Game Mess Mornings 12/13/23

You'll be blacker, don't be beer. Oh my my, we're good.
It's the Internet. You're pussy. Welcome Jeff Grub. My document actually is
frozen for some reason, so that's a good sign. Uh. And I
don't actually have it memorized, Lucy James, so hello, lud joking,
we do mean to do it? Yeah, you do it. I would
love that. Introduce the show. Okay, it's the Internet. You're busy.
Let's do this for you have not updated this in two weeks December thirteenth,
twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so, let me help
you so through the world of gaming on Gay Mess Mornings Life with Me Jeff
Grub. Today we take a look at how games sold in November and a
Newslda game is on PC. But first, please join me in welcoming today's
co host and game Moss Mornings. It's Lucy James. Lucy James, how
are you doing? That was fantastic? I'm doing great. My edge is
still frozen here, so that's great. You know what, I'm just gonna
close that and restart it. Here. All the windows is behaving weirdly.
My my toolbar down here is flashing at me. Windows doesn't normally do that.
Uh Lucy. I I've made my first doctor's appointment since moving to Ohio
more than a year ago, and uh and it was a new doctor.
I'm not not thrilled with the experience. It was you know, I'm gonna
I'm gonna goad stand. It was a bad doctor. It's not a good
doctor. Okay, why what do you because like, like, here are
my problems? And he said, well, here are statistics about Americans.
I'm like, okay, well what about what about me? And and then
what we never really talked about anything like specific about me. It was like,
oh, I know facts about that, and what the fuck are you
talking about? I don't Yeah, four and five Americans? What does that
have to do with anything? I just need help, homie. It was
actually infuriating. I I do feel like I in general have pretty bad luck
with with medical professionals. And I'm like, it's time to just get into
holistic medicine. I need to just get into my uh uh like spiritual medicine
era. It's time. Yeah. Well, I mean I wouldn't necessarily promote
that, but yeah, maybe you need to have to find a different doctor.
Yeah, that's I'm gonna have to like just ask around. You know
what. Mikey's dad's a doctor. I should just ask if I can get
some of that daddy medicine. You know, you know, daddy medicine,
my family discount. Get the family discount from daddy medicine. You know what
I'm talking about, daddy medicine. That's one of the most upsetting. Yeah,
I've said plenty. Uh, probably I got I got scratched. Lights
are on. I'm not wearing any makeup and my lights are on. I'm
pretty high. But my cat was so annoying anning was she this morning that
I like picked her up and I tried to give her a cuddle and she
just went no. So now I've got this cool scratch. I will say,
it does actually look kind of cool. Thank you. Yes, he's
tough. You. I would not mess with you with that, with that
scratch flaw. Yeah listen, sorry, yeah him up. I saw him
pop up. As soon as the cat was mentioned. He was like,
they are just afraid of getting scratched, right, People who don't like cats.
They're like, ow, this thing's actually gonna hurt me. It's like,
oh, come on, you see you get a little cool star.
What's the big deal? Yeah, they're weak. I agree, Lucy James,
You're absolutely right about that. I don't. I don't care how many
times my cat bites me. I listen, he's he's a big boy.
I'll like get down there and wrestle with him, and then he's like,
it's over stimulated. He's like, no, actually, now it's time to
fuck you up. I'm like, there, I get it. I just
think this was this was an accident. And also, Jeff, you go
bit by a little chihuahua the other day, so yep, it was not
a feral dog. It was in someone's handbag. Again, not Barley everybody,
although never body. That's the sweetest, sweetest little girl out there.
But yeah, how are you doing otherwise? We're getting here towards the end
of the year. I'm just like, kind of coasting. Is I think
the word I'm just coasting towards the end of the year must be nice.
It's not kidding. I just have too much, no responsibility. I'm good
over here. Someone just asked me to review you, so you will go
performance review. I'm working really hard a little bit. Yeah, no,
I uh, it's it was Jeff it's really busy still this week and everything's
depressing. So that makes for a great combo looking out at the industry at
the moment and then looking at your silly little task. Yep, you know.
Yeah, it puts everything into perspective, keeps it all pretty decently into
perspective. Yeah, you were catching up on any like games that Now that
you're past the point where you're like, because GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Game
of the Year's stuff out of the way for the most part, right,
do you feel the need to like still be catching up on anything or you
like playing what you want to play lay like Dragon Guided. Okay, to
kind of polish that one off, I honestly I've missed a lot of TV.
Oh yeah, So we're doing a watch party of The Gilded Age next
weekend, which is American down to Navvy. Oh, I'm aware I watched
The gilden Age this season one because I love Doubt Navvy so much. Good.
Okay, So Gilded Age is one of those shows where it's like,
is this good? Yes, I don't know, but I love it a
million percent. You're gonna be asking yourself is this good? And then and
then yeah, you're still gonna I also love it. I think it's a
bit trashy. I'm gonna say I think it's pretty trashy. It's regency trash,
but no regency trash is bridgeton. Yes, there's no there's no shagging
in Gilded Age. Really, there's some heavy petting occasionally. But now I've
been watching I've been watching that to catch up and then yeah, I'm gonna
be catching up on bake Off, and then I have I have a whole
plan what I'm going to do over the break, So you know, I'm
gonna finally play out the Wild. I'll do my Alan Wake Control Alan Wake
two play through. Now a new game plus is out. You know.
See, I'm going to change the region of our discord thing real quick,
so you might drop out for a second just because it's okay saving and then
that's gonna be for a moment. There we go, There we go.
Okay, it should be a little bit better now, all right, all
right, cool, let's you know what, let's explain what we do here
most weekdays. I Jeff Greble, help, I got the doc back by
the way you want me to? Yeah, sure, go for it.
Yeah, I notice you've got rid of the line. Okay, before we
get into the mess, I don't remember the last time you ever heard Yeah,
you know, I think it fell a bit repetitive. Maybe I don't
know why, but like, let's explain ourselves. It's just such an easy
thing now at this point, so I just say that, let's explain ourselves.
Most weekdays, I Jeff Grub will help you 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 input from a bona fide expert.
He'll make me look smart. If you're watching on 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 feed on GiantBomb dot com. You can
also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. So YouTube,
Hello, YouTube, Yeah, thank you so much. We let's get into
So, let's get into the mess. Let's get into the mess with the
November twenty twenty three Sirkana report. Yes, I wrote down MPD here and
I will probably keep doing that for quite some time. But there's Sircana now.
Uh yeah, this is MATTP. Piscitello over there. He out on
social media, writing out all the highlights from the report, including let's see
hear us. Consumer spending on video game content and hardware accessories fell seven percent
compared to a year ago to five point nine billion dollars. The decline was
driven by a twenty four percent drop in hardware spending and a three percent dip
in content. Let's see here, let's jump to the best selling games.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare three was number one, Marvel's Spider Man two was
number two, and then it was Hogwarts, Legacy, Madden, Mario Wonder
EA Sports FC twenty four, Super Mario RPG, Mortal Kombat one at number
eight, NBA two K twenty four, UFC five, rounding out the top
ten. Other games in the top twenty that were new this month, including
No Rudo plus Bo Rudo Ultimate, Ninja Storm Connections at number twelve. Yes,
that's a real thing, and then number seventeen was Star Ocean, the
second story r that was new to the charts as well. You know,
good for it for charting. At least, I wish it maybe would have
performed a little bit better, because I think that game looks really pretty year
to date, Hogwart's likeacy is still number one. Call of Duty Modern Warfare
did debut at number two, though that's the first time I think a Call
of Duty is not debuted at number one in quite some time. The Legend
of Zalda Tiers of the Kingdom physical only they don't have the digital sales is
at number three. It did drop one since last month November video game content
dropped that that three percent that we mentioned compared to a year ago to four
point six billion dollars and eleven percent. Declining console and portable content spending was
partially offset by a three percent growth across each of the mobile subscription and PC
cloud and non console VR content segments. The primary drive here for the decline
in the console importable content was the comparable strength last year God of War,
Ragnarrock and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launched. There was nothing really to fill in
those gaps this year, so that's the big reason while you're seeing a decline
year over year, and then Call of Duty Modern War for three was the
best selling game of November, instantly becoming the second best bestselling game of twenty
twenty three. Year to date, it is the fifth consecutive year at that
a Call of Duty title was November's best seller. The last time it wasn't
was Man Red Dead Redemption two ranked first in November twenty eighteen. Game.
Yeah, well, overall it was kind of what you would expect, but
that Call of Duty isn't selling as well as the more recent Call of Duty
games, and that also seems to be bringing things down. But overall the
market seems pretty healthy. Any surprises here for you, Lucy James, I
guess not really. I think everyone has been writing that. I mean,
obviously we've been seeing this with layoffs very unfortunately. But it's like, it's
so weird to see things go down, Yes, even if they are to
be expected, even if capitalism is a scam. I was to say,
it's kind of weird to see this kind of a small shrink here with regard
to spending, especially when you consider what a year we've had ad for video
games. But obviously, yeah, when you contextualize it with the fact that
God of War Ragnarok was this time last year on November last year, and
Pokemon, even though Pokemon is not a game that I ever really dip into
anymore, I've made peace with it. I'm never going to finish a Pokemon
game. It's just not for me anymore. But you kind of forget how
big those games are. And so yeah, the PlayStation and Nintendo to have
both of those heavy hitters in one month, yeah, of course there's going
to be a decline I think. Yeah, hardware spending as well, because
wasn't this time last year that was when like PlayStation Vibe was regularly available final
and then this year I did see numbers about the Switch drop, but that's
just because like, who can you tell take levels now of Switch? Like
if you don't have one by now, and my nieces who are too young
to watch this and will not be watching are getting on for Christmas admittedly,
yeah, like we're piss take levels with the Switch. No been picking that
up. So yeah, and even the PS five Xbox, those things are
probably selling pretty equivalent to what they did in terms of unit but they in
terms of unit sales, but both of them saw some pretty heavy discounts in
November, so less money, so it would be and that's how they track
it at the ETSIR Khana is dollar sales, so that would have been a
dip as well. When we look at like year to date. So yeah,
November down, but you could, like things move around around the calendar.
October was really big this year, I think, a little bit bigger
than last year, or or at least pretty even. The industry is about
even overall when it comes to counting how many things are selling. In the
United States, total video game sales up one percent, which is about even,
and then hardware was down one percent, and that's almost certainly mostly due
to the Switch. That's probably the biggest dragging factor there as that like continues
to decline a little bit, although Switch sales still up in Japan. Somehow,
it's pretty wild back. Actually, let's see some of the other details
here. Assisted by price promotion, Just Dance twenty twenty four edition jumped from
number seventy three on the best selling charts in October to twentieth in November.
Nintendo Switch was was Just Dance twenty twenty four Edition's leading sales. Platform inclusion
and subscription offerings helped several titles see active user count boosts. Sir kinda started
doing this where they're like, hey, here are the most played games on
these platforms instead of here are the best selling games on these platforms. I
think that's been sort of yeah, it's pretty interesting to see. But like
Aliens Fired, Team Elite ranked eleventh in monthly active users, Things like That
and Wild Hearts jumped from five hundred first October to number eighteen. So yeah.
On Steam, Lethal Company ranked to second in monthly active users in November,
behind only counter Strike two. The title placed to one hundred and fifteenth
in October. Half Life increased from three hundred and eighty three in October to
twentieth in November thanks to the release of Half Life twenty fifth anniversary update.
Let's see Sales of digital at retail products including point of sales, activated gift
cards and digital code on receipts showed single digit percentage of dollar sales growth in
November versus a year ago, and November video game hardware spending fell twenty four
percent when compared to a year ago to nine hundred and sixty four million dollars.
All current generation consoles experienced a double digit percentage decline in dollar sales when
compared to a year ago, within to no Switch showing the sharpest drop year
on year, and again that's almost certainly due well, not the switch,
but the other two consoles almost certainly due to price reductions. They were readily
available last year and very few discounts this year. There's been a lot of
discounts on those on the hardware for whatever reason, probably because they're being so
competitive with one another. Likes he just dropped in that, like the Series
X is down by one hundred bucks this holiday season. Yes, yes,
and PS five like not just last month, not even just October, but
all throughout, like the beginning, like late summer and fall. You could
get that thing for four hundred dollars. There was a time where I think
it was three hundred and fifty dollars. There were some very aggressive discounting on
the PS five and then x Box only just recently started doing that. So
yeah, you can save a lot of money if you buy that hardware right
now. Uh. Overall, though, let's see, oh here this last
one. Accessories spending increased three percent when compared to a year ago, And
as always we always I always try to point out, hey, accessory spending
is good like indicator for like, hey, are things still healthy overall?
Because if people are buying headsets and controllers, it means they're probably planning to
buy a lot more games, so growth for accessories is a pretty good sign,
especially after the pandemic where people bought a ton of accessories. So if
people are still buying, that's usually a pretty good sign, all right.
Next story here, former Rockstar dev explains why GTA six PC port isn't coming
at launch, As comes from Camera Coke at Game Spot. Grand Theft Auto
six is officially releasing on PlayStation five and Xbox Series X and S and twenty
twenty five, but PC players will have to wait even longer, with Rockstar
confirming the game won't be available on PC at launch. But why? According
to a former Rockstar developer, Mike York, who worked at the studio from
twenty twelve through twenty seventeen on projects like GTA seven and Red Dead Redemption two,
it simply comes down to a matter of priority. They want to prioritize
what sells, York said in a recent video about the subject posted to his
personal YouTube channel. Most of the time, especially in the past, PlayStation
was the big seller. PlayStation was the console to have it sold more copies
than any other console. For the most part, everybody is playing PlayStation.
The PlayStation version of the game then became the most important version, York said.
When he worked on GTA five while he was at Rockstar, York said
the developer spent most of their time making sure the PS three version was the
best it could be, while same simultaneously working on the Xbox three sixty version.
The PC version is kind of the version that's in the background, that
is running two versions, is running that is running the two versions and then
building them. Not exactly sure what he means by that. There's always a
PC version of the game, but it's not polished, and it's just kind
of feeding on the other games and making them work. Yeah, this makes
a lot of sense. Prioritization. You think Rockstar big enough that they wouldn't
have to have these kinds of like well, you know, give and takes
and a net negative. So it's like, well, if we put more
resources in the PlayStation version, that means less resources for the place or for
the PC version. But I think when you pair it up with the fact
that it's never hurt them in the past to release a game a year later
on PC or even two years later on PC. Right, So why would
they not just focus on what's going to make the most money, Right?
Away and then have a double dip with a PC later. Right. Yeah,
I was gonna say double dip is the other thing that he's not any
mentioning the like, uh, you know, they get that extra boost and
that's what point you kind of lay the land. They've fixed a lot of
what might be might be broken at launch and then yeah, they'll release it
on Pcso PC is so much harder to configure. For like, if they
the size and scope of this game, if what the Houser, Oh just
one Houser RP. He's not dead, but he's just none of ours anymore.
Finish. Yeah for a second, we got you back. If Sam,
if what Sam Houses said is true in that press release that they released
alongside the trailer, it's like, yeah, it's going to be a difficult
one to to put out there, and they're going they're also gonna want to
make sure that it's it's good and like Roxanne doesn't like putting stuff out.
I mean it has happened, but they don't like it when stuff comes out
and is not to their expectation or to the level of quality. And and
you know, not only is it not hurt them in the past, I
think with Grand Theft Auto five and red that Redemption two that had that lagged
before it came to PC. Right, that was there was like a year
gap. I think it's helped both of those things, or helped or at
least it was like a big deal. So GT five was Xbox through sixteen
p PS three and then the next ship consoles the year after, and then
PC, so like two years before it came to PC or something like that,
and each time they released, they re released that game on a new
platform. It was like this big deal in the game started selling immediately really
well all over again. So it's like this two or three year long period
where the game is launching and they get they get a lot of benefit from
that. There's a lot of attention, a lot of mind share, and
yeah, so I not only does it not hurt them, it seems to
help them, and it keeps that strong momentum of having a big game launching
going for years at a time. So yeah, I think when when you
pair that up with the fact that, yeah, the PlayStation version does sell
the best, and someone whos chat is like, hey, does it really
sell better than the PC version? Yeah, PC like is very a very
big platform but games still tend to sell better on console overall, especially these
big marquee games that everyone associates like traditionally with PlayStation. The reason that's true
is because, yeah, they did sell better on PlayStation. They still do.
So, Yeah, prioritizing those like you said, meeting their specifications,
meeting their their their quality assurance, all that stuff, that they're able to
do that more if they focus on fewer platforms, So PlayStation, Xbox out
of the gate, and then I like, here's what I expect, Lucy,
I don't know. You tell me if you think this is right.
A year later, we do get the PC version, right the next holiday.
I would love that. Who knows, it's that timeframe. I'm just
to the point now where I'm like, twenty twenty five seems so far,
which, yes, you got it, so you'll get it. I'll get
to twenty five and then and then we'll see. But I yeah, I
think regardless, we'll definitely we'll get a PC. There's no way they look
no with that entire platform. Oh yeah, no, no way, well
except for with red Dead Redemption one, which never came to PC, so
so weird. But yes, they won't do they won't do that with GTA
Yeah, will you like a double dip? Because I know you're a big
PC player. I play most of my games on PC if I'm not playing
on Switch. But I would probably play GTA six on a console when it
launches, and then I'm going to get it again on PC. Is that
how you think you're going to do it? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
no, I'm I've become a PC pivot now baby, So yes, let's
yeah. Well, yes, I don't think we'll be alone. I think
a lot of people will be right there with us. Get into maybe maybe
we'll get into modding. Yeah, get into mind. I was mudding,
are you gonna play Lethal Company with us on Friday? There's a couple of
mods I think that maybe we could put in there, But because I don't
know if I can play, I will hop in. But that's my I
have seven people to review day, right, that's right? Okay, Well
maybe they'll just come hang out with us. Sure, yes, but yeah,
I was like, eh, I'm gonna mod that, And I'm like,
okay, if I can make it easy for everyone else, because everyone
else would have to have the same mods for it to work, and like,
I'm not sure if anyone else cares about mods, I mod everything,
Lucy. I just sometimes I even forget I'm odd things and then I'm like,
oh, yeah, this is weird. I did this to this game
SIMS mods. Oh yeah, yeah, what's what's a good SIMS mod?
Or? Is it just like ease of use things that you normally use?
No, you can there's a oh what's it called. There's a SIMS mod,
so build mode and ZIMS floors kind of. I can use like a
lot of a lot of stuff to move things out of the tiles that you
want, and there's one that makes it so much easier. So these others
I download like a lot of custom content too, right, yes, totally.
Uh yeah, that's that's what I ended up doing to reci Well four
recently. When I played that, I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot
I did this look at eight to long. Oh no, all right,
let's see here. Japanese publishers need Xbox. According to x Sony VP.
This is from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. Mina Seto Kato, former
Sony VP, who has since joined Xbox as the Director of Partnerships for Japan,
is stressing that Japanese publishers need the Green Team in order to expand their
business. Speaking to Bloomberg, she said, the following Japanese publishers will definitely
need us in expanding their business. It would be difficult to do that just
with the PlayStation. We have seen an increased interest from Xbox in a Japanese
audience. Xbox series consoles have been doing rather well in the country, even
out selling the PS five on occasion, but it's clear that Japan is still
primarily a gaming market dominated by Sony and Nintendo. Okay, there's two sides
of this. For me, Lucy, I think that there's some truth too.
If you want to grow and you're a Japanese developer, being on Xbox
is a pretty good idea. I don't know if it matters, you know
what I know it doesn't matter in Japan the time is that it's outsold the
PlayStation, the Xbox Series X and S. It was like because the PlayStation
five was completely unavailable and the Xbox sold like ten thousand units or like or
a thousand units, whatever it was, and the PlayStation five was like five
hundred because no one could find one. I don't think this matters for Japan
but I think in terms of a global audience, being on Xbox seems like
it would be somewhat useful and would expand you to a new audience. What
do you think. I think so, especially given especially at Summer Gamefest this
year the Xbox Showcase that they had had a lot of Japanese games on there.
They have that kind of deal with Atlas to get they had a P
three and P four from Elia this year on Game Past Day won they announced
Capcom's new game on there. It's interesting. I mean, I think it's
only really a good thing for the Japanese Japanese devs and publishers to be on
Xbox, and Xbox will go and promote that games just like I mean,
just like PlayStation will do it. But like, yeah, that makes all
the sense in the world. Yeah, I think like the Sega Atlas,
like Metaphor Refound Hasio that one recently, the PlayStation audience probably already knows about
that has a history with Atless games, was probably already looking forward to that
game. The idea of that game now showing up multiple times at Xbox events
or showing up at the Game Awards with the Xbox button at the end that's
gonna be like, Oh, the Xbox audience should care about this in a
way that they may be have traditionally not and now the Xbox is sort of
teaching them be like, hey, no, these games are important and maybe
many of them will be in game pass, so you should try them out.
That does seem like, oh yeah, Xbox has an audience. It
could speak to the on behalf of Japanese games. And I think if Japanese
developers want to keep making console and PC games the way that they have traditionally
and not like all shift over to mobile, making Xbox part of that plan
does make a lot of sense for exactly the reason you said. I think
you're probably right. Uh all right. PC port of Zelda Links Awakening offers
HD visuals in one hundred and twenty frames per second scrolling. This one's mostly
for me, Lucy James. This is one of my favorite games. This
is from Anyone to hear? Can anyone hear that noise? Don't hear that
noise? It's a little siren. It's a little siren, and Nintendo Police
is coming for you. Uh. This is It is still available on ith
io. I downloaded this morning. Who knows how long that's gonna last.
If you play the remake of the Legend of Zelda Links Awakening on Switch and
found yourself itching to experience something just a touch more authentic, authentic to the
original, then this unofficial PC port might just be what you're looking for.
Available to download via itch dot io and created by links Awakening DXHD, that's
what you should search for. Link's Awakening DXHD takes the game Boy cover version
of the title and beefs it up considerably, adding in widescreen support HD visuals
in one hundred and twenty frames per second scrolling HD visuals. What it really
does is it just like zooms out. It fills up, you know,
ten eighty by nineteen twenty with the assets of the game that are already there.
So it's like a really small link running around the world. But it's
actually kind of neat because you've never really seen that game that way before.
Not only that, but as highlighted by Digital Founderies John Lenneman. Shout out
to John, you can also zoom out to get a full view of Coholent
Island with every NPC and every visible and active and active exact active character exactly
how you would expect. That's actually pretty impress impressive as well. I am
someone who likes the very original version of Links Awakening Lucy, that the game
Boy black and White version, but whatever, I'll accept DX because this seems
like a really cool project. It is just I just did just download it
from itch dot io. Nintendo is going to come for this immediately. Right
here, Doug Bowser. Right now, you can hear the footsteps mm hmm,
just growing like drum drums in the deep. Doug Bowser when he was
rushing past us at Nintendo Live, he was just like, we're gonna walk
to these people's house, and then now he's just gonna arrive at their door
this morning. It's like it follows. Huh. Yeah. It's truly terrifying.
Actually, And you can only pass on Doug Bowser if you pass on
your indie game to the next person I am gonna play. So I'm very
excited about this. I love this game, and I really like the Switch
remake Lucy. That was like a very cool update of the visuals. They
grew on me very quickly. I thought they did a good job. But
this is like, oh, it's this all the game I played when I
was ten or eleven years old, so very formative, and I kind of
wanted to be the way I remember and this it really is just like that
game blown up to be on a big screen. And I'm excited about these
things in general because whenever the games get poorted to PC, and this is
what this is. This isn't like an emulated version of the game. It's
the source code's been ported to PC. It always opens up the games to
all kinds of different stuff, especially mods. And I'm not even sure like
what mods this game would need, but it's always just fun to see that
work being done because it ensures a certain level of preservation, even beyond oh
we have the emulator in the mods working. It's like, no, it's
just going to work on PC, a platform that's going to probably be around
in some way forever. So I find that very reassuring. Is someone who
loves this game, Oh wait, like you just said, it's gone all
right? Well, hey, lex say I got z it. Play I
believe it. I don't want to click on this. I don't I don't
want to do anything illegal. Oh my god, you're going You're going to
jail. It's okay, all right, it's working for me. I'm not
clicking on this link. I'm not clicking on this link. I got a
game Boy Pocket for because I never played links Awakening. I got a game
Boy Pocket for my friend Peter for my birthday, and it got me a
copy of links Like, oh, really, does the battery still work?
Because like my my I have links Awakening that I found my copy and I
tried playing. I'm like, I thought I had some saves on here,
and I played it for a little bit and I turned it up and turned
it back on and all the saves were gone because the battery had died inside
of it. I've had that happen before with like an old, an old
Pokemon game yep, years ago. But now I'm all good, So yeah,
this one. I think it's like, I think it's like a service
you do where they kind of upgrade it and make sure the batteries all.
Oh yeah, totally, you can pop those open, put in fresh batteries.
Totally, okay, very neat. Oh ps plus at extra Premium titles,
Yeah, hit me with the hit me with the highlights. What's in
there on extra GT five? Oh, okay, that's back on there because
it's like in and out a couple of times. Yeah so yeah. Uh.
Jan's favorite games Stranger of Paradise, Found the Origin, Mozo GP twenty
three, Melt Hell, Singer, Sultan, Sacrifice, Moon Scars. I
don't know why I said that, like Chris Cornell, but you know,
uh, Mega Man eleven, Gigabash, Grime, Tiny Kid, one of
my favorite games of last year, Proteus Shadow, Romaturn's Dragonfall Hong Kong,
and then in the premium tier Mega Man Legacy Collection of Us two, Thrillville
Off the Rails, and Buzz light Year of Star Command. Buzz light Year
of Star Command is okay, It's not one of the better toy story games.
Proteus is really good, though. People should go play Proteus. That's
that's a game that has a lot of juice, especially when you went in
the shooting. It's a very juicy game. Oh, don't punch the microphone.
How you doing? Yes, I know, I gotta work. I'll
be done soon. Valve the Steam Deck owners stop huffing its vent fumes.
This is from Zack Suysen at Kotaku. Valve has a message to all you
folks myself included, who love huffing your steam deck exhaust fumes. Stop it
please. Have you ever tried taken a break from playing your steam deck to
sample the complex freight instances emanating from its exhaust vent? If so, you
aren't alone. Since the release of the handheld PC, many owners have reported
that they can't stop sniffing the fumes that laughed out it walked out of the
steam deck during play. It's becoming a bit of a meme among among steam
deck owners, with folks often posting online how much they enjoy the distinctive aroma.
I'm one of those siccos. This is from Zach and I also in
one of those siccos that's from Jeff Grebb. I'm also a sicko. Yeah
it is. It's intoxicating and probably for a variety of terrible reasons, carcinogenic
reasons almost certainly, But boy it smells real good. Lucy James, what
do we do about this? Nothing? You know what? Stopbe Life is
short, Gabe. We don't all live in New Zealand, our little knife
collection in the fresh air or gay some of us, some of us want
to lick switch cartridges and hoff steam decks. Let us live. Yeah,
some of us need this all right, like I need I need to get
dopamine where I could find it. And if it's from just fully putting a
nostril right on my Steam deck and getting all those schemes right into my brain,
so be it. That's just the way it has to be. I
I mean it's probably dangerous. Actually, you know what. There's a note
here, let's from Steam Support, from Sandler at Steam Support. Hello,
thank you for contacting Steam Support. As with all electronics, it is generally
not recommended you inhale the exhaust fumes on your device. While there are no
safety concerns with general usage, directly inhaling the device's vint fumes should be avoided.
We understand that it may be a meme, but please refrain from this
behavior for the safety of your health. This just feels like them covering their
ass. I bet everyone at Valve also sniffs those fumes. Like, as
with all electronics, when has Valve ever done what everyone else has done?
That's all right? Yes, Wow, stand up from the crowd. Be
bold, be brave. I thought you were I thought you were cool,
Valve. I thought you got us clearly not. Uh. Starfield is going
to get city maps and new ways of travel. This is from Nicole Carpenter
at Polygon. I'm sure everyone's excited for this one, but as the game
Studios plans to update Starfield every six weeks or so in twenty twenty four,
a studio representative posted on the game's reddit for him. This comes after Bethesda
addressed several issues in a patch on Monday, one of which fixes a bug
that player that gave players of ships a pet asteroid as space stuff was getting
stuck to the ships. Several features are like a pet rock. I don't
it doesn't sound like it was deliberate. Deliberate, but I think it's like
people called it like a pet rock pet asteroid because the rocks kept getting stuck
to their ships. I think is what it seems like. Fun. We
got Todd Howard in the chat saying, get ready, everyone to watch out.
Todd's here, He's ready to go, Ready and rare to go this
morning. Several features are coming to Starfield, according to the post. Mod
support, which was announced in September, is one of those features, but
players can expect city maps and all new ways of traveling too. Hey,
maps are coming to Starfield final that one that, like everyone had issues with
because you would. I did like maybe not having maps for like the barren
planets, but you could go to like a city planet when that was set
out by the developers, completely bespoke design, and you could easily get lost
because there was no local map. So yeah, that seems like an oversight.
I'm glad they're doing something about it, but for me, it's still
it's it is too little, too late when it comes to that sort of
thing. I don't know how you feel. I'm not going back. You
can't make me sorry. Todd. Yeah, I was a lot. There's
a lot I missed from this year. I gave ten hours to Starfield and
I love the music, don't get me wrong. There are some elements of
it that I enjoyed. But it's just it was it's too slow for me.
My my brain can't I need I need flashing lights, I need explosions
right now. Yeah, it is. I'm at the stage of my life
I'm like, I'm not going to push through something if I'm not immediately enjoying
it. Yeah, I think my the place I landed was vaguely positive feelings.
That's like vaguely positive. There's a lot to complain about. If the
game still had any of that. But there's the exploration magic of set down
the game tolls. You go this way, you walk in the opposite direction,
and you find a bunch of fun things to do that would be great.
There's none of that really, whether you're exploring on foot on a planet
or exploring exploring and the ship from Solar system to Solar system, none of
that super works in terms of being the compelling part of Starfield. I eventually
found some fun going on some of the side quests, stumbling on maybe some
cool characters. I like moments of like, okay, I'm in orbit,
I'm just gonna start handling some random ships. And the one ship all over
this planet was a lady who invited me over for dinner, and like that
led to a little bit of a side quest and was like okay, yeah,
well, hey a little side quest, if you know what I mean,
a little side piece quest. And then yeah, it's it's it's just
it needs so much more than just hey, a local map and new ways
to travel. I'm not worried about traveling. I just want reasons to travel.
That's kind of what the game is missing. Yeah, uh oh,
yeah, what do you need daddie. Yeah, oh yeah, sure,
Cole holler for me. Okay, she wanted help. She asks for help
in case she has problems going potty. That's what she was asking for there.
She's like, Hey, I'm gonna go. I just want to let
you know and if I holler, will you be able to help? But
I told her yes, so in a second, if she hollers for me,
I will return quickly. Everybody. Uh Indiana Jones game. Oh yeah,
go ahead, what was that. I'll be, I'll be, I'll
hear, I thank you. You're gonna hold the fort and I'll go handle
the butt up. Uh. Indiana Jones game is skipping PlayStation and that is
not overly exclusionary move, according to Disney. This is from Eddie McCoo at
GameSpot. Disney's top gaming boss, Sean Shopta has commented on why he believes
Bethesia's upcoming Indiano Jones game being an exclusive to Xbox is not an overly exclusionary
move. According to Axios, Microsoft asked Disney to renegotiate the terms of the
game's business arrangement following Microsoft's buyout of bethesta parent company's Innimax. The report said
that Microsoft sought a new deal to prevent the game from coming to PlayStation so
it could be exclusive to Xbox on console and also have a PC release.
Shoptass set Xbox is one of the bigger marketplace sister games. As such,
he said, Disney didn't feel like we were going to be overly exclusionary.
We felt like it's still going to reach a broad set of folks, and
we felt financially and strategically for the game that made sense at the time,
Shoptas said. Indiana Jones is in development at well Wolfenstein Studio Machine Games,
and Todd Howard is an executive producer on the project. Shopdad discussed Bethesta's pitch,
saying they pitched us a really compelling vision for Indy and that resonated.
Yeah, this is just still the reality now. I think it is more
common for games to be, especially when they deal with big third party or
big IP, to be more exclusive to PlayStation than Xbox. Xbox is always
pretty pretty hesitant about these sorts of things after the tomb Raider deal never really
worked out in their favor. But you know, the industry is driven by
exclusives, so this doesn't feel weird. I think most people were expecting this,
right, Yeah, I think so after this Zenmax deal, for sure.
I'm at the point now I'm like, I just want to see what
Machine Games is working on, because it's not going to give me Wolfenstein three.
Yeah, I'm and I'm also not I'm not a big Indiana Jones person,
right, you're a young person with the reasonable taste, like, you
know, okay, that's this, You're this is in the nineties. It's
like yeah, it's like it's like, you know, there's only one Matrix
movie. There's only three Indiana Jones movies. Yeah, yeah, it's fair
Indiana Jones. It just doesn't have the cultural appeal that I thought it did
when I was growing up with it. And then I get to this point,
like now most kids aren't like, oh yeah, of course I've watched
Indiana Jones as a kid now, and I think for gen Z like Indiana
Jones doesn't really play at all. I think that new movie is kind of
evidence of that. But hey, I still that doesn't mean that the game
can't be great and that this game can't have a certain amount of appeal.
I do think this might be a little bit of a test, though,
for Xbox to see if going out and paying the money to get a big
character to be exclusive to Xbox will be worth it. I don't know.
Do you think it will probably have to be a pretty significant success for them
to view it as a positive experience, right? I think so too.
But also, I mean it depends on what the metrics the success are gonna
look like. For a licensed game, probably high, higher, maybe a
little bit more scrutiny on it. I mean machine games. I mean,
Wolfenstein is always incredible, but it's never necessarily it's old gang Busters like it's
sold. But should you know, like it should because those games are incredible,
that team's very talented. So I'm I'm just intrigued by it. It's
also we are reaching the point with certainly Disney, where we're reaching oversaturation.
We are beyond oversaturation with Disney properties and lights and properties right now, as
you can see with kind of the reaction to every MCU project, every Disney
Plus show and so really the only and the reaction to the latest Indiana Jones
movie. Those things are bloated expensive. They don't recoup their costs as much
as Disney would like. However, people like audiences are board. However,
you take a look at the reaction to Arcanes, Blade, Marvels Spider Man
two, Marvel's Wolverine, if you can like capture the audience's attention for something
completely different and something that's not going to be not that's not going to require
homework to go in to watch, Like I don't want to have to watch
five different movies to understand the Marvels or Eternals or whoever. Right, So
it'd be interesting to see if that is the same for Indiana Jones. Yeah,
and I think you definitely identified what's been happening for publishers and deciding to
go out and get these ips. They are like looking at the reality on
the ground of building up a new ip, you know, and Arcane's a
good example. Like, I think that they will have an easier time getting
attention if the game is good with Blade than they did with Death Loop.
Death Loop was an uphill climb of getting people to care about that. They
had multiple trailer reveals and people were sort of like it was yes, I
love Death Loop, but I think they was like, hey, that was
it was a fight. I mean like during the time, it was like,
hey, well here's another trailer, I pee like, haven't we seen
this before? We don't care, It's oh okay. And so having something
established that people know they already care about, like Blade, that's the reason
that these companies are now turning to these established ips in a way that they
had not been for a while. Yes, it's expensive to go out and
get these ips, it really is, but they are weighing that against the
cost of turning a new IP into something that matters, which would acquire maybe
significantly larger marketing budget and one that they might not be able to share with
an outside firm like Disney, and Disney would care about the game doing well,
so they'd be like, may can work that out and maybe make the
marketing make more sense. So we are gonna continue to see these license games,
even though, like you said, like a lot of the movies and
the shows are bloated and not doing very well in gaming. They're like,
yeah, we don't really care. That this is a safer bet than trying
something new. So after Hogwarts Legacy, now with these games, with Spider
Man and Wolverine coming, we're gonna get a lot more license games going forward.
That is going to be the norm, all Right, here the final
story. PhD student tries to get Doom running on cells on human cells just
in linked? Yes, an the cells interlinked interlinked. This is from Andrew
Heating at Destructoid. Well, it's been about a hundred of a famento second.
Let's see what people are trying to pour it down. Hang on,
hang on, my kids, I gotta go help you hold down the fort
h I have no idea what a famento second is. Oh no, can
I not hear anything? What's going on in here? Is that one?
All right? Okay? Oh hear me? Lucy's cutting out? Lucy's Oh
I think you're back on my phone? Help ham. Audio cut out to
oh no, we hear you. Hey, can you hear you? Until
that? Hello? Help me? Lucy's being digitized. This is how you
play Doom on human cells. Lucy. Lucy James counts to twelve. Yeah,
okay, the thing is is that jan help me on eight? Can
you hear me or not? Now? I can hear you. I can
hear you now, Lucy, I hear you did a really good job.
My internet cut out? Oh oh no, oh no, I'm Lucy James.
We have three Lucy James to replace the one we normally have. That's
what it takes to replace, Lucy James. Yes, there it is,
okay, by thank thanks, guys, appreciate it. Okay. Yeah,
someone's trying to get do running on cells. They basically not really actually running
on cells. What they're doing is they are treating E. Coli cells as
if they are pixels in a monitor, and they're getting the change color on
command, and so it's displaying Doom, which is actually running on I don't
know something else, probably still a PC. But the idea of E Coli
cells connected to a PC sounds like the start of a like Dustin Hoffman outbreak
movie. So I can't wait for us all to catch Doom, the disease
that sounds like a pretty good time and inevitable. And that's where we're all
going to end up here pretty soon. When will science learn that there should
be limits to what we're capable of, Lucy, No, I feel like
we've had this conversation many times over the years, and I just don't think
they will. Yes, they won't. Also hang on, am Ie back
now, like literally as soon as you get back, I get back,
my internet comes back in. Yeah, it's it's definitely back better than like
what it was when I first arrived and it was your roboting. There's like
a little either's a little bit of delay and stuff like that, but we're
making it work. We're fine. So what you're saying is that I did
such a good job on the intro that you sabotaged it so that I couldn't
take over while you I can't have I can't allow it. I need I
need this job. Lucy, what are you doing to me? All right?
There's a pull question from earlier this week. We'll get to that in
a second, but before we do, Lucy, what do you got going
on? What we have going on on the site? Things like that.
There's a new Jeff Jeff happening, right, Gus recorded that? Yeah,
we did. We recorded that. That's going up today with one of the
best episodes of Cowboy Bebop in one of the worst episodes of Cowboy Bebop,
So please be excited. It's actually it's actually kind of like a very chill
episoode where we just hang out and have a lot of bands and so it's
a bit of a longer episode, real fun. I worked on a couple
of videos, so obviously we need to put coverage up for over Christmas.
So I worked on Best Open World Shooters, which is coming out. I
broke that one yesterday. I'm writing a couple of other ones. Is that
Avatar number one upcoming Open World Shooters, So I'm afraid Avatar you don't count
this time. But you know, stuff like uh, Poleworld is in the
you know which looks looks wild? Yes? Yeah, oh how many Texas
says there were new Windows updates and new Nvidio drivers yesterday, so maybe that's
killing your PCs. Genuinely, My PC updated yesterday and it was a little
bit yeah right, So maybe edge broke for me. And that's that's got
to be an edge thing that's happened to me. More edged I got.
I got edged by Microsoft, yes once again. Uh hey, normally have
to pay extra for that, but now it just comes with Windows, all
right. Pull question from earlier this week. Were you happy with the game
awards? Fifty said no, said yes, that's you know, I bet
this is like the zone that the game works is normally going to be in.
I think ideally you want to maybe flip that number and have like fifty
five percent be happy with the Game Awards and then fit forty five be like,
oh, I wish there were more awards, and really, truthfully they
were. They were actually thrilled with all the new game announcements and stuff like
that. I do wonder how much of the fifty six percent that weren't happy.
Are they not happy because the awards didn't get enough time, that the
people didn't have time to speak, or their favorite game wasn't in the awards,
Right, you can't. You can't really distinguish between those two things.
How are you feeling as we get a little bit more time away from the
Game Awards about the show, about the way Kiley's been positioned in it,
and all of that good stuff. So it ends and I think, is,
well, well, this kind of different things that you can judge it
on. I think as a spectacle pure spectacle, it was fun. It
was the best, tightest show that they've done. Everything flowed really nicely into
each other. I think the musical musical performances were great. I think the
yeah, I just think that that part of it worked. I think in
terms of trailers too, I don't think there was a single trailer really except
for that there was a couple of ones in the in the breaks where I
was like, oh, okay, maybe we don't right, the very very
commercial ones. Yeah, the very very commercial ones. However, awards fell
by the wayside, incredibly disrespectful for the thirty second thing like being in the
audience. We were sat in front of the Cyberpunk team, we were sat
like among all the devs, and you could just see everyone. As soon
as the music started, everyone just growned and it was It was super sad
and it sucked. And I know that Jeff is aware of that. He
has tweeted about it. Oh yeah, He'll be reaching out to people for
sure. And I just think as well too, like I can't even imagine
putting the show together. The amount of stakeholders you have to appease you have,
and at the end of the day, you're wanting to put on a
show, the pressure of making it bigger and better every year, it's going
to be ridiculous. So I think, really tough. One good show needs
to be better overall. I did wonder if he was just referring to the
He kept calling it TGAs yeah, which on that very very early people pointed
that out, and I didn't think about it much. I heard him say,
TGA's a lot. Do you think he's doing the I don't know if
this is apocryphal, but the KFC thing where it's like, oh they call
it KFCX, they don't want to prefer to the chicken because maybe they want
to just be maybe it's not real chicken or whatever. That was the story.
That's definitely not what they were doing. But you know, KFC doesn't
have the word chicken anymore. The game will get well, I think.
So we had that. We talked about that on Friends with a Second last
week, and apparently it's because Kentucky sued. Really of Kentucky is a very
similar thing where if you can brand it is something different where it is,
it does still you know, ties in. But yeah, that's speculation for
sure on my part. Yeah, yeah, but I mean maybe maybe there's
something to that. Yeah, it's it's hard to hard to know for sure.
You know, the very least the evidence is before our eyes about what
matters at the t GAS. It's obviously the trailers. We get that everyone
understands what this really is. That doesn't mean it can't feel a little bit
better here and there. So yeah, but that's I mean that's the thing.
It's like you have to balance the new releases, which get oh my
again, jesus my in like your week the last week can grow up.
Whoever I'm with, Yeah, I am with so no, No, it's
like the trailers get the eyes in two and then you want to divert those
eyes onto the devs, right, yes, give them, give them time.
But like if you want, if you are wanting that true Oscar of
the games industry stuff, that's all about awards. There's the DICE Awards,
there's GDC Bafter, especially like someone who's been to multiple bafters, like that
is a black tie event and everyone is dressed up, like there's no distractions,
No one's on their phone, no one's waiting for a new Whoever,
I did go the Golden Joysticks. That was more of a mix of t
It comes kind of more tga ish, but yeah it was. I don't
know. I feel for Jeff truly in the team because you're never going to
please everyone, especially when the show is now this big yep, this is
big yep. I think the answer probably ten more minutes. We're already there
for three and a half hours. Let's do a couple more minutes and give
all that time to the people winning the awards. And the other thing is,
and we mentioned this on BombCast yesterday, this is my big thing.
If you're going to have celebrities on the stage, put them with a game
developer, no more, just Anthony Mackie up there by himself, Anthony Mackie,
and then someone who made one of the nominated game, so that at
least feels somewhat reasonable that the game industry is being represented up there. No
more, just Hollywood celebrities by themselves. I can't take that anymore. Actually,
I'm sorry. See Mulu, I don't care how much gaming you do.
Yeah, I don't care. I don't actually creak your other ankle.
Actually that's what That's how I feel about it. She was there for Storgate.
Why not have Chris Metson go up. I mean, I know Chris
Medson's backet Blizzard now, but it's like he's there for Stonegate. Pair him
with the dev from Spare him with the dev. Yes, just pair them
with a dev and that's like, for me, that's like half the battle
won right there. If you do that, we are on such a better
track than what it feels like right now. All right, new poll question
that we'll get to tomorrow on the show. Will you double dep to play
GTA six on console and then on PC? Yes or no? I'm gonna
vote yes because that's what I'm doing. I will be interested to see how
much of our audience is like well, no, No, I'm very happy
with console, and maybe our audience is the kind that's like us, Lucy.
But of course I'm going to do that. We'll talk about that tomorrow
on Game mess Mornings here on Giant Bombs speaking a Giant Bomb. Later today
to thirty pm Eastern, about two and a half hours from now, if
you're watching live, Blake Club will be happening. I will be getting back
into Right to Hell Retribution. There it is. I still have it right
here with me. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to get rid of
the game. It's cursed. Hopefully I'll make some real progress today because I
do not want to be playing this game anymore. It's really bad, Lucy.
I don't know if you know this. You know I did know it,
and I don't want to play it, so I sa save yourself.
Although although all of the love making scenes are incredible, they're all fully clothed
and you can't miss them. The best thing in video games. It's not
quite fucking the bear in Boulder skate three. Lucy, you've got anything else
that we should mention go happening this week? I guess upf will be Lethal
Company. We'll have a voicemail down Trek, all that good stuff. But
anything else we should mention? Oh, it's that's it. Thanks for watching
everybody, Lucy, thank you so much for spending today talking the talking with
me about video games. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
Oh it's weird not all being in person anymore. I know that was
such a good time. It was great, Like I was just hanging out
making stuff, being like, Oh, I'm gonna go downstairs and just see
you sitting at the couch and all the remedy people being like, oh yeah,
look at that. Them just hanging out being cool people just hanging out,
just hanging out. We'll make it happen again frequently, everybody. Look
out for that. Until next time, though, thank you for watching your
the best audience in gaming. Take care of yourself and goodbye.