is only seventy or even eighty.
<v Speaker 1>People will probably okay with eighty right for Grand Theft
<v Speaker 1>Auto six So yeah, continue, I interrupted you, But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>why else do you think it's going to be in
<v Speaker 1>that price range?
<v Speaker 4>No?
<v Speaker 3>No, no, no interruption, Like, I totally agree. I think
<v Speaker 3>there's three reasons, right. One of them is what you
<v Speaker 3>just said. They can charge for the Deluxe edition one
<v Speaker 3>hundred to one hundred and twenty, throw a shot card,
<v Speaker 3>an early access in, and they can monetize those super fans,
<v Speaker 3>those gamers with higher disposable income, and then the base
<v Speaker 3>edition between seventy and eighty can be for everybody else,
<v Speaker 3>so everybody wins, right, Like, more audience, more money for
<v Speaker 3>people who can afford it. That's great for take two.
<v Speaker 3>The other reason is that GT online right is show
<v Speaker 3>so like slapping one hundred dollars entry fee on that
<v Speaker 3>would shrink gta's like total audience to monetize, which would be,
<v Speaker 3>you know, good for a short term bump, but long term,
<v Speaker 3>it just doesn't make sense, right, Like, not everybody can
<v Speaker 3>or will justified dropping three digits on a single game,
<v Speaker 3>like especially in this economy, right like, you can't, Like
<v Speaker 3>a lot of people want to play GTA, they won't
<v Speaker 3>pay one hundred for it, so that sucks for Rockstar.
<v Speaker 1>Sorry, Jeffyn say something, Yeah, we like Granded Thought Online.
<v Speaker 1>Is still a massive question for how it's gonna work
<v Speaker 1>with Grand Theft Auto six. They haven't said one word
<v Speaker 1>about it, and I think I assume that it will
<v Speaker 1>just kind of work the way Grand theF thoughto Online
<v Speaker 1>worked with GTA five.
<v Speaker 2>It is a mode included with the game when you
<v Speaker 2>buy the.
<v Speaker 1>Is there any chance that it's free to play separate
<v Speaker 1>from Grand Theft Auto six or is it just they
<v Speaker 1>make too much money by including it. It's my understanding
<v Speaker 1>or what people have explained to me before. Is one
<v Speaker 1>of the reasons GTA sells so well is they include
<v Speaker 1>shark cards that people get money for inside and that
<v Speaker 1>they can use inside a GTA online and sometimes it's
<v Speaker 1>a better deal just to buy the game again to
<v Speaker 1>get these shark cards. And so well if the game,
<v Speaker 1>if gt online was free to play, they could still
<v Speaker 1>do that include shark cards in GTA and take advantage
<v Speaker 1>of that that strategy.
<v Speaker 2>I guess.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think there's a chance that GTA online two
<v Speaker 1>or whatever it is again, it could just be an
<v Speaker 1>update of the original gt online, But do you think
<v Speaker 1>there's any chance that that is free to play?
<v Speaker 3>I mean there is a chance, honestly, but I don't
<v Speaker 3>think they'll do it because you know, GTA five is
<v Speaker 3>paid with GTA online. It still has like what two
<v Speaker 3>hundred and fifteen million copies sold, Yes, so you know
<v Speaker 3>they could probably I don't know, double or something by
<v Speaker 3>making it free to play. But I mean I don't know,
<v Speaker 3>maybe not even then. So I don't think they'll do it.
<v Speaker 3>But but like you did like kind of hit at
<v Speaker 3>it there, Jeff, like rock stuff does have to like
<v Speaker 3>migrate and entrenched kind of GTA five or GJ online
<v Speaker 3>player base. Yeah, and this is like completely uncharted territory
<v Speaker 3>for rock Star, right, They've they've never really had to
<v Speaker 3>compete with themselves. Maybe rock GTA to Red Dead, but
<v Speaker 3>never gt A to g t A in an online basis,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, if G six can't layer players away
<v Speaker 3>from GT five, it can cannibalize its own potential.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, I think the cheaper it is the better,
<v Speaker 3>but I think free to play would diminish it. Also,
<v Speaker 3>do you want a little bit of an analyst beef
<v Speaker 3>on the show?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's do it. Yes, I love this. Yeah, there's
<v Speaker 1>always a scene drama. What's what's the scene drama in
<v Speaker 1>the analyst space?
<v Speaker 4>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>So pactor Michael Pacta, we all know him.
<v Speaker 2>He came out.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, he said that he thinks it's going to
<v Speaker 3>be one hundred dollars. And so like a lot of
<v Speaker 3>journalists emailed me like ask me what I think, and so,
<v Speaker 3>you know, I answered, and then game Spot published and
<v Speaker 3>articles from you know, some of my commentaries saying that
<v Speaker 3>I think it's going to be like seventy to eighty.
<v Speaker 4>I think it's at eighty.
<v Speaker 3>And then I got an email from Michael Packt out
<v Speaker 3>of no saying like you're wrong and this is why,
<v Speaker 3>and like.
<v Speaker 4>It was really like passive aggressive. I'm gonna say I he.
<v Speaker 2>Michael pact is kind of a dick. I'll just say
<v Speaker 2>it yeah.
<v Speaker 1>The earliest examples of going to an event in this
<v Speaker 1>industry was I made like a mistake and I went
<v Speaker 1>to the Michael Pactor party like later, and the only
<v Speaker 1>thing he said to me was, Hey, you made that mistake,
<v Speaker 1>and then did this hand motion to me, a dismissive
<v Speaker 1>hand motion. I've never had anyone actually do that to
<v Speaker 1>me in my entire life except for Michael Pactor, and
<v Speaker 1>then he walked away. I'm like, okay, then, all right,
<v Speaker 1>well that's that. I'm glad to know what kind of
<v Speaker 1>person he is. But yeah, he's kind of a.
<v Speaker 3>Dick, so I can like corroborate that kind of the
<v Speaker 3>number one. He's wrong more than he's right. So it's
<v Speaker 3>insane that he would do that to you. But like so,
<v Speaker 3>I like, as a kid, like I really enjoyed his
<v Speaker 3>content on game trailers when I was a teenager, Like
<v Speaker 3>it was kind of like formative for me in some ways.
<v Speaker 3>It was cool to see an analyst like on a
<v Speaker 3>on a show like that. I mean, it probably would
<v Speaker 3>have been even more formative if I could have watched
<v Speaker 3>a show like this with someone who's not, like you say,
<v Speaker 3>a dick. But so I was at the last Games
<v Speaker 3>beat event in La moderating a panel and Packed was
<v Speaker 3>on that panel.
<v Speaker 4>So before I.
<v Speaker 3>Went over to him, I was like, hey, like, I
<v Speaker 3>watched your content a lot when I was a kid,
<v Speaker 3>Like I really enjoyed it. I think it, you know,
<v Speaker 3>influenced me a lot.
<v Speaker 4>Blah blah blah.
<v Speaker 3>And he barely responded to that, and then he gets
<v Speaker 3>his phone out and shows me a picture of a
<v Speaker 3>yacht that he's bought.
<v Speaker 4>And I was just like to like.
<v Speaker 3>And yeah, don't meet your heroes like I mean, I
<v Speaker 3>should probably shouldn't have been, shouldn't be saying this, but
<v Speaker 3>you know, it's whatever.
<v Speaker 2>Whatever, but listen, he can go crying as He'll be fine.
<v Speaker 2>I promise it. I'm he'll be all right.
<v Speaker 1>And everyone, Yeah, gamers have never liked him because it's
<v Speaker 1>just been like he does say things and makes big
<v Speaker 1>statements and then they are often wrong and people like
<v Speaker 1>to dunk on them, and then he just goes and
<v Speaker 1>cashes his checks and he's just fine. So whatevera pactor,
<v Speaker 1>what you want to talk sometime, I'll talk to you.
<v Speaker 1>I don't care, but yeah, it's everyone gets in all right.
<v Speaker 1>We should move on to the poll question. Let's wrap
<v Speaker 1>this up. And then we got the Bomb twelve still
<v Speaker 1>to wrap up the week. Everybody, so don't go anywhere.
<v Speaker 1>The poll question from yesterday, have you ever played day.
<v Speaker 2>Z that's separate from Daisy. This is day Z.
<v Speaker 1>It just launched on PlayStation Network or PlayStation Plus this week.
<v Speaker 2>It's doing very well on there apparently.
<v Speaker 1>But seventy six percent of the respondent said no, they've
<v Speaker 1>never played Daisy.
<v Speaker 2>Twenty four percent of people have.
<v Speaker 1>This is one of those early breakout like survival games
<v Speaker 1>that did really well on Steam. I played quite a
<v Speaker 1>bit of it at the time. I've not played it
<v Speaker 1>since then, and I would love to check it out
<v Speaker 1>again and kind of see where it's at.
<v Speaker 4>It.
<v Speaker 2>It's got a lot of interesting ideas.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, I'm that feels like one of those games
<v Speaker 1>that eventually will kind of either get another like big
<v Speaker 1>major update and just pop back onto everyone's radar, or
<v Speaker 1>actually get a sequel, and I would look forward to
<v Speaker 1>seeing what that would look like.
<v Speaker 2>All right, no new pole question this week.
<v Speaker 1>We will wrap up with the Bomb twelve, but we've
<v Speaker 1>got a couple of things we need to do first
<v Speaker 1>before that. First resell it. Why don't you tell people
<v Speaker 1>where they can find you on the internet. What you
<v Speaker 1>have going on all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, sure, so you can find me on LinkedIn, blue Sky,
<v Speaker 3>LinkedIn and Briselli a blue Sky. I'm super ease have
<v Speaker 3>a sub stack called the a Linear Insight where I
<v Speaker 3>kind of dive deep into our games estimates and we'll
<v Speaker 3>also rant up out market trends sometimes, so you can
<v Speaker 3>find me there or if anybody's going to games, come,
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there
<v Speaker 3>on the business days, on the public days, if anyone's around,
<v Speaker 3>like wants to grab a drink talk games, I'll be around.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, you can find me those places digitally and physically, so.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's see jan we'll go to the Bund
<v Speaker 1>twelve here in a second. Before that, though, what's happening
<v Speaker 1>first on Giant Bond. For the rest of today, we
<v Speaker 1>are going to try I'm gonna try to play some
<v Speaker 1>Mafia next, and then we're gonna try to play some
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield then for sure for UPF we'll do sunder Folk,
<v Speaker 1>which is this cool multiplayer tactical RPG that kind of
<v Speaker 1>plays a little bit like a tabletop game.
<v Speaker 2>Very excited about that.
<v Speaker 1>So busy day for the rest of the day, looking
<v Speaker 1>forward to getting all that set up, and then we'll
<v Speaker 1>be back Monday. Mitch owns Mondays look out for you know,
<v Speaker 1>Monday Mornings missed with Mitch. We're gonna continue playing Riven,
<v Speaker 1>which I've been like just adoring all these streams, having
<v Speaker 1>a really good time solving puzzles with Mike. He's a
<v Speaker 1>fun sort of a skipper on a stream like that.
<v Speaker 1>And then you know, he'll be back with Mega Man
<v Speaker 1>Monday evening, gaming at Mike's at night in the evening
<v Speaker 1>on Monday, but of course gamest Mornings we'll be back
<v Speaker 1>and we'll have all that fun stuff. Then in the
<v Speaker 1>meantime there's some quick looks on the site. And with
<v Speaker 1>all that said, let's get to the Bomb twelve. That's right, everybody,
<v Speaker 1>It's that time of the week where we tell you
<v Speaker 1>which games matter to the people who are really playing
<v Speaker 1>video games. I put out a weekly poll. If you
<v Speaker 1>want to try to track this down, if you're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>how do I vote in this? How do I have
<v Speaker 1>my voice heard? I think the probably the easiest way
<v Speaker 1>to do it is go to giant bomb dot com.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to post a blog there each week or
<v Speaker 1>I'll try to That will have a link to the
<v Speaker 1>next week's poll. But you can also get me on
<v Speaker 1>Blue Sky. I'll post it there as well. It's just
<v Speaker 1>a form you fill out. You tell me what game
<v Speaker 1>you've been playing. This week's bomb twelve here we are, well,
<v Speaker 1>is this correct? Actually, Jana, doesn't look like it's updated
<v Speaker 1>from last week. Let me see if we can hit
<v Speaker 1>the thing and activate it. So maybe I hit the
<v Speaker 1>play button to get it to go and do the
<v Speaker 1>thing here.
<v Speaker 2>Let's see here.
<v Speaker 1>Oh no, it just didn't. It just didn't update it
<v Speaker 1>across the board. Okay, let me fix that. I'll fix
<v Speaker 1>these one at a time and it will reveal like,
<v Speaker 1>what is new here? Okay, let's go there, refresh, reset instance.
<v Speaker 1>Our number twelve is Merge Maestro. This actually works pretty
<v Speaker 1>al right, So no, we're seeing last week's right now
<v Speaker 1>we can see this week's as I update each of
<v Speaker 1>these individually, all right. Number eleven is let me see
<v Speaker 1>can I reset the instance here? You know what, jan
<v Speaker 1>Can you try to fix this while I read down
<v Speaker 1>the list here for the audio listeners. Number eleven is
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield six. Number ten is wu Chong Fallen Feathers. Number
<v Speaker 1>nine is Monster Trained two. Number eight is UFO fifty,
<v Speaker 1>Number seven is Wheelworld, Number six is Street Fighter six,
<v Speaker 1>Number five is Grounded to. Number four is Clare Obscure
<v Speaker 1>Expedition thirty three, actually dropping out of the top three
<v Speaker 1>for the first time since we started the Bomb twelve.
<v Speaker 1>Number three is Ninja Guide and Rage Bound, which had
<v Speaker 1>a huge like upsurge of players since last week. Number
<v Speaker 1>two is Death Stranding two, and number one still Donkey
<v Speaker 1>Kong Bonanza. I think the things I noticed for this week,
<v Speaker 1>Death Stranding two also seemed to be picking up quite
<v Speaker 1>a few players. I think the word mouth on that
<v Speaker 1>game has been pretty positive. As I mentioned, Ninja Gaiden
<v Speaker 1>rage Bound doing very well, but a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>playing that Battlefield six. I think that is just gonna
<v Speaker 1>be much higher on this list next week. People we
<v Speaker 1>were playing that game, but the responses like throughout the
<v Speaker 1>week kind of just overwhelmed that.
<v Speaker 2>But it would still number eleven on here.
<v Speaker 1>And then there's a couple other newer games that just
<v Speaker 1>came out at the end of this week. It does
<v Speaker 1>seem like it's going to be hard for those games
<v Speaker 1>to crack these lists on their first week unless they
<v Speaker 1>are like the biggest thing in the world, but I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. We'll see how things go. So next week,
<v Speaker 1>I think some of those newer games will probably pop up.
<v Speaker 1>Other than Roadblocks, Reese, what have you been playing? What
<v Speaker 1>would you vote for to put on this list?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I'm still playing Death Strandon too. I completed it,
<v Speaker 3>but I'm still enjoying it, trying to mop everything else up.
<v Speaker 3>I'm trying to get all the bananas on DK Bonanza as.
<v Speaker 4>Well, but I'm struggling.
<v Speaker 3>Like I think I've got like six hundred and they
<v Speaker 3>get in difficult now. So a bit of that, and
<v Speaker 3>I want to, like you dip into Mafia the Old
<v Speaker 3>Country as well. It seems like a nice fun, ten
<v Speaker 3>to fifteen hour double a game, nothing too crazy.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, mostly those still.
<v Speaker 3>Enjoying Tony Hawk's pro Scare three and four as well
<v Speaker 3>have been playing that online with my nephew. He recruited
<v Speaker 3>me to Roadblocks, I recruited him to Tony Hawks.
<v Speaker 1>Seems like, wow, that's okay, fair exchange. Yeah, that makes
<v Speaker 1>me feel happy. Okay, I can accept the Roadblocks as
<v Speaker 1>long as there's a new kid playing Tony Hawk.
<v Speaker 4>That is.
<v Speaker 3>So he also got one of his friends to buy it.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, I'm really trying to spread the words, the
<v Speaker 3>good word.
<v Speaker 4>Of Tony Hawks.
<v Speaker 2>So all right, that's it.
<v Speaker 4>Would all do the same, We should all do the same.
<v Speaker 2>Yes we can.
<v Speaker 1>We can be a better people if we just believe
<v Speaker 1>in the youth and believe that they can like Tony.
<v Speaker 2>Hawk as well. All right, we will get.
<v Speaker 1>The Bomb twelve image updated and I'll post this on
<v Speaker 1>social media and everything everybody. With that said, though, Reselliot,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for hanging out with me today
<v Speaker 1>and talking about video games.
<v Speaker 2>Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>Is my pleasure. I love it always. I have a
<v Speaker 3>blast on the show, always learn a lot always, likewise,
<v Speaker 3>probably say something that I shouldn't have said, but evert No,
<v Speaker 3>Michael pak is gonna be in my d MS?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well who's isn't? Who's he? Who's he not?
<v Speaker 4>In?
<v Speaker 2>All right?
<v Speaker 1>Everybody, thank you so much for watching and listening. You're
<v Speaker 1>the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a
<v Speaker 1>good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.