Game Mess Mornings 07/21/22

Yo, dummy beer, it's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this on July twenty one, twenty twenty two. For the next hour or so, let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with me Jeff Grub. Today, it's been six thousand, four hundred and eighty two days since the last F zero game. But first please join me and welcoming today's co host the Game Mess Mornings. It's Jan Ochoa from Giant bamb Everybody, Jan, how's it going. I feel great to be back on the Morning Mess. I woke up last Thursday in a panic thinking I got to be at my computer at eight o'clock. I need to talk about the news with Jeff Grubb. And then I realized that I was not near a computer, and then I just went back to sleep in three digit weather and I'm glad you did that. I know that feeling though. Tuesday mornings when I don't do the show, wake up like what am I doing? Why am I stone bed? And then it's like, oh, okay, all right, wait and just chill, just show. You can just put the news together later, you're good man. I don't think it ever goes away. That feeling is just gonna be with me in my entire life. But yeah, I've got You're back. The champion returns Channa Choa. Uh, that's nonsense. I'm I'm blessed with your presence. The people's I'm i'm uh. You know, we've heard some of your stories from Vegas. I'm I keep like thinking I want to go. I was. I lived pretty close when I was in Denver. It was like a couple hour flight. I could have gone. I only went like once or twice before the pandemic. Of course, I had a good time. I have a good time in Vegas. People don't like it, but I tend to think it's a I don't know, what else do you want from a destination city. A bunch of debauchery and weird stuff like that's part of the fun, right, Yeah, And I mean you don't have to partake in the debauchery. I have found that if you want to time it out and you go at the same time there's a bunch of concerts going off, you can get very very cheap tickets. Yeah, it makes really affordable there, I found. Yeah, I went up watching the Black Keys, and like those tickets were nine dollars each. That's incredible and like they were very good seats. So you know, there's a scene amount of shows, an obscene amount of like everything, and I don't think we talked about it on the podcast on the BombCast specifically, but there's a lot of art stuff too. If that's up your alley. Meal Wolf is over there. They have an installation Omega mart If you're in the Vegas area of visiting Vegas, it's not too far from the strip, so you should check it out. Yeah, I went to Meal Wolf and Santa Fean had a really good time. We both were telling Jess about this. She lost her mind because she hasn't gotten to go to one yet and she's very jealous so far. So hopefully we get her out to one. We should just send her out to the one in Denver because that one is new and shiny and all that stuff, and so it seems like a good time. I never actually ended up going there. All. Right, Before we get into the mess, let's talk about the show and what we do here each weekday, I Jeff Greb will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news, the ketchup where we discussed the biggest topics consuming the lives of gamers everywhere. It maybe even brings some of our own original reporting for all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will join me to make me look smart. And if you are watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings, or find the RSS on GiantBomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and time stamps on YouTube. If you are watching on there, thank you. Please be sure to hit that light button helps people find the show. Okay, we got a lot of We do have a lot to get into, so let's start the Morning Mess with teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Cowabunga Collection finally gets its release dates. It is coming August thirtieth. This is a from Nybel on Twitter who sourced this for US August thirtieth. It's gonna hit Steam, PS four, PS five, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox one and Switch. You know. This is the collection the Digital Eclips is working on. It's coming as a follow up now to Shredder's Revenge, but it's a collection of all the older games. I'm pretty excited, especially after having so much fun with Shredder's Revenge. Jam, what are you feeling about this? You're ready to get into there? Yeah, I am. I was really confused when I saw this new story because I was thinking, like Wade is, I thought Shredder's Revenge already came out, not realizing this was the collection of everything. But I've read really on a nostalgia trip with the with the Turtles recently, so this is a welcome addition to everything that I may actually get the expensive, more expensive package here because of I want to buying a Turtles anthology, a comic anthology recently, so I couldn't be more hype for the Turtles. I hope this is you know what I say that, But then I think there's another movie coming out, and I have mixed feelings. Seth Rogan is attached and I like Seth Rogan. Sure, yeah me too, but I just don't know. I want like actual costumes and not CGI Turtles. Yeah, so I'm just gonna ask, now, what is the uh the state of the Turtle movies. It's all just still CGI, right, I have to assume it's probably easier for CGI course. Yeah, you know, it may not be cheaper, but it's probably easier to just Yeah. I mean, you know, the Jim Henson Company still out there doing their thing, and they did like they you know, they did a couple of Netflix shows when they did The Dark Crystal Show, and that looks better than ever. Yeah, fantastic. Go back to the Men in Suits. I mean those movies are a truly good time. I really did enjoy them, especially the first two. Uh, I don't know, bring bring those back, Bring back the Men in Suits. I think they can pull it off. Back to video games, bring back the people in suits, right exactly, Like I mean, if you're gonna go that full you know, nostalgia trip, like who do the full thing? Uh? You know, the it turns out, you know that twenty twelve cartoon that everyone was saying it was pretty good, it's a CGI cartoon actually is a very good time. The kids really like that show. Uh, And I've been enjoying it when i've been when I've had a chance to like watch it over their shoulders. So it's like, yeah, yeah, Turtles, turns out when I liked them as a kid, I was onto something. Turtles actually a pretty good property, a pretty good time to a pretty good thing to spend time with, whether it's in games or shows. And the movies have been I remember the Michael Bay one came out and I'm just like, this looks rough. So I never ended up watching many of the other movies, but hey, we still have the old ones. I just go back to those. Let's see leaked gameplay footage from the Last of Us Part one surfaces online. This is from Chris Moy's at Destructoid footage is surface surfaced online that appears to have been captured from Naughty Dogs remake The Last of Us Part one. The video game was first brought to light by Xbox Eric co founder Nick Baker, who claims to have received the leaked footage of the unreleased title from one of his sources. Hi, Nick, how you doing. The three clips, running a total around six minutes a length, give us a look at a world weary protagonist Joel and Ellie as they picked their way through the decay of Boston and in the terrifying aftermath of a mutant infestation born out of the disgusting courty steps fungus. I have a little I mean, we could show a little bit of this. I got the let's see, let's just go, let's go, let's show a little bit of it once and we'll see play with fire here. This it looks a lot like the Last of Us Part one in terms of the gameplay, even though it also looks very gorgeous in terms of its visuals. And that seems to be what is happening here. So this is gonna be a seventy dollars game where they are not necessarily taking all of the improvements that they made the Last of Us part choose gameplay and applying it here. It is mostly the improvements to visuals. So so, and that's from the original source that provided this information. They said that there's no gameplay improvements. It's all animation and audio. The weaker says the game sports stuff like VRR four K forty frames per second and four K sixty frames per second. The game will feature an array of new accessibility options, and that's kind of that's the bulk of the improvements here. I think it looks good. People are probably still gonna have a good time going back to this. But Jan, at seventy dollars, what were you kind of expecting in terms of gameplay improvements, gosh, in terms of gameplay improvements, I don't know necessarily what I was looking for other than like the visual stuff. I'm kind of bummed out for naughty Dog that this footage leaked, because in the Giant Bomb chat right now, a lot of folks are saying footage it looks a little washed out. This is probably not anything to do with the game. It is definitely seems to be with the capture. It is definitely with It is most definitely with a capture gear. Probably is not final at all, and you know this will unfortunately set the tone for a lot of people that this is representative of the final product. I watched this earlier and gameplay looks nearly identical to how one felt I perhaps maybe would have liked. Maybe Ellie is more active, but if they want to stay as true to Last of Us Part one, you know she's probably going to continue to hang back a bit and quip away. But Joel looks too old. Okay, Yeah, they they definitely did that right that. Like, I've seen the comparison and they holded him up and I'm like, huh, I mean, I don't know how many years is separated between that and The Last US Part two, where like they really went with the made him look even more realistic and they sort of dialed in exactly how they wanted him to look. It's only been a handful of years, right, so yeah, maybe supposed to be this old guide. I don't know. I'm not like a super uh the Last of Us guy, So for me, it's like, okay, this this. I was never gonna pay seventy dollars for this, So I'm like, I hear this. I'm like, yeah, it does. It looks better. I think the original game always looked gorgeous. It was one of the best looking games ever. This looks like also one of the best looking games ever. So great. But but I think that there's a there. I think it's easy to get tripped up on. I know for a fact that they know how to make a better playing game because the Last Last of Us Part two, for all the complaints that people had about that, it was all with like the story and the structure, no one was really complaining about the gameplay effect that it was getting lots of praise or in a serious improvement over Last of Us Part one, and so showing up like oh, here is the PS five version of this game seventy dollars and it's still gonna play like a PS three game. I guess he being a little frustrated by that. Yeah. Yeah, the seventy dollars price tag is a little bit of a bummer. But you know the problem is, I know more than enough people that are completely fine, absolutely yeah, and that's like, yeah, go for it if that's I mean this, for a lot of people, this is their franchise. They're serious, these are their characters, and this gives you another excuse to go back to that. I don't blame you. I'm the same way with a lot of stuff. I mean I showed up for that Mario collection that was just like a bunch of ROMs, like, yeah, I get it, so so go for it. Let's see a gear. Oh go ahead. One last thing about the last part one, it's wild to think that that is definitely some players or gamers is first Triple A franchise. Yes, I think that that came out in two thousand and two. Is that correct? Uh no, wait, two thousand and two would be way too early. Uh really yeah, that probably it was probably like two thousand ten two thousand and ten. That sounds more right. Yeah, two thousand and thirteen they're saying thank you, chat thank you. I was like, it's pretty old, but yeah, it's only two thousand third, so it's not even ten years old. Wow, that's weird. I guess that's that's pretty wild. Still. I think, oh that, you know, it feels like the franchise has always been with us since they're not even ten years old. Yeah, nineteen ninety five Doctor Doctor, Girlfriend experience there, not nineteen sixty three. Yeah. The thing is, it's like it's not even just like the young people are coming to this and like, oh, this is our first Triple A franchise. The game has a certain appeal to I think non gamers as well, because it is so cinematic and if it does feel it already feels like an HBO shown before the HBO show comes out. So it's like people come to it and it's like this is kind of a one of kind one of a kind of experience in gaming in terms of providing you know, those stunning graphics, really in depth story and when you try to say hey, when they when people get and fall in love with this and they say, hey, what else in gaming is like this. You come up with a handful of answers, but none of them are perfect. None of them really match everything that the last of us is doing. All right, let's let's move on here to Gearbox closing forums and moving to discord This is from Luke Plunkett at Kotaku. Gearbox just announced that the company will soon be closing down its discussion forums and encouraging all users to instead migrate to using individual game discords for their community needs. Luke adds, I am once again here to say this is a very stupid idea. Here's how Gearbox explains it. We've had many good years of conversation on the Gearbox forums. This has been a great place to connect with all of you and have an amazing discussions about builds, or and and add support for games. During the past year, we notice many of our community members prefer to engage on other social platforms, and that's great. We love talking to y'all and keeping the community going there where the conversations are taking place and feedback is expressed. We want to want to continue that dialogue on our social channels where much of the community is getting their information. Our support team will continue to receive your feedback and concerns through support dot gearbox dot com. As of July nineteen, twenty twenty two, we will turn categories to read only. This means members will no longer be able to create posts on the forums, but folks will be able to read previous post. This will provide thirty days to save any content you want to keep before it is closed. Later this summer, you'll notice a new Gearbox website and the forums will disappear entirely. This is frustrating for you know, the primary reason of being when a problem occurs in the game, and then now and you go back to play it five ten years later, and the conversation has disappeared, and you and you're like, you go to open up a discord for a game and no one is there anymore, and it's all crickets, or it doesn't even exist anymore. And more likely you go to Google to search for an answer, and usually the answer pops up in a forum or something like that, where it's like a game specific forum run by the developer, and someone asked this question and you can look for the answer in there. Discord is not searchable in that way and so this provides a sort of a problem where people are gonna in the you know, many of these answers could get answered actively in the discord, but they will be lost to time, and that's frustrating, right, Yeah, I love Discord. We have a fantastic Discord community, the Giant Bomb Discord, but we also have forums, and you know, the forums are there for to to track history and stuff and a lot of the time even when I've had a technical problem, not necessarily with a game, but like with VMX, there the VMX forums not always been helpful, but have been there as a resource like yo, why is everything yellow right now? And you're right, it's really really hard to trace a problem or even just an announcement in Discord. Discord's fantastic for fostering a community, it's not necessarily the best to stay updated when there is a specific issue or a specific problem, just because of the nature of discord. Discord is not a forum. It's it's a it's a chat. Yeah, it's a community chat room. Basically, it's most basic level, that's what it is. And you wouldn't search a chat like for the most part, like, especially if you're not a member of that an active member of that community. If you're just dipping in to find an answer, that's just not going to provide the back catalog of of save data to provide you with the information you need now. At the same time, Reddit still exists and is community run already, and there will be reddit you know, subreddits for each of these games, and a lot of that's and Reddit has already become sort of like, if I'm actually looking for an answer, I am going to Google, you know site Reddit, and then that's where I'm gonna look for the answer in there, because someone has probably had the conversation there, more likely than even the developer run forums these days. So I get where where Gearbox is coming from. It does. It's like I wish they would have pointed to that more than pointing to Discord and saying, hey, we have Discord and Reddit and and you know, we are actively participating in the reddit and it's run by some you know, fans from the community or whatever. But because yeah, discord is not a good enough solution, but a combination of other features and other sites and other social media platforms could in the end provide many of the same the same things. But I get discord is much better at building a sense of community than a forum has been, so I get why developers are kind of going in that direction. Yeah, don't as long as they don't resort to having conversations and threaded YouTube comments to sort stuff out instead. Yes, please know, definitely not they mentioned something about YouTube I think as well, but hopefully that's not what they're going for all right. Square Enix teams up with Engine to make Final Fantasy seven NFT collectibles. Here it is everybody. This comes from Dan top Kachi at games Beat. Square Enix has teamed up with Engine to create non fungible tokens for digital collectibles for the twenty fifth anniversary of Final Fantasy seven. Engine said it will make Brandon branded tokenized collectibles using its Affinity Network, which is a decentralized cross chain blockchain network designed to make NFTs more accessible, whatever that means. This move is no surprise since square Enix signaled it would make investments in innovative technologies like blockchain, even as it's sold off its Western game studios. Some gamers are going to hate this move, as they associate NFTs with scams, wasted energy, and monetization schemes, but square Enix has signal signaled that NFTs are key to the business model of the future. Consumers can pre order the commemorative to Action figures starting today at the square Enix store. The deluxe physical product will include a code that could be redeemed for a digital version of the figure using the Affinity Network, a next generation blockchain for NFTs. Blah blah blah. So they made the threat and now they've delivered on it. Here it is. You can get your square Enix Final Fantasy seven NFTs, and the people are just lining up on betting jan I bet the people are out there just going wild for this stuff. This seems pretty late, right, No, and like the sales of NFTs have dropped off a cliff. People are probably not actually like going to do anything with these anymore, right Yeah. I was gonna ask, like, when was the whole Ubisoft kerfuffle with NFTs that felt like five years ago, right, yes, And it was probably mostly earlier this year and last yeah late last year. Yes, Like they started it last year and then it sort of fizzled out this year. Yeah. Yeah, that Squeenix go teaming up with someone to make NFTs seems incredibly late to the party, and specifically with Final Fantasy seven, it kind of feels, you know, misaligned with the whole story of that game and Mako and Shinra and you know, so I don't know, maybe they're just maybe they're just going full on evil, maybe they're going full on Shinra or whatever. Yeah, it's it feels kind of like, uh, missing the tone of the game, and it's like, why why for this game, specifically when that game is about you know, using energy from the Earth, so that's gonna end up destroying the planet or whatever. But at the same time, this also feels like them just flailing for like flailing a little bit harder than a lot of other developers and publishers, but still flailing where it's like, you know, Ubisoft was like, hey, we came up with a thing and it's sort of already gone away and I don't know ea, or so a couple other companies mentioned like, hey, we're looking at NFTs and then have since then have either stopped talking about it or said or probably gonna yeah, we're probably gonna pass on this. And then now we got with Scoenix is like we should be doing this, right, investors care about this and then actually seeing it through in a way that other developers have mostly just like sort of skated past and like been like I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, I don't know it. Screens continues to be a company where they have such successful prop properties and games in some circumstances and such huge massive failures and others, and then in between they're doing stuff like this, and it just it feels hard to have confidence in this publisher overall when they continue to do stuff like this, right, agreed, They should instead instead actually license that that TIFA statue that blew up the Internet a couple of months ago, maybe a month ago, right that instead of NFTs. Yes, that absolutely, I would probably display that behind a curtain, behind a beaded curtain. Uh. And we go in that back room over there. Yeah, absolutely, it's uh. I still think if she's just above the Buster store, a Buster store, just doing the Jaco pose on the NFTIFA FIFA. Absolutely, yes, we we are probably not going to hear the last of this, but I expect the next time we talk about square Enix's NFTs it'll probably be even sadder. It'll probably be even like Oh, they are either making another desperate move to try to make these NFTs relevant, or no one bought them and no one cares about them, and it's all sort of just fizzled away. Yeah, let's see. Sony is partnering with spin Master on toys and merch for PlayStation games, as comes from Rachel Kaiser at games Beat, spin Master announced today it has entered a new license in agreement with Sony. The former is the toy license for first party PlayStation titles, meaning it will make merch for several of Sony Interactive Entertainment's biggest brands. According to spin Master, this includes titles like God of War, Horizon, The Last of Us, and Uncharted. It plans to create products in the action figure, collectible playset, plush roleplay vehicles, radio controlled cars and games, and puzzle categories. Chris Beardall from who is spin Masters CCO said in a statement, both Sis PlayStation and spin Masters share a common goal to inspire the entertainment, to inspire and entertain consumers through relentless pursuit of innovation. To get that, we will bring the interactive storytelling of Sony's Immerca PlayStation games to life in an all new way extending the fandom from digital to reimagined physical play. Spin Master jan It's most successful product so far has been Paw Patrol, a massive success for them. This feels like them being like, Okay, we need to expand, and they've done a lot of that. They have to do Gabby Stallhouse, which is among my kid's favorite shows and stuff like that, Gabby, Gabby, Gabby, And so this feels like them like look around, like, hey, where could we grow into a new market to appeal to a different audience, And hey, God of War toys and Horizon toys. It makes a lot of sense for spin Master and for Sony. It's like, hey, we have these successful properties. We know how to make movies. We're not a toy company, though, Let's partner with a company that is looking, that is hungry and looking to grow. Are you gonna end up getting crados doing the Jacopo's over Overthor's hammer. Are you're gonna get that? I'm probably not, but it kind of seems like a no brainer. Fairly surprised eyes this hasn't happened already, right. Spin Master also responsible for making tech decks and kinnetic sand. Yes, kinetic sand man, I should get a technic kinetic sand, but a brand of connectics. Sure, yes that they didn't. Yes, they didn't invent the chemical properties of kinetic sand. Sure I get that. But uh but yeah, I'm gonna get a tech deck, Jane. You said the words tech deck, and now I need to get a tech deck on my desk here so I can just do it during BombCast when it's not my turn to talk. Just feel like that. Yeah, yeah, give me like a Sony Themes skate decks, give me nothing, but oh you know what, give me last of us, a fun guy, bad guys, kinetic sand. Yes, that's that's Yeah. They got a a lot of like natural synergy here, Jan, I love it. You know, the Sony's probably have like toy products before. I'm sure. I'm sure they have. There's been like like small deals here and there. I think this deal just shows like spin Master's gonna show up and like we are gonna blow this out and just do what ton of stuff with all of these brands, And I think that's pretty cool. I hope they release in Astro's playroom toy. I'm I'm an Astro man, you know that about me? Jan, I'm I'm they call me the astro Man, so yeah, I'm gonna show up for that. Absolutely, yeah rocket Man. They also make Rubik's Cube, so you know, ony themed Rubik's Cube on each face. Yeah makes sense. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I think like when Wonder, like spin Master, probably refers to like a specific like their first toy, right, they're probably like a draid old company or something, and now they've expanded onto all this other stuff. But yeah, paw Patrol, biggest thing in the world. Oh what else they gone to? Okay, Baku gone, that's the real biggest property in the world. What are we talking about here? They okay, they make three three more products, I'll mention please. Uh they make the etch and sketch Okay, so there you go. Each each knob is like a different Chaos Blade thing. Yes. Absolutely. As a father, Jeff Grubb, I'm sure you have come across hatch Amles. Yes, I have. My kids have occasionally been like, what is that show? Can we put it on? I'm like, oh no, I know that way lies in doom and I have no idea what this is. But this is a thing called Inkfluencer, And then I just want to shut it all down now after that. Yeah, look at so Yeah spin Master acquired at your sketch in twenty sixteen, because I remember the Ohio Art Company being the brand on there when I was a kid. But yeah, Spinmester flired in twenty sixteen. There you go. That's how toy companies work. You just make one a successful toy and then eventually you sell to the bigger toy company. All right. Minecraft block game says no to blockchain. This comes from Aaron Kelly at Games feat with the fire headline there. Lots of games and companies are are hopping on the NFT bandwagon these days, but not Minecraft. The way the latest digital trend is so pervasive that the norm right now seems to have games publishers and developers making statements denying a n FT association rather than you know not including n FTS being the default assumption. A post on the Minecraft site clarified the situation, basically announcing an upcoming blanket ban on NFTs and blockchain technology. According to my Minecraft, server admins can charge players for server access, but the players themselves need to all be able to access the same functionality. NFTs by design create artificial scarcity and exclusion. Which conflict with Minecraft's guidelines. So not too surprising. Microsoft has sort of been like side eyeing NFTs for a while now, and it seems like even when Phil Spencer, when he's talked about it, he's definitely been like that seems so I got scammed of me. And so it's not surprising to hear a developer under that Microsoft umbrella coming out and saying, uh, yeah, we this just does not fit with the game that we're trying to make. So here is a blanket band not coming to Minecraft. But you know, it's the kind of thing where if Minecraft in another world, you see where Minecraft is trying to like reinvigorate itself while this NFT thing is happening, maybe it's like, maybe we gotta go to NFTs. But Minecraft is doing just fine, right, So it doesn't need this to expand its influence and expand its money making capabilities, right, Yeah. No, Minecraft is raking in enough money that they don't need to introduce crypto, yes, exactly. And I think Microsoft is probably also pretty sensitive to anything that might make them appear to be like they were when they launched the Xbox One, where it's like we are going to force you into using always online stuff, and NFTs has that air about it where it's like, this seems like it's coming from a company that doesn't care about games. It just cares about making money, and Microsoft is desperate to avoid that stuff, so it makes sense for them. Uh. Nintendo Live twenty twenty two is a major fan event coming to Tokyo later this year. UH Nintendo tweeted this on its Japanese account. It's gonna feature game tournaments, a concerts, multiple concerts, actually stage events of some sort, we don't actually don't know the details about that yet, and the ability to try upcoming games. It runs October eighth and ninth at Tokyo's largest event venue, and the tournaments included will be Splatoon three, Smash and Switch Sports. Concerts will be for Splatoon three and Animal Crossing, and a Mario Kart eight online challenge will coincide with the event. This sounds like a very good time to me. Jan It sounds like Space World is back. It sounds like Nintendo's gonna bring people together and just kind of celebrate its games, and I'm all for that. I hope something like this happens here eventually, or maybe let's just let's just go to Tokyo Jan. This is it. We just go to it. This is the this is how we sell this to the people above us. We gotta go. We gotta go beat everyone into this competition, whatever competition they're having. Yes, it doesn't matter. We will beat them. Yes, yes, watch out everyone heading to this. We also watch out at the concert too. We're gonna take them. We're gonna hit that mosh pa and we are going to show everybody who's boss and the Split two and three mosh pit and everyone's by, what do you do? We don't, we don't do that. Please stop that. Uh, this is just a fun thing. I'm glad that Nintendo's like, oh hey, we could put on live events and use this as a as a marketing thing. It's not exactly Space World. Space World was a basically Nintendo's version of E three, kind of separate from E three before E three was like solidified and everything. But this just feels like a fan event more than anything like PlayStation Experience or something like that. And that's cool too though. All right. Uh, Spider Man PC specs have been confirmed and the trailer shows off new features. This is by Grace beIN fellow game spot. According to a PlayStation blog, the port was developed by Nixy Software and collaboration with Insomniac Games. The port includes a number of new graphical features if you have the hardware to support them. These include ray trace reflections at varying quality levels, in Vidia Deep Learning super sambling, and Nvidia Deep Learning Anti analysing. The later to the latter two features are AI based image quality boosters exclusive to g forced rtx GPUs. In addition to output resolutions, you can choose a variety of display ratios, including ultra wide twenty one by nine and ultra wide thirty two by nine. And there's even like a panoramic thing which's like forty what is it forty three by nine where you could put three monitors side by side and have it completely just split out like that. And that's that sounds like something that eventually I'm gonna have to try. It's pretty nuts. Curves, yes, for real true curves. You know, the minimum requirements not too bad GTX nine fifty to get seven twenty p at thirty frames per second on very low settings, but the recommended for ten eight sixty frames per second and medium settings. As a GTX ten sixty, which has basically been the recommended card for most game, most well optimized games four years now, so not too surprising there. Although if you want the ultimate ray tracing, they suggest an RTX thirty eighty and an Intel Core I seven twelve seven hundred K or am D rise in nine fifty nine, so you'll need a and thirty two gigabytes ARAM. That's pretty beefy, and that's kind of actually not too surprising to me. The recommended requirements was sixteen gigabytes of RAM. That's a lot, but it's not out of like the question. For a video game, thirty two gigabytes of RAM is kind of probably going to be necessary for streaming then all those assets so quickly when it was using like the SSD, although they do recommend you have an SSD as well of course. Uh okay. Let's see PlayStation is discontinuing one to one customer support on Twitter, as comes from Tom Ivan at VGC. Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced plans to discontinue one to one customer support on Twitter beginning in August. The ask PlayStation Twitter accounts serving the Americas, Europe, Australia and New Zealand will cease to offer support to individual customers. They currently offer one to one customer support to players seven days per week. The American version, which has had over one point seven million followers, has been in operation since May twenty May of twenty ten. And that's the kind of thing where you have to follow to be able to have them DMU. So it's the kind of thing where it's like they've helped millions or you know, one point seven million people at least. It says starting August first, one to one PlayStation support for via Twitter will no longer be available, and that's what the account tweeted this week. From next month, players are advised to seek support via PlayStation's website. And this is who actually where I was reading mixed this up one of its YouTube channels. So let's go to our YouTube channel for help. So that's a nightmare. Oh boy. Yeah, I think I've interacted with the Xbox version of this a couple of times and it's been pretty handy. Right. You go and you complain about something on Twitter, they reach out to you, but hey, we can help just to like DMUs and then confirm your account and now we're just dming, and I'm like, this is pretty nice. That just works this way. I suppose maybe that's because I haven't used that in a few years, I guess, so maybe it's becoming like a less popular way to do support. But I thought it would be a kind of thing where it's say, if it works, just keep it. But I don't know, wonder if PlayStation's fund a more efficient way of doing things. Have you ever used that sort of DM support feature on any for any service before? Gosh, I've most likely complained about some brand on Twitter before only to get an apt message and not an actually yes. But I see the value in that, Like, you know, it's it's pretty much emailing customer support, but not actually emailing customer support, And that's kind of a bummer that they're just going to be pointing to support via the website or or the YouTube. Yeah, sometimes there's very hyper specific problems that a YouTube channel cannot fix. Yes, absolutely, and just kind of getting that one on one support is very helpful and certain circumstances. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh. Former Uncharted and Last of Us director Bruce Strailey has announced a new studio. This also comes from Tom Ivan at VGC Wildflower Interactive is making a smallish, creatively charged, uniquely stylized game, and wild Flower Interactive was the name of the new studio. Naughty Dog veteran Bruce Straley has announced his return to game development with a new studio called Wildflower Interactive. Straley spent eighteen years at Naughty Dog, where he served as co game director on Uncharted two, The Last of Us, and Uncharted four, before stepping away from game development five years ago. He said, in twenty seventeen, I left the industry not sure if I wanted to make games anymore. But the longer I was away, I kept thinking about this medium and everything yet to be done, and everything I wanted to do still, and this idea kept following me. So I grabbed some friends and we started prototyping, and the idea started getting good. It started becoming exciting again, and I realized I need to make this game. According to the Wall Wildflowers website, the studio is making that smallest, creatively charged, uniquely stylized game that explores the possibilities of the medium. It's currently a fully remote work environment, and it's hiring for a number of positions, including a COO and studio manager. You know, I think it's nice whenever I see if someone like take time away from games and decide I want to come back, It's like, okay, not everyone's being scared away. And this is a person who has a storied history making games I really like and Charted four, so it's like, hey, that that if that person's going to come back and try to keep pushing things forward. I like the idea of doing something smaller and just like putting all your creative ideas into their and prototyping and come up with ideas, and uh, it's it's it's it's nice to hear. And it's like you don't need to necessarily be at Naughty Dog to make that stuff happen, although of course Naughty Doug affords you so much because they're huge budgets. But it's like, hey, you're a creative guy, get your own studio going and go and go for it. Is this excite you? Yeah, totally. Yeah, It's it's nice to see when someone kind of burns out from the industry to take some time and find that passion and that love. Five years off, that's great. Yeah, five years like in the grand scheme of things is not too much time away actually, but also I can see them burning out. You been eighteen years at Naughty Dog and you're the co game director for Uncharted and Last of Us, and those are very you know, for as many people that don't take Uncharted seriously, those are very taxing games to be working on, and very long projects that I'm sure they've had like a little small ideas that they've wanted to execute on, but unfortunately naughty Dog, despite the big budget, is kind of locked into at least what it seems like Uncharted and Last of Us for the last fifty years. That is not hyperbole at all. So I'm sure he's had like a bunch of small projects, small ideas that he's wanted to execute on, but not necessarily had the opportunity because of working at Naughty Dog, And I'm sure that was probably taxing on him as well. Yeah, It's also it's not like movies, where you work on a big movie and that necessarily opens up new opportunities for you to be like, work on even bigger and better things. And now you're an executive producer and everything you touch. Gaming enhanced pretty pretty hard ceiling on how high people can go up on the food chain, and if you are the director on several big games at Naughty Dog, there's nowhere for you to go except for to create your own studio. And it's I'm not just too surprised to see that he's done exactly that, so good good for him. Persona five Royal PS four owners will not be able to upgrade to the PS five version. Another one from Tom Ivan at VGC Atlas is confirmed there's no upgrade path for PS four owners of Persona five Royal who want to play the upcoming PS five version. The enhanced version of the popular GRPG Persona five was released for PS four in Japan and twenty nineteen and worldwide in March twenty twenty. Persona five Royal will be released for PS five, Xbox Series one, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch MPC on October twenty one of this year, but in a fact on the game's website, Japanese website publisher Atlas has said the PS warners who want to play the enhanced version of PS five, we'll need to purchase it again. I'm not too surprised by this, Jan I think it's still a bummer. Yeah, definitely a bummer, but I think we've seen a lot of studios shifting over to that mentality of like this wasn't in that original window, so we're not it's pretty far removed, right, Yeah, it's kind of where it's like it's easy to forgive it's this is a big gap, and but it also is like this is the same It's still the basically the same game, though. I mean, we'll see what the enhancements are really going to be like, but it's like, I don't know. For me, it feels like they can only be so enhanced. It's not like they're adding ray tracing to persona, I don't think. But either way, though, I still have it's so far removed. If you've got to run your PS four, you almost certainly played it on your PS four. There's ways that games included has been included in some like PlayStation Plus stuff in the past as well, I think, so it's like people have played it for free and different ways. At this point, it's like, Okay, at least we're getting this next gen version and getting this version on all these other platforms, and really that's what this version of the game is about. It's but hey, you're gonna be able to get it on Nintendo Switch for the first time ever. So yeah, all right, let's see here. Let's let's do these Japan physical charts for the week twenty eighth, July eleventh through July seventeenth. There are ten games on the software sales chart. I want you to guess how many of them are for Nintendo Switch. Well, I've cheated and I've scrolled down. Yes, but I'm gonna say maybe all of them. Maybe all of them. That is indeed the case, every single game on the top ten for Nintendo Switch. I mean, part of this is like the switch is really ingrained, It's still very popular, and part of it is the PS five is still hard to get, so like as people get PS five, stay would be buying games with it. People are definitely still doing that with the switch in Japan, where the O led model has sold thirty thousand units, the original switch sold twenty four thousand units and the switch lights sold in another nine thousand, where the PS five has sold like a total of about like thirteen fourteen thousand units across the original in the digital version, so supply is still constrained. But even still it is clear Nintendo is just completely dominated in Japan, and yeah, it explains what Sony has done in that country in terms of sort of deprecating it's Japanese teams and saying, hey, we are going to make stuff that has a global appeal because we can't rely on sales in Japan anymore. And whether that's like a chicken or egg scenario, it either it doesn't really matter. It has borne out to be true where Sony doesn't care that much about play about the Japanese audience anymore, and the Japanese audience doesn't care that much about PlayStation anymore. They definitely still do and they're still still definitely fans there, and Sony still makes games that do very well in Japan, like Ghosts of Sushima. That all that stuff is true, but it's not comparable to what the Switch is doing. Right. I do you see a world where this ever changes jan The one factor I could see it potentially potentially shifting, that is if and when the Steam deck becomes more more available and prevalent, that if that will have any effect on the Japanese market with this. Yeah, I like a lot of these games are first party games, right, So we have Switch Sports, Mario Kart, Kirby Ring Fit, Smash Fire Emblem, and Animal Crossing. Yep. But then, like you know, the Steam Deck is a very powerful portable system. It doesn't take up that much space in your backpack bag or whatever. You're even just bring the case around like a psychopath and the PC. The Steam has been growing in Japan as well. Yeah, and you know a lot of people can just hotspot off their phones if they really want to get any type of multiplayer going. It's probably not advisable, but I'm curious if that will affect the market at all. Yeah, I think Nintendo's first party sort of will keep it ahead for for a very long time. But Japanese publishers continue to really heavily support Steam. And so if you want to, like have Monster Hunter Rise plus Some Break, which is the number one selling game for Japan in the last week with twenty nine thousand units, you can play that even better on your Steam Deck and get like this full fledged experience that feels much much better than what is happening on Nintendo's platform. And that's true for a lot of third party Japanese games, So I think some it would probably it's probably gonna mix things up like a like steam Deck to uh steam Deck revised edition, one that is even like slightly slimmer, might go even further, that's one that's even more portable. But I still think Nintendo's probably gonna keep dominating Japan for the foreseeable future until they make the switch to. Yeah, the switch to and it's some weird thing and it completely, yes, completely blows up with their face. Yes, exactly. All right, let's get to the catch up. We have a Live Alive review round up. Everybody, Live Alive is coming out. I think it's what it's launching tomorrow. Views from a bunch of websites have come out, starting with IGN gave it a nine. Game Informer gave it a nine, Let's see Game Spot gave it an eight. Destructoid gave it an eight, Shack News an eight. Kind of funny five out of five, Let's see Nintendo Insider gave it a nine out of Tendant said, I'll admit this was an incredibly subversive game for its era, one that might not hit as well as it did for some. Compared to me, I'm able to appreciate it as both a game from the nineties and just a game that I'm playing. Today. But I'm sure a lot of creatives in Japan were inspired by this, and those inspirations had to have led into their work. You have likely seen parts of its unique twist on the genres on the genres it plays with other games elsewhere, but I found this to be an endearing trait. It feels fitting that a compilation of clear passion and inspiration has trickled down to other games. The impact of Live Alives has seemingly never gone away, and that's beautiful. I mean. While Digital Trends gave it a three point five out of five, it said Live Alive is a high effort remake from the presentation side, though the base game remains an une been RPG experience overall, though pretty good Metacritics score of around eighty that has probably jumped up a little bit. Let's sense, let me see eighty two right now. So yeah, that's uh, that's pretty impressive for this game. I think that it looks really good in the demo that I've played, and I think the gameplay is mostly pretty interesting, even though I agree with the Digital Trends that it could be somewhat uneven where I'm like, ah, these battles just kind of feel like I think I'm just gonna go go towards them, attack them, and then oh that's that. That wasn't too tactical or anything like that. You played it like you think this is kind of you know, we only played the demo. I think it was just kind of fit with what you feel about the overall game. I think more than anything, for some reason in my own head that with with JRPG demos, I'm a little bit more hesitant because to give it vertical slice of a JRPG is very hard, Yeah, because that's not indicative of the overall pace of everything because they have to make it so tight like triangle strategies. Demo not completely indicative of how the flow of the whole game wand up being. But seeing these reviews, I was really pleased with a demo in my time with Live Alive, so very very hopeful to actually check the whole thing out. Yes, same, Actually I'm not a huge RPG guy, but I had a pretty good time with this demo. I think I'll probably look into this one. Let's see a rumor. Cryptic whispers of incoming F zero news are doing the rounds online. This comes from Jim Norman at Nintendo Life with a summertime Nintendo directs seemingly signline this year well, well, the first weeks of September would technically be still be summer, but you know what we mean. Various leaks and rumors have been one of the main sources of conversation to keep online Nintendo communities excited. One such rumor that's currently doing the rounds, as flagged by my Nintendo News, suggest that Nintendo has some juicy F zero news ready to drop soon. The potential leak comes courtesy of Silex Hunter, a relatively new voice in the rumor community, but one who has been proven correct their predictions on several occasions. And those predictions include like they basically got the last Partner direct almost exactly right, so people are like, Okay, we're gonna put this person on the pedestal for now and we're gonna see if this actually turns out to be true. Sorry, I hit the microphone there. Leaker Silex went on to a podcast and did an interview with a voice altering technology to keep themselves hidden, so taking it very seriously. It was on the Switch Forced Nintendo channel where they announced a cryptic clue about what is knicks for Nintendo, simply replying with the following, and this is basically just a bunch of zeros and ones zero zero one one zero zero one zero like stuff like that. But it goes on pretty long, and when people decoded it, basically it says F zero news is coming or is incoming. He the Silex went on to confirm this and said that you're right, but manage your expectations a little bit, is what he says. So Jan, we are definitely getting a new F zero full edged sequel, right, I am ready for this game. Here it is, it's happening right now, baby, I don't you know. I never I don't know with Nintendo, Like out of all the studios, you can make educated guesses and guestimations, guestimates about like, oh, they're probably working on this Nintendo. I don't I never know with these people. They're right. It's like when you break up with someone and you just you're just dying to know how they're doing. It's like, I do they miss me? Like are they doing better without me? But you I just never know because do what other racing games do they make? Now? Besides Mario Kart. Yeah, I mean, and really I think they're they're answer. They'd be like, why would we need to make any other racing games other than Mario Kart based in the way that sells? Right? Yeah, exactly. People people in chattered guests in a whole bunch of stuff. F zero Muso is the best guest so far, I think. But people are saying, oh, a mobile game F zero run, and others are saying a G export from the GameCube version and stuff like that, A new F zero labo. Yeah, I F zero Match three absolutely, I'm I'm guessing that this is problem. I don't know. I think that F zero gx port something like that makes some sense. Bring it back why not? But uh, I don't know. I feel like setting this that would only set the stage for a full fledged sequel eventually. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm hopeful that this is a still a pretty big deal. It's hard to get say it like when you they say, manage expectations. I don't know if an F zero mobile game makes much sense, right, you say that, but it could one hundred percent happen. Didn't like the Mario Kart or not Mario Kart, The Mario Runner game do fairly well for them. I don't know. I think it's like I think it did okay, but that was the one that was like the ten dollar price tag, and they haven't done another premium price game since then. So I think I kind of tells the story of like I'm like, oh, this didn't this experiment didn't quite work out. Is F zero is any F zero game on Nintendo Switch Online? F zero X for n sixty four I think is, Yes, that's a good game. That's a really good game. I'm curious if it's just that if if yeah, right, So people mentioned like oh F zero with D D stuff getting added to Nintendo Online, Like that's possible, right, because there's a sixty four D D expansion pack that happened in Japan where people could then design their own courses and stuff like that, and maybe that's the kind of thing they could get added into the Switch Online and that would I would be disappointing, but also it would be kind of cool. I was always winning the sixty four D D. It also could be like, oh, they are adding as part of this expansion for Mario Kart or where they're doing all these new courses. Maybe they're going to add a new F zero course that we've never seen before, because they had two courses in there that are already inspired by F zero. Maybe they'll do another one of those. Ye who knows, we'll see okay. Zeno Blade Chronicles three has leaked early. This is sort of a warning for everybody. A lot of twenty five copies of the game were for sale on eBay. You could just go pay seventy dollars plus forty dollars for shipping and handling to get your own copy more than a week early of Zeno Blake Chronicles three, And that means that stuff is going to begin a period online and in fact already has Footage from the game is available online, and therefore spoilers are going to be online. This also likely means that one of those twenty five copies is probably going to go to someone who's going to rip it and put it online, so piracy is going to happen as well, and that's also going to mean that spoilers will be everywhere. So between now when this game comes out, be on the lookout if you are if you care about the Zeno Blake Chronicles three story. There's probably going to be some spoilers everywhere you look in these communities going forward. So heads up, yes, yes, all right, let's let's let's get to the pole. Me bring this up here, hit the transition. I asked yesterday, have you gone back to No Man Sky for any of its updates? Forty point seven percent said yes, fifty nine point three percent said no. I have gone back to No Man's Sky because of updates, especially the online multiplayer one, But since then I've gotten the craving a few times and have not given in. I think I'm a I'm about do. I think in the near upcoming future, I'm probably gonna play a little bit more Noma and Sky Jen. Yeah, how about you? Did you play it at launch and have you gone back? I've played it at launch. I did go back when they introduced like the Pokemon esque animal hyspagery friending stuff, only to realize that I had played everything on PlayStation, I think, and then now I was playing on Steam, so none of my you know, obviously, none of my progress carried over, and the opening hours of that game is so dramatically different than how originally that it took me forever to even get to the animal stuff, and I was kind of completely lost all over again, thinking that I was very familiar with the game, only to realize this are completely different thing. Though it's very different. Yeah, I mean that's part of the appeal, Like they've made so many changes that it does feel like this whole other thing. But yeah, I'm sam. I played on PlayStation and then ended up losing that progress, and I'm like, I probably would have started over anyhow, But it's like when you go back for a specific thing, you're right, Like the playing No Man Sky gets in the way a little bit of getting to that content for sure, And I don't know. I wonder if like they are yet going to do if they're yet to do get another onboarding change to that game and shift that stuff up yet again. But we'll see the I mean this, this strategy is obviously working for them. They're probably gonna keep up with it where they just keep doing these free expansions in you know, ad infinitum into the future until people just stop buying the game new I guess because they've never sold any DLC for it, so it seems to be working out, all right. Let's see, I'm just gonna do Uh, let's just do. Let's just do. Let's just do F zero. Do we get a new F zero soon? It's a new F zero soon? I would say, uh. In well, yeah, let's just say soon. Why not? Uh? And I'll go game mess mornings and then we'll hit the pull button. And this is when we will answer tomorrow on the Friday Show with Ben Hanson. Everybody, Ben Hanson is gonna be on the show tomorrow. That'll be fun. Let's see twenty three hours. There we go. We have a breaking tweet from one Jeff Keely hit me with the has delayed Avatar Frontiers of Pandora until twenty twenty three, twenty four. Yeah. So when I was getting some Ubisoft rumors earlier this year, the thing I was hearing is the game looks nice and the gameplay looks rough, and they wanted to release that game this year, obviously to coincide with the movie. But that seems to line up with the like the gameplay being very rough, so not too spart. So they said, there did they get what was the new date? Just a general next year, next year to twenty twenty four? Who okay, wolf, All right, then that's a window. Yeah, that's it's true. The good thing, there's seventeen more movies to line it up with, says Marino. Yes, they missed this one. There'll be another one in a couple of years, so yeah, good, good for them. I guess I don't know what I think about an Avatar game like a big, big budget Ubisoft movie tie in game. I don't know at this point. I suppose they're making that Star Wars game too, but it doesn't feel exactly like this. It just feels like, oh, yeah, didn't Ubisoft through that King Kong game like Peter Jackson's King Kong. It feels like that to me. So, yeah, Jim, what's happening on Giant Bomb for the rest of the week. Today and tomorrow. We've got the voicemail dump truck backing on up as per usual today, Unprofessional Fridays popping off tomorrow. Perhaps a Halo co op stream with you and I tomorrow. We're gonna try to get that going. A lot of it's surprisingly a lot of moving parts with that. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. I think I got it set up, but yes, it's weird because you have to do the in Xbox inside or stuff, So yeah, and then we did the Fourth of Horizon Quick Look for the Hot Wheels DLC early. We did that yesterday with Dan and myself and I believe that's it unless anything else pops off. Yeah, if there's anything else, you guys could just check out Twitter dot com slush John Bob, we'll post it there and checkout giant bomb dot com itself, and we'll try to keep guys a prize if anything else that's gonna happen. But yeah, keep your eye on the website for the rest of the week. We're gonna have some fun and tune back in for Games Mornings Live tomorrow. Thank you for watching. Thank you Jan for hanging out with me. I always appreciate it. Thank you to the audience. You're the best audience of gaming, makes it easy to make the best showing gaming. And until tomorrow, a good one. Take you care of yourself. Goodbye,