NBA Superstars Arcade Game Recaptures The Spirit Of NBA Jam

He'll be go me bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for May sixteenth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on game mes Mornings
Live with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, Microsoft might have given us a glimpse
that it's a next gen gaming tech and leadership is changing at Helldivers two Studio
Arrowhead. But first, please join me and welcoming today's co host to Game
Mess Mornings. It's Sean Turbo. Sean McDowell. Sean, how are you
doing? Jeff? I know you gal a lot going on, sure,
but have you ever had to learn a bounce patch three days before the second
biggest tournament in the world. It feels like that's what I'm doing right now
in my life. Ex Yeah, but no, not like that. What
why are they doing this? Explain to the kids what's going on? Okay,
so chat if you didn't know the second biggest at least pay fighting a
tournament in the world Combo Breaker. Maybe that number has changed since like last
year or whatever. But because it's not a Capcom Pro Tour event, they
are running the balance patch for three fire six that just came out to day
or yesterday night whatever end up being, and the new character A Kuma is
legal, And you might say yourself, why would the tournament organizers do that?
Right, I would say that it wasn't the termoent organizers. They put
out a poll to everyone registered for SF six eighty percent of people want both.
So all the sickles in the FTC are doing this to me? Mais
they mean on the plus side? On the plus side, my character got
buffs, so shout all them non mains. Right, do you think it's
like do you think it's like stuff like that where people are like, well,
hey, if this mixes things up, it increases my chances because the
people that are like the best that have been practicing one way, now they
have to I mean, it's not really gonna work that way because the best
the best are going to be the ones that are going to also be the
best at adapting to changes. I would assume a right, what do you
think exactly? So, yeah, the game has had no major balance patches
since it came out, so that's basically what everyone's looking forward to. They
just want to play at a high level tournament where things are different and things
are new, and you know what, it's chaotic. I gotta basically relearn
s F six on top of getting better at teching because that's my main game
this year. But it's going to be a wild time. I can't wait
for it this weekend. I'm looking forward to it. Putting all my money
on you. Like I said, so you better win, battter win.
My kids are going to Disney sixteen hundred teching players fifteen hundred. Yeah,
that's really good for me. We'll see. Yeah, all right, anything
else going on with you? You've been keeping up with the games out there?
Or is it just all practice all the time right now? It's been
mostly that, Like we talked about elsewhere. I have been playing thousand X
Resists, great story driven game. Really like that. Yeah, and I'm
looking fire up a couple more things this week. When I need to need
some wind down time, I need to step away from the fight pad Rakugaki
looks really good and so I think that. Came out to day to check
that out. Yeah looking good, Yeah, I think so. So.
Yeah. Good games. Too many games, way too many freaking games.
Too many games. And we were talking about, hey, the big games
would slow down and then we'd have time to do other stuff. And it's
like then a million awesome smaller games came out and also took all the time
in the world that I had, not really complaining because it's been a lot
of very cool games that crypt master is kind of has me right now,
that's an interesting one. A good variety of the games because there's so many
indies coming out. But also, yeah, you, regardless of how you
feel about hell blay you and that you know, a whole bunch of different
stuff coming out, lots lots of different stuff. All right, let's explain
what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff Grub, will help piece
your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of
our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of
a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you were watching
live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show later on
podcast feeds by searching for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS on giant
bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps
on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get
into, so let's start the morning mess with Microsoft. The demos Bouldersgate three
Borderlands running at thirty frames per second on the new snap Dragon x Elite Windows
on ARM platform with Auto super resolution support. In tow this come ser Cordon
and one of the best resolutions that there is over at Windows Central. Debuting
this week during Build twenty twenty four, Microsoft's AI and Service event showcase the
new Qualcom Snapdragon x Elite, which grants devices like the new Surface Pro eleven
and Surface Laptop seven all day battery life, superior performance to their Intel predecessors,
and better cooling. The ultra low energy ARM processing requires some emulation for
certain apps, but the performance is so good that has become something of a
non issue. These devices will run much cooler than previous Surface laptops and tablets
and laptops without sacrificing performance. Surface has some notoriety for getting hot, hot
enough to fry eggs, particularly in warm climates. I believe it that reality
is about to change. Basically, they showed this off though. One way
that you can prove that this is not going to be a problem is games.
Right, this is the thing that people say, you know, they're
built for Windows. What's the translation layer? Going to be like and people
are a little bit more familiar with this stuff now because of the Steam Deck
running Linux. But Microsoft's history with ARMS and with ARM and translation layers with
the Nintendo Fighting Game game. Yes, of course they love it over there.
Their experience with ARM has not been great. They've tried this a bunch
of times before, and gaming is usually one of the things held up as
hey, this doesn't work the way we need it to. But to prove
this, they showed off some big games. Microsoft revealed that boulders Gate three
will run at around thirty frames per second unlocked on something like a Surface Pro
eleven, which is quite encouraging. Microsoft also showcased Borderlands running on Windows on
ARM with Microsoft's new native auto super resolution support. So that you know it's
Snapdragon. These are mobile processors. First, they are getting more powerful,
for sure. This is you know, probably this must be one of snap
Dragon's most powerful Snapdragon that's QUALCLM, right must be Qualcomm's most powerful thing right
now, not going to be as out of the park powerful as like the
stuff that's happening over at Apple where they're building, where they're designing their own
silicon, and they are also designing all the apps to work with it,
so everything just works hand in hand and is super efficient and super powerful.
This is going to be better in a lot of ways than what you get
from X eighty six, which is kind of getting stuck in the mud a
little bit. Are you encouraged by this and do you think this has implications
for the future of gaming for Microsoft? Oh? Yeah, this is a
This is great stuff. I've been looking forward to ARM slowly taking over XA
six for a while now. Like you said, Apple has moved over to
that architecture in general. If anyone doesn't know, basically, long shore of
it is the type of processor that's in your phone and your tablet or whatever
are now becoming good enough and effishient enough that they can just run those at
higher clock speeds and everything, and the way Apple does it may even basically
glue them together to have a lot of extra performance. Mobile chips are getting
good enough that they will be able to replace desktop chips, as we've been
lc where you take that tech, you scale it up a lot like Apple
is done, and you put in stuff like the Mac pros and whatnot,
and they can do some pretty impressive stuff on the quill Com side of things.
They have this new I actually hadn't heard of the x Elite yet.
Everyone's talking about the snap Dragon Gen three is the hot stuff right now.
It's in the new Samsung Galaxy phones and everything. And when you look at
the gaming performance of all that, it's really good and it's impressive. And
this is what we've been waiting for because something like the Steam Deck is as
bulky as it is because they need good cool and everything in there because it
is just an X eighty six chip, that other type of chip that we've
been talking about. But if we can move everything over to these arm chips,
that's gonna be great for everything. We're gonna get a good performance out
of it. It's gonna have better cooling, so you can have smaller form
factors, or again you can scale it up and have like the same size
devices that we have now, but you you know, basically overclocked them and
then slap really good cooling on them, and we'll be able to get stuff
like Microsoft has not talked about publicly necessarily as much, but we have found
out as part of their plan to move towards more of this stuff, and
we can see it happening here with the surface as well. So I'm I'm
excited for all of this, Jeff. This this is great for tech nerds
like us, and hopefully we you know, simplify a little more for people
who aren't following this stuff like we are. Exactly. Yes, it's the
kind of thing where I at least I can fix this. There we go,
all right. I literally judge the whole obs scene broke, and I
was fixing it the entire time you were talking, and I just got it
over the finish line the second you stopped, which feels like that's a good
sign. I think, yeah, yeah, Again, I mentioned we've been
working together a while, mar Can you tell I was kind of trying to
work but I was very appreciative. So, yes, everything you're saying is
exactly where I'm coming at this front, Like this is promising. I think
this is part of it feels inevitable that we're gonna kind of get to the
point where arm does take over. It feels like that's like it hasn't quite
been decided. It feels like it's very close to being decided. And if
you are one of these companies that does produce hardware that needs a powerful processor
in it. If you don't have a plan that includes something that involves arm,
you're gonna get left behind very likely. So they like they have to
have this ready, even if they don't end up putting it in the next
Xbox, even if they do have some alternative that is an ultra efficient X
eighty six chip that goes into a handheld, which is still possible, and
there's reasons to do that because it would would be a slightly less of a
headache in some ways. But I think what we're talking about is future proofing,
long term thinking and doing the work now so that you could be backward
compatible twenty years from now. Once risk architecture is just the default across the
board so exactly. And Microsoft does have teams that understand backward compatibility, They
have teams to understand building compatibility layers. If they just get to work on
this now, it will just save them so much time in the future.
This is I think if I were to place money now, I probably would
put it on. The next major Xbox console launch cycle will be based primarily
on technology like this. I think they will actually shift away from X eighty
six. Yeah, they can have a good enough compatibility layer, which again,
like we've seen with a Proton on Steam Deck, those are getting really
good. Microsoft's been working on those for a while now. Windows on Arm
does have a compatibility layer that allows you to run next A six stuff already,
So that's already, you know, being worked on there. I could
very easily see in And it's a funny thing, you know. I'm always
in the chats for these shows and reading the constant everything. People don't want
to acknowledge that we are getting a new console generation within the next probably three
Yes, and I get that. I understand where people are coming from.
This has felt like an unsatisfying console generation. Yeah, and some people still
chalk you up as an excuse or whatever, But no, the pandemic really
did mess up this generation for sure. Yeah. It made the feelings feel
way off. Yeah. And one of the problems with that is technology has
advanced, but development couldn't. Because we can always like theoretically, craft all
this new stuff, all this new tech we want to put out once the
fabrication lines are back up and running, But when it comes to the development
side of things, that's something that was slowed down down. So the tech
has basically lapped where we are at with these development teams, right, So
that's why it feels like, hey, this generation hasn't really started, because
from a development side, it kind of hasn't. But that doesn't mean that
new tech isn't there for whenever they feel the need to put on new consoles,
which, by the way, your nice shiny current gain consoles aren't so
shiny anymore ready, And that's just the way it is. It's a little
bit of a perfect storm too, because the pandemic hit right when I think
a lot of developers and people responsible for development we're looking around and being like,
okay, we got through that whole last generation basically kind of you know,
going for higher resolutions for the same kinds of games we've been doing for
a long time. Now, these new consoles are going to have much better
CPUs, be much better at stuff like simulation. We're going to maybe take
some big risks and try some new stuff. And then the pandemic hit and
it's like, oh shit, all that stuff that we were afraid to try
for ten years, that would be insane to do it now. Just make
safe bets, just do things that you know that work. And now they're
in this position where no one really knows where to like to make the next
big leap, because like, if you just go after visual fidelity, you're
almost certainly going to be boned if you're not one of the biggest developers in
the world. I think that we're, you know, kind of I think
we're seeing this a little bit with hell Blay too. That's not this is
not the whole story. Help Blay two looks really good, and I think
there's a lot of so what happening and in response to that, not across
the board, but there's enough of that that it's kind of being like,
man, what's the point of that? And then if you do have a
game that's like, okay, going to have great graphical fidelity and then also
have a ton of game behind it, that the real limiting factor there,
we say on the show all the time is it's money. It's not the
power of these systems anymore. And there's always going to be a couple of
companies that could spend more than you. And when you trying to keep up
with the Jones is you're going to get burned really bad doing that. Because
rock Stars out there and and Naughty Dog is out there, so you have
to make a decision now, like how can you separate your game? But
when the pandemic happened, that made those bets seem that much scarier, so
I think they put off. The generation was supposed to be this chance to
figure out what games could be like going forward, and no one actually saw
that through. So even if you can't spend a lot, you know,
people can only work so fast, and that's always going to be a problem.
And when we're dealing with these games with huge four K assets and everything,
those take a lot of time to make. It's why it's, for
better or worse, why companies are looking at stuff like AI to try to
speed that up, even if it's not replacing jobs, just to try to
generate you know, sort of the raw materials, if you will, in
the game a little bit faster. Some way the artists can get to work
faster on crafting these worlds. And it says, we're these giant games are
just taking two damn long to make, and we're trying to figure out ways
to speed that up. And you look, you mentioned like the way hell
Blay looks and everything it is. We I think we have once again reached
a point where this looks photo realists to us. I saw, I saw
John Leman posting those screenshots ther day. He took some choice ones they wanted
to share, and it did straight up with like actors in movie. To
me, at this point, Jeff, you put a little bit of a
film grain over some stuff and everything like that, and you just just obscure
the image a little bit and it does a lot to hide any little imperfections
and it does look incredible. But anytime you're playing a game, you know,
coming from fighting games, as I mentioned at the Topless show, big
thing for me is you stop noticing that stuff at a certain point. Yeah,
if the gameplay is there to back it up. And I think all
these dots are connecting for why people maybe don't love hell Blade too as much,
because they slowly start to not notice the visual flourishes and when they get
to the gameplay they're like, oh, this is heels a bit dated.
Yeah, And that's why, you know. I think Mike has talked even
this show about how at a certain point he's he just stopped noticing resolution and
stuff like that. I think part of is he needs to re up his
glasses prescription. Little other side of it is h Yeah, the average person
doesn't know that stuff as much. They notice is something fluid, is something
stable, like with you know, Paper Mario coming out thirty fps as fine,
as long as it's as a different Manati put the good thirty fps as
well as a stable and smooth experience. That's what the average person cares about.
And yeah, I don't know, we're in a weird place development wise.
I don't know if everybody has been catching onto this game. Development is
a weird place, Jeff. It's it's really weird and and honestly it feels
like, well, it's not going to bounce back and be what it was,
It's going to be something different. And I think a company being like,
okay, we're going to go with ARM going forward is also reflective of
that of it's not all about the horsepower race like you would, especially now
when handhelds are taken off right and you would just outright you would still even
in the next probably five years, I would assume, be able to get
more raw horse power out of an X eighty six based architecture. If you
really were trying to go for that, it's like we're gonna we've reached good
enough already. And the reason we know that is the conversation we just had.
It's money's the limiting factor, not the horsepower. So it's like,
whoever spends the most money? Again, Is there a better looking game than
Red Dead, Redemption two or The Last of Us Part two from the PS
four Not really, not really. You can get it to run a little
bit better here on newer systems, but in terms of the fidelity, the
image quality, not much stuff that looks actually better than those games. Yeah,
all right, let's go over here to Arrowhead and hell Divers two.
The CEO is stepping down voluntarily to take on the role as Chief creative officer.
This comes from Jordan Miller at VGC Hell Divers two developer. Arrowhead Games
Studios has a new CEO former Paradox excuse me, former Paradox Interactive Chief Business
Development Officer, Shams Georgianni Is the new company is the company's new CEO,
replacing company founder Johann Pilstett in the role. Pillstatt will remain chief creative Officer
and chairman. Speaking to Games Industry dot Is, Pillstt said that the decision
to hire a dedicated CEO will give him more time to focus on gain creation.
You basically just kind of reiterated some of those points. But this is
like a the kind of thing where, oh, we have figured out what
this company is, we have figured out our games, we have a really
strong footing on what we want to be. I have established the creative identity.
Now let's bring in someone that can really make sure that we're going forward
as a business in a smart way. And I think we have had this
conversation a bunch of times now where it's like, this is what happens.
A company has creatives in charge that understand the product, and they get the
product to a place where it's doing very well, and then they often want
to bring in someone who's like, I'm a business person, I know how
to grow your business and capitalize on this. The idea here is now,
just don't lose sight of what got you to this place in the got you
to this point in the first place, and having I think Pillstat stay on
as chief creative officer and kind of likely being the face of the company going
forward. Still they're not at much risk of that happening. What do you
think I mean this is getting a bit in the weeds for my knowledge of
the studio at least. But everything you're saying there about making sure that you
have people balancing things out here like we saw with you know, PlayStation's new
dual CEOs and our thing, it sounds it sounds like it's a good plan
on paper at least to have those two people at either equal or you know,
in the same stratosphere of the company structure, to make sure that they
are working there to make sure that you do have a creative and you do
have a business person working together to figure out how to make everything work and
how to make the artists happy, and how to make sure that's going smoothly,
but also the business is getting done. The company's manurect Iron's hot,
right, The Iron is definitely hot for this company right now. Oh yeah,
oh, you know you are going to want to grow now and yeah,
and having someone come on to figure that stuff out while you could keep
focusing on what made the game good in the first place, sounds good to
me that the Iron is so hot. I told you this last night.
I uninstalled Hell Divers two from my PC because just guys need the space.
It's seventy freaking what for X Defiance Fight. It's not bad. I play
it's bad. That game sucks. It's very bad. It's very much a
Call of Duty clone on an Xbox three sixty vibe. If you've never got
for that, if you've never played a shooter in your life before, I'm
sure it's great. I'm just played a lot of Call of Duty and it
gives me knock off Call of Duty vibes, and I'm like in a place
where that's kind of like warm, fuzzy feeling for me a little bit.
Well, because just play Call of Duty. Well, I will just play
called me are waiting for you, dude. We're sitting there in the MW
three lobby's like, where's grew up? We're just waiting for you, dude.
I'll come back to it. It's not like it's not trash, it's
not garbage. Anything I want to spare is the game right out the game,
but it is. It feels very First of all, I was playing
with controller because it doesn't have input based matchmaker. So when I can,
because I'm a big Call of Duty guy, I play the controller. It
feels weirdly like floaty and stuff. I don't know, It's like like my
character is like sliding across the ground. Yeah, the second the movement doesn't
feel good, I'm kind of movement is so good. Yes, that's that
is, but you and other stuff like titan Fall can do it. I
know that's ex Call of Duty people, but like that's all this forever it
go to. I'll give it a couple more matches. We'll probably play it
a little bit at some point. I don't know. We can play it
as a group. I think because it's also it's it's Overwatch call of Duty.
Yeah, so I think if the team dynamic feels good enough, maybe
that'll like save quote unquote the game for me. But I am not really
not feeling that. What I'm I'm getting at though, Hell Divers Too is
a fantastic game that deserves the spot on my PC. Yes, I think
so that's I would unstalled Hell Divers To if I could have avoided it.
I get it. Let's get that reinstalled and just get back to healing nature.
Sticking with Arrowhead, though they kind of followed up on some of the
stuff. Arrowhead wants to remain independent and achieve from software or Blizzard status.
I mean, you know, if you could just decide to do that.
Why not. This is from Jordan Midler at VGC. Arrowhead's chief creative officer,
Johann Appilstadt has said that he wants the studio to ascend to Blizzard or
From Software status while remaining independent. The company's former CEO, who has now
stepped aside to focus on making games, told Games Industry Dot is we pride
ourselves on being an independent studio. We have to see what the future holds.
But there's nothing in the plants where we want to be acquired by somebody.
I want to see how high we can fly. And bringing new CEO
Shams Georgiani on board, we have a good potential to realize that future of
turning into the next From Software or Blizzard. Listen, you do want to
say game sent cool? I do want to set your Yeah, Hi,
Dan, glad you're watching. You want to set your sites high? And
I think this is like a good goal to have. It's not like something
you can just do. Yeah, you just say, oh, we want
to be one of the biggest developers in the world. Hey, it's nice
to want things. It's nice to want things, definitely, but I think
it's it's also true that wanting things makes you more likely to achieve those things.
So saying they're going to do this forces them to start thinking of like,
well, then what's it. What's that going to take? And I
hope that doesn't attract from anything they're doing. I hope that doesn't like cause
them to hesitate or anything like that, and I don't think it will.
I think overall this team has again has a very firm grip on the kinds
of games that they're making in the ways that they're doing it. So I
hope this is just nothing but good things for them going forward. And yeah,
I what do you think it would take though, to become a From
Software a Blizzard Like, It's not just Hell Divers to being a great live
service game going forward. It's a lot more than that, right, twenty
five plus more years of that? Yeah, a little yeah. I mean
both those studios are list the studio. When do they open? I don't
know? And maybe they good point. Maybe they're because like Hell Divers one
has been around for a while. Maybe that's their kind of toiling in slight
obscurity era like From Software had for some time, even Blizzard had with you
know, people, Blizzard was not a household name really until some of its
RTS games and stuff like that. Yeah, Arrowhead two thousand and eight and
they have a grand total of five games under our belts. So it's like,
you know, you're getting there, getting there. Yeah, you're you're
clearly going in the right direction, clearly real going the right direction, especially
compared to you if you you know, watch you Blizzard status. Well,
if you don't have to do much to do that, I'm higher maybe even
yeah, just that from Software there you go at this point. Maybe so
at the very least to me, this says that they are They do have
grand visions going forward for being a studio that continues to make games. They're
not saying like and we're the hell Divers two company. They're saying, No,
we want to be a creative powerhouse like from Software a Blizzard. And
I think that's encouraging as well. I want this team to be like,
no, we made a great game, let's make another great game. And
I think they have. They have strong creative core values about what makes a
game of game that's different from a lot of other studios. And I think
the way that they could be like from Software is let's take that that core
and apply it to slightly others, slightly different genres, slightly different games,
and see what that looks like. And I would be there to check it
out, because that stuff is very appealing to me, just like, oh,
the weapons are going to work the way they're going to work, and
they're strong physics and all that stuff. I think if they just apply that
to other genres at the very least, that's an interesting concept to me.
You can't say core values around a fighting game player, Jeff, oh no,
if you know, you know, if you really want to go down
that rabbit hole core values EVO Japan, you'll you'll find it. But six
was a wild game, Jeff. Okay, then all right, then all
right, I've go do some googling and they're an Incognitia window later apparently,
all right, let's get to this next story. PlayStation is working on a
new platform for free to play mobile games. This comes from Chris Sculling at
VGC. Shout out to VGC, who I hope they I hope they start
their Patreon. I'm not sure if I do. Yeah, I'm sorry,
chichan a couple of them. Yesterday. I was like, man, I
was telling Andy Andy has some fantastic stories that I want told. I will
gladly pay five bucks. That's a good idea. You're right. They rescued,
like, what kind of content you would you want in there? It's
like, yeah, not to de realist before doing the story. But Jeff,
when we did an episode Jeopardy one time before, while we were waiting
for you to hop on, it was me, Andy Robinson and Mike Manattison
in a discord to call together and we just started chatting about the random stuff
Andy has in his background and we're like, oh, hey, you got
GameCube there right. It's like, well, yeah, let me tell you
the story of this time I got my GameCube signed by me and mode On.
What do you mean, Andy? What do you freaking mean? He
like did that trip to Japan a little bit ago. And it's like,
I think he's visiting like all these studio and going to say like he does
he does, yeah, because they know he knows everything he's been around.
Yes, So y'all, y'all the VGC boys, if you're listening, please
get on this. Yes, yeah, do your Patret and then just have
the story time with Andy or whatever, and that would be a great Patreon
exclusive or timed exclusive or something like that. And like Joran's been saying he's
been wanting to do this with Andy and christ for a while and now so
I'm just saying, I'm just saying to it was to like a fill in
what we're talking about here. VGC is part of the Gamer Network. Gamer
Network got acquired by Ziff Davis slash Ign yesterday and the story that we read
on like as it was breaking on the BombCast yesterday, they're like, there
will be some redundancies in the UK. It's like okay, And then as
soon as I got downe the show, I want to go check Twitter,
and everyone across the entire world that worked for the Gamer Network seemed like they
were laid off. It was nuts. It was a bloodbath. It was
terrible. It sucked. Yeah. It seemed like the only people we know
who were unaffected were the people who are independence yes, like Digital Foundry and
Digital Foundering. Yeah, right, so hey, it was terrible. There
are some of the entities like VGC they're going to continue, but they're like,
hey, we had a partnership. We're not sure what the status is
that going to be. Should we start a Patreon. Yes, I want
to support all these people where I can. Lots of great work was done.
All right, let's talk about this free to play mobile games platform from
PlayStation. Sony is working on a new platform focused on free to play mobile
games. As spotted by tweak Town, the company has posted a new job
listing excuse me, for a mobile platform architect. According to the listing,
the role, which will come under the PlayStation Studios Mobile Department, will involve
hiring an experienced software engineer to designs PlayStation's platform for developing, publishing, and
operating free to play mobile games. It adds an individual in this role will
spearhead the design and implementation of this platform, work in partnership with internal teams
to connect mobile games to PlayStation services and ensure that all mobile games meet PlayStation's
quality standards. The successful applicants, who should have more than eight years of
professional experience in the mobile games industry, will design the system, architecture and
back end services for the mobile games platform. Okay, so this is not
too surprising. This is every company wants one of these, But Sony's like
been like pushing and pulling in this space for a long time now and it
seems it seems like there's been a lot of false starts. They acquired a
mobile company not too long ago and like the last year or so, and
this Michael kat Cough and Nicola Sebastini. Yes, these are people who were
like working at that company, or at least I know Mchael was working at
that company and then has recently left. And it was alleged to me that
they left because things were a mess and there was some toxicity. Again that
this is alleged from someone that claims to be familiar with it, and it's
stuff that I was able to kind of when I poked around. It sounds
like that's how it went down. And I think this has left PlayStation in
a position where the mobile side of their business is a mess and now they're
back to having to rebuild it once again. I get why they feel they
need to do this, but this seems like it's a challenging space that you
kind of just can't like make happen because you wish it. What do you
think chance that the chances are that Sony's going to be able to figure this
out and actually get something worthwhile out of the mobile gaming space. Slim if
it's their own platform, meaning their own store. That's what I'm kind of
asking you about here. I'm trying to figure this out. New platform.
Does that mean the PlayStation's store for mobile? I doubt it. I think
what this probably means is you're an Android guy. You remember when we had
the Google play Services thing launch and it was like you can like sign into
Google play Services for these games and their accounts. It'll be it'll be like
some back end account and stuff like that that ties them the mobile equivalent of
like the PlayStation launch the overlay. Yes, okay, gotcha. Guess what
I would expect this is this is getting that because you know it does say
platform. There's no reference. That's what it was a little fuzzy. Yeah,
I guess maybe we just don't know the specifics of that, but yeah,
we we've talked about how uh xbox Y and watch around store. That
may not be a great idea, but if it's just yeah, tying their
mobile games further into PlayStation services, that's a better route to take because someone
just downloading the game from Google Play or the app Store and then just signing
a PlayStation account, that's gonna go a lot more smoothly than trying to get
them over onto a different store. So okay, I think this could work
well. And yeah, I'm interested to see what comes out of PlayStation's mobile
side of things. I think when you're talking about the Arrowhead news and everything
like that. May it was on the other day with Emma when you're talking
about could some of just the big live service games that they're doing beyond mobile
from here on out, and like you know, a lot of core gamers
think of well, I would never want to play some like Hell Divers two
on my phone, but that's where there's a big audience. There are people
who want to do that. So if they're maybe you know, moving in
that direction, I think that could be cool. And I'm kind of I'm
interested to see what comes of this. What, Yeah, PlayStation on mobile
nowadays and isn't like what it was, like a ratching clank auto runner and
stuff. They've done lots of auto runners. Yes, there's I think there's
sac Boy Auto Runner and stuff like that. Try to just shoehorn their ip
on mobile gaming trends and that's definitely not how you do it. So I'm
I'm curious to see where they go and I would like to see some of
the some of just their multiplayer ips just coming to mobile and seeing how that
works. Yeah, right, And I think I'm also hopeful. I also
think I like pat to the past history of PlayStation trying to make stuff happen
in mobile those games for sure, you know, I remember the Sony Experia
play thinking that was a cool thing, and then be like, all right,
we're gonna have PlayStation Vida. But it's a basically they've had a lot
of initiatives and they've mostly fizzled out. I think my expectation here would excuse
me, my expectation here would be like, that's probably gonna happen again.
The timing is just so rough on this, where it's like they're kind of
getting the stuff off the ground years after everyone else has done the same thing.
Over at Microsoft, they just bought King to make that all makes sense,
and that puts them so far ahead. But you also kind of can't
just leave the stuff on the table, so you have to do something.
And there is gonna be opportunities as these phones get more powerful and people get
more like young people get more accustomed to playing bigger games on here, you
can really change the game very quickly with one release, so we'll see.
In the meantime, though, I'm gonna I'm gonna be interested to see how
they present it. Is it gonna be like this is another pillar of PlayStation
that everyone should care about, or is it like kind of a small thing
off to the side and like you look over like, hey, what's this
game that's making a lot of money and it's oh, I've never heard about
this. It's because they weren't pitching it to you. This is an entirely
different PlayStation audience. So we'll see how that goes off. And you know,
talk about PlayStation people are gonna want to hear like, hey, where's
the PlayStation showcase? Like I've only ever said May It May is not over.
It is what I'll say. I'll just say May is not over,
so give it some time. They're like, even this week is not the
last week in May. Next week is still May, everybody, So people
still ask you about that? Man? I saw, yeah, speaking of
AGCSL when Jarn posted that screenshet of you just being like I'm so sorry for
our one affect to buy his layoffs and there's just some knucklehead on Elon Musk's
X being like when PlayStation Showcase. Alright, alright, people, your damn
thirsty nerds, get the hell out of face. Yeah, all right,
let's take a quick break. When we get back a lot more headlines,
including this a new NBA Jam spiritual successor right after this, all right,
let's get right back into it. NBA Superstars arcade game recaptures the spirit of
NBA Jam. This is from Blair Marnell at game Spot. Just over three
decades ago, Midway's NBA Jam was a monster hit in arcades that rivaled Mortal
Kombat and Street Fighter. Two arcides have largely fallen by the wayside since the
days of NBA Jam's dominance. However, the spirit of the game is being
revisited in NBA Superstars, a new arcade game from Raw Thrills and Play Mechanics
that recreates the over the top style of NBA Jam and to further connect the
two games, NBA Jam announcer Tim Kitsrow is lending his voice to NBA Superstars
as well. All thirty NBA games, all thirty NBA teams are represented and
represented in NBA Superstars, which features modern players including Lebron James, Stephan Stefan
Curry, Nikola Jokic. I always want to say his name is Jokik,
but it's Djokic, I think, and Giannis and and more wading insult a
buck like that, but that I was like, you probably should know that
one. Yes, yes, I won't even try to say his last name.
You want to tell me how to say it, I think I don't
know how pronounce it and joke it shut and Steph, all the all the
stars are here. Literally you showed me this last night, Sean. This
looks really promising. Uh. And I also like that it actually is an
arcade game. Of course. I hope we get a home version, of
course. Uh. But I actually do have like a no, it's not
there's a Dave and Busters a little bit down the highway from me. But
there's one of those I can't remember what it's called. It's equivalents. It's
the game works as I wish it was game works. Yeah, it's something
else, but it's like it's basically an equivalent to Dave and Busters, and
it's it's right there, and they do have the rowth thrills arcade machines,
and I've got a soft spot for Rothrolls after Cruising Blast. It turns out
for a long time, this is that team. Apparently, by the way,
is the Cruising Blast team working on this main have Okay, I was
gonna say, yeah, I was saying Round one. I'm like, yo,
if they got Round one down the road from grub in Ohio, I'm
gonna be so jealous and I gotta go all the way down to Milwaukee for
that. But no, Yeah, this looks great for audio listeners. I'd
recommend checking out the trailer. But it looks like the twenty ten NBA Jam
game. A lot of vibes of that, which was a good game,
and this looks like a good game as well, because hey, turns out
NBA Jam still freaking rules. I mentioned before one of the reasons I go
by Turbo Sean is because I love all those Midway Arcade games, all the
like over the top. Sorry, don't worry, you know, boomshakaalaca,
all that good stuff. That's what I want. Bring that back, and
yeah, bring it back to arcades and let us play on this big,
extravagant machine. Hopefully it also gets a homeport. Who knows, maybe,
for whatever inexplicable reason, that she bring it to just the switch that was
probably a limited thing for a cruise and because right, yes, yes,
exactly, so yeah, I don't know, I'm uh, I'm excited for
this one though, Jevan again, I got Tim kits Rose the announcer again
and everything. Are things looking good on this right? It's like I think
it wouldn't It doesn't take much to like get the feeling right obviously for me.
It's not obvious because I'm an old man. But for me, I
would prefer stylized graphics rather than the try and they'll be like, you know,
somewhat photorealistic. But I also get that that's where kids are at.
Kids would prefer the style a lot of the times or something and maybe a
kin to Fortnite, And I don't necessarily want that either, so, you
know, putting that aside, when I when I look at this, when
they're doing the dunks, it has that like really great floaty feel that you
want from an NBA jam. Visually, I hope that's what I'm actually playing
that comes across this well, but the very least, it looks like they're
getting the basics right here. And uh oh yeah, I'll take the kids
to go play this. We'll have a good time because I'm sure it'll be
at that main event I'm looking forward to. Yeah, all right, let's
see here. Pitcross S Namco Ledgy Edition announced for Switch. This is Frong.
You didn't see this yet, Oh you didn't see this? Okay?
Yeah, this is Salamano and Kamatsu. They previously did a Konami one on
mobile, I think, and I think that was also the Pit cross S
team. But Jupiter Corporation has announced pitcross S and Namco Legendary Edition for Switch.
It will launch via Nintendo E Shop on May thirtieth for eleven dollars.
Here's an overview of the game from the website. Basically, they're gonna have
a little Pitcross Puzzles puld from thirty different Namco games, which include and they
don't say band I here. It's to point out that Namco is the obviously
the star. Uh. It's like dig Dog eighties. Yeah, the old
fart dig Doug Galagha God. I almost said Galaga because I think that's how
Mike says it. Galaxian, Mappy, pac Land, pac band A,
sky kid zus. Yes, they're gonna pull from a bunch of games like
that, and what happens is they just kind of take the old bit icons
and make a little puzzle based on that. That's how it worked in the
Konami game, and that game ruled, and I don't think that was ever
on switch. So this is exciting to me because I like Pitcross and I
like Old Ship. Yeah, I mean I yeah, same here both accounts.
I've how how is Pitcross on switch? I actually haven't played a switch
one yet. It's It's totally fine. It's a really good way to play
those games, just like always do you play the control controller? Like joy
Cooun's are always played with controller for the most part. I think Pickcross three
D I probably played with the I mean on switch specifically because that's what I
But even on the DS, I played with the controls for the two D
games, right uh. And I've played Marios Picross the old game Boy game,
and you know, when that's your only option, you do what you
have to. I'm just wondering how, because like the switch is not very
one hand double, you know, like I try holding my switch in my
hand, and it's how do I die with? Need a stylust or something
too? Just for the precision, so right, I'm saving that this and
this is why I just always play with the controls. Yeah, I think
that's how I'd had to do it. So one. But you know,
it looks good for a little BAMC and you're looking the images and everything,
yeah, because it's pit cross, but they also have the the them or
whatever they like. It just looks like they have the the CRT affected pixelar
and everything scrolling around in the background. It looks great, right. A
lot of this comes down to presentation, right, you just want to have
that really great presentation, and I think you can do a lot by using
old video games as your basis there. So yeah, I'm hopeful that this
will be a good entry in the pitcross S series on Switch, which has
had a lot of games and now now they're gonna actually do it with the
Namco stuff's two years ago Pick cross S Genesis and Master System. I guess
I forgot they did this one too, man, Just go back and play
that is that Mike popped off for that one. That's why I remember,
okay, right, yes, yeah, and anyway, my Pitcross I think,
right, yeah, I don't think if he does. I think it's
just like I've never really played it, and I don't get it, I
think, is what he said. Yeah, well maybe that's the same thing.
Maybe the same thing. All right, here, last couple of story.
I know we got a handful more stories. Viral Switch Sensation sweek a
game gets online multiplayer update this week. This is from Liam Dulan at Nintendo
Life. Last year, the casual puzzle title Sweak a Game went viral and
ended up getting a local release along with some multiplayer DLC. It was Japan
only for quite some time now. In a new update from developer Aladdin X,
it's been announced that previous the previously revealed online Versus mode will be arriving
on the Switch on the twenty third of May. That as in like tomorrow.
This will add worldwide matchmaking and requires an online subscription to participate. This
is paid DLC, but you know, the game is a couple of bucks.
This is like two dollars in twenty five cents, so you can get
it all bundled together for five dollars and twenty four cents and on the Yeah,
nothing nowadays, definitely pay that. I really like sweek a game,
and I really do think that the original sweet, not that any of the
knockoffs is the right one to play because it feels right, no idea how
the multiplayer game will work or feel whatever. I'm gonna try this out.
It's two bucks. I'll give this a shot. Maybe we'll play this on
the side. Yeah, it'll be a good time. I think this is
also like a cool thing that, like these small games feel good just being
like a couple extra bucks for a mode that would be free in other games,
because the original game was like only two bucks? Is that cool?
And no one seems there's no real backlash against that. As far as I
can tell, everyone says gets it. It's like the Vampire Survivors thing.
Yeah, game is like five bucks. So we're just gonna charge you a
dollar every time you put a new DLC in everyone, or two dollars whatever
it is. Everyone's like, yeah, take by two dollars. I don't
care because I spent next to nothing or in some piece of nothing on the
game. Sure I'll give me some more content, go for it, right.
Yeah, So I like seeing the kind of thing happening here this week
a game not saying that ever, guess hooks in me. Sure you know
it's just a pretty simple falling pulp, not falling block, but falling fruit
pulling free and yeah, yeah, I know some people they give their flow
stake in theirs then most game and that's cool. Yeah Island again, keep
talking about smaller games coming out and that being the greatest thing in the world
and more of that. That was a good thing. I'll like to see
them expanding this one. Yep, exactly. And I'm a it's it's I
think you just feel it was like a game that felt really good, the
way that the fruits were just sort of like pushing against one another and you
felt that tension, and sometimes they would just pop up and fall out and
you would lose and say, oh my god, that was actually way more
exciting than it had any right to be. It's just a jpeg of a
fruit, and it still gets me, so h. All right, let's
see here. Microsoft co Pilot will watch you play Minecraft and tell you what
you're doing wrong. This is from Kyle Arlin at Ours Technica. Longtime gamers
like we know that even single player games could be a lot more fun with
a friend hanging out nearby to offer advice, shoot the breeze, or just
offer earnest reactions to whatever's happening on screen. Now, Mike this promising that
it's chat GBT four dash or GBT dash four oh powered copilot system will soon
offer an imitation of that pro social experience, even for Minecraft players who don't
have any human friends available to watch them play. And man, you really
want a backseat driver that's a computer. In a pair of social media posts
Monday, Microsoft highlighted how real time conversations with your AI companion copilot can enhance
an otherwise solitary Minecraft experience, and the first demo that disembodied copilot voice tells
the player how to craft a sword, walking them through the process of gathering
some wood or stone to go with sticks sitting in his inventory, and another
the AI identifies a zombie in front of the player and gives the seemingly obvious
advice to run away from the threat and make sure it can't reach you by
digging in underground, digging underground and building a tower of blocks. Okay,
I hate this, Jeff, Yeah, Okay, I do too, But
I'm like, what is this response here? What is it about it that
I hate? What are you AI? AI stuff is? You know?
I'm the guy good thing. The story came out to I'm the AI hater.
I'm the one who we need you right now more than ever, big
thing right now. AI models more often than not, are not, shall
we say, ethically trained, trained with other people's stuff. Yes, table
stakes, it's just going to get sued out of existence. It feels like,
yes, like all these AI models are just like taking from stuff on
the internet because these big corpos are like, oh, you're not gonna do
anything to use, We're just gonna scour the internet. This how human beings
learn. But know, all these things are taking from artists who are not
giving their consent for anything. So that's why stuff like generative AI really sucks
is because they're just basically copy of this artist does put your own spin on
it, boom and like the language models have all been trained on all the
content written online that is human language. So yes, it's the same thing
exactly. And so with any of these AI models, that's why they all
have a stink to them because maybe some of them are trained in a better
method. I've heard some of them are trained with some in house stuff.
I also don't trust any of those claims, Jeff, because how the hell
are you going to do that and have an AI that's anywhere near competent.
So anytime that I see Gemini or co Pilot or any of these things,
I just think there's a stink to all this. I'm still on Windows ten
because I realized this. Windows len finally got don't combine taskbar buns. I
know you try to censor me here. I will not be silenced Jeff grou
Oh, that's a different kind of okay, But I'm still on Windows ten.
I saw a little Copilot logo pop up on my taskbar the other day.
I was like, what the hell do you mean copilot in Windows ten?
They back parted it. I don't want this, and so I had
to figure out how to turn it off on here because I don't want you
popping up and telling me, hey, here's all how I can improve your
life by going off being a completely different tangent that you never wanted. All
this AI stuff kind of just sucks. You go to Google nowadays, you
do a Google search and they have Gemini pulling in all this different stuff and
spinning out answer that's incoherent. If that, if this, if that is
indicative of where we're headed and it feels like it is. Then yeah,
it just plain sucks because Google is Google's getting worse and worse and they're replacing
it with inaccurate, model trained data and it's terrible. Dude. I was
catching up on Google Io because I forgot that exists. This is the thing
I was excited about, like when as a teenager in college years because I
was like, oh, yeah, I want to see what's new with Android
and everything like that because I'm a tech head. And then it's just AI
AI AI. They even made fun of themselves. They were like, how
many times have we said AI in this presentation so far? One and twenty
and here's another one on y'all suck, y'all suck. I don't like any
of this. I so I'm trying to be like, okay, maybe they
could thread the needle here, And even then it's like every time I start
thinking that that they prove they can't. And like that's this past week with
all that stuff that happened with Sam Waltman being like, we're gonna put her
in chat GPT, We're gonna put the Scarlett Johanson character in there. Isn't
that exciting? Scarlet Jan's like, no, you're not, please don't do
that, and they're like, okay, we won't. And then they did
anyhow, and she's like, well, I'm gonna sue you. So then
they stopped and it's like, okay, you guys, really what it takes.
It takes Carlott Johansson calling up her lawyers for real, and it's say,
okay, they cannot help themselves. It will always be some mutated version
of the ideal here, so there's no chance of them threading the needle.
I think in most of these situations there's just no nuance to any of the
right stuff. I want some of these things, Sean. If I'm going
to like put myself out there that the recent thing of people talking people have
been clowning on this and whatever, you're allowed to clown on it. But
the Microsoft thing of hey, we're going to record your stuff low and have
a locally trained AI model be able to keep track of what you've done on
your computer, so you could say, hey, where is this thing that
kind of looks like this that works really well with my brain? That's fine,
that's totally fine. I get why everyone's like, well, they say
they're going to keep that stuff locally, but they're going to upload all that
stuff into it. And it's like, you know what, I bet you're
right, you're you're probably right, and that's the problem. And we probably
shouldn't let them do this because I think you're probably right transcribing, but I
don't have trust in them, Yeah for sure, why would I know?
And I've used sparingly AI stuff for a variety of things like a million photoshop.
I believe content to Wear phil is like a sort of a dumb version
of that is what they're doing there, and on that algorithmic spectrum. Yes,
yeah, but and you know I've used that all the time for like
making thumbnails and stuff. But now they have all this different stuff where we
found out that they have just been stealing your art unless you opt it out
a long time ago, and they're just using that to train their AI modles.
That freaking sucks. I God, this is all just so bad.
Oh. Another example I I was like trying to think of the other day.
I was trying to make an art asset and I was thinking it was
something like how many what what is the common divisard between these two numbers.
I'm not amazing, im math. So I was like, I know the
math from like my algebra class back in the day, but I'm trying to
figure out, like what the biggest number is that can go into these two
numbers. I was trying to think this through, like what would the formula
be, and I just realized screw. I fired up one of those AI
things. I was just like, you know how many times can blah blah
blah blah and just spit out the answer me. I'm like, Okay,
that's where the stuff needs to be used, right, But we talked about
we've had that, like with with Wolf form alpha for quite a long time,
exactly you can have these dumber versions of it. Yeah, the AI
part is cool because you asked the question in natural language. Yeah, more
natural language Wolf for alpha can kind of get close to that, but like,
yes, more natural kind of have to work with this system. Yes,
end statements, right, But yeah, I was yeah, I was
using that back back in high school helmeo stuff. But it's just where all
of this is coming from. And I don't want the co pilot to watch
where you play Minecraft and like comments on it because I'm lonely or whatever.
No, just again, the reason I have an issue with all this is
because it's all slimy, it's all gross nice potential here. There's so much
potential to generate art assets from, like stuff we feed it quicker for game
development. Stuff like that could be really useful. But instead companies are there
using it for nefarious purposes, like literal like evil in the art realm purposes.
That sucks. And you're gonna hear that again. Don't worry. It's
the call of duty Black Ops six teaser, Yeah, because we had four
numbers ones and cold War Jesus Christ. Yeah. Okay, so let's wrap
up about this conversation real quick. Yeah. The thing that really frustrates me
with all this is it's a lot of it's unfounded. A lot of it
does a breakdown on the edges so that it's like you can believe a lot
of it is working, and then it breaks down and you don't notice.
And then these companies are so relying on it being the buzzword right now that
that this is why they're shoving it down our throats. This is why we
get it mentioned one hundred and twenty times. I'm I think probably what's going
to happen here is it's gonna be like Xbox launches in twenty twenty six.
There's a strong chance by then they're still on that bandwagon enough that it's like,
this is the Xbox with AI. Here's the AI button on the controller.
It's it is always listening so it can help you, and it'll just
have convert. You could just like ask it and they'll have natural language conversation
about the game you're playing. Isn't that great? It's like, please,
just fucking make a good video game. Please just do the thing that we've
been asking you to do. Why are you doing all this other bullshit,
because that's what this is. It's just extra bullshit. That is gonna be
Rob the Robot in twenty years and it's to be like, remember that dumb
thing they put in there, It made us, forced us to buy with
all our other stuff, and we're gonna forget about it otherwise, at least,
we hope, at least yeah, at least, well, it'll be
mutating to something else by then. Probably it's not gonna ever really go away,
but it will mutate into something else. All right. Here, let's
see here, Ubisoft cod like Shooter X Defiant was unplayable for many Yesterday is
from Eddie McCoo. Game Spot basically just had launch day woes. I did
get on this morning, was able to get into a match. I think
they'll probably be able to figure stuff out at least through the end of this
week and then maybe this weekend again. If it pops off or something,
it'll be a headache again. But people were able to get onto that today,
and I guess it's somewhat good news for this game that I cannot put
my finger on its pulse. I cannot tell if this is something that a
lot of people care about, or if it's like a loud minority, or
if it is going to be a really big game. I guess I'll be
looking for the headlines through the end of this week of like how many people
are playing this game? And even then does that matter because it's a free
to play game, and maybe it's just a flash in the pan. What
are your expectations for Rex Defiant Low. I don't know. It feels like
anytime you try to just copy another game, you need to be doing something
radically different in order to stand out. And when people look at this game,
they are just going to think Call of Duty. But what's the problem
with that? For the average consumer, they think Call of Duty. I
have Call of Duty already. I don't need this, and so i's not
get I don't see it catching on with them, and like and it's like,
it's so much easier to convince my friends to go play Call of dutycause
they're familiar with that. Yeah, this is free, but then I got
to get them to download you BEI soft connect or I guess it's on console
too. There's a whole bunch of barriers every time. And if people are
like, well it's a Call of Duty, Well we already play war Zone
or whatever, let's just hop back into there or whatever. Fact we all
already have that installed, and like, oh, this is like only fifty
gigabytes, Like yeah, whatever, It's still enough of a barrier I think
for a lot of people. But we'll see, well, we'll see if
it finds a market. Yeah, anytime I have on these situations, you
know, it's it's a live service game. It could shut down at any
second. I would not be surprised if it does. I don't know,
we'll say yes, I'm I'm at the very least looking forward to see how
Ubisoft talks about it in the next couple of weeks. Uh, game stop
Pokemon trading card game thing. If we have time. We started a little
late, we have a little bit action. Absolutely, what's happening here?
Okay, so yes, I didn't grab the article or anything, but I
definitely recommend if so, you know, I bring Pokemon TCG stuff to the
table. If you can't see my little champions playing met there, I finally
have it hanging up in the background. I'm not I'm not bringing it to
the table. It's just my hobby of the time. This actually applies to
something that I think people might want to talk about and be interested in.
So, uh, I got this from pokea Beat, my source for Pokemon
TCG news. Over there, John he goes by water Pokemon Master check out
the articles. Uh. He actually has a journalism degree. So he's the
only he's the only like Pokemon TCG journalist. We have no no offense to
Joran Midler, but so he actually does research on an these things. He
actually does like interview people. You know, he has sources in various places,
shall we say. And so this is something they report on a couple
of weeks ago, and now is apparently actually happening. But game Stop to
begin buying in selling graded Pokemon cards next week. And this is from you
know, a couple of weeks ago. And then the follow up story was
game Stop starts posting graded Pokemon cards for sale. And so basically what this
is GameStop has this new system where they will buy and sell single Pokemon cards,
so you know, just individual ones, and so you have your bargain
bin of like one dollar assorted hollow rare cards. But now they're also buying
and selling PSA graded cards even in sty Okay that's important to note. Yeah,
and so they it's it's rolling out to more markets. Apparently it's starting
in small test areas right now. But you can bring in your slabs,
bring in your PSA Great cards, and they will buy those grade cards.
And apparently they are starting. John has heard from various managers that they're starting
to buy like display cases for the valuable cards and everything like that. So
if you walk into a game Stop now and next to the phone copops,
you might see all these slabbed PSA grade cards. So the reason I want
to bring this to table, Jeff, is because we've talked about physical media
is going away? What does that mean for youth team stores such as a
game staff. So, yeah, I was just I was just curious what
you thought about this whole thing of them. Kind of they've sold like random
packs of Pokemon cards at the checkout line, but now, like me,
trying to make this a big part of their business. Apparently, I'm wondering
what you think and what the various chats we have here think of all those.
Yeah, my initial reaction is in line with what a lot of people
in chat we're saying, which like, this feels a little bit late because
there was definitely that boom and Pokemon cards during the pandemic, and so they're
a little bit late to this, you know. But it's also the kind
of thing like there's a game stop in just about every town in America,
and there's not always a card or hobbyist store, and so if game stop.
So there was that recent initiative from them about Okay, well what do
we have that with sets us apart? And I remember talking to them a
couple of years ago and it was it's our associates, our associates in store,
they're gaming experts and they know all this stuff and it's like, Okay,
now they're on your paid and understaff people who are just trying to afford
them mc donald's for a large day exactly. But they're like, so their
idea was, well, let's create a space and game spot where people are
game stop excuse me, where people want to come and hang out and like
just like and like spend time and have it be like more of a social
hub. And it's like, Okay, well, how are you going to
do that? And I'm like they had to, like they redesigned a store
around video games, and I'm like, that's cool. But most people I
think that shop at a game stop just want to take their game and go
home and play it. Now, card game players love going to the store
and playing cards with each other. That's they need that. So this feels
like it's a better idea than what they've and recently. And yet I still
feel like the genericized experience of a game stop can kind of maybe rob like
what people are actually looking for here, which is like, no, you
do want the associate to know a lot about the card game that you're playing
and be able to help you, and I don't think you're going to get
that at a game Stop. Apparently the employees are game training on all that
they're specifically like obviously because it's good for the company. They're specifically showing them
how to spot fake Pokemon cards and spot fake PSA slabs and everything like that.
But you know, talking about game Stop pivoting a little, they have
started doing Pokemon host official events that you can sign up for as a business,
including game stop where they do censoring media. Again, I forget exactly
what this one is called, but it's like trading days and apparently in these
markets where they're starting to buy and sell individual cards of both you know,
the just lower end and also the higher end. The like trading days where
kids come in and just trade cards, they can get free promo cards,
they can learn how to play the game, and their parents will buy product
have been very successful for these game stops, and that's part of why they
are doing this program now. So, I don't know, it's interesting to
see them get buying this tabletop gaming stuff that you know, ties into video
games because Pokemon. It's interesting to see how they are sort of pivoting here.
All right, last thing here, this teaser trailer for Black Ops six,
The Truthlies Dot com is where you could find this. Apparently, I
guess the community was able to find this somewhere. Yeah, all you have
no idea what's coming? What the Truth lies is referencing. I almost laughed
when I was scrolling through this video earlier. This is I guess people like
going through a federally protected area. Right now, they're running across the road,
They're getting in a car. Their faces are blurred out. So maybe
the implication here is like someone found this video or the cover took it there.
It is Mount Rushmore, Oh damnit, with the Truth lies written across
all their eyes. The truth lies. And then uh, some fucking black
ops logo over Abraham Lincoln. What the fuck? It's what the fuck?
This is what happens. Grubb starts talking about ma Rushmore's left it right for
the past three years, and this is what we get. This is really
dumb. This isn't so dumb. I I kind of like, all right,
what are you guys cooking over there? You guys got something real juicy
and stupid this time I'm having Dan has the right of it, though.
This is the right kind of stupid. I'm kind of into though, exactly
the right I think like, listen, it's dumb, and it's just flat
out like period dumb period. But it's like it's like die Hard dumb,
and it's like die Hard with a vengeance kind of dumb. I'm kind of
into it. But Nick Cage movie trailer opened up with this, I'd be
like, let's buckle up here, we fucking go, And that's that's what
I want from Call of Duty these day. So okay, let's see what
you guys have cooking over the rock. Yeah, boy, all right,
I was. I was not ready for this though when I started this video.
So yeah, the truth lies apparently. Let's get let's get some more
black ops games. Okay, that does it for the news. I got
a pull question. I'm gonna get that set up. Well I do that,
Sean Whny. You tell people where they could find you what you have
going on all that good stuff. Oh, you can find me on Twitter
dot com still readirects to it, Turbo Shawn, Underscore, Turbo Shawn everywhere
else on your in saha W And of course you can find me here on
Giant Bomb doing a variety of stuff, oftentimes beyond the scenes, sometimes on
camera like today, uh and the rest of the week. What what you
what you and Dan got cooked up for today? I'm wondering Delight Club,
Yes, do some kind of Delight Club. Last I heard is we might
just make Jan play mister Mosquito. So hell yeah, yeah, and I
really like that idea, But I can't play like he doesn't. He's not
begging for it, right, well, yes, right, get let him
to play the game that he was asking to play. Yeah, but we'll
see it will be something along those lines. It just depends on whether or
not we can get everything set up properly. And then that does mean no
Blake Club today. Mike's out of town. That doesn't that's not stopping the
game sent from going off constantly now though, And I did sign up for
this, yeah, and then regular show tomorrow. You got the you got
the grab bag stream that we got scheduled. Well, a bunch of games
ready to go. Maybe we let chat vote for like some of the other
ones we played, there's some some we definitely want to play, but maybe
you guys can help us decide the rest. And then Friday we're gonna go
back to elden Ring multiplayer. That's right, that's what apparently that could support
like like stably up to like seventeen people or something like that. So John,
if you want to come in and play with us, yeah, we
got room. That's right, that's why you're leaving. Okay, good luck.
I guess I gotta get my ass hand to Yeah, yeah, totally
all right. Do I worry that the games it might stain my walls?
Yeah? What I'm worried about is gonna give me gamer lung and I'm gonna
go to the doctor and I'm like, you got the gamer lung, Sun,
It's all over the exactly all right. Pull a question. We have
not read the one from Monday yet. Will you get game pass for Call
of Duty? Is that right? Yeah? Let me refresh this to make
sure that that is correct Monday? No? No, uh, yes,
here we go. Okay, are you worried about price increases for Xbox game
Pass? There we go. Fifty one percent said no and forty nine percent
said yes. So fifty one percent it's basically fifty to fifty And that's what
three thousand votes I'm like worry about. It is maybe like the kind of
thing where I'm like, I'm not smart qualifier there, I'm not worrying to
right, Yeah, I expect then it's it's factored into my decision process.
Right now, I still think upwards of I think once if it hits two
zero dot zero zero, once it hits like twenty dollars or above, then
it's going to be really tough to justify. But they're at like seventeen eighteen
right now. I think they can go to all these game passes ten bucks
still, it's like eleven bucks, right, is gonn go up a dollar?
No? I don't think even that. I believe just regular ass game
pass you just want to play the games on one platform is still ten dollars,
and then eighteen is ultimate, right, but it also includes both of
them, yes, as well as online gold. Yes. Yeah, I
still like that, And that gets what most people seem to have is ultimate,
And I think you can maybe get that up to nineteen ninety nine and
still justify it like I would be. Probably, I wouldn't be keeping it
constantly like I would like when it was fifteen dollars per month. Yeah.
Friendly reminder everybody, you can cancel subscriptions at any time, yes, just
turn off auto renew even makes it easy, like yeah, don't don't don't
let them get you on that one. Just yeah, buy it as necessary.
Let's see there, there we go. All right, And that was
yesterday's poll or Monday's poll question. We have today's question. Have you been
to an arcade in the last year, just wondering if you've visited in like
whatever. However you want to qualify an arcade, if it's a tiny little
arcade in a hotel, if it's a daved Busters whatever, you know,
have you seen like a raw thrills machine? Because I have, I have,
so my answer is yes to this same here, I'll vote right now.
I'm going forward to going to a really big arcade on Monday, probably
alp and Ghost. I'm gonna get a chance to go there. Don't forget
your GameCube memory card for the F zero machine. Yeah, the one that
you probably corrupted because you don't realize you can't mix and match region locked things.
But that's not my fault. I didn't bring a memory card that was
That was not your problem exactly. Yeah, we'll see. Uh okay,
I think that does. It's anything else we should talk about. Yeah,
if you if you're watching today, we'll have the light Club in a little
bit, so watch out for that apparently we have a four swords fiesta happening
on Giant Listen. This doc is maybe a little maybe a little outdated in
some ways. Sean, thank you so much for been in today talking with
me about video games. I really appreciate it. Oh it's a pleasure.
Jeff love being on our show. Thank you everybody for listening. You're the
best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one, take
care of yourself. Goodbye, favor bly