PlayStation 5 Misses Sales Target

He'll be don't be, bab it's the internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for February fourteenth, twenty twenty four. Happy Valentine's Day. For the
next hour or so, let me help you sort through the world of gaming
on Games Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, Sony warrens fans not
to expect familiar PlayStation games for a very long time, and it sets its
forecast lower for PS five sales. But first, please join me and welcoming
today's co host and lover the Game Mess Mornings. It's Jordan Middler. Jordan,
how are you doing. I'm good, babe, how are you doing?
Real good? Glad to see you. I'm glad to talk to you.
Missed ya, I missed you too again. Yeah, suddenly, I
know this is a really but that's a really boring and cliche thing to say.
But twenty twenty three doesn't stop. Nope, these January and Febry games.
Let me tell you something, Jeff, Let me tell you something,
brother. Good games, good video games are out there, and they keep
coming out a non stop. It is very easy already begin putting together a
game of the Year list, which is deeply troubling because it's February fourteenth,
it's Valentine's Day. That shouldn't be possible. But yeah, you know what,
that's fine. We got a long weekend over here, so I'm gonna
be spending that like catching up on a few things, trying to get like
a dragon into a place where it's like, okay, I can see the
end now. I'm gonna just head to that, maybe play a few other
things. Yeah, there's games to be played. What's this long weekend?
And Adolph, is it some weird Domatican holiday? Is it? Like?
I think it's President's Day, right, which I think is actually Abraham Lincoln's
birthday. But we're not allowed to have holidays about like any individual presidents.
That'd be too much like having a king, I guess. So we're like,
we'll just call it President's Day and you know, we'll wash it a
little bit and it'll be cool. So yeah, President's Day, and thank
you to the President's for giving me a three day weekend. Let's fucking go.
Imagine having a king homparison, would that be monarchy? Yeah? You
need you need some hell divers to get you some democracy over there. That's
what That's what needs to happen. Uh, don't worry. He's not very
well at the moment. I don't think we'll have that for long. Just
said, don't worry. We got a Blake club coming up. We'll take
care of everything, you guys. Oh well, yeah, man, it's
so a lot of games, a lot of stuff. You got anything else
going on in your life or is it just NonStop, like, oh,
man, covering games and playing games. Guy, I know that you've been
doing a ton of reviews through into last year as that mostly continued. Oh
yeah, the reviews don't stop. It is a very privileged possession because we
have essentially two people myself and Chrescullion that do all reviews. So you get
the you get the pack of the latter, you get the cream of the
crop, of course, and that's what I'm doing at the moment. Last
week, though, I sacked all that off and went to a party with
the Pokemon Company and came away with us lovely Corderoy Pikachu, which is a
real Roy Pikachu, a real highlight. You might be able to uh to
see his his card. That a kind of fuzz here, but yeah.
They released a new expansion to the trading card game, took us down to
London and gave us a million cards. That sends you just heard was jian
o'choa scudaming from San Francisco. Mm hmm, that's right. If he wants
to be if he wants to be part of this, then he's welcome to
come over. I'll give him a place to stay. You know, it'll
make my streams look much nicer. To be fair, he's already planning it
out. I guarantee you you said that, that's all he needed to hear.
He's, uh, he wants to go to the uh Pokemon Nationals Worlds
that are going to be in San Francisco, so it's gonna be in his
time. Yeah, So he's like, Okay, how can I compete in
this? So now he's already looking at like going to regionals and stuff to
compete so he can get into the worlds. And he's also you know,
for the game, but also for the card game. So it's it's it's
all over for him, it's over for jan Our boy needs help, Doderdy
if if if things come to pass that we hope and let's say in June
time, we're all in the same the same situation met johnal Ricardo. We
once a year at Pokemon Podcast. All right, I love it. Let's
make it happen. All right, let's explain what we do here most weekday's
I, Jeff Greb will help peace 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 Mess Mornings,
or find the RSS on GiantBomb dot com. You can also catch the show
later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. Sorry the kiddo likes
that. All of a sudden, she was saying hello YouTube to me the
other day. I'm like, oh wow, I didn't know you knew about
that. We have a lot to get into, so let's start the Morning
Mess with PS five, missus ambitious sales target now in its later stage of
its life cycle. From Darren Bontius at GameSpot. We're now several years into
the current generation of consoles, and according to Sony, the PS five has
now entered the quote the latter stage of its life cycle. Sony Senior vice
president Naomi Matsuka has addicted sales of the console to start slowing down in the
next fiscal year, which runs from April twenty twenty four and concludes in March
of twenty twenty five, which will result in Sony adopting a more flexible strategy
looking ahead. This is a quote PS five will enter the later stage of
its life cycle, Matsuka said via Bloomberg. As such, we will put
more emphasis on the balance between profitability and sales, and I think by that
they mean profitability versus sales. They're going to focus on the profitability. For
this reason, we expect the annual sales pace of PS five hardware will start
falling from the next fiscal year. According to Sony, eight point two million
PS fives were sold during the third quarter of its current financial year ending off
December thirty first, twenty twenty four, but these numbers were lower than expected.
The company has revised as sales forecasts from a very ambitious goal of twenty
five million PS five sold throughout the fiscal year down to twenty one million sales
fifty four point seven million PS five consoles have been sold since it launched in
November twenty twenty. A couple of things here, Jordan. They're probably going
to sell more than twenty one million PlayStation fives. They're probably not going to
go so they're not going to sell twenty five million. We've probably we've kind
of been able to eye that eyeball that for quite some time as well.
We've known that that was pretty ambitious, and it became more obvious as you
know those sales for the PS five. They really aggressive price reduction multiple times
throughout the last year, where it's like, man, the PS five is
on sale, and it's like, oh, the reason they were doing that
is because they did have this really ambitious like we got to grow our install
base. This is the year to do it. That's what we're doing right
now, So let's go out there and make that happen. And that has
hurt their profitability, which we'll talk about here in a little bit as well.
But they've kind of pulled out a lot of the stops in terms of
they've already had very aggressive pricing for the hardware and they weren't able to get
to twenty five million, and now They're like looking down the barrel of we
were kind of hurt a little bit by lowering the price, so we're not
going to do that too much more, and especially in light of probably might
have a PS five five pro coming down the pipeline, things like that.
So what we're going to do instead, We're going to try to make more
money from the things that we're already selling. That's that's the strategy here.
It does seem like slightly early to be like, hey, the PS five
is gonna sell less less next year than it did the year before. We're
going in he year five? Is that what it is? You're five?
Usually year five and year six is still on the on the well. Year
five at the very least is like traditionally still on the upswing. In the
last few generations, years five and six both I think usually see growth still.
But I think Sony's like, hey, we recognize that things might not
work out that way, and we're gonna play it safe, and that means
try to extract more profit out of what we're doing right now. Right.
Yeah, I think the PlayStation five sales story will be an interesting one when
it's all said and done, because the PlayStation five has never existed an a
normal game selling economy that launches straight into the pandemic. It becomes a hype
beast item in a way that the PS four and PS three never wear.
So those sales are kind of not artificially inflated, but they have to account
for a market that isn't simply people buying this console to play those games to
get your attached rate. And also something that my boss Andy brings up a
lot of the time, the PS five is a weird generation because purely from
a game buying perspective, you get your PS five, you log in,
you have all your games, But why would you really buy another game like
straight away if you've got your Call Duties, if you've got your Fortnites.
So I think they are running up against a couple of factors here, and
also a lot of the world's in economic decline and that is not getting any
better. So yeah, I think people kind of shot themselves this morning when
they started talking about latter stages and things like that. But if you look
at a console life cycle when they're really when it is the main thing.
We are kind of in the midst of that. Now, I know that
that feels weird because PS five and Xboxer thees X now and there's still this
weird sense that there aren't actually games for it, which I think if you
line them up, there are plenty of game money games. So I brought
up a game spot article here from the PS four Games of twenty seventeen,
which is the same kind of county read we are and now from the PS
five, and it's like the First Horizon and it's gravity Rush too, and
it's uncharted lost legacy, like the kind of people obviously look back at console
generations as a whole and with these rose tinted glasses. But the feeling that
the PS five generation hasn't kicked on yet or something like that, I don't
personally get. And I also think this is kind of reflective of Sony's new
approach to just we have to make money from this PlayStation thing because it's the
only thing that makes us money, yep. And I mean that it colors
a lot of this, you know. I've got a couple other headlines from
this from all this PlayStation news. This is from their financial earnings report.
I think I would say this does feel more than ever like gim I got
out while the getting was good. They had set up the PS five to
be what it is, and now the PS five needs to kind of like
grow into this new thing that is sustainable and as a profit extraction machine.
And figuring out like how exactly to perform all that and make all that work
is gonna be tricky, not gonna be impossible. They're probably gonna figure it
out, but it's gonna be kind of a bunch of headaches to like get
to that point, and it will require some of the things we're going to
hear from the current head of PlayStation essentially because of Jim Ryan is on the
way out. As of April, he will be fully out where basically it's
gonna just like this sounds a little strange, It's like no, they're just
like, hey, we got to figure out what the future looks like because
we don't necessarily know what that is at this time. We're happy with the
success, but we got to keep growing because the one part of our business
that we can rely on, as you said, is PlayStation. One of
the things that has caused people to be a little bit like, wait,
what's going on this morning? Is this headline No major Sony franchises excuse me,
No major Sony franchise game releases are coming out until April twenty twenty five
at the earliest. This is from Darren Bontus at game Spot. It looks
like the next year will be a relatively quiet one on the first party front
for Sony, as the company has said that it will not be releasing any
major PlayStation franchise games before April twenty twenty five at the earliest. Speaking in
a financial call, Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Hiroki Totoke explained that while major projects
are currently in development, it'll be focusing more on its live service games throughout
its next financial year, which ends on March thirty first, twenty twenty five,
and this is the quote regarding first party software. We aim to continue
to focus on producing high quality works and developing live service games, Totoke said,
But while major projects are currently under development, we do not plan to
release any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year, like with the likes
of Goda, Will Ragnarok and Marvel Spider Man two. Although the burden of
acquisition related costs will ease next fiscal year, we expect profit from first party
software to decrease slightly from this fiscal year due to the impact of a decrease
in sales. So people are saying seeing that and going, so there aren't
going to be any games, And very quickly it's like, well, no,
we already know Rise of Ronan's coming, and we know that the Concord,
one of the Live Service games is the schedule come out this year.
That's the stuff that is scheduled for sure. And then it's like there might
be franchise new games, entries in franchises that already exist, they just might
not be major in PlayStation's eyes. When they're talking to investors. They said
God of War, they said, Spider Man. These are the franchises that
sell fifteen million copies the lifetime or more. And there might be stuff,
and like you know, like I said, I've heard maybe Astro does happen
this year. So if that happens, like that's you know, that's pretty
big for me. I get why Sony's probably not thinking that's a major one
for us, at least not yet. Hopefully they could turn it into a
major one and then a lot of this changes around. But if you get
above that, and it's like talking about Ghosts to Ghost of Sushima two or
whatever that's going to be called, uh, and then anything to you know,
to the likes of that, those were probably waiting until next year at
the earliest. How do you feel about this? Yeah, Ghosts Too is
the one that's kind of stuck out for me, is like the the one
that we kind of we know what is happening, Like it's on the boil.
It's probably going to be their next thing they consider of that size.
Yeah, maybe like a that's a twenty twenty five game. Obviously things have
changed, but we know where Insomniak are generally thinking for their next couple of
games, Like you kind of lay out the debt, you kind of you
book the territory, and it makes sense for them to say something like this.
It's hurtful for people that really love the Sony first party stuff and they
kind of expect a big one of those every year, but this seems like
it'll be a bit more of a foul year. And I think that's just
a natural repercussion of having such an insane run. Like studios are busy doing
their stuff, like Housemarks next thing is miles away, not a dog's next
thing is miles away. Santa Monica's next thing miles away, the Bluepoint Project.
They can really say whatever they want about that whenever. So I mean
that's also a new IP, So that could happen this year. They didn't
say anything about no new ips. Yeah, and it's the kind of thing
that they can. I suppose. It depends how literally you want to take
this. If they're if they're if they're going to they could. They could
release a big game and be like, no, we meant what we can
consider our quadruple a God of Wars, Last of Us. But you get,
as you say, like an Astro, you get something like Rise of
their Own, and you get something smaller. Maybe they go into the back
catalog and remake something. They're not going to leave you with no games.
They're just maybe not going to leave you with the you have things like the
Horizon Life service game. Maybe that's this year. They have a lot bubbling
under the surface, and there they're coaching enough of the fact of the idea
that people come to PlayStation for all these big single played experiences, and you
have to keep to those people happy in order to make the kind of live
service and filtration work. So I don't think it's the end of the world.
It's not super unexpected. I think it's potentially setting up for a huge
twenty twenty five if things really start lighting up like that, maybe a twenty
twenty five alongside a PlayStation pro. You can say, right and it's I
mean, you know the word right now, it's a PlayStation five Pro could
launch later this year. You know, they probably do have something to go
alongside that, whether it's you know, it's not going to be got a
new God of War, obviously not going to ben remake Blood If it's a
Bloodborn remaster, they would probably be just fine. I think so, like
and frankly, something like that could work, and then it probably will be
something along those lines. Another remaster is one that's easy to pull off,
so they might be able to position that advantageously for themselves. Yeah, this,
like you said, a lot of these studios are reloading right now,
and that's the reality of game development as it stands. It does this is
a manifestation of the unsustainability of this to a certain extent, if you are
relying on having massive first party Triple A games that have two hundred to three
hundred million dollar budgets and you need several of those per year. That's just
not going to be physically possible. You are going to find yourself in a
situation where eventually you have a year or two where maybe you have one of
those that really stands out. And you know, Sony predicted this, They
that they knew this was coming, so they've been focusing a lot on partnerships
and that's why a Final Fantasy seven rebirth is going to go a very long
way towards solving whatever this problem is. For people who are actually buying and
purchasing and playing games on the PlayStation five, it's like, are you really
hurting all that bad? If you're getting Final Fantasy seven Rebirth? You know,
by well by you know, looking at that demo, going to be
a very good game. So like, is this really a problem for you?
No, it isn't. But for Sony, like they're saying, hey,
this is going to be a little bit of a problem for us.
We're expecting to make a little bit less money. So because and we think
PS five might not even sell as well because of this, or at least
in slightly part due to this. So for Sony throwing heead, we got
to find some solutions here. That was the twelve live service games. That
was their answer to this for the last several years. Again speaking Jim Ryan,
getting out while the getting is good, that stopped being the answer pretty
clearly here in the last year or so, and it's like, well,
well we got nothing else. We've got to figure something else out, and
these companies we'll begin trying some new strategies here very soon. The scary thing
for everyone across the industry is there is no one obvious answer about what you
should be doing other than making two hundred and fifty t fifty million dollar games
or rolling the dice with a live service game, which now feels like the
odds are even more greatly stacked against you than ever before. So that's where
a lot of the uncertainty seems to be coming from. And Sony is speaking
to that a little bit, even as the market leader. You know,
they hey officially won the Council war, and Sony themselves are saying, and
so what we still got to grow And we don't know where that's coming from,
but they'll probably they're gonna figure it out. And it's even with this
year being light for established franchise ips, like they're gonna have a lot of
momentum to carry them through, and if they do have a strong twenty twenty
five, they're gonna be just fine, right Jordan. Yeah, as you
say your your final fantasies and things like this, The people that buy PlayStation
fives to go to the shops and they see your final fantasies, your Stellar
Blade, they see that ass. You know that those ass physics and the
shops. They're not the people that are on Twitter with like comparison images of
like all how many games we've got, like how many games they've got.
It's third party that no one cares. Absolutely no one on Earth cares.
The the eaton's good for people that have a PS five this year, So
I wouldn't worry fucking play Allen week two. Yeah, go play a video
game for real. Yeah. And I think that a lot of the industry
is just trying to find a way to transition to understanding how to get away
from the mindset that games only count if they are big, triple A games
from established publishers. It's like most people have already moved on from that way
of thinking. And when Hell Divers two shows up obviously published by Sony.
But when Hell Divers two shows up, but it's forty dollars, no one's
like thinking like this is a diminished experience because of the way it's being presented.
They're playing it like and they can't help it help have a really good
time because it's really well designed and everyone noticed understands what it's going for,
and it nails what it's going for. And there's you know, a lot
of games more like Hell Divers two these days, and then there are going
to be like Triple A games, and so if you're willing to like look
over in these spaces, like especially over on Steam, you're going to find
a lot of games these days. So there really is not much to be
worried about it, like, oh my god, are all the games I
like going away? It's like no, they're just coming from different places,
and maybe they don't present themselves as having the biggest just the world as we
understand them to be today, it's gonna be a little bit different, but
still, like who cares? It could be as good as Hell Divers too.
Yeah, God damn it, Hell Divers too. I'm so happy because
I was one of the I played. I was original Hell Diver putist.
I'm so happy that that's when they're making When they said they were making a
hell Divers too, It's like, come on, what are we doing here?
Like who the members Hell Divers is? Me and fucking dag Mellow remember
Hell Divers And I'll look at them. They're they're they're so popular that they're
having to release daily updates, being like more saudy than games. So that's
what you have to that's what you have to go for. We're sorry,
so many people are playing the game. It's breaking everything. We're sorry.
We're so cool and popular. Uh yeah, they and it really held Hell
Divers two pretty much a Hell Divers one, just from a different perspective,
and that really really works. It works very well, all right. Sticky
with Sony PlayStation's new chairman says it's studios need to improve when it comes to
business. This is from Andy Robinson at VGC. PlayStation's new chairman and Sony's
current president, was as for his early assessment working directly with the games business
during an earnings call on Wednesday, and told listeners he believes its studios can
improve when it comes to business. Sony President COO and CFO Hiroki Totoke assume
the role of chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment in October, and that's ahead of
CEO Jim Ryan's retirement from April first, Totoke will act as interim CEO of
SIE. Sharing his initial impression impressions from his first four months working directly with
SIE, the executive said he has made a point to attend management meetings and
visit PlayStation's game development studios to get a better understanding of the business. The
Sony president said that while he was impressed with the motivation and creativity of studio
workers, he believed there was room for improvement when it came to how they
invest money and plan development schedules in order for overall business to achieve its growth
goals. Sony announced strong PS five sales of sixteen point four million consoles sold
I believe of through the first three quarters of the fiscal year. However,
while the game's build business revenue was up fifteen percent year on year, operating
profit was down significantly by twenty five point nine percent, which Tony saw was
partly due to a decrease in sales and an increase in losses from hardware due
to promotions. That goes back to the cutting the cost of the price of
the PlayStation five to sell a lot of those. It's been about four months
since I became chairman, and I'm trying to demonstrate leadership and and have as
many meetings as possible with the management teams. That's what Total Key told media
investors listening to the web call. I've also visited studios and everyone is working
really hard to fulfill their responsibility to try to optimize the business. And I
understand that, but overall growth and unsustainable profitability for increasing margins, how would
that translate to these goals? I don't think people understand that deeply. I
think that this is a problem of the organization. So as far as I'm
concerned, I try to understand what is happening in the company, in the
industry, and also from the perspective of analysts, and I tried to explain
that in a trans transparent manner so that people can recognize and notice these issues.
The recognidzs didn't notice these issues, so that we can have a harmonized
approach going forward. The executive continued, people who worked in the studios have
very high motivation. They're very highly motive motivated. They're very good people,
and they have great creative minds and knowledge of live streaming. However, having
said that, when it comes to the business, I think there is room
for improvement, and that's to do with how to use money and the schedule
development. As we said earlier, So listen, we're talking about on one
side of things then being like, hey, we are expecting to sell fewer
PlayStations and we just got kind of kicked around with in terms of our profitability
last year. Now this next year is about making profits. And at the
same time, they're saying they're not going to have a lot of first party
established ips that they think can sellt fifteen to twenty million copies, So how
are they going to increase profitability. They're going to have to cut costs.
They're going to have to look around and be like, we've got to be
smarter with the stuff. And at the same time that they're saying this,
we know, based on Insomniac's forecast from all that leaked data, that one
game costs two hundred million dollars, the next can cost two hundred and fifty
million dollars, And now they're looking down the barrel of a Spider Man three.
I believe that they were projected would cost three hundred and fifty million dollars
or around that that amount, and that you know that sounds unsustainable. I
think what he's saying here is, yeah, we don't want to be going
down that route with that route anymore. We need to find ways to keep
cost down. Do you think you'll do you think that will show up on
the screen. Are you worried about this in any way? Jordan, No,
I think they will much quicker shut our studios that aren't there. They're
kind of popped your lineup, rather than let it reflect in the quality of
product, because that's something that's harder to roll back from. And the and
the jet and the public consciousness. As much as we eat and breathe every
day, the average person who plays PlayStation five games doesn't know about how bad
the industry was the last last year, last year and a half. So
but they well notice at the last of us three, Oh the graphics and
that don't look that good. Why would I buy that? What's what's the
point in that? So I think it's a combination of maybe enforcing these studios
to be a little less ridiculous with how expensive they're projecting these games to be.
Whether that means making the game shorter, making making the rays less traced,
I don't know as a kind of layman how that would translate to practicalities
of making a game. But I worry that Sony Stable is big, and
there's a lot of studios that you don't really hear much from, Like you
remember the days of like back when they had like Sony Liverpool and all these
weird little studios. There are still a few of those kicking about, and
in the current climate of how ready companies are to just shuffer things like that,
I think that is more likely. And someone tweeted it today it sounds
like he is standing over the entire studio suite sharpening an x like if you're
not if you're not paying your way, if you're not singing for your supper,
as they say in Scotland, then we can't have you anymore. Yeah,
I mean, it definitely seems like that's what's happening here. That's a
little bit like is that the answer? Because they're already in the situation where
they have a handful of studios that they rely on to get you know,
to get their gold and you know, Insomniac is you know a Crown Jewel.
There, Naughty Dog when it's able to get a game out clearly right
there as well handful of other studios that sell a lot of copies whenever they
put out a game, Sucker Punch obviously, and it's like, okay,
they've tried to take other studios and move them up to that tier. Ben's
studio, I think, being the best example. It's like, that's a
studio. It's been around for a very long time. They fucking made Bubbsy
three D, goddamn it, so they've been making games for a long time.
We're like, no, we're gonna make you want to like basically another
Naughty Dog. And it's like, actually, that's very hard to do.
And it's like, well, if that's hard to do and you fail at
it, and now you're looking at a studio and be like, well you're
not gonna be Naughty Dog, what are we even gonna do with you?
I guess makes something is the solution to shut them down. I mean,
I listen, I'm not saying to shut down Ben Studio. I'm just like
thinking about thinking this out loud. It's like, I don't necessarily know.
I hope what they can try is to get a little bit more creative with
what their games, what a PlayStation game means. When that PlayStation Studios intro
movie they're the Marvel Studios thing that they do at the beginning of a PlayStation
game happens and it's like, man, yeah, all right, there's some
games in there that are clearly like, hey, these are prestige games,
and there's a handful it's like, oh yeah, sack Boys in there as
well. It's like, is like sack Boy probably didn't sell enough to justify
like what they put into that as far as PlayStation's maybe concerned, maybe you
know, have another swing of the acts at something like that that maybe Ken's
established PlayStation first party games as being like, yeah, they are the last
of Us, but they can also be And it's something that can to any
number of franchises that Nintendo has that cost a fraction of what it costs to
produce the Last of Us? Is has that like ship already you know,
set sail and Sony's missed it or do you think they could turn around and
maybe get back on board with some like lower budget games that make they have
the potential to sell very well. I don't actually know how much it costs.
But I love the Lost Legacy, like the man Charted spin off game,
like I love Miles Morales are the best of those. I don't have
anybody doing that stuff. Yeah, it distills what is good about the big
game into something that's so kind of like. I mean, they'd probably still
like to charge seventy dollars for it, but of course it felt like they
were they were going to do something like that, And it's a someone points
out in the chat that Stega and Nintendo get away with in quotes using the
same map and stuff like that all the time. Like I feel like if
Sony were to do that for a couple of games, like a couple of
side stories, it wouldn't be that big a deal. I think they're just
Sony's a big old company. They've been doing this a long time. It's
hard to switch gears like that. That feels like you need an Andy House
or a Jim Ryan to come in and make that kind of edict. I
think if a studio goes to Sony with that act, they're like, what
the fuck are you used to just go get back to making the next seventy
dollars thing. So I think it's I think what ends up happening is we
have seen the very peak of Sony first party single player games coming out at
pace in the PS four era. It will never be that volume again.
It just can't. It's it's not possible. I think they'll become, and
not in terms of quality or anything like that, but it'll become like a
Chris Nolan film where one of those comes out every three or four years and
everyone stops, because everyone does stop when a God of War comes out and
comes out, it's all anyone is playing. So I think that is more
likely, and that's what we'll get the two three million dollars one hundred million
dollar budgets. But I think you're maybe there is room for your for your
Hell Divers. You're you're not quite Indie, not the forty dollars game,
the mythical forty dollars game, because has anyone who's seen stuff about hell Divers
on Twitter and stuff like that, being like I was going to play it,
but I mean it's only a it's worth it for me, Like,
don't see that anywhere? Yeah, it's it's very curious. It's like,
no one's talking about this being a budget game. It's like we're getting away
with something. Here is what it feels like until you kind of maybe see
the monetization a little bit, and then it's like people are a little a
little bit hurt about that. But uh, there's definitely something to be said
about hell diverse, and we'll get to that in a second. But what
this, what this reads to me as is this, you know, total
key coming in looking around and being pretty jealous of what Nintendo has going for
them. Oh you may take this lego apart. Okay, yeah, sure,
kiddo, that's this is the perfect time to do that too. What
pieces it's like a little circle like satellite dish on a very thin like one
a size one like not one of like the one by ones, but like
the one by zeros. But this is this is getting Oh got it,
kiddo, Come here there you god strength. So yeah, what this reads
to me as is, yeah, hey, wouldn't be nice if we could
have something like a fucking Super Mario party that sells seventeen million company guy,
I think it's that like twenty million copies honestly, Laystation All Stars Battle Royale
right one note. And it's like, I think they know that, like
something like that would be very difficult for them to pull off. So it's
like, but is there a PlayStation version of smaller budget games that everyone does
want to buy? And it's like, well, that's tough because the audience
that PlayStation appeals to is the very discerning gamer, the person that's like,
nah, I play the best of the best. I'm I'm spending my time
on the shit that looks expensive because that makes that makes it feel like it's
worth my time. And then Nintendo's over there, like, hey, you
have a family, Well here, buy a switch for everybody in your family,
and it's like the kind of the path of loose resistance for them to
very easily get to a lot more money by spending a lot less up front.
Oh more Legos, welcome to your Lego minute. Minute. Yeah,
okay, this is the last thing I can do for you until my show's
over. Okay, thanks, Remember Lego games? Did you bring them back?
Damn? Yeah, then listen that's Star Wars. Once sold a butt
ton, they're probably gonna do more of those. Really, it really did
any time you talked to Chres string All, he talks about as how much
money TT made off Star Wars, Lego and don't report least I am nineteen
nine percent showed a hotyport. One of those is quite close to being shore.
Oh yeah, I mean they've done a bunch of those in the past.
They everyone's looking around being like this seems like this couldn't work even better
now than ever before. All right, so you mentioned hell divers forty dollars.
It's doing very well. It's doing very well, and it might be
a harbinger of one of the ways that PlayStation does plan to make more profits
from its games. Sony wants to improve PlayStation profit margins with more aggressive PC
release strategy. This is from Chriscolling at VGCY. President and PlayStation Chairman Heroki
Totoke wants the company to be more aggressive when it comes to improving its gaming
division's profit margins, which he says can partly be achieved with a greater focus
on bringing first party games to PC. During a Q and A session following
Sony's latest financial results briefing, Totoke was asked why the game division is seen
and increase in gross income but not in profits, and whether there were any
initiatives plan to improve the bottom line. Totoke replied that there were two main
factors that he wanted to focus on, hardware and first party games. In
terms of hardware, he noted that the cost reduction in this console cycle is
really difficult to come by compared to previous generations due to the increased price of
components. A lot of that's due to the pandemic that really cost a lot
of problems with that, and applied that the console prices wouldn't be dropping while
it looked for more ways to improve margins. How can we, given the
situation, put our product lines together to make it affordable without relying on steep
discounts to reasonably sell them, to continue our commercial journey on a sustainable basis,
he asked, I personally think that's important and there's an opportunity in that.
Totoke then addressed the topic of first party games and made it clear that
he feels releasing them multi platform, which he's seemingly clarified as meaning PC and
almost certainly that's what he means continues to be the way forward. In the
past, we wanted to popularize popularize consoles, and a first party title's main
purpose was to make the console popular. He explained, this is true,
but there's a synergy to it. So if you have strong first party content
not only on our console, but also other platforms like computers, a first
party game can be grown with multiplatform and that can help operating profit to improve.
So that's another one we want to proactively work on. So what we
seen up to this point is then be like, hey, we have all
these games and almost all of them are going to go to PC, even
like Marvel Spider Man is going to go to PC, like one of our
Marque titles. Now we know we can make more money by putting it on
PC. And they've done al right up to this point, but they've been
coming out two to three years after they hit the PlayStation. That's when they
finally hit PC. And he's saying, well, we're going to expand how
we're putting games on PC. So you're already putting all of them on PC,
so how can you expand obviously by moving up the date, and we
see like with Hell Divers. Hell Divers is by far the most played PlayStation
release on PC in terms of concurrent players on Steam. One of the ways
that we measure popularity. It's not perfect, it's one of the ways we
measure it. And it's like, got to two hundred thousand concurrent players on
Steam, whereas I think God of War had eighty thousand concurrents at its peak.
So it's like, clearly this is a strategy that can work. And
if you were to put these games out on PC on day one, seems
like you could sell even more copies because a lot of the PlayStation gamers are
going to keep you just buying it on PlayStation. It's like, now you're
just reaching a whole new audience that is very excited at the time of release.
This is probably happening, and people have been speculating about this for a
while, right Jordan, what do you think? Yeah, I imagine it
will get close. I don't think they will go day and date for the
Marquee single player titless because I feel like they still want the PlayStation five to
have something to brag about, like they want definitely the Champions League Final advert
for Spider Man three has to be like it's PlayStation five. It can have
the tiny text like say that comes out in like the Christmas period, Sure,
in February. Put it on PC when you've made all your money in
that first time, in that first kind of couple of months. Anyway,
when we're starting to reduce the price of it on PS five, stick it
on PC while it's still somewhat zeitgeisty. The two to three year thing I
think is long done and was clearly them just testing the waters. And obviously
your live service stuff is going to come to PC day and day anyway,
so I see no real issues with this. Again. I think there will
be a delay, but six months maybe it will be. It will be
something that is insignificant enough not to annoy PC players, right, it'll feel
like more like, oh, that's the time it took to just finish the
port, rather than and we were artificially holding it back. Even if they
are the wasn't the last of us part one, like I thought, even
though it's not even on PC yet, But that was like a Dory Master
came out on PC, right, didn't Maybe I didn't. I know,
I know it was coming to PC, but I can't remember what the case
it was. Yeah, I think the it's going to happen. I feel
like the people that edulocated about us the Psychopaths, but from a pure chest
beating Sony perspective, I think they would like at least some some impression of
consolate exclusivity still happening for a lot while. Yeah, and I and I
think that will definitely continue to happen with God of War and Last of Us
and probably Spider Man, but who knows. With Marvel being involved there,
maybe there's some wiggle room on like Action, maybe that does come out on
PC right away. Probably not, but I think anything below those like very
top tier very likely could show up day one on PC. And what difference
would it make other than probably maybe some of the games would do much better
on PC than they ever did before, and they would like and also like
you save money because that's one marketing push instead of two marketing pushes. Obviously
they're not spending as much money on the second marketing push when it comes to
PC. They recognize they're not going to make as much money, so they
lower what the marketing budget looks like. But they do market those things,
and though that does cost a lot of money, marketing is one of the
most expensive things for all these companies. Streussel think just said that about take
two. It's true across the board, So one marketing push for getting these
games out the door, or one extended one where it's like, hey,
it's out here on PlayStation and then six three to six months later it's out
on PC and we're still kind of doing that same marketing push. Yeah,
that's something I think they'd be like, well, that's an easy way to
save money. So a lot of these things are on the table, but
clearly they are going to get more aggressive, as they said about their PC
support, and that's what the multi platform strategy looks like. Now, do
you think that this is a slipery slope of any kind to any of any
game in the PlayStation library coming to Xbox? What's uh an x and it
was an Xbox. It's a it's a it's a like a box where where
there's Sports Direct X, which is of the PC gaming library. It's it's
a whole thing. It's American thing. You guys wouldn't don't worry about it.
It's like it's a it's a sheep stomach and you stuff a bunch of
like corn fed shipping there. Yeah, yeah, we're talking now. Or
is that is that is that the thing that you can swal up the face
places because I'm a part of Generation Remix. Yeah right, yeah, yes,
you're you're a skater girl. What was her name? Skater hater skater
girl? Uh yeah, absolutely no. Sony has absolutely no reason to release
their games on a console. No one has, So no, that's going
to be a problem. I think if you put helld Average two on Xbox,
a lot of people would spend a lot of money on that Xbox.
But I don't think that's going to happen. Okay, games of that tier
maybe sure, whatever, Right, that's and that's nothing. I'll be yeah,
I'll be cold in the ground before the last of us is on Microsoft
phone. Yes, not, no chance that we're right. That one doesn't
even kind of doesn't even make sense. But you know, twenty seven million
Xbox Series x's and s's have been sold, and that's people who are probably
probably primarily playing primarily playing call duties in Fortnit's and live service games with their
friends already. So live service game that you want to sell micro transactions and
maybe put that stuff on everything, like your minds and whatever it was,
like, who cares about that stuff? I think it's I have this really.
I think it's because the PlayStation four, and you remember the PlayStation via
the Greatest Hometowns of all time? You remember cross By that was the greatest,
the greatest incentive ever. You buy it on one, you get it
on the other. I always feel with stuff that I have on multiple platforms,
I'm like, why can't I just download it on the other thing?
Why can't I? Why not? It should just like if this was a
reasonable industry, that would just work. Yeah, come on though, But
yeah, I think your life service stuff does end up on maybe the door,
notably old digital Xbox and stuff like that. But your big stuff,
no, no, and listen, even the little stuff. It's a long
shot. All I'm saying here is the way Totokey talks about it. It
does sound like a softening of a position that they once held pretty rigidly that
I think Jim Ryan fully believed in and now like Jim Ryan got out while
the Gentton's good and things can change, and them softening their position on PC
gaming suggests the possibility of softening it across the board on some of these things.
And if it's about making profit, which is what he's explicitly saying the
next couple of years are going to be about you make more profit by having
a live service game out more places. All that said, that's just it's
probably not gonna happen. That's just thinking out loud once again. All right,
a lot of Sony news, but let's take a break and we'll get
back into some other stuff right after this. Thanks for listening to everybody.
All Right, we are back. I got another headline here. Fan,
just think c IF Thieves latest tweet is hinting at a PlayStation and switchport.
This is from Chris Sculling at VGC. A number of c of Thieves fans
believe the latest tweet from the game's official Twitter account is hinting at upcoming PlayStation
at switchports. The message, which is based on the traditional Valentine's Day roses
are red and pilots are blue rhyme, is being interpreted as ats relating to
rumors that Microsoft plans to bring the game to Sony and Nintendo's consoles. It
reads rowboats are red and sometimes they're blue, other times they're green. Occasionally
they can be white. Wait where are we going with this? Jordan Midler?
Is this the secret code? And have you cracked it. We've been
in the lob. We've been in the VGC lob all day trying to work
this out. Absolutely nothing with the fact that we were told that see if
Thieves has coming too all these concents ages ago. But yes, I believe
that. I believe that this as the proof proof need be that to model
what day is it today? Updates tomorrow, that's what you're talking about.
Yeah, sorry, I have it scratched into my arm with a knife,
but I've got a sleeve on tomorrow. Fella is going to come out read
this verbatim and that's going to be the entire podcast. It's either that or
whoever runs the Twitter account put that up and they're like, oh fuck,
oh no, oh no, I wasn't supposed to say anything. Yeah,
I mean, I can't wait until this is done, man, I can't
wait till just come out and say it. We all know we're waiting there,
like we've got fifty articles pre written and be like it's coming to the
game gear and shit like that, like this is this is, this is
happening. It also must feel weird for them. I have this news that
everyone knows that they're just having to sit there and be like, well,
we'll just we'll just pottered along. My question for you, Jeff Grubb,
how quickly does this happen? How quickly like the PS five verse of this
game? How quickly are we getting this out there? Oh? This year?
Probably? Yeah, for sure, by the end of this year.
I think that's I think this is like a summer thing. Yeah, I
think they're much sooner than that. Yeah, probably probably by the summer.
Yeah, that would make a lot of sense. I think there's I try.
I cfieves a game I like, haven't played much recently, so I
have been paying attention to the updates. I think there's probably a big update
coming soon. If it doesn't launch on PS five with that one, maybe
the next big update after that, that seems like a possibility. Yeah.
More importantly, get the get every get every game rears ever developed on the
swetch. So that feels like a notch at a hole, you know,
Yeah, rare replay get that on there. God, that would be Fantasy's
men too, that there's no rare replay on switch. It should have happened
a long time ago and no one would have been like all the craziness that
has happened with all these other games, if Rare Replay was on Switch ever
been like, well, yeah that makes sense. Yeah, get one funck
about the Gears of War. Who cares about Marcus Phoenix. We went Rare
Replay, I mean switch, It's man, listen, it does nothing but
a but good things for Gears of War. We put that on PlayStation like
that, it should want to be on PlayStation. People who are would be
upset about that or out of their god damn mind. But yeah, like
see it thaves Rear Replay, Get that stuff out on Switch, get a
PlayStation five, see if these maybe switch to who fuck knows, But yeah,
I know, listen, I think this week we probably, if not
this week, very soon we do here High five, rush Pentiment out on
Switch and then see if thieves confirm not too much later. Yeah, we'll
see Gere's War still under consideration. Least I heard everybody. I think that
stuff's heavy boarding personally, I and that seems like if that came out,
if they just put it up on the Xbox wire, that that stuff was
happening, I'd be like, oh, that's kind of interesting. I am
desperate for the first time. They're like Starfield's coming ha, Low's coming right,
big shit. That's when things get interesting. That's when the message is
difficult. It's not difficult for them to come out and say these kind of
like small games. Yep, they're coming everywhere. They're coming to Nintendo Switch
and the PlayStation five. But when when you have stuff that's like emotionally attached
to the Xbox Nation, when the stuff that had Tim dog and tears,
when that stuff comes to PlayStation, now we're fucking talking poor Tim. It's
yeah, I mean, honestly, the pentiment coming on the Switch is again
nothing but good things like That's like, everyone should just be happy for everyone
involved there, the people making it, people selling it, people buying it,
people playing it. Hey, more people playing those games would be fantastic,
You're right. The reaction and the difficult conversation around this is about if
it would be Starfield, which now we're like, it's a lot of back
and forth on that. We don't know if that's even really under consideration.
Sounds like it probably still was under consideration, but who knows. All Right,
Silent Hill two's the latest trailer does not reflect the spirit of the game.
Bloober team president says this is from Chris Scullion at VGC, the president
of Bloober Team, says Konami's latest trailer for Silent Hill two is not an
accurate representation of the game his studio is working on a new combat reveal.
Trailer was featured as part of the PlayStation's Stay to Play presentation in late January,
but reception to the trailer was mixed. The time of writing, the
version on PlayStation's YouTube channel, which has around one million views, has only
fifty fifty four percent likes, with around twenty nine thousan five hundred of the
sixty four thousand users deciding to leave feedback, opting to give it eight thumbs
down. In an interview with the Polish Investor news channel, that's a Polish
word price for investing, the video for which appears to have been taken offline,
but was spotted and transcribed by Eurogamer Poland Blueber Team president Peter Babino.
Bobino was asked about the reaction to the trailer. Bobino replied that the latest
trailer wasn't representative of the game blueber Team was working on, and that he
understands the negative comments being directed at the game based on the trailer. I
wrote those negative comments myself, Babin Hill reportedly joked, saying, in all
serious this we are not responsible for the marketing side. Referring to Konami,
he added that is entirely the responsibility of our partner. Certainly, this trailer
does not reflect the spirit of the game. Man, it's got to suck
the fucking work with Konami. It just has the fucking suck. That story
is out of the Start show, Lamentations sow Talent, and it may still
be the case. I don't deal with Konami that I clean. In the
UK, they have an agency. Yeah, at one point when you wanted
to deal with someone at Konami on the PR site and you have to reach
out to them via telephone because their email addresses would randomize regularly. Yep.
Yeah, I've definitely talked about that on the show before, where it was
like I get an email from someone from Konami and then I would be like,
Okay, it's a couple months later, I know that the Konami's working
on this other thing and this person probably is working on it. I'll go
search my email for that person and then I would look at this email.
I'll be like, what the fuck is this a series of symbols and wing
dings? What the fuck is happening here? And then I would like get
another email from that person and it would be a different series of symbols in
letters, in numbers, and I'm quickly being so I just talked to other
people like oh, yeah, no, they randomize them for all their employees.
So because they have such distrust and disdain for the people that work for
them, Konami's a fucking nightmare. I don't know if they still do that,
but when I hear this, it's like, God, they don't even
know how to market Silent Hill too. The game that there's like, oh,
this is the the you know, the tip of the spear for bringing
Silent Hill back. And we're putting all this effort into making all these different
games and yeah, one of them is a weird acting game where people hate
it. But hey, they're putting a lot of money into this franchise,
and they're like, here is a trailer that makes it look like we want
to be resident before it's like, oh no, okay, Blueber Team already
has an uphill climb. Konami is not making it easier for them. Yeah,
the the Konami things hiladius because it shows how short the mamity spans of
people that like games, because as soon as they're like, here's Solid Snake,
here's Silent how we totally forget the Konami as stowe Konami at the end
of the day, like they've not had some kind of capcom renaissance where they're
going to start shutting out bangers, Like I think is really funny how public
Lyonnoid Blueberth team have been repeatedly about about how they're just like the marketing has
been shit, we have nothing to do with it. We would do it
better. I imagine the f do you think that's that's remake will be good?
Bit in mind blibers, Yeah, I put on Konami's konaminists. Where
do you think? Right? So I'm glad you asked. This is what
I was just thinking. To me, it seems like Bluebird Team at the
very least is understandable or as understanding the criticism against it and the potential downfalls
of remaking Silent Hill too, and they're mindful of those things. Whether or
not. Now being mindful of those things, they'll be over to be able
to overcome it. Who knows, but there I think they're in a situation
where they're at least aware of the pitfalls and they want to avoid them.
Uh, And that makes it like even more like, oh God, I'm
so sorry you're in this situation where they're then they have to deal with a
Konami that's making it look like they don't get the game that they're making.
I think they do get it. I just don't know if they're gonna be
able to execute it because it's blueber Team still, and it's also a difficult
thing to pull off in the first place. So it because of the Konami
factor on top of Blueber Team. I think it's probably not going to be
the game most people want, but there's there's still a chance. There's a
chance, what do you think? And I think people are are the silent
hell hardcore like this is our resident evil to moment. We're finally going to
get the recognition. We're gonna get this perfect version of this game that means
so much does and at the end of it, they're like, you could
have just released the PS two game on PS five and made it run four
K instead of whatever You've done here. Yep. I also acknowledge that that
is influenced by what Konami have shown off it and Blue but are like shaking
the bars of thetting closing like it's better than that exactly. That's yeah,
that's why I couched it the way I did. It. Seems like they
know that people did not want a fucking combat revealed trailer for fucking Silent Hill
too. No one was asking for that, uh and and Bluebird Team at
least seems like they understand that, Yeah, I will play it from a
possession of curiosity, way more invested than whatever the fuck end up doing Metal
Gear. Sure, that's like ever since first reported on by BGC years ago,
and yeah, I know, and no one believed that the well,
of course you're a good just wait, yeah they don't. Even the MGS
thing is so much more interesting because it's like, Okay, a lot of
people care about Silent Hell whatever. MGS is still fucking big potatoes. We'll
have the new game in the MGS franchise and so long, and while it's
still a remake, is being couched is like it's MGS Delta, Like they're
going to promote it like a new thing. And if that comes out and
it's ship, we're done. MGS is like in the public consciousness done,
We're not gonna go. We're not gonna go. It's gonna get buried hard
if it's a really big disappointment. So yeah, yeah, I mean I
still hopes for that. I think they'll be able to pull it off.
But sell the fucking ip to Sony and let god damn fucking Blue Point make
an MGS remake. Come on now, it's so it's so simple, you
know, Bluepoint, But why not go get Dennis Diyak back to another Twin
Snakes, Twin Snakes too, Let's go. I honestly, I don't know.
I do say his name so often on these shows, and he's never
yelled at me, So I assume he's not kicking about in such a way
that he's like reading clips about himself so that he's example, sending thousands of
instances of fake traffic the profiles about himself like other people. Can we do
you care if we just say it? Can we just? I mean,
I know we talked about a little bit before. I just we have a
theory that Randy Pittford buys advertisements about stories about himself to get more traffic about
Randy Pittford stories. Because this is like when I worked at games beed theory,
Mike says, Mike's and chat when I was one of the stories that
always did really well, consists only four years. Is some profile on Randy
Pitchford, and we're like, why is that? And I was like,
Ramdy's the kind of guy who would just be like, hey, I'll put
this in fucking what's that that little block of images that appears at the bottom
of a story. Oh yeah, yeah, like he would pay to like
have his face here up here in that or whatever. But I'm like,
probably not. And then I talked to you. You're like, well that
happens to Stan. I'm like, all right there, that settles it.
Just randomly out of nowhere, like will be right off to the top.
And consequently I just found the USB drive sitting on this. Be careful.
Wow, a lot of magic tricks on that. I'm sure Betty is absolutely
soaking. I don't know when this came from, all right, you know,
all right, moving on report, Toys for Bob has new projects in
the works and Microsoft supports them. This is from Jones Mocky at game Reactor
when Microsoft announced the nineteen hundred people from their gaming division, mainly Activision Blizzard
we're going to lose their jobs. Toys for Bob, which is responsible Skylanders,
Crash, Bandicoot and Saying Trilogy and more, was amongst the ones hit
the hardest. There were even rumors claim that the studio might shut down for
good after they closed their in person office. Fortunately it didn't happen, and
now the Crash so Spiro YouTuber Canadian guy A has told us more about the
fate of Toys or Bob. It turns out they did shrink quite a lot,
from eighty six people down to fifty people. But them closing their office
was planned for a long time because the lease was running out on an old
airfield hangar that they had that was way too big for them, so that
was always the plan and they wanted to move to remote and it seems like
that's exactly what they've done. While this information is not confirmed, Canadian Guya
is someone who does have credentials in the space of like talking about Spyro and
Crash previously. Also apparently part of this Microsoft is dedicated to Toys or Bob
and their IP so they are Canadian. Guya says, don't worry. Some
sounds like they're going to keep doing what they've been doing. I think it
was hard for me to like see the studio close or the office was closing
and not read that it's a really bad sign that they weren't invested in Toys
for Bob after the layoffs. But I suppose it's a possibility that any one
of those studios, given the choice to move remote, might select that,
because I know a lot of developers would be very happy to be remote.
But do you buy that Microsoft is invested in that studio going forward. Look,
i'd love that to be the case. Yeah, I think that'd be
I think that'd be really nice. Maybe if maybe things fall in such a
way that if all the expos games start coming to PlayStation, they're making more
money, they have more money to play with. They're like, I suppose
that money to play with is the money they needed, because this is why
this is happening. Like, I don't think Satin Nadella's Xbox is really in
a possession to throw about money to something like Toys for Bob. It's weird
because Microsoft doesn't have like a Head's IP and hasn't had four ages, Like
what, they don't have their Ratchet, They don't have their million Nintendo games
like now they do, right if they that's the thing. Toys for Bob
making a spiral or a ratchops all platformers were like general like yeah, like
I would love this. I have a slightly cynical take that it might not
happen. The man to speak to about all things Spiral and Crash is Liam
Robertson's doctor Underscore Cupcakes on Twitter. He does digital gaming stuff. He has
been in the weeds of spiraling Crash for a long time, and it seems
like there's been projects in those franchises that have been trying to get going and
it's just an uphill battle. There's just not the appetite to put money into
it. Like it makes me wonder does Ratchet only happen because PlayStation know they're
going to make the money on Spider Man, so they've got to keeping something
that happy, Like yeah, I wonder if it's someone for me, one
for you sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, but it would be great.
I think it's the The story of Xbox's game lineup is a super super
boring one, like they all kind of taste the same, if you know
what I'm saying. I love something like a spiral, something totally out of
loyal Like they deserve a platformer that comes out and gets like astro scores because
Toys for Bob like could do that. They have the talent and that stable.
Let them out of the call of juty, jail Jesus Christ. But
we'll see. Yeah, I mean, I listen, I know what you're
saying about the same flavor. But it's like when if you like go down
and not your terms of production cost hi Fi Russian pentiment, do speak to
a company that's at least willing to like let these studios do a little bit
more. And I'm like, if you're willing to do that, why not
get some of those platformers out there? Yeah, that is that those I
love it when they do stuff like that because it's like, Okay, there's
still there's still a hope. We're not just making things and the fucking Force
are more mold over and over. Not to say force it's not good,
but like right, come on, oh yeah no yeah. But at Ports
of Gears Halo was the complaints like it's just those three over and over again,
we don't want that. Yeah, and it's still specially that, Yes,
this is this is the year, you know, as they help us
say this is the it's always it's always this year. Yeah. I listen
when I was kind of talking about High five Rush back in the day where
it's like, hey, you know, it costs us much and it's you
know, cost this much and sold this much, and how much it sold
was a little smaller bar than how much it costs At the time, I
did hurt here very assuredly. Microsoft was very invested in Tango Game Works and
they are going to support that studio, going for it, and they like
they want to expand it. They are like doubling down on it. And
it's like, I I believe that there's a possibility here that something similar could
happen with Toys for Bob and all these other studios. I just I'll mostly
I'm mostly in a position where I'll believe it when I see it. We
you know, I guess it's still early days for a Toys for Bob under
Microsoft, but you know, and I was about to say, but but
that's it was like, you know, a long time, not twenty eighteen,
but like was it twenty twenty something like that, and I guess we
have now seen Pentment and High five Rush, so I guess if it's like
a like three years, suddenly start, Hey, there's a spyro game that
would be That would be great. I'd be very happy with that. But
I do think that they need to have a wider variety of games. What's
the point of game pass if it's not to support a wider variety of games.
So we'll see, all right, last couple of headlines here. PlayStation
has filed trademark for Intergalactic the herot Tic Profit, which I thought was your
name, Jordan, So they're coming after you over here. This is from
Tom Ivan at VGC. Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a trademark application for Intergalactic
the Heretic Profit, as spotted by Kamatsu. The trademark application was filed on
February twelfth in the United States. Online searches for the Mystery Project, which
sounds like a sci fi game, don't return any relevant results. Okay,
I'll put this on Twitter, but I do believe this Intergalactic the Heretic Profit
sounds like either the most generic bullshit i've ever will ever consume, or they
named it something like this way because they're like, no, this is going
to be like super cheap, easy, fun, good time and we know
what we're making and we're gonna have a good time with it and it's gonna
be that like your whole life. And I think it's either gonna be amazing
or something I never think about again. I don't know if you have any
insight into Intergalactic. The Heretic Profit, I actually know what that says,
all right, And I was waiting. I was waiting to come on this
podcast to break it. And that's thanks an anoughty Dog project. Sure,
it's due out next year. It's gonna take place largely in my head.
It's okay, we can we can go back now that the Twitter clippers have
already got that. And I know the as mental points that I thought these
were Beastie boislytics like the Heretic Profit, the Heretic Graphic, and der Galactic
I like the no game's going to come out called come on now, this
is not a game name, and that is that's bullshit. That is just
like, let's let's cover the The The Heretic Profit sounds like it could.
It could be some like fuck top religious hotter game or something, but Intergalactic
colon the head Atic Project, like I do that fat eleven. You know
what if someone came to me with a game like that, Like, no,
you know what, it sounds like. It sounds like a failed Alan
Wake novel. It sounds like, yeah, oh man, my book the
Intergalactic the Heretic Prophet didn't know I had to change the Heretic profit. Yeah,
it's it sounds like a really pulpy fiction novel. Yeah, so well,
we'll see either way. I'm like, hey, yeah, Sony,
if you're gonna try some wild shit like that, that's gonna be sounded like
stupid as hell. I'm all aboard. Let's go. I fucking love stories
like that's still because it will cut far to twenty twenty six or twenty seven
the Giant Bome Game of the Year. Oh we'll be like, oh yeah,
fucking the Haltic Prophet. What game on? I really really redefining walking
Through with a PlayStation VR three, like exactly, Like I think there's a
chance that like it's only named this stupid because they believe it. It's so
much like that's the only way you get away with a name like this.
Oh well, and then all the other possibilities are you don't get it a
nitway with a name like this, and it's terrible and no one ever thinks
about it again. That's why it's like it's one or the other. Here,
call it done. Just call it done, noise using the name done
anymore. It's black game name. Call it done. There's no way that
trademark is still valid. Finally, RESTful trails to sweek it In creator an
Iodin Chronicle director Yoshitaka Yoshitaka Murayama, who has passed away. This is from
Nintendo Everything. We're sad to report that Yoshi Taka Murayama has passed away following
complications with ongoing illness. Murayama's will Miryama will be remembered for his work on
This Week In Enfranchise as he was the creator, but he was also working
on Iodin Chronicles, which is a game that is coming out very soon.
I believe it's out in April. But yes, rest in peace to you.
Uh all right, I got a pull question. Let's get to that.
While I get that set up, Jordan, why do you tell people
you got going on where they can find you all that good stuff. Jordan
methlaurn Qui, I would like to direct the Giant Bomb Maniacs the Dodors to
the most recent episode of VGC a Video Game Podcast, which is on the
VGC YouTube account. We had a good friend of mine, a lovely Ben
Starr, who has darkened the doors of this hallowed website many a time,
and he's great fun. He's a lovely boy. He came to our Christmas
party before Christmas and we were so fucking drunk. We were so fun because
Andy put a lot of money behind the bar and we were just it was
like, it's like a gaming bar in London called n Q sixty four.
They had time crisis and all that shit and hell yeah, wonderful, wonderful
time. But yes, go and check that out. The I think that's
all I'll say, because you know, it's February. Boys, there's things
going on, there's things getting done. So BGC a video game podcast,
Go and check it out. Yes, very nice. Ben Star remotes and
in the chat, before we get to this pole question, I have a
slight pole question of my own. Yeah. Shoot, And we talked about
this on the podcast and I'll just take yes or nose in the chat and
your opinion too. Is Cloud Strife one of the top ten most iconic gaming
characters of all time? Yeah? Well, yeah, of course I initially
thought yes. But see, when you start thinking, you go the Mario
Luigikong, then you get like Sonic and pac Man, and then you start
talking about just Pokemon, a loan that would probably be more icon Okay,
if you start like doubling and tripling up on certain franchises, then yeah,
he gets pushed out of the top ten because because Bowser's more iconic than Cloud,
I think yeah. But if we're talking about like iconic characters from franchises,
like representing a series or something like that, or even representing just their
own game, I think Cloud is like near the top ten. Yeah,
yeah, I kind of agree. Let's say, no, no one knows
any fucking Pokemon lex. I hate to break this to you, but Pokemon
is probably more well known than any other media property on Planet Earth, on
universe universe. I think, yeah, if you're going to do a one
pair, I think yes. Also, the argument becomes man on the street
versus iconic, because I think there are there's Cloud is more iconic than some
characters that man on the street would know. But it's a it's a it's
a difficult conversation. A lot of people were saying Lara Croft, but I
don't know if Latacroft kicks a ball anymore because they've not made I mean,
I know that remaster literally just came out. But Ladacroft is very popular in
the UK because of lucas Aid, which was like a sports drink. They
did adverts or Ladacroft would drink it and that was a big thing. But
I don't know a gaming gaming Mount Rushmore is really boring. But we're talking
about this because Cloud is like fucking because I know who Cloud was before I
know what Final Fantasy seven was. Saw a figure of them, was like,
look at that motherfucker and a big sword. Yeah yeah, I don't
know. God blessed Cloud Strife coming soon. It's it's Mario. Is there
anyone I kind of just let's let's do what she works, Like who is
on the Mount Rushmore of gaming characters? Because it is a mado Obviously Mario
is it. I think it's as much as I hate him, I think
it's sonic. I think he has to be on there. Yeah, probably,
and like the last the last one is perhaps difficult because it's probably it's
probably like maybe like man like just right like yeah, like I don't think
we we kind of don't even get to photo realistic characters until a little bit
after the top four there for a mount rushmore. Yeah, you know people
saying Rio from Soordy, my dad has no fucking idea who you as,
but he knows what pac Man is. Like, come on, behave yourself
here. Yeah, if you're if you're maybe maybe like Steve from Mainecraft gets
into that conversation like, yeah, name all right, Paul, question,
I got it right here. How do you think backward compatibility will work on
switch to it's here? Twelve percent say it will generally require users to pay
for an upgrade, thirteen percent say it won't work at all, twenty three
percent say it will work for every game and they will run better. Fifty
two percent, However, a majority believe it will work for every game,
but they won't run better. So just be the same performance you see on
the switch, but now on the switch too. I did go, they
will run better. I think it'll be a case by case thing. Though
I don't think I'll be across the board. I am like somewhere between.
They won't run better and they will run better, but I do think now
and most of this is this is informed speculation that it will be back backward
compatible at this point. So yeah, what do you mean as, Yeah,
Maine runs old games, so some when the general public gets their hunds
on it, sure, just let me get those I'll give it a little
break, just like get those clips. Huh. Yeah, I mean those
fucking accounts that always in my four you pages, like, I only know
that show has happened because I see your face and said and I like most
of that. I've set mine up in such a way that i don't see
most of those, so I'm always surprised when it like really pops off.
I'm like, what the I don't remember talking about that when you're in trouble.
When I'm in trouble, I am when the when? When the AI
profile? You know, when I am getting spanked on the bottom by Twitter?
Yes, all right, we got a new poll question here. How
are you feeling about the upcoming PlayStation five games? You have two options here.
I have plenty to look forward to. Or I don't have a lot
I'm looking forward to. I just want to get your general general sentiment.
I bet as it stands today got Final Fantasy seven Rebirth look forward to.
That seems like plenty on its own, but we'll see. We'll see what
there's in the third party games. I think most people are going to be
just fine saying I have plenty look forward to. But we'll get the results
on the show tomorrow here on Giant Bomb. When we do another g MS
Mornings, Jane will be on that show, I believe. Uh, speaking
of a Giant Bomb light club later today, actually not too long from now.
We moved it around. I think we're gonna be doing at one pm
Eastern. That's what it says on the calendar. We had to move it
around because I got some meetings happening this week. But yeah, so look
out for that, and then, uh, I think there's a handful of
other things happening. We might do a fun stream in the middle of the
day tomorrow. Obviously there'll be voicemail, dump truck upf We're going to kind
of do a grab bag try to catch up on like I don't know,
maybe see not see if these Gotting Sailor Stars. What's that game called Sculling
Bones Stalling Bones? I got it in the end, we got there.
It's not it's not what the beta is out still the beta. Actually think
that that game is out. I think it's out early next week now.
I think they they have money to have a Michelle Rodriguez led podcast about Sculling
Bones. What did they what do they have podcast? I steen about Skull
and Bones for the UBI Soft Corporation. Yes, yes, go and check
out no Skull and Boon's cast. I don't think he's actually called that,
but that is that's going down. What are we doing? I don't know
what a doing. Stang Upoor has got a lot of fucking money. Bro.
All right, Jordan, thank you so much for hanging out with me
today talking about video games. I guess you're very welcome. Bib. I'm
gonna go and take some uh motron PM thought the last time I was in
the everyone a podcast with me in the last day or two by going to
take some medicine. Thanks for listening. Everybody, go get yourself some medicine
for whatever ails you apparently me until next time ever, Everyone have a go
ahead, take care of yourself, and goodbye byeye