Skull and Bones Hasn't Reached 1 Million Players, Despite Free Trial

Bad. It's the internet. You're busy. Let's do this for February twenty
third, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so, let me
help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Best Mornings Live with Me
Jeff Greb today January, Sircana sales are in and everyone needs to buckle up
for the uncharted to Mark Wahlberg mustache shride. But first, please join me
and welcome to today's co host the Game Best Mornings. It's tomorrow. Who's
saying everybody? Tam? How are you doing? Hello? Everyone? I'm
feeling great. Jeff. Can you share the document with me? Uh?
Listen, you're so needy, Tam. You're always asking for basic needs to
do your job. It's kind of getting out of hand. You're kind of
a little bit of a diva bide. All right, there it is,
there you go. I think it black. Yeah, no problem. Glad
to have you back for Dregs Day. We got Actually, there's you know,
a lot to talk about from Sircana, but the rest of it's kind
of dregsy and we'll get into all of it here pretty soon. The conna
sounds like a bug. Listen, I didn't tell them to change their name
from MPD to Sircana, and I like, it's a bad chance. It's
one of the worst rebrands, perhaps of all time. Yeah, and I
do kind of want to just keep saying keep saying MPD, but that's not
their name anymore. I guess I'm never gonna call Twitter X, mostly because
it makes my skin fucking crawl. But this isn't the same thing, and
yet it's also not good either. Uh So, yeah, MPD. It's
a lot of times I'm just gonna keep saying that. Uh. But yeah,
I feel like anytime someone says to ConA, I'm not I don't know
what you're talking about. Yeah, I think you're most people when I said
it, like, yeah, I think most people are in the same boat
as you. And you know, not like MPD is like some household name,
but definitely the peoples in the show would probably recognize MPD before they would
Sircana. Uh. Have you recovered from your slog to review Final Fantasy see
seven Rebirth? Seems like you worked pretty hard on that button. Oh man,
I haven't. Hi, I don't know if I'll ever recover from the
things that I do. If I'm honest, It's funny because I went into
it tired and I sure have it even more tired, but still also tired.
It's been a it's been kind of NonStop. I was I was talking
Mike about that, and he's like he was when he was doing that review.
It's like, yeah, it's like one game after another, like all
kinds of stuff to do. Uh. And I went to Dice in between
us. Yeah, you went to Breaking Dice. Yeah, it's nuts.
And then it's like GDC's happening, Packs is happening, So it's not gonna
slow down, and there's plenty of games I still want to play. So
yeah, it's a busy day year. Still, I'm very excited to hopefully
play Whole Divers. It seems like they've figured that stuff out. This weekend,
I'm gonna spend some time with All Diverge. Yeah, I'm like making
an appointment with myself to just hop on there. I'm even I even got
it installed on the Steam deck now, and I'm like, I'll just I'm
gonna solo cue even and just go play with some randoms. I don't I
don't care. I want to get some more Hell Divers under my belt.
Is that a good way to do it, because I'm gonna be honest,
I don't have a lot of people to play video games with. I've heard
that it's a completely fine way to do it. Like you know, it's
not the idea, obviously, it's ideal if you got your crew. But
I've heard a lot of people have very successful times going on there and playing
with strangers, and most of the time it's pretty good. You know,
you're gonna have the occasional person who is just going to go out and loan
wolfit and be frustrating to play with. But that happens even if you're playing
with your friends. See me, Hello everybody, So yeah, I definitely
nik I'll play with you. Let's make it happen. I'll be online this
weekend, all right, you know what. Let's explain what we do here
most weekdays. I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece your gaming life back
together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert
who will make me a little smart. There he is. If you are
watching live on twitch welcome, You can always listen to the show later on
podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings or find the RSA on giant bomb
dot com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on
YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into,
so let's start the Morning Mess with the January twenty twenty four Sircana slash
MPD report. This is from Matt Piscatella over at t Sircana for the January
twenty twenty four in the United States video game market. Highlights included sales up
about fifteen percent, that's two about over five billion dollars five point one billion
dollars where it was around foreign change last year. Most of that came down
to a big, a big amount of growth for software and accessories, seemingly
the PlayStation portal charging some of that for accessories. I listen. I took
that thing to Dice to play Final Fantasy seven Rebirth in my hotel room where
no one else could see it, so I didn't break embargo. And let
me tell you, it didn't fucking work. Is a piece of ship.
Every time I use it, I get more angry with it, like,
oh my god, I mean it is. It's an Android tablet with the
with the dual sense stuck to the side and the Android app version of the
PlayStation network streaming whatever how they call it is not great. It's so it
doesn't get the love it needs. I I also did not know this,
and apparently it's like I looked afterwards and it was everywhere. If you have
like hotel WiFi where it does the pop up that you need to put details
into just straight up does not work. Really the device says this does not
work, like you can because it's got a pop up. So that's dumb.
So I even like the spotted it. I think even like the DS
could handle that at a certain point, Like that's why I could. Yeah,
it is. I it is baffling. I do not understand. I
assume it's some sort of security thing where they don't want people like yeah,
maybe you know, backdooring into PlayStation networks. That's probably what it is.
Yeah, Like I still don't understand it. And here's the thing, right,
Like I use it. I've said this many times in my apartment,
like I've used it right next to my PS five and it still is not
good. I keep using it. I keep using it because it is a
way to play PlayStation five while I'm like watching a TV in a different room,
but I it is not is not. I continue to be very happy
with CHIACKI four deck for the Steam deck. That's the open source thing that
someone made. I think I might have to try that out, give it
a shot. And if you're still having issues, maybe it's something in the
router. But you've got a new router, so I don't know. I
don't know. I got I got too, so that router I got.
Okay, it's the very high end Asis whatever the fuck is called Nighthawk.
I bought another one of the same one. I fixed things, which I'm
yeah it did, but like I'm using the other the previous one as now
an extender. Oh sure, okay, and it is ridiculous. I've got
like that thing is way too expensive for Yeah, that's a bit overkill.
I feel like every time I look at it, I'm like, that's a
three hundred and fifty dollars extender. Yeah, I mean, it's like that
meme of the poking something that's been like do something. Let's yeah, you
paid the money for you might as well do something with it. But yeah,
like I can like one room to the next and it's extending just that
far. It's like, okay, yeah, overkill. Yeah. Uh.
The comparison here might not be too useful. Matt points out that this month's
January was a five week tracking period for them. Last year's was four weeks,
so who cares about the comparisons. Not gonna be able to get much
out of that. What we can look at is the best selling games from
January. I'm gonna listen some games that came out TAM and then let's see
if we coul figure out where they should be. New games in January include
Teking eight, Suicide Squad, Persona three, Reload Like a Dragon in Been
At Wealth and Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, whatever the hell that
was called U and ju Ju Jitsu Kaizen. Those are the six new games
on the chart. Which one of those do you think was the best selling
game of January? Tecan Tecan eight was, indeed, I think the best
selling new game. That was behind Call of Duty Modern War for three,
which was the top selling game of the month. I reckon it goes TECN
Suicide Squad right Persona, Yep, that's right, Like a Dragon correct,
Lost of Us, and then Last of us it was that that was a
lot of us that was new the month. Then yes, that's right,
and then Jiujitsu Kaisu is way down at nineteen. You know how I guess
that? Did you just look at the dot that I sent? You shared
the document with me, and it's just because I share it with you doesn't
assume you're gonna look Most of the I send that people that are like okay,
cool, I got it, and they never look at it again.
I'm reading it does his job everybody? Uh now, second eight doing better
than Suicide Squad. I think deservedly so. But hey, suicide Squad,
I reckon if they put Jim Kazama in Suicide Squad, that would have helped
it, would boost it would boot sales of that so significant absolutely punching the
shout of Superman. Oh, I imagine every day and now I need it.
Every every DC fan, including megoes that would not work because Superman would
destroy him. Not in Suicide Squad. On Suicide Superman in that game is
a chump and he gets dealt with easy. So Matt on Twitter was asked,
hey, like, did Suicide Squad do like better or worse than Arkham
Knight and then he was like it did or it sold like and there's an
ellipses lower, which I think implies, yeah, it did much worse than
Arkham. I think we can suss that much out. I think we've heard
that Tech and eight in its first month of sales did a two million copies,
so about two million copies. Suicide Squad clearly has done less than that,
you know. At the same time, I think we heard like a
Dragon has done about a million copies in a few weeks. Now, that's
not going to be all included here in the January sales in the United States
or whatever. But Suicide Squad at number three, that is I think rough
sailing for that game that needed to do much better. We will have more
on that, but hey, that's that's not great as far as everything else,
though, Persona three at number four, that's pretty good. Like a
Dragon even at number seven, you know, that's a game that's a franchise
that is on the ascent here, and that's a decent enough start and it's
probably gonna have pretty good legs as well. Yeah, Jujus is not a
surprise, right, you know, making the chart like yeah, still,
that's yeah, pretty good. I do wish Prince of Persia would have done
better. I didn't include them here. There is a breakdown by platform of
best selling games, and Supersia did not show up in the top ten for
either Xbox or PlayStation. It did show up in the top ten on switch,
so it seems like, of course it's doing most of its business there,
business there, but even there it was like number four or six on
that chart or whatever. That game deserved better. Maybe it's doing maybe it
will continue to do better. Who knows. I hope so well, Like
banger of a game, what a good game. Absolutely, a fifteen percent
increase in total projected spending on video game content drove the market's overall gain.
Growth in digital content spending across console, PCVR platforms, along with a five
percent increase in mobile game spending led the way. Now as part of like
the rebrand over there at MPD, they've switched around, like hey, a
focus on games to sell retail to a focus on the wider game market,
and that has led them to start talking about engagement, which leads us to
power World was January's biggest new release, story ranking first and monthly active users
on Steam in the US during January according to sircanas Player Engagement Tracker, while
placing third on Xbox platforms, behind only Fortnite and Call of Duty. Fortnite
once again led in monthly active users across across both PlayStation five and Xbox Series
at consoles, with Call of Duty HQ ranking second across both platforms, and
Shrouded was the only new release outside of Power Powerworld ranking among the top ten
titles in the US for monthly active users on tracked platforms. So I think
it's like, hey, we just talked about those six new games on the
sales chart. None of them are really like going to be in the conversation
for most played games that is like, hey, yeah, you're gonna have
this this decent launch, You're gonna make some money. But the top of
the market is pretty much saturated and stagnated a little bit. Is the same
games as always. People are just happy to go back to Fortnite and Call
of Duty still, and that's the way it is. And now MPD is
beginning to put that into context here a little bit. Uh do you think
like with Suicide Squad, uh, Skull and Bones, we really are at
the end of like these big companies trying things like that. Right, the
next time they come around and have those studios make those kinds of games,
it's gonna to look very different. Right. I would like to say yes,
but I feel like we're not through this currently. I like, I
don't think I think that. I think I think that the belief that companies
will make a mistake and learn their lesson is naive. Yeah, maybe agree,
because they CEOs and execs truly, truly are the dumbest people investors of
the dumbest executives, the dumbest executives are second dumbest. Yeah, for the
most part, For the most post. There are some executives, especially in
the industry, that are very smart and know exactly what they're doing and are
sometimes often in a weird situation. But I do I think that the current
Warner CEOs and the ones that are just behaving like absolute lunatic with all their
content is gonna make that no faith, no, no, no, I've
got no faith in give a soft Yeah, that's I don't know how it
got this far. Like I'm not being rude, but like eleven years of
scullum bones, how do you know at some point, go no, that's
this is crazy to stop this, Like yeah, I mean that's a story
of both like Skull and Bones and Suicide Squad. Just yeah, follow ups
to games in one way another that happened about a decade ago, and it
took all that time and a lot of way too much money for any kind
of game, let alone one that people are just I mean Scyll and Bones
especially. No one was even really having a good time with that game,
like they were like like making fun of it if it wasn't like if the
game wasn't enough of a kind of repulsion in every aspect of it. It
came out at the same time as Microsoft put a pirate game on their competing
platform station, which could not be Like, there is nothing that could happen
cosmically that would make life worse for Scull and Bones. Like yep, the
one other pirate game that people know of literally broke through a decades old wall
to get onto a new platform just so shit on sc It feels like there's
like you're right, Like it's like a cosmic event, Like it feels like
some elder god made this happen and like brought down that shroud just to fuck
with Scull and Bones. And and like it. Maybe that cosmic entity is
called VINDI. It's like you have this bitch. It's like, oh,
okay, you're right. We messed up. We didn't know what we were
doing. Actually. Uh. For January hardware spending that fell four percent when
compared to January twenty twenty three to three hundred and seventy eight million dollars growth
in the Xbox series hardware dollar sales. It grew in dollar sales, which
was double digit according to matp Pisktelo, though that increase could not offset declines
from the other consoles. I think this and you know, not like oh,
Xbox is in like some great position. PlayStation five was still the best
selling hardware platform of January twenty twenty four, and both units and dollar sales.
Switch was second in unit sales. Xbox Series was third in unit sales
but second in dollar sales. I think that, like that whole story right
there tell us us like, hey, hardware is in a position where,
yeah, people are still buying these consoles, but it's not. Don't expect
some kind of big growth spike for the console industry going forward. There are
a lot of people who spend a lot of money on consoles, but they've
mostly already showed up to the party, and we're not like seeing an influx
of new people being like, oh, I would love to buy a five
hundred dollar piece of hardware so I could play games when they're already probably just
do that on their phones or whatever. This is I think the underlining foundation
of all of the anxieties that we see from PlayStation about their future and for
Microsoft about it's shifting strategy. I think this informs all of that, right
that the fact that we look at console sales and they're just kind of yeah,
yeah, Like there's only so long that you can rely on that stuff
before having to move on to business ideas that extend the life of them.
I feel like that's where most of the effort now, is so much money
goes into R and D and production, manufacturing, marketing of hardware that you
more more quicker than in previous generations. You need to switch to finding ways
to give those things longevity, especially as games like rapidly. I think games
advance at a rate that is much more rapid than previously, you know,
I mean like they become more taxing and not necessarily from a technological perspective,
like you can have the same kind of knowlogy involved in making games and software,
but the ambition grows so quickly these days that it's like the life cycle
the half life of a console these days is like much much lower, Like
it's quicker, so you have to figure out ways to give that piece of
hardware a longer life. And some of that is like through games of the
service titles largely unsuccessful in many ways, but a lot of it is also
like revising hardware. Yeah, slimmer model and that kind of stuff, and
yeah, it makes perfect sense I now. I think like when these companies
try to tell us that, like, hey, look, yeah, we
know you guys are all very die hard about this, these these hardware platforms,
and you love your consoles. We get that. It's just and you
are showing that by showing up early and buying these things when they're more expensive
than ever before. And that is also reflected in Matt points out here that
through thirty nine months in the market life to date, unit sales of PlayStation
five is now tracking seven percent ahead of PlayStation four and sixty eight percent ahead
of PlayStation three. So it's like, yeah, the people have shown up
and they like, they were so excited about PlayStation five that they didn't care
five hundred dollars. As soon as it was available and they could get it
from retailer that they trusted, they bought it. And now most of the
people have done that. That's like the they've already shown up to the party.
It is expanding two new audiences. That isn't happening necessarily, and that's
why Sony is saying, hey, our outlook for the next year in terms
of hardware sales is not as bright as it was last year or the current
year. And for the current year, we're not hitting our target that we
expected to hit. So it's like, okay, like they both are going
to have to figure out some new ways. You're right, and then that's
going to obviously that's going to look like, well, let's put out a
slim model or for Xbox in for PlayStation. It's probably gonna be in PlayStation
five pro that they could do two things with set to six undred dollars so
that their average sales price is higher and they can sell it to people who
already have a PlayStation five that like to upgrade. That same hardcore audience that
already showed up to the party. They will keep it going by buying something
that. You know, Getting someone new who isn't into consoles to spend five
hundred dollars is way more difficult than getting someone who already has a PlayStation five
that is die hard to spend another six hundred dollars on something you tell them
is even more important to make their games run better. So yeah, it's
an omnius strategy. The people who are in that position, they see the
value in doing that because it's the thing that they probably look at and use
pretty much absolutely a week. I'm one of those people for in the countles
for sure, and I'll probably get a PSI pro honestly, Yeah, if
that thing comes out, I would very likely look into get one because it's
like, I use this thing pretty much every day. Six hundred dollars break
it down per day, and it'll probably lost me another year too. I'm
down for that. Yeah it is. And it's also like, this is
why this is kind of a slight tangent, but this is why games are
now appearing PlayStation games are now appearing on PC and Xbox. Games are now
appearing on PlayStation and PC like there. I think people don't realize how difficult
it is right now to recoup money and also make money in the video game
industry, and so like measures like this, like like moving platforms or growing
what platforms are available, sounds like the end of the world to people who
are used to, you know, segregated console worlds, but don't need to
think about the process of ensuring your business remains healthy or is living up to
the expectations of shareholders. They don't have to think about that. So that
is why. But ultimately, your your fan concerns are never gonna match the
need to make more money and maintain a healthy business. And you can be
as upset as you want about all this stuff. It's gonna happen. Yeah,
And that that frustration you feel with like, hey, I spend a
ton of money on this stuff. I look around, I see a bunch
of other people spend a ton of money. Isn't that enough for these companies?
And the frustration should be that no, because the way the system is
set up, they have to make more money than they did last year.
Infinite growth is required to keep their investors happy. Your problems with this is
a problem with capitalism, as a whole as always, and these companies are
sort of handcuffed to that. What can they do? Listen, gamers,
if you want to be the winning console in this race, you need to
destroy capital overthrow capitalism, and then you'll both know, the gamers overthrow capitalism
and the consoles gamers and the console segregation will return. If anyone can do
it, it's the gamers dam When I say PlayStation five Pro coming out this
year probably costs six hundred dollars, do you flinch at that at all?
Do you think that's probably right? Do you think it could cost more than
that? Because the way I see it is it gets set up at six
hundred or at least five fifty so that the next gen can easily come in,
and they're like, no question, that's going to be at least six
hundred dollars. I think between five hundred and six hundred sounds about right.
I'm just trying to think about what they could do to differentiate it because five
is pretty very differ as a console. And we knew what the PS four
prob buzzword was four K and that worked eight K. It's not going to
work right, It's I don't think it's going to work because most people are
savvy enough these days to know that the TV can't handle it. I think
like FPS kind of stuff is too nitty gritty for a larger audience to use
that as a a a marketing be that they can work of. I feel
like, for what there for Sony, and this generation is trying to get
out of it. Trying to add more to the PS five is probably not
going to result in much of a kind of like change in interest. But
do you think that a value proposition? Sorry, not an interest, I
mean this value popposition. If they come in and say, like, you're
gonna have significantly more storage and all this stuff, a lot of people will
be like, well, I never wanted to install a hard drive myself.
I'll just buy this new one. But I think the possibility here is that
they probably find a way. They say, AI a lot AI upscaling AI
improvements. AI is gonna make your games run better. I don't know if
I get too excited about that. And I think there's a lot of people
the phrase AI as it lost the kind of think I think it has a
little bit. Yeah, but what choice did I like, what better alternative
is there? For before them. I don't know what it is. Yeah,
I don't know what is. It's very interesting. I'm like, I
think I'm very curious to see what the marketing few settles on. The funny
thing is, I bet if PlayStation VR two was like anyone gave a ship,
they could be like displays VR game no way better and just shoved it
into a call and it is. I cannot believe the treatment that PlayStation VR
two go. I mean, it is in hindsight. In hindsight, I
look back and I see it's like that felt like something that Sony was interested
in because they had like hardware teams and like we'll design some cool VR hardware
for you and all that stuff and we'll put it out and PlayStation's like,
oh okay, well we're not gonna make a ton of games for it.
So and that's that's exactly where we are. Did you see the story that
they are You're going to try to like get PSVR two working on PCs this
year, like Sony's like, good luck to him. Man, the headset
is good, but like yeah, I mean, and the the price is
good compared to like buying an index or any new plug in PCVR headset that
is like around eight hundred nine hundred dollars. I'm just like, my comparison
point is the Quest three, which I am it's not even good enough.
I am more than happy with the Quest three and it functions perfectly with with
uh you know, Wi Fi six e a six gigahertz connect connected over the
Steam link, and it just it's great. So I just I have no
need for it, and the question there is much less expensive. I have
a Question three as well. And yes, in every possible way, it
is a better value proposition and functionality is better and yeah, and one of
my biggest criticisms for the PSVR two was like it doesn't have very much that
you can't do anywhere else, Like you can't play anywhere else. Oh yeah,
there's there's no software that stands out anymore. No, no, no,
I'll and even Horizon. I was like, this is fun, but
like, there's no new concepts in here like this. You can everything you
can do in Horizon you can do in other games on other platforms. So
I don't know what it is that you want out of it. Well we'll
see, I mean, well, I doubt we're going to see much more
of VR sport from them that they are probably gonna just slowly let that thang
fade away and then in the am we're gonna look back. But like,
man, like this is almost this is worse than like the Vita to the
PSP PSVR two to the to the PSVR one. It's like this got even
less support and it just was sent out to kind of die. What is
going on with the focus on my camera is insane? Uh do you want
my real opinion? I think I think this. I think it's racist.
Oh yeah, so it just doesn't want to show me. Yeah, it's
like this this is another kind of skin that yes, it's not my Yeah,
the cameras like this is not my favorite skin. I'm sorry because this
room just gets way too much light and it's like, oh yeah, I
don't know, maybe the frames in the background, but I don't. I
don't think so. I think it's I think it's probably just like let's find
not great software anyhow, But yeah, I what camera are you using?
I'm using a Canon eos are a very expensive and good camera. You know
what I do when when cameras do this to me is I just turn off
auto focus and I do it myself, and I try to just like stay
in the butter zone for the for the pole. But maybe if I turned
this ring here, there it is there. It is getting close. Well,
Tam figures that out last thing here. Accessory spending was up forty five
percent to two hundred and forty six million dollars. Game pad spending increased over
fifty percent year on year. The PlayStation five Dual Sense Edge was the best
selling video game accessory of January in dollar sales, and I think that speaks
to a lot of hardcore PlayStation fans ready to spend a lot of money on
their favorite platform, and they will show up for a PS five pro.
The PlayStation portal was shifted from hardware to accessories by Sircana, so they were
like trying to figure out where to place it, and they're like that this
is more of an accessory. It rigged fifth among video game accessories and consumer
spending during January, so not exactly lighting the world on fire. But maybe
that could be supply constraints, which I'm not I didn't keep track of it
in January. That could be that, Yeah, if I don't alarm you,
but we're half an eye into this, and we're still on the first
one and moving on. Suicide Squad Killed, the Justice League has fallen short
of expectations. Warner Brothers Discovery says. This is from Darren Bontus, a
game spot and a financial call. Warner brother Warner Brothers Discovery said that Suicide
Squad Killed the Justice League has fallen short of expectations. We talked about this
a little bit, but them just come out and saying it. There it
is. Let's cut to the chase here, Tam, what do you think
the future of rock Steady is? I? I, oh god, I
think that they deserve another shot. I think that they deserve another unimpeded up
they deserve Yeah, I think they deserve another shot where they are the masters
of their own destiny to the extent that that can be allowed, agreed,
get possible. Wonder this current current Warner Brothers that we just said is of
heeping trash fire. I think a lot of what rock Steady's fate is depends
on the Wonder Woman game. That makes sense, Like if that game comes
out and it is absolutely like in ridiculously good and pops off. I think
that Monol is a monolith, right, Monolith right, Yes, that's correct.
I feel like the more to our team, Yes, yeah, yeah.
I feel like WB sees the they see that and be like, all
right, cool, well we're gonna make this all, you know, the
jewel in our crown, and probably rock Steady gets to either hang on until
they make another game that everyone's like, oh shit, or they end up
just having to like be a support studio, which is a shame. I
genuinely believe that team is capable of making because there is flashes of really cool
ideas writing like are in Suicide Squad. The thing about it is it is
just utterly crushed by the bullshit games of the Service stuff in there, and
I'm hoping that they can, you know, get that one more chance to
show that they are still that team, because I do believe they are,
but that that chance comes is bestowed upon them by moronic executives. So I
don't know. I fear for it, but I I have confidence in the
studio. I don't have confidence system. I go all that. That's that's
exactly where I'm at. I stay with you. I hope they get one
more chance to make the game they want to make. They deserve that after
this especially after this. Yeah, I also I feel this like the same
about the Montreal studio. They was forced to make that Gotham Knights game basically,
and if that could have been a really cool game, if it wasn't
that kind of game, right, you know? Yeah, I mean,
I hopefully they're able to argue, hey, look at Harry Potter and what
that can do. Let us just do something in the vein of that,
and obviously going back to our roots for both of those studios, especially rock
Steady, We'll see if they're able to make that argument stick at a Warner
Brothers that is completely just trash. Skull and Bones hasn't yet reached one million
players, even with its free trial, according to a retort. This is
from Evan Campbell at GameSpot. Apparently people have decided it's not a pirate's life
for them. A new report states Skull and Bones has only seen about eight
hundred and fifty thousand players total since launching last week, and that number includes
free trial users. Insider Gaming spoke with sources about metrics for Skull and Bones,
discovering the pirate game has failed to reach a million players so far.
Why that's particularly concerning for Ubisoft this fact that there's a free eight hour trial
of Skull and Bones available on all platforms. However, However, supposedly people
who do set sail on the title or are averaging roughly three to four hours
of playtime daily. I mean that's self selection bias, right. The people
who are going to be the most excited about it are the only ones playing.
Yeah, okay, this is this is the okay suicide squad we talked
about. Man, it's like it's somewhere between a million two million in sales.
It's not it didn't meet expectations. We can all tell that Scull and
Bones is like not even registering, Like like I think, yeah, I
think, I think scullm Bones is easily the worst thing happened to Michelle Rodriguez
in her life, easily, Like yeah, I'm like trying to think,
right, the dying and then coming back to life that could have been her
character. I'm not sure that seemed okay, that's rough, man, Yeah,
rough. Imagine she has to live life being the face of scullm Bones
now absolutely somewhere indiesels like I told you you should have come with me to
ah right, Like I don't even have the energy to dunk on Scull and
Bones beyond this, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna forget about this game
in a month, Like I like, it sucks. It's unfortunate for the
studio. Of course. Is again I'm like, relat, I'm so certain
that it is in annoying executives that force us through. Yeah, I mean
yeah, I know a lot of times when I talk to developers like,
yeah, a lot of these ideas come from the studio, And I'm like,
I believe that, But I also know that they come from the studio
because they know those are the ideas that can get green lighted. And you
want to you want to get the money to make the games so you can
grow your studio, because you care about the people that work with you and
so and that is, you know, colored by what the executives want.
That's also true. All right, let's take a quick break. When we
get back, a lot more to talk about, including Riot's new fighting game
finally getting its name, and a lot of people have an opinion about that,
although I'm like, it seems fun to me. We'll get all of
that right after this and we're back. Riot's Project L finally has a title
and it's definitely unique. This comes from Eric heidelback through at Game Reactor.
Last time we heard anything noteworthy about Riot Games Project L, the upcoming two
v two tag based fighting game, was when the studio showed some gameplay and
revealed its EBO plans back in August. So it's understandable if you don't know
much about the game, but you'll see and learn a lot more this year.
Riot has finally announced that Project l's actual title will be two x KO.
This announcement is accompanied by two videos. The first one shows off some
of the cool characters and environments in the game, while the other one is
mostly executive produced Tom Cannon telling us the executive producer, excuse me, Tom
Cannon telling us they learned a lot from playtest at EVO and that even more
demos and playtesters planned for both at events and digitally throughout twenty twenty four.
The game is scheduled to come out in twenty twenty five. I believe how
do you feel about the name two x KO, Tam. I think it's
absolutely fine. I have fine right, Sure, it's a two v two
fighting game, right, you have to knock out two characters? Just call
it two KO as in t K grow up, like just move on with
your life? Does everyone to complain about it? It's called two ko.
Like people still say Marvel versus Capcom three or m v C three or U
m v C three. You can say two KO. You're allowed to say,
and you're it will be okay. And I kind of like it.
I think I think I think it's fine. It does there's no other game
that like, you're not going to mistake that for anything else, Like you're
not going to be like, is that the Capcom one? No? No,
it's it's fine. I mean that it separates it from that, and
it also separates it from uh Eternal of the of the Grave butts like whatever
the fuck game you want another? Also, like you want like an under
Night in Birth where like whatever the fun those those games are up to now,
it's just like, come on, man, more of the nine Tail
guy, Like yeah, yeah, this is it's so good that they get
to stand out from all the other riot slop and and then from from other
fighting games. Yeah, this is it's unique. I genuinely think two KO
is a good way to refer to it, and it sounds good. It's
easy to say, like you're gonna play some two ko, get some sets
in two ko evo K. Yeah, it's fine and and you know,
people are like, I'm not sure about it. You know, once once
they start playing, it becomes their game. They will never think about the
name again. It will just become secondhand as always. Have you have you
got your hands on the gable are asking why didn't they drop the X Probably
because two K is something that gets some in trouble in the video game industry.
But the dams on correct they would get a cease to desist if their
game started with two K. Yes, so two x KO that still is
like applies to what it is two times KOs. Yeah, I mean,
and and then you could still call it two ko colloquially. Have you have
you played this game? Because I know what I played EVO. I don't
know if it was playable anywhere else. Okay, I haven't been anywhere where
it's been playable. Yeah, I sadly, I would love to check.
Oh, it looks really cool. It looks cool. The team behind it
is super super solid, like the Canons, and I like the they are
behind the g g P O like net what what the rollback necho that everyone
always asks for fighting games if everyone uses them, Yeah, like they that
team is super, super interesting and I'm excited to see them like they you
know, some of the pedigree of people who are working on there is is
Uh. It gives me confidence in this game. Same and Sean did I'd
play it. I believe he played at Ebo. Uh and he says he
really liked it so awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to check it out.
And like you said, it looks really good. Uh. Mark Mark Wahlberg
has was told to start growing your mustache in preparation for the The Uncharted sequel.
This is Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. The Uncharted movie was a bit
of a mixed bag. The film seemed to do relatively well at the box
office, but received middling reviews at the same time. Still, this hasn't
seemed to sway Sony and PlayStation productions from wanting to return to the franchise,
even if the lack of conversation surrounding sequel has been limited and near non existent
for years. However, this could all be changing soon, as Mark Wahlberg
has revealed the Screen Rant that the studio behind the film has asked him to
start growing his mustache to return his Sully and that the script for the movie
has arrived. This is clearly someone in the studio fuck with what's happened without
chart to too, I don't know talking tell him to grow his mustache and
it just hangs up on him like, mock, you need to grow your
mustache, I think is happening, and he's like, all right, buddies,
yeah, mustache selfies, like to the executive, so wait, what
are you talking about. We're not making that every I never saw the Uncharted
movie. I have no opinion on it. I don't really care to see
it. Not like I'm like against it or something. I just have It
doesn't move me at all. I don't know how about you. That's all
I have to say about it. I am If there are people out there
who are interested in this movie, good for you. I'm happy for you.
I could. I don't really care. Yeah. I watched the trailer
excuse me for the Untried movie, and I was like, I have no
interest in seeing this. I'm right. Unless someone like invites me to like
watch the screening of it or something like that, I'm not watch this.
I will instead watch rewatch Demolition Goodbye, Marino says they find an artifact in
a Papa John's in Spain. Okay now, man, And I'm like,
yeah, no, man, if that's for real, I need to see
that for myself. Actually, apparently there's a lot of Papa John's references.
Is Shaquille O'Neal in the movie Eating out of Papa John's? Because that would
rule. I would be very happy about that. I would love that too.
All right, make a sequel to the Grand Arismo game movie. Apparently
that's very good. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing that either.
Would be a bonkoff. I run Hot and Cold on but yeah, I've
heard good things about that movie as well. Yeah, and I probably would
check that out before I would check out and charted combine them, make the
PlayStations in the Mac universe, put Nathan Drake in the Countarismo universe, and
then stick them in Richet place. Yeah. Uh speaking, I don't know
why I don't get to make these decisions. You clearly should. I mean,
you're rolling like you haven't even done all that Hollywood cocaine and you're already
coming up with all these ideas. So yeah, just imagine, uh theo
Kojima documentary Connecting Worlds is now on Disney Place. I'm interesting yet I thought
so. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC Kachama Productions and PlayStation Productions.
Documentary hit Ao Kochama Connecting Worlds. Theo Coach M Colan Connecting Worlds is available
now at Disney Plus. The hour long film, which was announced by Colon
is connecting It's Connecting Worlds. It takes viewers on a journey into the creative
mind the fame Japanese game developer. The documentary documentary also includes appearances by Gillomo
del Toro Grimes, George Miller, Norman Ritis, and chaviches Uh embark on
a compelling behind the scenes journey as Udeo Kojuma. Connecting Worlds unveils the visionary
mind of Adeo Kojima, weave in the intricate creative threads that birth a groundbreaking,
groundbreaking game and reshape the landscape of interactive storytelling. You think it's gonna
be like an hour long version of Jordan Peele on stage, just being like
man. I played this game when I was high and a teenager, and
it ruled It's gonna be I I Grimes, huh has a choice, Grimes,
It's always a choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Grimes. Yeah.
I mean I'm gonna watch this because I find him fascinating. Oh yeah,
I love all of his work, and I'm one of those I'm Kajima
pilled, obviously, But I as someone who is a lifelong fan of Kajima,
I can can't tell you how little interest I have in other celebrities telling
me much of a fan of Kajima they are, I care. I just
cannot like Jordan Peel. I think he's an incredible, incredible court maker.
But listen, Jordan, I'll give a fuck what you think about Hideo Kadima.
Out of the way, in out, just say I like this guy.
I move on with your life. I don't need to hear you vaguely
talk about Metal Gear Solid in a way that's not interesting in any regards.
Like if it's like, oh, here's a podcast with Jordan Peel where he
breaks down having a conversation. Yeah, that's great. If it's and this
that could be what this is where it's like, But I fully anticipate it's
going to be like Deel going to be like he's the Steven Spielberg of video
games. Yes, it is going to be that, and that stinks.
You're right, it completely stinks. I'm much more interested in people are on
the ground talking about it. Who's going to watch this gamer? Why what
our game is going to take away from other than Oh, it's a bunch
of people glazing up, which I can go to Twitter for that. You
can hit me up for that. I'll do that for you for free,
and it won't take an hour, take maybe fifteen minutes. It's fine.
At one point, you need to make it interesting for the very niche audience
that you are targeting. Hey, no one's gonna be searching through and being
like, I'm trying to find the new Iron Man movie. Oh there's a
movie about someone called Hideo kajim on here. I'm gonna watch that. You're
completely okay and that Disney Plus go and watch Gargoyles instead. That's really good
advice, now, coach, I know you're listening because you love watching episodes.
When Tamazon, I get it coming close, Go get a hold of
Digital Eclipse, Go talk to them and say, hey, can make a
gold Master version of Death Stranding for me, and let us play prototypes of
that game. Have them do the digital storyline, tell the history of you
like you know, hey, you left the company. Obviously you're not gonna
be able to do some of Konami. That's fine. I want the gold
Master of your life's since Konami making death Stranding. Let them be their big
triple A version of this gold Master stuff. They're doing the jeff mentor one
next month whatever, the next one should be Kojuma death Stranding. Please make
it happen. That would be incredible. I think you should talk about Mogo
Solid but only refer to the character as Lizard instead of Snake, and that
way economy can't do anything. This is liquid Lizard. This is solid Lizard.
There's solidus Lizard as well. Anybody can turn the volume down on link.
Thank you? Yeah uh. And Videos New okay, well, this
is the best news of the day. You ready to in videos New app?
Does it require you to log in to update your GPU driver? This
is from Kevin Purty at ours Technico. Wow, this is genuinely like a
game changer. This is so exciting to me. It is Oh my god.
And Video's login system to update your graphics drivers is like the worst hostage
situation of all times. Yes, they now like I have my conspiracy theory
about why they're okay with like losing that data on us here in a second,
which is not also like not great but whatever. And Videos announced the
public beta of a new app for Windows, one that does does a few
useful things and one big thing. The new app combines the functions of three
apps Control Panel, g Force Experience, and RTX Experience into one. Ol
oh no, listen. As long as they fix that clicking with RTX Experience,
I'll be fine. Setting display preferences on games and seeing exactly how each
notch between performance and quality will affect effect it in its settings is far easier
and more visible in the new app. The old fashioned control panel is still
there if you right click the Nvidia Apps notification panel. Installing the new beta
upgrades and essentially removes the Experience and Control Panel apps, but they're still available
online. Most importantly, in Video's new app allows you to update the drivers
of your graphics card, the one you paid for, without having to log
into an Nvidia account. This is something that people have complayed about for years.
I've just got to a point where I'm like, I am going to
use my Google. So I just click the button to say sign it through
Google, take me to my browser, and as long as I'm signed in
there, I just got to hit one more button. So I made it
as painless as possible. Every time, though, I'm like, why the
fuck am I logging into my GPU? It's right there, I can look
at the thing. Why do I have to do this now? Of course
they wanted data, Now, why don't they want our data anymore? I
think they're like, man, we're gonna make so much money from AI,
we are the company that is going to power AI, that we don't even
care about your data anymore. That is small potatoes compared to the trillions of
dollars that we are looking down the barrel of So kind of feels like that
to me. Oh, they finally mind the data that they needed, right,
They got everything they need to reach the point they're like, we have
so much data now that we can truly create the worst gamer. And they
have everything they need. They're just gonna one day in the future they're going
to introduce Adam the Worst Gamers, and he's just gonna be the most toxic
dickhead on the Internet. Adam Kyle Gary, the number one gamer from n
Video. Yes, he'll play hell Divers with hey's your official gaming assistant.
It's gonna be like Surry Buff for gamers. And his name is Adam,
and he's just gonna be like, you're gonna be like, Adam, can
you show me how to defeat this dogs house boss? And he's gonna be
like, get good, Get good. Oh, little baby need a bottle,
Get good, Adam. Adam hasn't done it. He doesn't know how
to do it. Boy. All right, let's hit this last couple of
stories here. Mortal Kombat Wants Peacemaker DLC stars John Cena and arrives next week
for Combat Pack owners. This is from Chris going at VGC Peacemaker next week.
Most I want to talk about this because do you see John c This
fucking Howard Stern, Oh, holy fans, Yes he does. What's actually
what's up with that? Some? Yeah, it's some marketing thing like it's
got some apparently it's got some like say for work stuff on that. Probably,
Yes, I'm sure very funny. He did an interview with Howard Stering
where he's like, I still love Vince Mickman and I oh no, don't
say that. Yeah, it's rough, and it actually kind of gets worse.
He goes, and I want to do what I can, Like,
you know, I recognize that he messed up, but I want to be
there for the people in my life that I love. And then I also
want to like do the right thing and like turn to the entity that I
love and do what it's say, how can I help? It's like,
where are you talking about WWE? You're like you want to be like,
how can I help WWE? You didn't say anything about the victims, Homie,
what are you saying? Please shut up? Please stop talking. This
is the John c and I is currently wrestling his career. Yeah, I
mean you know what the problem is is like you ever see Forrest Gump?
Yeah, and you know how like he talks about like, oh, I
fit into the military like a round peg. John Cena fits into WWE like
Forrest Gump fit into the military, and he just can't see the world beyond
the WWE and wrestling. It's all just like, hey, how there's some
sick kids over there, Yeah, help them? That like makes my character
look even better. And and then did someone some some terrible thing happen well,
I need to be here for the WWE. It's baffling that he would
say these things. I think I think more people need to take the approach
that the Iron Shake would have had, which he'd be probably be like Vince
mcmanny's big baby, I will destroy him in public. That's what you need
to be doing, Okay, yep uh. And yeah, John C,
your career is already beyond the w W. I mean, I can't grow
up. It's fine. Like also like read about what why people are upset
and like why he's like getting ship. It's not something you want to defend
it. It's not something that's not like, oh, vincement man needs love
and that's gonna heal this. Oh it's a matter of opinion. No,
man's a wrongin yep. And he's got other wrestlers who are along with for
the riot being wrongins uh And so timing that up with the Peacemaker DLC that
kind of sucks for for this game. But whatever? Am I right?
Yeah? Am I right? In thinking that people are very excited that Stephanie
McMahon will potentially come back and do ship. If if Stepan McMahon comes back,
people should be excited because she's like the only human being in that family.
Yes, is she is? She not a rogan? Seems like she's
a good person, Okay, because it seems like for a little wile everyone
was like, oh, Triple is cool. But I don't trust her.
I don't look he looks like a rogan. Yeah yeah, I mean,
like I just I personally find it hard to believe that he wouldn't have known,
uh been able to do something and he didn't do something. I mean
she she knew as well. But yeah, but she's in a position where
it's like it's family and it's I mean, I don't want to excuse anyone.
I don't know. I don't know how much she would know, because
I think Vince Ban would do a lot to stop her from knowing, because
I think he cares about that. I'm of the opinion that none of them
are good. And yes, let you be you should be in charge.
I'll be in charge of W. Let me tell you some things about the
WW that will change everything. Okay, you don't have enough stuff like at
air balloon Kido, I hope you as soon as I'm done here, Okay,
you gotta you gotta go get like a little thing, or if you've
got some of the pieces to like use the ultrahand thing, the purple hand,
but we don't. I think you used it all, so we can't
make a hot air balloonch she's playing Tears of the Kingdom everybody, and she's
just figuring it out. But it's getting kind of frustrating. Sometimes it's you
need more resources, kids. Sorry. Hell Divers to increase his player cap
to seven hundred thousand, but CEO warns it will still likely max out from
Chris going, she just played a single second of Hell Divers And I have
tried really many times. I can't you try. Yeah, I have been
for literally days that I've been like, please let me play, and like
I've left it on for like hours on end and it won't connect, and
I'm just like, let the man play. Everybody get off. You saw
that they did have do the AFK thing where if you're away for fifteen minutes,
the thing will finally kick you. Because people were just staying logged in
for days at a time so they could save their spot, so they would
go to work and come back and they would still be logged in. And
now that won't happen anymore. But basically the CEO is just saying, this
is the final push that we're going to be able to do to make this
game serve as many people's excuse me, serve as many people as possible.
But that was the most dead moment. Yes, that's where I'm at right
now. I almost I was like, I'm coming into this one not feeling
great, and you guys all got an experience of it right there. That's
just where my body is. It's a wonderland. I've heard John Mayer say
about my body. Yeah, seven hundred thousand's a lot. They should be
able to get most people in there, but they think it's going to keep
growing, so it's probably going to max out. I want to play this
game this week, and this is one and I've been looking for to getting
back into, so I'm going to try to do that. We'll see real
quick. Two hundred fifty thousand copies sold of Bilatro in the first three days.
So that's very good for that game. Yeah, that game is great.
It is very good. All right, that does it for the news.
Let's get to a poll question of it over here. Why I get
that set up, Tama, you tell people what you have going on,
tell them once again where they could read your latest review and all that good
stuff. My latest reviewer is on GameSpot dot com. Yesterday there was a
dude who was like game Spot and I Gan's review spoils the ending, and
I was like, no, it doesn't. Yeah, and like it got
like a crazy amount of retweets and like I got non stop ship for and
I'm still getting shit about it because once it's been said, it's being said.
But it doesn't have spoilers. And in fact, that person deleted their
tweet quietly, and I was like, fine, but it is completely spoiler
free despite what you may have heard, and it is on game Spot.
Hopefully you enjoy it. It is very long. It's about five thousand words
ish, but I'm of the opinion that I was like, this is a
big game. Final Fantasy means a lot to a lot of people, and
I to make sure I spend every word. I need to to make sure
that I'm justifying my score properly and people understand what they're getting into. So
yeah, it's it's there. If you want to read it, I'd appreciate
it, because reviews are long things to write and read. Any review that's
what I'm saying. They are labor intensive. Yes, yeah, go to
IG and read their review. Go to everyone who you may know, you
know, Games Radar, whatever maybe and read their reviews. And yeah,
that's what that's what you can do. All right. Let's see here pull
question from yesterday? Are you going to play Final Fantasy seven Rebirth? I
might stream it this week. I might make it come back as my I
might make my comeback stream final. That's a good call, that's a good
idea people. People. I'll tell you people seem interested in this game,
because only twenty five percent said it's not for them. Twenty two percent said
they're going to wait till it comes to PC. The majority of people say
they're going to play either later this year or right away. Twenty two percent
say they're gonna play it later this year, and thirty one percent say they
are going to play this game right away. And that's three thousand votes three
point two thousand votes there. So the excitement christ game has reached fever pitch.
It seems like it's a great game. It's got tifa in it.
It does have tifa. I did I did great, did see the I
did see the bathing suit and that oh, I was thinking about the bathing
suit. Bathing suit. It's another good ring. But like playing as Tifa
is on I did I did see that t trap well move credible? All
right, let's see. I got a new poll question. Are you ready
for Mark Wahlberg's mustache and uncharted two yes or no. We'll talk about that
on Monday morning here on Games Mornings on Giant Bomb. Speaking of Giant Bomb
later today on Unprofessional Fridays, Dan Riiker, it's maybe get the WU out
so I could play some of his old Super Mario Maker levels before they shut
down the Super Mario Maker servers. I will be playing those levels that are
apparently Hell on Earth, and I'm not looking forward to it, but I
have to do my job, so I'll be doing that. That'll be upf
today. We'll have some fun with all that, and then we did BCR
yesterday, so no BCR today, but feel free to check that out.
It's a spoiler free Final Fantasy seven Rebirth review conversation. After you get done
reading TAM's review over in GameSpot dot com, you're gonna be thirsty for more
and you might want to hear him like express some more opinions about why he
felt the way he felt. You're gonna be able to get that on that
podcast. Check it out. It was a great conversation. So all right,
Tam, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and talking
about video games. Man, I really appreciate it. You for having me
As always, I love doing it. So hopefully see you next week and
until next time, you're the best audience in gaming. Have a good one,
take care of yourself and goodbye. Get some rest, everybody,