More Developers are Focusing on Apple VisionOS than PSVR2

<v Speaker 1>He'll be beer, go'll be bit. Sorry, there's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>some silence here while the music plays. They can hear
<v Speaker 1>us now though. Hello everybody, it's the Internet. You're busy.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do this just for January twenty second, twenty twenty five. Sorry,
<v Speaker 1>I'm all discombobulated. I meant to start the show two
<v Speaker 1>seconds later than I did. I hit the wrong button.
<v Speaker 1>It's my first podcast, Alyssa. For the next hour or so,
<v Speaker 1>let me help you sort through the world of gaming
<v Speaker 1>on Game mes Mornings Live with me Jeff Grubb. Today,
<v Speaker 1>it's Microsoft's turn to take the spotlight, and it might
<v Speaker 1>have some surprises during its developer direct tomorrow. And is
<v Speaker 1>the switch to more powerful than that Mario Kart Tease suggests,
<v Speaker 1>But first, please join me and welcome you today's co
<v Speaker 1>host to Game mess Mornings. It's a listener conte everybody. Alyssa.
<v Speaker 1>How are you doing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm so good?
<v Speaker 1>How are you fantastic? I'm happy to see you, glad
<v Speaker 1>to see you doing well. Ready to talk about some
<v Speaker 1>video games, but yeah, first time? How you been?
<v Speaker 2>You know? Last night the New York Game Awards, which
<v Speaker 2>is great because it helps support the nonprofit the New
<v Speaker 2>Ork Video Game Critics Circle, which is great because we
<v Speaker 2>mentor underserved and unhouse youth in New York City and
<v Speaker 2>help them learn more about writing and video games. Be
<v Speaker 2>it narrative for journalism. And yeah, these kids have been
<v Speaker 2>They're incredible to work with and it's really fulfilling. And yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the New York Game Awards is like the Chiller Cooler,
<v Speaker 2>you know version. Obviously it's New York baby, So it's
<v Speaker 2>just cool. It's cool to be there. And like Todd
<v Speaker 2>Howard was there, Troy Baker was there, a couple of
<v Speaker 2>cool Sam Lake was honored. So it was a really
<v Speaker 2>cool thing and for just purely a good cause, which
<v Speaker 2>doesn't happen enough in this industry. So it was very nice.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, everyone dressed really nice. So thanks guys.
<v Speaker 1>Good good. I'm glad you would be looking they knew. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I saw some some pictures of it. I think I
<v Speaker 1>think GameSpot might have streamed something from it last night.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know I co streams it. I forget which
<v Speaker 2>which outlet, but yeah, there is a coach dream.
<v Speaker 1>I thought I saw GameSpot doing that, so shouts them. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but I saw some mobe just it looked a really
<v Speaker 1>nice it looked like everyone was having a really good time.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, it's nice to hear how you've been Otherwise,
<v Speaker 1>how is there are video games treating you well?
<v Speaker 2>You know, I have a lot of free time on
<v Speaker 2>my hands right now, Jeff, in between employment, like so
<v Speaker 2>many of us this industry are, and I've done virtually
<v Speaker 2>nothing but play Bilotro and Marvel Rivals.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so you're spending it well then all right?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, clearly the lootro is becoming a problem though, because
<v Speaker 2>it's like the one more gaming me into being up
<v Speaker 2>too late or late to do everything or not getting
<v Speaker 2>out of bed. But it is just I see people
<v Speaker 2>play it on the train and we kind of have this.
<v Speaker 1>Like you Yeah, I definitely pulled the trick on myself
<v Speaker 1>where it is I did this with Uker. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know why I need to bring that up, but where
<v Speaker 1>it's like I need to stop going to my friend's
<v Speaker 1>house and playing you Car all the time. Like's just
<v Speaker 1>think about it, like there is one right way to
<v Speaker 1>play the game. So really I've already solved it. I
<v Speaker 1>can just move on, And I tell myself I've done
<v Speaker 1>that with Bloatro, where it's like it's all just come
<v Speaker 1>down to luck. Now I need to just get the
<v Speaker 1>right cards. But I know the right moves if I
<v Speaker 1>had the right cards, which is a total bullshit thing
<v Speaker 1>to say, but it's like that is mostly how I've
<v Speaker 1>broken it. And then pretending that I've solved this game
<v Speaker 1>and can just move on from it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's smart. See. I think that I'm watching my
<v Speaker 2>partner kind of do like the well, now I'm going
<v Speaker 2>for the gold chip difficulty on this deck, and then
<v Speaker 2>he's doing all these weird challenges where like jokers disappear
<v Speaker 2>and some don't, and I'm like, I'm just trying to
<v Speaker 2>get all the decks. Still, We're at a different we're
<v Speaker 2>at a different speed doing this game.
<v Speaker 1>In my Yeah, it's but yeah, I mean, I'm that
<v Speaker 1>is going to be a game I just go back
<v Speaker 1>to forever.
<v Speaker 2>I'm too fun, too easy. I played. I flew to
<v Speaker 2>Quebec City for Asasacree last week, and I those flights
<v Speaker 2>are short from New York. But I realized that I
<v Speaker 2>did nothing but play bollatro.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, now can you hear me, Melissa? Yes, okay, all right,
<v Speaker 1>can chat? Can you hear me? Now? It's a The
<v Speaker 1>goxers started acting up again where I can't touch it
<v Speaker 1>or it will disconnect. I had fixed that and now
<v Speaker 1>it is a problem again. So that's a real shame.
<v Speaker 2>I said. It's because I mentioned you'd be soft, and
<v Speaker 2>they new to the stream because they don't want me
<v Speaker 2>to break in Bargo.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean Eves is everywhere. He's in the walls
<v Speaker 1>for sure. All right, well, let's get the show back
<v Speaker 1>on the road and explain what we do here most weekdays. I,
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Greub, will help piece your gaming life back together.
<v Speaker 1>That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
<v Speaker 1>own original reporting for all these topics at the input
<v Speaker 1>of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.
<v Speaker 1>If you are watching live on twitch welcome, You can
<v Speaker 1>always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by
<v Speaker 1>searching for Game Mess Mornings, or find the RSS on
<v Speaker 1>giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show
<v Speaker 1>later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot to get into, so let's start
<v Speaker 1>the Morning Mess with. Microsoft has a couple of surprises
<v Speaker 1>in store for tomorrow's Xbox Developer Direct. According to rumor,
<v Speaker 1>this is from Jonas Macki at Game Reactor. As you
<v Speaker 1>may know, there's a dedicated Xbox event tomorrow where Microsoft
<v Speaker 1>has promised to show off Doom, the Dark Ages, South
<v Speaker 1>of Midnight and Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three, as well
<v Speaker 1>as a secret game from a secret studio. However, we've
<v Speaker 1>already reported that it seems that the Xbox team has
<v Speaker 1>additional surprises in store for the event, which apparently could
<v Speaker 1>be bigger than it sounds. The source of the time
<v Speaker 1>was Jess Cordon, editor of Windows Central and a person
<v Speaker 1>with proven insight into Microsoft. Now another very credible source
<v Speaker 1>is joining the chorus, namely Insider Gaming. They write that
<v Speaker 1>a few other surprises will be announced during the event
<v Speaker 1>or in the coming days. Rumors have been swirling about
<v Speaker 1>the secret game, with guesses like a comeback for Echo,
<v Speaker 1>the Dolphin, Final Fantasy seven remake for Xbox, and a
<v Speaker 1>new Ninja Guidan, but there has also been talk of
<v Speaker 1>a remaster or remake of the Elder Scrolls for Oblivion.
<v Speaker 1>Other educated guesses include new games for Game Pass and
<v Speaker 1>a Rise launch. It was during this event that Hi
<v Speaker 1>Fi Rush was stealth released two years ago. This is
<v Speaker 1>happening tomorrow, Alissa. You know we could guess any which way,
<v Speaker 1>but it does seem like they are setting expectations low
<v Speaker 1>for this announcement event and they probably will come in
<v Speaker 1>with a little bit more fire than they are, you know,
<v Speaker 1>sort of suggesting you think we're going to kind of
<v Speaker 1>get a kickoff here where there's a bunch of games
<v Speaker 1>that are pretty exciting from both like Microsoft and Sony,
<v Speaker 1>because Sony is certainly is going to have an event
<v Speaker 1>here pretty soon as well.
<v Speaker 2>What do you think, Yeah, I mean, I think we
<v Speaker 2>kind of have to have that, I think. And I
<v Speaker 2>think also the managing expectations thing is probably clever. Like
<v Speaker 2>we've how many times have we gotten gassed up for
<v Speaker 2>a direct of any sort and just been let down?
<v Speaker 2>So I think appy to Yeah, I think every game
<v Speaker 2>company now is like definitely tempering expectations, probably over tempering them,
<v Speaker 2>but that we can be pleasantly surprised. But I think
<v Speaker 2>Xbox needs a big developer direct here. I think, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the way that it's been shifting itself from like a
<v Speaker 2>publisher as much as we're like a whole cloud based
<v Speaker 2>thing where you can play your game anywhere and it
<v Speaker 2>doesn't really matter. This is an Xbox and that's an
<v Speaker 2>Xbox and we don't care about selling the console, but
<v Speaker 2>you know, you could just play this with game Pass
<v Speaker 2>and it's cool. That stuff is like hitting really strange,
<v Speaker 2>and you know, a lot of people are pointing out that,
<v Speaker 2>like where is the marketing for something like a vowed.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's just been a really weirdly quiet, like
<v Speaker 2>six to eight months for Xbox, even a year, I
<v Speaker 2>would say, so, I think it's got to be bigger
<v Speaker 2>than they're gonna let it up, like they're gonna make
<v Speaker 2>it seem at first. I think it has to be
<v Speaker 2>because Xbox has just felt like it's in this weird
<v Speaker 2>identity crisis, and I think getting back to publishing really
<v Speaker 2>good games from both their in house studios and elsewhere
<v Speaker 2>is huge.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I think it's you're right, you kind of
<v Speaker 1>come in with the faint and then you surprise people.
<v Speaker 1>That's always a good move. It's classic, it works, and
<v Speaker 1>you're just right about the timing. We should like, Yes,
<v Speaker 1>they are coming off of Indiana Jones that is clearly
<v Speaker 1>has been success critically and with fans, seems to be
<v Speaker 1>doing pretty well commercially as well. It's like there's some
<v Speaker 1>momentum there. But you know, there that was the one
<v Speaker 1>time it wasn't a false start with one of these
<v Speaker 1>releases recently where they released one of their big games,
<v Speaker 1>and in the past couple of years before that, it
<v Speaker 1>was like maybe not a misstep, but not the step
<v Speaker 1>that Xbox was looking for. Indiana Jones does seem to
<v Speaker 1>mostly be that, And now you've got to carry it
<v Speaker 1>forward because you can't kind of go back to that law.
<v Speaker 1>You can't go back to missus miss after miss So
<v Speaker 1>the way you do that is you start gassing up
<v Speaker 1>the games that are coming soon and maybe you even
<v Speaker 1>like start juicing up some games that are a little
<v Speaker 1>bit further off and build up a narrative of that
<v Speaker 1>you could tell people like why now is the right
<v Speaker 1>time to get very excited about the Xbox ecosystem. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's it's a weird place because what is
<v Speaker 1>the Xbox ecosystem. It's changing constantly and it's you know,
<v Speaker 1>less emphasis on the console and things like that, but
<v Speaker 1>it definitely is still something that they are concerned about
<v Speaker 1>because they need to make money while they figure out
<v Speaker 1>what that transition looks like. If it is like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna have everything's going to be an Xbox. They
<v Speaker 1>keep saying that, but not everyone treats every device like
<v Speaker 1>an Xbox. So I will actually have a story about
<v Speaker 1>that here in a little bit about Resident Evil on iPhones.
<v Speaker 1>And so it's like, yeah, they need to keep like
<v Speaker 1>this traditional audience pretty happy and spending as much money
<v Speaker 1>as possible, and that means some cool games. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>Doom the Dark Ages is going to be something that's
<v Speaker 1>going to be a real crowd pleaser. And if they
<v Speaker 1>do have like Elder Scrolls for Oblivion remake ready to go,
<v Speaker 1>people will eat that up. It's like okay, and then okay,
<v Speaker 1>is this South of Midnight? Is this gonna hit? I hope?
<v Speaker 1>So looks very interesting if some of these games can
<v Speaker 1>kind of come, you know, make a statement, and then
<v Speaker 1>they can build up a long term timeline of games
<v Speaker 1>starting with this event, I think people will actually begin
<v Speaker 1>changing what they think about Xbox, which has been a
<v Speaker 1>long time coming and something they've sort of missed the
<v Speaker 1>boat on accomplishing several times now, right.
<v Speaker 2>One hundred percent. I mean, I don't think people have
<v Speaker 2>looked at Xbox and their in house studios and what
<v Speaker 2>they make the same since Halo Infinite. Unfortunately, like I think,
<v Speaker 2>you know, if you're going to talk about the tent
<v Speaker 2>pole franchise for Xbox is Halo, and uh to drop
<v Speaker 2>the ball on that launch, like pick it up and
<v Speaker 2>drop it again, and then I mean, I love like,
<v Speaker 2>I love Halo Infinite. I played a lot of it,
<v Speaker 2>but it just it didn't seem like this promise of
<v Speaker 2>this open world campaign. It had this insinuation that there
<v Speaker 2>would be more added to it, that we would get
<v Speaker 2>a lot of stuff tacked on, it would grow, it
<v Speaker 2>would expand. But I just played through that campaign and
<v Speaker 2>then I played a bunch of multiplayer and then I
<v Speaker 2>fell off, and it's just that's not how any Halo
<v Speaker 2>game has ever been for me. So I think they're
<v Speaker 2>they're still trying to claw back from that. And I
<v Speaker 2>think it's really interesting that you know, they've they've hoovered
<v Speaker 2>up all these game studios and then sort of done
<v Speaker 2>this one eighty of like, well, it's about where you
<v Speaker 2>can play these games that maybe we publish, maybe we don't,
<v Speaker 2>but you subscribe to game Pass so you can play
<v Speaker 2>games anywhere, and that's what we're really It's just like
<v Speaker 2>what about the games, like show us some really really
<v Speaker 2>cool games and yeah, I think bring that good will back.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's a hard fight to bring back goodwill
<v Speaker 2>in this industry, but I think it's strong. Showing tomorrow
<v Speaker 2>would definitely do it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I think at the end of the day, if
<v Speaker 1>you're putting out interesting games that people want to play,
<v Speaker 1>usually they'll just like go buy those things. They'll just
<v Speaker 1>go do that. You know. There's definitely times where there's
<v Speaker 1>such headwinds, like what is happening with ub Soft right now,
<v Speaker 1>where it's like, you know, the game's mediocre to good,
<v Speaker 1>and it's like, yeah, but it's Ubisoft. Get that out
<v Speaker 1>of my face, Like that clearly does happen, So you're right,
<v Speaker 1>Building up that goodwill again is tough. I think that
<v Speaker 1>people are like they want to give that good will
<v Speaker 1>to Xbox. I think mostly they do, especially especially as
<v Speaker 1>they do with deemphasize the console. They're like, Okay, we
<v Speaker 1>kind of just want you to figure your shit out
<v Speaker 1>so we can all just feel good about what you're
<v Speaker 1>doing again, and we'll happily keep playing on our PlayStations,
<v Speaker 1>our switches and PCs, and then if you keep releasing
<v Speaker 1>your games on PC, which you're gonna, we'll play them there.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I think people just kind of want to
<v Speaker 1>have a good showing from Xbox. Hopefully all those people
<v Speaker 1>that do get acquired in that big corporation are making
<v Speaker 1>games they want to make and that you know, will succeed,
<v Speaker 1>and that's what most people I think want want to see. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>speaking of like PlayStation though, we do we are still
<v Speaker 1>waiting for them to like, hey, here's what our timeline
<v Speaker 1>is for releases coming up. And really it's been a
<v Speaker 1>waiting game for quite some time with them as well.
<v Speaker 1>There's been you know, little spots here or there, or
<v Speaker 1>big games release, you know, Astrobot, and then they or
<v Speaker 1>they announced something like a Ghost to Yota, something along
<v Speaker 1>those lines. So they have broken silence or released something
<v Speaker 1>very big in the last year or so. But it's
<v Speaker 1>not like I think what people were used to or
<v Speaker 1>maybe expecting, especially coming out of a PS four generation,
<v Speaker 1>where there were years where you were looking forward to
<v Speaker 1>Final Fantasy seven remake and things like that. So we
<v Speaker 1>are due for some kind of state of play and
<v Speaker 1>then maybe eventually a PlayStation show case, one of their
<v Speaker 1>bigger shows that's more akin to an E three, but
<v Speaker 1>probably a state of play first. And again there are
<v Speaker 1>rumors out there and maybe once happen in February. I
<v Speaker 1>have not heard that personally, but there's rumors out there
<v Speaker 1>for that, And you know, do you think this could
<v Speaker 1>be a much bigger one or we should We still
<v Speaker 1>kind of be setting our expectations for Sony at a
<v Speaker 1>level of it's a state of play. It's not going
<v Speaker 1>to be not going to be much.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I think they both. It has to be,
<v Speaker 2>it has to be big. Like I know that we
<v Speaker 2>should probably temper expectations. But if we're thinking about how
<v Speaker 2>long we are into this console cycle, you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>been six years, five years, you know, like it's four
<v Speaker 2>and a half, four in change. We're getting into the
<v Speaker 2>fifth year that it launched, and you know November will
<v Speaker 2>be five, and it's what do we have to show
<v Speaker 2>for it? That kind of is showcasing all of these
<v Speaker 2>incredible features that were promised when we bought you know,
<v Speaker 2>new Gen or Current and consoles. I think we're getting
<v Speaker 2>up on the end of it being like technically the
<v Speaker 2>end of a console cycle in terms of how often
<v Speaker 2>these things released. So it's like you need to give
<v Speaker 2>us something big, and there has to have been things
<v Speaker 2>in the can that you were working on for this big,
<v Speaker 2>huge new console that are probably towards the tail end
<v Speaker 2>of development, and if they're not, then what were we
<v Speaker 2>doing this whole time? Is really the kind of question
<v Speaker 2>that I have, and I do think PlayStation has to
<v Speaker 2>they both have to to deliver, and you know, I
<v Speaker 2>think we'll probably get something shorter and a little bit
<v Speaker 2>teasier in the late winter early spring, and then yeah,
<v Speaker 2>everyone goes big for Summer game Fest, which is replaced three,
<v Speaker 2>and so I think the summer will probably show us
<v Speaker 2>a lot too. But in terms of the summer, like
<v Speaker 2>how many things are we going to see there that
<v Speaker 2>would release within the next six months realistically? You know,
<v Speaker 2>So I think some game coming out this year that's
<v Speaker 2>big and important that we know about in the next
<v Speaker 2>few months I think could really turn the tide for
<v Speaker 2>both companies.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, we'll see. Yeah, you know, we know they
<v Speaker 1>have Intergalactic from Insomniac. I mean, at some point that
<v Speaker 1>was like one of the few things at the Kiley
<v Speaker 1>Show that didn't have a year at least attached to it,
<v Speaker 1>like twenty twenty five. So we don't think it's coming
<v Speaker 1>this year. It probably not. Yeah, And then okay, so
<v Speaker 1>Venom is something that had been rumored a you know,
<v Speaker 1>the Insomniac is or not Insomniac, I'm sorry, Or is
<v Speaker 1>that is that Insomniac and somebody Venom, and then they're
<v Speaker 1>also making the X Men games eventually, and before that
<v Speaker 1>they are gonna have Wolverine something that is possibly going
<v Speaker 1>to come out this year. Still feels like maybe that
<v Speaker 1>gets announced and comes out early next year or something
<v Speaker 1>like that, But we're still talking about Insomniac where it's
<v Speaker 1>like that's that's the studio that has been carrying PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>through a lot of this part of the generation. With
<v Speaker 1>with multiple Spider Man games kind of just selling more
<v Speaker 1>than anything else by far, They've got to have maybe
<v Speaker 1>a couple other surprises and surprising returns right to go
<v Speaker 1>along with that.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yeah, I think I think Insomniac can only shoulder
<v Speaker 2>the burden for so long. But it is also like
<v Speaker 2>I think we will see a lot of this Wolverine, Venom,
<v Speaker 2>x Men stuff because if anybody is paying attention and
<v Speaker 2>seeing how popular Marvel Rivals is, they're probably turning the
<v Speaker 2>dial up on whatever they're doing in development for Marvel
<v Speaker 2>and superhero stuff. And I mean, this is just what
<v Speaker 2>the industry does, right, You see something start to do
<v Speaker 2>well and then a bunch of people chase it. And
<v Speaker 2>so I think if these things are already in development
<v Speaker 2>and they're seeing how popular something like Rivals is and
<v Speaker 2>how people are engaging with Marvel stuff, not in the
<v Speaker 2>same way that they were when the MCU is at
<v Speaker 2>his peak, but you know, people are getting super into it.
<v Speaker 2>I think they might be pushing to get Wolverine out
<v Speaker 2>sooner rather than later. But again, yeah, it's just insomniac,
<v Speaker 2>So what about everybody else? And even like you think
<v Speaker 2>Astrobot's incredible, but you know, the Astrobot just to me
<v Speaker 2>feels like the most like in house PlayStation PlayStation game
<v Speaker 2>that was you know, probably planned from the moment they
<v Speaker 2>released the little demo with the you know, and what
<v Speaker 2>about these these these tent poles things that aren't just
<v Speaker 2>you know, Sony stickered up, you know, like tagged with
<v Speaker 2>PlayStation everywhere. What's going to give us you know, a
<v Speaker 2>big open world that's like Ghost of Yota I'm super
<v Speaker 2>excited about, but that's pretty far down the line. And
<v Speaker 2>it just does feel like there's this strange gap right now,
<v Speaker 2>and something's got.
<v Speaker 1>To fill it, yep, And we know kind of what
<v Speaker 1>part of the problem is is PlayStation was not like
<v Speaker 1>taking investment away from the kinds of games that people
<v Speaker 1>are talking about when they talk about PlayStation, but definitely
<v Speaker 1>distracting from that investment by going hard on live service games.
<v Speaker 1>And that is something they've canceled a bunch of those.
<v Speaker 1>So that's something that just didn't pan out, so that
<v Speaker 1>those gaps might like persist going forward for quite some
<v Speaker 1>time and it will be kind of noticeable, I think,
<v Speaker 1>But I think they can also maybe find some ways
<v Speaker 1>to pay that over, even if they just kind of
<v Speaker 1>make some announcements for stuff that won't come out till
<v Speaker 1>like late twenty twenty six, and then they do you
<v Speaker 1>follow through with the latest rumor that they are going
<v Speaker 1>to work with some of these studios that they already
<v Speaker 1>have in some partner studios to make smaller games based
<v Speaker 1>on some of their more deep cut ip games that
<v Speaker 1>they can maybe get done in two to three years.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, okay, yeah, that could begin to make things
<v Speaker 1>feel significantly different over there, but that also is still
<v Speaker 1>going to take some time. Speaking of Insomniac breaking news,
<v Speaker 1>Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price is going to exit the company.
<v Speaker 1>Ryan Schneider, Chad Dezern, and Jen Huang set as new
<v Speaker 1>co chiefs at the PlayStation Studio. Sorry, this is just breaking.
<v Speaker 1>I'm reading this from right now. This is from Jennifer
<v Speaker 1>Moss at Variety. Insomniac Games founder and CEO Ted Price
<v Speaker 1>is stepping down from his role atop the Sony Interactive
<v Speaker 1>Entertainment owned studio after more than twenty years running the
<v Speaker 1>company behind PlayStations or PlayStation's Ratchet and Claying franchise and
<v Speaker 1>Marvel's Spider Man games. Taking over for Price will be
<v Speaker 1>who will be staying with PlayStation Studio through March. Are
<v Speaker 1>a tree of Insomniac vets who will serve as co
<v Speaker 1>heads upon his retirement, and that's Ryan Schneider, Chad Desern,
<v Speaker 1>and Jen Hwang. Each of the Insomniac co studio heads
<v Speaker 1>will have a different purview, era and arenas which they
<v Speaker 1>have already been settling into over the past twelve months. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Ted Price has been there for for a long time,
<v Speaker 1>and honestly, in my head he is already kind of
<v Speaker 1>like I'm settling into the background. I don't even run
<v Speaker 1>the day to day. Maybe he was, but In my head,
<v Speaker 1>it was just like, no, Ted Price is someone who's
<v Speaker 1>like already sort of earned his stripes and is kind
<v Speaker 1>of just staying in the background. So the fact that
<v Speaker 1>he's retiring, in my head, it's like, again, not going
<v Speaker 1>to change much, but maybe it does at the same time. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's a storied career and good for him.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, especially if there's three people stepping into
<v Speaker 2>his role, it does seem like he was kind of right,
<v Speaker 2>must be setting things up to be run slightly differently,
<v Speaker 2>you know, after he leaves. So that's really interesting. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>Dan twenty more than twenty years yep. Incredible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and god, he just was looked like a kid,
<v Speaker 1>was he when he was Insomniac Games president early on?
<v Speaker 1>Just a real child looking effort. He still looks very youthful.
<v Speaker 1>I would regret if this got brought up. We didn't
<v Speaker 1>have a chance to mention that Insomniac Games music video
<v Speaker 1>that he made about the developers that worked there. I
<v Speaker 1>think I have let's see here, Okay, yeah, I can
<v Speaker 1>count on Dan Reikert to post it on the Blue Sky.
<v Speaker 1>Let me see if I can bring this up real quick.
<v Speaker 1>It's really good. They just are like wearing big wigs
<v Speaker 1>and doing headbanging and playing guitars and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>It's good stuff. Let's see here, I'll bring that there.
<v Speaker 2>Let me see co heads, guys, co heads.
<v Speaker 1>They're co heading, Yes, they're co heading Insomniac. All right,
<v Speaker 1>yeah there, you can kind of see it. It's off
<v Speaker 1>to the side there though. Everybody yeap, and there's Ted
<v Speaker 1>Price doing his thing. All right, Okay, let's get back
<v Speaker 1>into the news as we had it here. Eleven percent
<v Speaker 1>of game developers surveyed by GDC were laid off in
<v Speaker 1>the past year. This is from Tom Ivan at VGC.
<v Speaker 1>Over one in ten developers question in a new industry
<v Speaker 1>survey said that they were laid off over the past
<v Speaker 1>Year's latest annual State of the Games Industry survey, which
<v Speaker 1>asked over three thousand game developers across Indie and Triple
<v Speaker 1>A studios questions about their work, was published on Tuesday.
<v Speaker 1>About eleven percent of respondents reported being laid off in
<v Speaker 1>the past twelve months, which was up from seven percent
<v Speaker 1>in last year's survey, and forty one percent of respond
<v Speaker 1>it said that they were impacted by layoffs, up from
<v Speaker 1>thirty five percent in GDC's twenty twenty four report, twenty
<v Speaker 1>nine percent said that they had colleagues who lost their jobs,
<v Speaker 1>which was up from seventeen percent a year earlier. Well,
<v Speaker 1>eighteen percent said staff and other teams or departments were
<v Speaker 1>laid off, which was up from eleven percent. So, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>if last year felt worse for layoffs, it's because it
<v Speaker 1>was you could like, let's see like that number of
<v Speaker 1>twenty nine percent said that they had colleagues who lost
<v Speaker 1>their jobs in the previous year, it's seventeen percent. It's
<v Speaker 1>almost it's almost a doubling of people looking around going so, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>my team has been decimated. So it's going to feel harder,
<v Speaker 1>harsher than ever. And it's because it really really was, Melissa,
<v Speaker 1>the thing that we were all saying, I'm sorry, I
<v Speaker 1>got to get this man in the horsehead costume off
<v Speaker 1>the scream while we're talking about this. The thing we
<v Speaker 1>were saying last year was survive twenty to twenty twenty five.
<v Speaker 1>And maybe you know, at that point companies will look around, reassess, reinvest,
<v Speaker 1>and you'll have a chance to sort of solidify your
<v Speaker 1>standing on the ground with your position. It doesn't really
<v Speaker 1>feel like that's gonna happen, right, No.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I think this is all still holdover and
<v Speaker 2>butterfly effect ripples from everything that happened during COVID, the
<v Speaker 2>massive boom and over hiring and overspending and investing in
<v Speaker 2>the life service or things that they were chasing. I
<v Speaker 2>think we're going to, unfortunately, see these reverberations for the
<v Speaker 2>next few years, because I think the COVID gaming boom
<v Speaker 2>was still happening in twenty twenty one into twenty twenty two,
<v Speaker 2>and I think that fall off, you know, only started
<v Speaker 2>affecting those companies into twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 2>and then you get the layoffs, and so I yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think and now you know, whole new regime and
<v Speaker 2>order here in the US, and there's conversations and rumors
<v Speaker 2>that if there's tariffs getting put on things coming from
<v Speaker 2>Mexico that could affect physical game discs and the cost
<v Speaker 2>of them, and so there's a lot of stuff that
<v Speaker 2>could change in the next few months that could also
<v Speaker 2>affect this negatively. It's a bummer, like it, There's no
<v Speaker 2>other way to put it, but it's a bummer.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, you're right that, Like I think people
<v Speaker 1>do want to put COVID completely in the rear view mirror,
<v Speaker 1>but these reverberations is right. It is this this wobble
<v Speaker 1>of people having one idea of what the future was
<v Speaker 1>going to be and then it was very different and
<v Speaker 1>then sort of the way that like you know, wind
<v Speaker 1>just fills in a gap and a vacuum, like the
<v Speaker 1>industry is just like whiplashing from one side of the
<v Speaker 1>other and it's just sort of wobbling back and forth,
<v Speaker 1>and it feels like we are we going to find
<v Speaker 1>our standing. It's like yeah, but it's got a wobble
<v Speaker 1>bunch first, and people are going to get thrown off
<v Speaker 1>in that process, and it just is going to keep
<v Speaker 1>and every time you feel like, oh, it's slowing down,
<v Speaker 1>it's like no, it's just beginning the wobble back in
<v Speaker 1>the other direction. And you know the reality is that
<v Speaker 1>even like going in the pandemic into the pandemic, we
<v Speaker 1>were still coming off of a decade of kind of
<v Speaker 1>shocking growth for the industry, and then the pandemic exacerbated
<v Speaker 1>that and really made a lot of these companies feel like, Okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we know it's not going to keep growing. Like the
<v Speaker 1>pandemic said it was, but it's going to continue the
<v Speaker 1>way it was coming out of those the previous ten years.
<v Speaker 1>That's just video games, baby, And I think they were
<v Speaker 1>not recognizing just how fortuitous of a time that they
<v Speaker 1>were living in where it was. And again, I've been
<v Speaker 1>talking about this a lot recently, where it's like there
<v Speaker 1>were so many ideas that they could just take off
<v Speaker 1>the shelf to make a ton of money, whether that
<v Speaker 1>was micro transactions or battle passes or Battle Royale or
<v Speaker 1>all you know, business models and game models that all
<v Speaker 1>enabled them to make a ton of money really fast,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, there was room for new games to
<v Speaker 1>come in and use those ideas. And now it just
<v Speaker 1>feels like everything saturated and and and so they thought
<v Speaker 1>the line was just gonna keep going up and and
<v Speaker 1>it just kind of flatlined a little bit. It didn't
<v Speaker 1>even go down. Spending is pretty much just in line
<v Speaker 1>with where it was, but boy, they thought it was
<v Speaker 1>going to go up way higher. So you're right, all
<v Speaker 1>those big investments, all those big bets looked real rough,
<v Speaker 1>and they are really rough right now. And so yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they're going to keep throwing people off the industry to
<v Speaker 1>try to save money. But you know, these companies are
<v Speaker 1>looking for growth, right listen, that that is what they want,
<v Speaker 1>and how were they going to get growth without having
<v Speaker 1>enough people to make brand new games that have new ideas.
<v Speaker 1>They are kind of sealing their fade.
<v Speaker 2>A little bit, right, Yeah, I think so, And I think,
<v Speaker 2>you know, before I even address that, I think it's
<v Speaker 2>incredibly frustrating, obviously, to see how many people are affected
<v Speaker 2>by this, and it's never the people who make those decisions. Now,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you look at these live service games and
<v Speaker 2>the people that worked on them, you know, the live
<v Speaker 2>service game, a game like Concord, that was the decision
<v Speaker 2>made up top to make that game, and then people
<v Speaker 2>made that game, and all of those people who worked
<v Speaker 2>on that game suffered when that game did not do well.
<v Speaker 2>And the person whose decision it was to make that
<v Speaker 2>game is probably still sitting in a corner office somewhere,
<v Speaker 2>you know, or.
<v Speaker 1>They're sitting at an inauguration.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that's incredibly frustrating
<v Speaker 2>for people. But yeah, I think the other I think
<v Speaker 2>this is the thing that sucks, right because every studio
<v Speaker 2>head and the people who are actually making these big
<v Speaker 2>money decisions and are affecting people's livelihoods. They always want
<v Speaker 2>number to go up, and like you, like you mentioned
<v Speaker 2>with live service micro transactions, not that I wanted, you know,
<v Speaker 2>pooh pooh on the difficulties of developing a game like that,
<v Speaker 2>But it is obviously a lot easier to take an
<v Speaker 2>existing model and apply it to a game and boom,
<v Speaker 2>you know, money, machine go.
<v Speaker 1>Boom, like it's the story of Fortnite.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of studio
<v Speaker 2>heads have kind of, unfortunately leaned on this idea that
<v Speaker 2>you can you can get things made cheaply quickly if
<v Speaker 2>you follow this model, and they don't necessarily want to
<v Speaker 2>invest the time and the energy into something a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more bespoke that might take more time, that might
<v Speaker 2>require a more robust team. You know, they kind of
<v Speaker 2>want this like Skeleton Crew. You know. I think of
<v Speaker 2>it as like roadblocks too. You look at something like
<v Speaker 2>Roblocks that makes a ton of money, and it's you know,
<v Speaker 2>essentially child labor.
<v Speaker 1>It's a machine that a machine exploit, yes and where,
<v Speaker 1>and roadblocks it's kids, but on the industry's late it's
<v Speaker 1>the same thing. But for adults in the house better,
<v Speaker 1>I guess I don't know, yah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But that's what you can only hope that there's more,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the double A games will fill that gap,
<v Speaker 2>will expand a little bit more to kind of that's
<v Speaker 2>what we've always hoped. I think that we would have
<v Speaker 2>a robust sort of like several a twenty fours of
<v Speaker 2>gaming that are just making these these really cool, cheaper
<v Speaker 2>to make, really thoughtful, boundary pushing games. And I'm hoping
<v Speaker 2>that you know, somebody up top will kind of wake up,
<v Speaker 2>have like an aha moment and their sleep and realize
<v Speaker 2>that that's what gamers want too. Like they do want
<v Speaker 2>cool experiences, they do want to explore a new world.
<v Speaker 2>They don't necessarily need a one hundred hour open world
<v Speaker 2>with you know, six hundred quest lines and two thousand
<v Speaker 2>you know NPCs that you can interact with and fourteen
<v Speaker 2>million lines of dialogue. Like those numbers, like, that's not
<v Speaker 2>what people care about. They care about a really cool experience.
<v Speaker 2>And I think if you look at how much it's blossomed,
<v Speaker 2>how much the cost of making a game has blossomed,
<v Speaker 2>and how how little thought is put into what actually
<v Speaker 2>comes out from people all the way up top, it's
<v Speaker 2>incredibly frustrating because I would take a bad ass indie
<v Speaker 2>game over you know, another live service.
<v Speaker 1>Shooter, and it's like a certain pout, like what choice
<v Speaker 1>do we have anymore? It's like, that's just gonna be
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of slop from these corporations now. And that's
<v Speaker 1>how people feel about you'd soft games. They just think
<v Speaker 1>it's you'd be slop. And and you know, I think
<v Speaker 1>the what is happening is the rest of the industry
<v Speaker 1>is feeling more like Ubisoft than the then they're feeling
<v Speaker 1>more like cool, exciting indie games. Uh for the most part.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we're speaking broadly, but yeah, I mean I
<v Speaker 1>just think it's it's rotten to the core, right, it's
<v Speaker 1>rotten to the core core. We you know, look at
<v Speaker 1>like the way capitalism works right now, where uh they
<v Speaker 1>are set out to make as much money as possible
<v Speaker 1>within the confines of the rules, and uh and and
<v Speaker 1>that's it. That is their guiding principle. And so they'll
<v Speaker 1>do everything within those rules to make as much money possible.
<v Speaker 1>And we see what that leads to. Politically, It leads
<v Speaker 1>to you know, four or five tech executives sitting next
<v Speaker 1>to each other at the inauguration, being like, we need
<v Speaker 1>to do this to make as much money money as
<v Speaker 1>possible within the rules for the next four years, we
<v Speaker 1>have to do this, and so people need to understand
<v Speaker 1>we're no. You know, in five years, they're going to
<v Speaker 1>come back and be like, look, we just did what
<v Speaker 1>we had to do to make sure we can make
<v Speaker 1>as much money as possible so we can keep employing
<v Speaker 1>as many people as possible. We were trying to be
<v Speaker 1>trying to just navigate it. And it's like, yep, okay,
<v Speaker 1>so you are a symptom of a system and you
<v Speaker 1>are just behaving as a symptom. So who do I
<v Speaker 1>talk to to get this to change? Who do I
<v Speaker 1>speak to? It's not you. If you're just operating within
<v Speaker 1>the way you need to operate to make this whole
<v Speaker 1>system go around, who is your boss? And it's like,
<v Speaker 1>oh no, it's the whole system. It's rotten to the core.
<v Speaker 1>And that that same sort of thinking is what is
<v Speaker 1>leading us to the kinds of games we're getting to today.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if people feel like that is a
<v Speaker 1>leap I'm making, It's not.
<v Speaker 2>No, it's not a leap. It's so connected and at
<v Speaker 2>the end of the day that this is like the
<v Speaker 2>stuff I've always I've been joking for the last like
<v Speaker 2>ten months that I've kind of felt like a girl
<v Speaker 2>in a horror movie that's on the other side of glass.
<v Speaker 2>I can see someone getting killed, but they can't hear me.
<v Speaker 2>Like I'm like, this is all connected, This is all connected,
<v Speaker 2>and it really is, like you can see like these
<v Speaker 2>studios making these decisions that are bad decisions, because in
<v Speaker 2>my mind, it's like a monopoly man who someone tells
<v Speaker 2>them to jail. Video games make a lot of money,
<v Speaker 2>and this guy's like one of these things these kidsl buy.
<v Speaker 2>The parents are blin for that, kids like millions, and
<v Speaker 2>they start, you know, like making these games and making
<v Speaker 2>these poor decisions for these games. Those people don't suffer
<v Speaker 2>when those games suffer. It's the lowest people on the ladder.
<v Speaker 2>And not only that, but the people who are angry
<v Speaker 2>at the perceived lack of quality of modern games. They
<v Speaker 2>get pointed to those people as well. So the people
<v Speaker 2>who have no protections, who have no job security, who
<v Speaker 2>don't have the ability to feel comfortable getting you know,
<v Speaker 2>streams of hate thrown at them, those are the people
<v Speaker 2>that get targeted and that's exactly what's happening on the
<v Speaker 2>administration level too. In politics. You know, it's like there's
<v Speaker 2>a lot wrong with this country, and it has to
<v Speaker 2>do with the foundations that are set here that have
<v Speaker 2>to do with capitalism and all of this stuff. But
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna blame immigrants, you know, We're gonna blame trans kids,
<v Speaker 2>and that's never the issue. The issue is that there's
<v Speaker 2>systems of power that put people untouchable all the way
<v Speaker 2>at the top, and until you actually turn around and
<v Speaker 2>point the finger at them, they're just going to keep
<v Speaker 2>making sure everyone Spider Man beaming each other, yeah, so
<v Speaker 2>that they're not in trouble. And it's it sucks, but
<v Speaker 2>it is one hundred percent connected, you know, the games
<v Speaker 2>industry and politics. Unfortunately, they go hand in hand.
<v Speaker 1>There was more out of that GDC survey. This one
<v Speaker 1>comes from Emrond Colin over at games Beet. Shout out
<v Speaker 1>to Mrond. More developers are making VR software for Apple
<v Speaker 1>Vision OS than PlayStation VR two. In this year's GDC
<v Speaker 1>State of the Industry Report, a massive and far reaching
<v Speaker 1>survey of game developers across all disciplines within the industry.
<v Speaker 1>Respondents were asked to detail their current and near future
<v Speaker 1>plans for their software among differing platforms. This of course,
<v Speaker 1>also includes virtual reality and augmented reality developers, who seem
<v Speaker 1>to largely be coalescing around Meta Quest and Steam VR
<v Speaker 1>as their primary landing zones for these technologies. That in
<v Speaker 1>itself is no surprise, as those two platforms also dominated
<v Speaker 1>the twenty twenty four VR and AR list. One notable
<v Speaker 1>change in dynamics, however, has been a flip between PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>VR ecosystem excuse me, incleaning both the original PlayStation four
<v Speaker 1>compatible headset and its PlayStation five successor, and the Apple
<v Speaker 1>Vision OS, which is exclusively used for Apple's Vision Pro headset.
<v Speaker 1>While last year the Vision Pro edged out the PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>headset by fifteen from fifteen percent to thirteen percent, and
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five, twenty six percent of respondents said they
<v Speaker 1>were working on Apple Vision OS software, well, twenty five
<v Speaker 1>percent are making efforts on PlayStation VR two. That was
<v Speaker 1>so that was last year. This year it is now
<v Speaker 1>fifteen percent to thirteen percent in favor of Apple Vision OS. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>so just pointing this out, that's like not a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people are working on Apple Vision OS games because
<v Speaker 1>very few people are buying that thing. I think the
<v Speaker 1>last word we heard was Apple is like sort of
<v Speaker 1>winding that down in such way. Maybe they have something
<v Speaker 1>more coming. But the thing, the three thousand dollars Apple
<v Speaker 1>Vision Pro that is out there right now is not
<v Speaker 1>a going concern for them really, And the VR PlayStation
<v Speaker 1>vir excuse me, VR two is getting even less support
<v Speaker 1>from developers, So to me, that just says both these
<v Speaker 1>things are kind of dead in the water. And I
<v Speaker 1>think we knew that, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's just the barrier to entry is so high,
<v Speaker 2>and if people are already feeling like games have gotten
<v Speaker 2>more expensive and have not our income is not reflected
<v Speaker 2>in how more expensive games have gotten. I think when
<v Speaker 2>you look at something like VR, it's just it's too
<v Speaker 2>big of a barrier for so many people. And and
<v Speaker 2>and also the specificity of making a game in that world.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the amount of time and energy that has
<v Speaker 2>to go into you can't just poured it to other shit.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's not meant for that.
<v Speaker 1>And even the other VR headsets now still have kind
<v Speaker 1>of weird differing technology, so it's a lot of work
<v Speaker 1>to go from one VR thing to the other.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's it's just it's expensive to bank, it's expensive
<v Speaker 2>to sell, it's expensive to buy. It's I think a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people, you know, like anything that seems technologically
<v Speaker 2>forward futuristic ly, you know, it's sort of it sort
<v Speaker 2>of became, ooh, what if I have an original PSVR
<v Speaker 2>headset that I got from when I used to work
<v Speaker 2>at games or Radar. And I mean I played that
<v Speaker 2>thing for like a week and then I was like,
<v Speaker 2>I've done. Like it's I don't really, I'm good. You know.
<v Speaker 2>It's like people would come over for part and I'd
<v Speaker 2>be like, please this thing right, Yeah, I don't want
<v Speaker 2>to set it up anymore, and like it's just out
<v Speaker 2>of the room in my apartment. It's also that too,
<v Speaker 2>like even if you have the money to get it,
<v Speaker 2>what if you don't, Like I don't have the space. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you need a lot of space.
<v Speaker 1>I have the space. I'm going to my basement down
<v Speaker 1>here in the suburbs of Cleveland. I have the space.
<v Speaker 1>And yet for years there's like a couple of games
<v Speaker 1>on the original PSVR that I want I want to play.
<v Speaker 1>There's one where you have a controller, you have the
<v Speaker 1>dual sense in your hand and you see it in
<v Speaker 1>the VR and it like it looks like your hands
<v Speaker 1>are trapped in cuffs inside of it and you have
<v Speaker 1>to like do a little like the room style game
<v Speaker 1>on the controller, pressing all the buttons to kind of
<v Speaker 1>get it to do things to unlock the cuffs. It's
<v Speaker 1>a really cool idea. I played it at a show
<v Speaker 1>and I'll play that when I get home. Never did,
<v Speaker 1>still intend to, and then I never beat the Astro
<v Speaker 1>VR Rescue Mission game. Want to do that, and so
<v Speaker 1>for years I tell myself I'll set that up and
<v Speaker 1>I haven't, and I'm like, I'm just gotta be honest.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's just enough of a hassle that I'm never
<v Speaker 1>going to do it. And I'm someone who's an enthusiast
<v Speaker 1>about this, So what is the casual person going to do.
<v Speaker 1>There's no way that they are going to go through
<v Speaker 1>the hassle of that. So yeah, mediquest makes it a
<v Speaker 1>bit easier, and that is also like that's good, but
<v Speaker 1>even that, every time you put on the headset and
<v Speaker 1>making sure it's ready to go and update it and
<v Speaker 1>then you have to go away from the world, something
<v Speaker 1>about that just feels like enough of a hassle as
<v Speaker 1>well that I think most people are like, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>sure if that's for me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I wonder if these you know, especially with
<v Speaker 2>applevision pro, if they kind of thought this would be
<v Speaker 2>more of like a tech bro buy and then you
<v Speaker 2>could sort of backdoor them into playing games on the device.
<v Speaker 2>But I just it didn't sell enough. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>think they've completely cut production down on it and everything.
<v Speaker 2>So it's just yeah, I mean we kind of I
<v Speaker 2>think a lot of us in the industry knew that
<v Speaker 2>VR was not going to explode the way that I
<v Speaker 2>think companies did, and it's still like has I know
<v Speaker 2>that there's an enthusiast community of VR gamers, but it's small,
<v Speaker 2>and yeah, I don't think it can hold up you know,
<v Speaker 2>extensive developments.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I just I like VR. I hope it continues
<v Speaker 1>to find a place. I think it will. Long term,
<v Speaker 1>it's going to go through a probably a weird side
<v Speaker 1>path than what I think we originally imagined it was
<v Speaker 1>going to take. But for now, when people think of
<v Speaker 1>video games, it's still going to be the video games
<v Speaker 1>that everyone is used to. And now at that point
<v Speaker 1>that's mobile and PC and console and all that. All right,
<v Speaker 1>let's take a quick break. When we come back, let's
<v Speaker 1>talk about the kinds of games that people buy or
<v Speaker 1>maybe don't buy on mobile, and a few other things,
<v Speaker 1>including maybe the switch to being more powerful than we
<v Speaker 1>think right after this, all right, we're right back into it.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do it, And as promised, Resident Evil to remake
<v Speaker 1>has sold fewer than ten thousand copies on iOS according
<v Speaker 1>to some estimates. This is from Chris Sculling at VGC.
<v Speaker 1>And if this story sounds familiar, we have talked about
<v Speaker 1>this before. I think with Resident Evil four and seven
<v Speaker 1>and maybe eight, a bunch of Resident Evil games got
<v Speaker 1>ported to iOS. Now they only work on chat help
<v Speaker 1>me out here. It's iPhone fifteen and above, iPhones sixteen
<v Speaker 1>and above. There is something something like it only works
<v Speaker 1>on a handful of devices. So it's a limited audience
<v Speaker 1>that can potentially get these things. And yet they do
<v Speaker 1>sell millions of every single kind of iPhone, so there's
<v Speaker 1>plenty of people out there, more so than some consoles. Still,
<v Speaker 1>so fifteen above, Thank you, jan. Ten thousand copies is
<v Speaker 1>not a lot. I think this is illustrates a couple
<v Speaker 1>of problems Alyssa. I think we talk about for a
<v Speaker 1>long time Hey, these people at these companies are afraid
<v Speaker 1>to invest in long term on the console because they
<v Speaker 1>are looking around and they're like, your phone is as
<v Speaker 1>powerful as a console, and you'll just use that to
<v Speaker 1>play these games. And so five hundred dollars to spend
<v Speaker 1>on a console doesn't make a ton of sense. And
<v Speaker 1>so if we want these games to continue to thrive,
<v Speaker 1>they need to just kind of be able to be
<v Speaker 1>on anything. And now Residentaval too is on anything, and
<v Speaker 1>no one's buying it on there, and I just think
<v Speaker 1>it's OK. It is one thing to say the phone
<v Speaker 1>is as powerful as a console. It's another thing to
<v Speaker 1>say the kind of person that is going to be
<v Speaker 1>buying games on a phone even exists, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, and look there are there are game Yes,
<v Speaker 2>a phone is as powerful as a console. Sure, but
<v Speaker 2>sure it's also just the it's the it's the medium,
<v Speaker 2>like we were talking about Ballatro, like Blatter's perfect phone game.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's it's simple, it's clean, it's easy to see.
<v Speaker 2>It feels like a just a phone game that was there,
<v Speaker 2>but better. But something like Resident Evil, which I think
<v Speaker 2>you know inherently needs mood, it needs you need to
<v Speaker 2>be playing it like either in a place that's dark
<v Speaker 2>and gloomy or just like comfortable so that you can
<v Speaker 2>be scared. I don't know. I can't imagine any of
<v Speaker 2>the intention of a resident Evil game translating well onto
<v Speaker 2>a phone in any way, shape or form, And so
<v Speaker 2>I think it's also horror game enthusiasts are our niche,
<v Speaker 2>at least in terms of the way a company would
<v Speaker 2>look at a gamer consumer, And I think, yeah, assuming
<v Speaker 2>that they would be the kind of person who would
<v Speaker 2>spend money on a game for their phone when it
<v Speaker 2>exists elsewhere is strange, especially since I mean they discounted
<v Speaker 2>it heavily for the first like month it was out right,
<v Speaker 2>and then it went out, so yeah, and then it
<v Speaker 2>was like forty dollars to buy a phone game. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know if that's you're going to get people spending
<v Speaker 2>that in micro transactions on a phone game, but I
<v Speaker 2>don't think you're going to get someone buying a game
<v Speaker 2>full out, like for.
<v Speaker 1>Forty My Super Mario Brothers Run like that was ten dollars,
<v Speaker 1>and that was I think it was a notable failure
<v Speaker 1>because it's just like even Mario, we don't want to
<v Speaker 1>buy that, like we'll download the free thing that you're
<v Speaker 1>giving us here, we'll play it, and then when ask
<v Speaker 1>us to spend money, goodbye. And I you know, we
<v Speaker 1>could talk about all the reasons that people feel that
<v Speaker 1>way when they're using their phone. You know, I think
<v Speaker 1>it is it goes back to speaking about the way
<v Speaker 1>that the capitalism, just the business fills in the gap
<v Speaker 1>that you provide for it. And on on phone it's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we are going to fill in this gap where it's
<v Speaker 1>like we see the path to make the most money
<v Speaker 1>possible is give them the game for free, try to
<v Speaker 1>charge money for micro transactions, find some whales, and then
<v Speaker 1>just go to cash those checks for the next several years.
<v Speaker 1>And that taught an audience what to expect on those devices,
<v Speaker 1>and there's kind of no one doing that. You have
<v Speaker 1>to build a culture around your consumer electronics devices, as
<v Speaker 1>stupid as that sounds, but you have to to kind
<v Speaker 1>of convince people that spending their money and investing their
<v Speaker 1>time and their money and something is going to be
<v Speaker 1>worth it. So when you pick up device, that feeling
<v Speaker 1>you have about like what you're expecting to get out
<v Speaker 1>of it in that moment is very important. So when
<v Speaker 1>you pick up a switch, and you're like, oh, I'm
<v Speaker 1>picking this up to play games, and they're real, big
<v Speaker 1>games made by real developers, and I can imagine the
<v Speaker 1>companies and I care about them and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>All that creates an environment where people are willing to
<v Speaker 1>spend fifty to seventy dollars on games and the phone
<v Speaker 1>just everything feels disposable. And you know who's to blame
<v Speaker 1>for that, Well, it's it's the corporation's created that environment
<v Speaker 1>in the first place, and they raced to that place.
<v Speaker 1>I mean that remembering early smartphone games and the race
<v Speaker 1>to ninety nine cents so you could be at the
<v Speaker 1>top of the of the charts. And then after that
<v Speaker 1>was like someone figured it out free to play, and
<v Speaker 1>that that was the whole story. And there again, no
<v Speaker 1>one doing that, right No.
<v Speaker 2>And it's also just so strange because, like you're saying,
<v Speaker 2>filling in these gaps, but it's like, who do you
<v Speaker 2>think is your your your folk? Who are you focusing
<v Speaker 2>on as a consumer for a mobile game? Right? Are
<v Speaker 2>you focusing on someone that doesn't play video games that
<v Speaker 2>now realizes they have a video game console in their pocket.
<v Speaker 2>And if that's the case, why would you think that
<v Speaker 2>like a big budget triple A. You know, dense, dentse
<v Speaker 2>in every sense of the term visually dense, you know,
<v Speaker 2>story dense, a gameplay dnse. Why would you think anything
<v Speaker 2>like that would be a doorway for people who don't
<v Speaker 2>play video games regularly to start because they would play
<v Speaker 2>it on their phone. For me, and I'm not you know,
<v Speaker 2>I don't, I don't have a I don't own a business.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody pays me big bucks to make bad decisions. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>for me, I would think that you would rather be
<v Speaker 2>doing this sort of twee cozy game approach of putting
<v Speaker 2>all things that might feel at home on a switch
<v Speaker 2>on mobile rather than going for the island.
<v Speaker 1>A venture game did very well on Apple Arcade and
<v Speaker 1>you have a subscription.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, and and listen, there there are a lot of uh,
<v Speaker 2>there are a lot of mobile gamers that are women.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, you know, obviously I don't believe in girl
<v Speaker 2>games versus boy games, but yes, there are women. There
<v Speaker 2>are women who prefer to play cozy games and stuff
<v Speaker 2>like that. And I think I think you should be
<v Speaker 2>you should be focusing more on these these right bold
<v Speaker 2>more simple in every sense of the word, games that
<v Speaker 2>are still full budget, you know, full blown Triple A games,
<v Speaker 2>but it just they translate better to me to mobile.
<v Speaker 2>It's such a strange thing because if you're focusing on
<v Speaker 2>someone who doesn't play video games normally. Again, yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>can't imagine them being like, oh, I want to play
<v Speaker 2>Assassin's Creed Mirage. I've never heard of this before, and
<v Speaker 2>I want to play it on my on my phone
<v Speaker 2>on the train. It's strange. It's a strange thing. And again,
<v Speaker 2>it's like you're saying, it just feels like somebody woke up,
<v Speaker 2>had an idea and then they went go with it,
<v Speaker 2>go with it, go with it, do it.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like why, Yeah, And you know, I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>that I guess I'm not sure. I guess that Apple
<v Speaker 1>probably paid Capcom to do this. Just doesn't feel like
<v Speaker 1>that Apple style. I you know, part of me is like,
<v Speaker 1>maybe Capcom just want to do experiment, but they keep
<v Speaker 1>doing it over and over again. So I parties like
<v Speaker 1>this must have been to the multi game deal. Someone
<v Speaker 1>at Apple just made happen. There's a ton of people
<v Speaker 1>working there and this probably just accidentally happened at some point. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think that we, like the industry is going to
<v Speaker 1>keep changing. The way people come to games is going
<v Speaker 1>to keep changing. I for a while there, we've known that,
<v Speaker 1>and we kept saying it's like, oh, if we want
<v Speaker 1>to keep getting games like Restident Evil, we need to
<v Speaker 1>put them on something like a phone, and that will
<v Speaker 1>mean we keep getting them. And it's like, God, I
<v Speaker 1>hope that's not the case. I hope there's some other
<v Speaker 1>answer there, because those people are just not going to
<v Speaker 1>buy those games, and rightfully so they don't appeal to them.
<v Speaker 1>So I hope we continue to get Resident Evil games
<v Speaker 1>because we keep buying them on console and PC and
<v Speaker 1>that continues to be enough. But we'll see. Yeah, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Ninja five ohs Nintendo Switch release dates set for February.
<v Speaker 1>This is just an old Game Boy Advance game that
<v Speaker 1>I like quite a bit. It's from Konami. It was
<v Speaker 1>a really good action game. It kind of became a
<v Speaker 1>sleeper hit on the GBA where a lot of people like,
<v Speaker 1>when you say, hey, what's the game most people haven't
<v Speaker 1>played on GBA that they should, this one always comes up. Well.
<v Speaker 1>Apparently the physical version that was put out by I
<v Speaker 1>think Limited Run Games that began to ship last month,
<v Speaker 1>so people got their hands on that. Now, the digital
<v Speaker 1>version is going to come out on February twenty fifth,
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five, so looking forward to that. I'm a
<v Speaker 1>big Ninja five oh fan. All right, let's get to
<v Speaker 1>this next one. We are beginning to run a time here.
<v Speaker 1>Why switch to is significantly more powerful, According to one
<v Speaker 1>game developer. This is from Blair Marnell at Game Spot,
<v Speaker 1>the first look at Nintendo Switch two didn't have much
<v Speaker 1>in the way of game footage, except for a brief
<v Speaker 1>glimpse at a new Mario Kart. Ordinary players may be
<v Speaker 1>able to appreciate that the preview of what Switch two
<v Speaker 1>can do, but one game developer has broken down how
<v Speaker 1>the footage exposes the sheer power of Nintendo's next system.
<v Speaker 1>Sungrind Studio's Gerald Doulay, whose previous credits include the Silver
<v Speaker 1>Falls game series, shared his extended look at the Switch
<v Speaker 1>two's capabilities. Doulay has experienced work has experienced working on
<v Speaker 1>titles for the original Switch, so the difference between the
<v Speaker 1>console generations was readily apparent to him. The two most
<v Speaker 1>important things he pointed out were the true volume volume
<v Speaker 1>metric lighting and advanced lighting technique that creates a sense
<v Speaker 1>of density in the atmosphere and the extremely detailed and
<v Speaker 1>unique textures on the backgrounds. Because the first iteration of
<v Speaker 1>switch would struggle to run either of those features at
<v Speaker 1>a high frame rate, Delay noted their inclusion suggest that
<v Speaker 1>this system is significantly more powerful. He also estimated that
<v Speaker 1>the RAM for the switch to will be between twelve
<v Speaker 1>and sixteen gigabytes, which I think rumors put it at fourteen.
<v Speaker 1>I think, yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. Additionally, do
<v Speaker 1>I noted the real time creation of shadows, cloth simulation
<v Speaker 1>on the flags in the background, reflective textures, and the
<v Speaker 1>higher polygon counts on the character models for Mario and
<v Speaker 1>his friends. Yeah, I think this is where we're at though,
<v Speaker 1>right A lista where we do have to kind of
<v Speaker 1>like have an expert come in and look at the
<v Speaker 1>details to tell the difference, because when I still look
<v Speaker 1>at it, it's like, yeah, that's Mario Kart. That is
<v Speaker 1>that's Mario Kart, and the vast majority of people are
<v Speaker 1>going to feel that way now. Even I began to
<v Speaker 1>notice some stuff as I watched that trailer a couple
<v Speaker 1>more times, and I mentioned this on another show recently,
<v Speaker 1>But the characters have a bounce and give to them,
<v Speaker 1>sort of like Mario and Mario Wonder or the characters
<v Speaker 1>in Luigi's Mansion three, so that they kind of stretch
<v Speaker 1>and deform and then bounce back down when they like
<v Speaker 1>land a jump or something like that. And the carts
<v Speaker 1>have that as well. They like there's more bring to them,
<v Speaker 1>and so, uh, it just made the animations feel more
<v Speaker 1>lively alone. So there's just a lot more going on
<v Speaker 1>in this game. But I don't know if that animation
<v Speaker 1>tech spoke to the more powerful switch to the volumetric
<v Speaker 1>lighting some of this other stuff does. But do you
<v Speaker 1>think this is going to make much of a difference
<v Speaker 1>for a switch to or is this system just kind
<v Speaker 1>of it is what it needs to be, right?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean, first of all, I will point out
<v Speaker 2>I did not realize that that was the guy they
<v Speaker 2>were using as their as their source. He's an interesting person.
<v Speaker 1>I have no idea about him.
<v Speaker 2>Tell me about it, Yeah, I don't. I only I
<v Speaker 2>recognized him very briefly because I believe he wrote a
<v Speaker 2>song about me.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it's very interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's uh, he's he he leans a certain way.
<v Speaker 2>Oh say, but that doesn't mean that we should discount
<v Speaker 2>everything that he's saying here, I'm sure every once in
<v Speaker 2>a while, yeah, exactly, you know, but I think this
<v Speaker 2>is always so interesting to me, right because this is
<v Speaker 2>like our job to pay attention to these these things
<v Speaker 2>in terms of whether it's stronger, more powerful, what it
<v Speaker 2>can do on like a on like a level of
<v Speaker 2>consumer I don't know how many people notice care those
<v Speaker 2>little things will notice it. You'll notice it after watching
<v Speaker 2>the trailer a couple couple of times, but how much
<v Speaker 2>of a difference will it actually make. I think the
<v Speaker 2>ways that it will feel tangible for people are our
<v Speaker 2>load times or things like that that'll translate to like,
<v Speaker 2>oh this feels better, this feels stronger, Oh this is
<v Speaker 2>this is loading up fast. Oh this feels good.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Otherwise yeah, I think I think until you show something
<v Speaker 2>like that, like like imagine just like the simple little
<v Speaker 2>Nintendo sound and it's the switch, the original switch and
<v Speaker 2>the switch to powering up the same game, and just
<v Speaker 2>seeing them side by side, that could do something I
<v Speaker 2>think for people that that would translate more than again,
<v Speaker 2>I think this was just such a weird Nintendo makes
<v Speaker 2>such weird decisions when when they do stuff like this.
<v Speaker 2>Because also the trailer in and of itself, was just
<v Speaker 2>like you picked the beige flat place for this. This
<v Speaker 2>is your visual spectacle guy.
<v Speaker 1>We used to have rooftop parties and now we have this. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like what so?
<v Speaker 2>I think I think it probably a signal ificuely more powerful.
<v Speaker 2>They've been sitting on this for a while. What does
<v Speaker 2>that mean for the average person who knows? I think
<v Speaker 2>it'll translate for some people. But I'm also the kind
<v Speaker 2>of person that, like, I don't even I don't even
<v Speaker 2>notice like fps things unless I'm unless I'm playing like
<v Speaker 2>a highly competitive shooter. So I'm a bad person to
<v Speaker 2>speak to that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think it is. I think you're right though
<v Speaker 1>most people this will not register for the most part.
<v Speaker 1>I think for most people that are getting the switch
<v Speaker 1>to they want to know what games are going to
<v Speaker 1>be able to be played on it that will matter
<v Speaker 1>to them, And I think maybe the good news to
<v Speaker 1>those people is at twelve to sixteen gigabytes of RAM,
<v Speaker 1>that is going to be the biggest difference maker. Don't
<v Speaker 1>You don't need to understand why, you just need to know.
<v Speaker 1>Developers really did not like the limited amount of RAM
<v Speaker 1>on the switch. One that was the biggest complaint and
<v Speaker 1>having more memory though, RAM will ensure that a lot
<v Speaker 1>more games will be able to be ported to the
<v Speaker 1>switch to, and it'll make the lives of developers who
<v Speaker 1>have to do that parting and making new games of
<v Speaker 1>the switch to a lot easier. So easier time for
<v Speaker 1>devs means more games for you. So this is probably
<v Speaker 1>what you want to hear. And I suppose we didn't
<v Speaker 1>need a weirdo to tell us that, but oh well,
<v Speaker 1>that's how it goes sometimes in video.
<v Speaker 2>Games, Melyssa, Right, yeah, it really do be like that.
<v Speaker 1>It do be that way sometimes unfortunately. All right, let's see,
<v Speaker 1>do I want to do this one? Yeah, games coming
<v Speaker 1>to game Pass to January. Lonely Mountain snow Riders. I
<v Speaker 1>love the Lonely Mountain game that came out several years ago.
<v Speaker 1>It was like you rode a bike downhill and there
<v Speaker 1>was like a yeah, there was a leaderboard element to it,
<v Speaker 1>but you could also just play it as a chill game.
<v Speaker 1>And I also I love snow, so this I'm very
<v Speaker 1>excited about Lonely Mountain snow Riders that's out now. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna go play that. Gigantic Rampage Edition is coming
<v Speaker 1>January twenty second, Starbound. We'll hit console and cloud game
<v Speaker 1>Pass on January twenty second. Eternal Strands orcs Must Die,
<v Speaker 1>Shady part of Me. Sniper Elite Resist is going to
<v Speaker 1>launch into game Pass, so its Citizen Sleeper, two, Star
<v Speaker 1>Wars Vector far right, New New Dawn is joining, and
<v Speaker 1>then uh yeah, let's see here and then okay, then
<v Speaker 1>on game Pass Standard. So this is not like game
<v Speaker 1>Pass Ultimate where you get every new game that launches
<v Speaker 1>day one these this is like a library of games,
<v Speaker 1>including in game Pass Standard that includes Kunitsugami, Path of
<v Speaker 1>the Goddess, Magical Delicacy to Chia, Chia, Yeah, Chia, the
<v Speaker 1>Case of the Golden Idol, and Flock and Boy. I
<v Speaker 1>like a lot of those games. Pepper Goddess is good,
<v Speaker 1>Chia is fantastic. Case of Golden Idol must play. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>everyone should go out there and check those out. Pretty
<v Speaker 1>pretty good time for game Pass, A thing that feels
<v Speaker 1>like it is becoming less and less of an emphasis
<v Speaker 1>for Xbox. But at least, I mean the support.
<v Speaker 2>You can't argue with that, right, No, no, and it
<v Speaker 2>is it's still a good deal. I mean it may
<v Speaker 2>not be a good deal. For the for the developers,
<v Speaker 2>the studios an Xbox, that's a good deal for the gamer.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yes, the developers Xbox, You're right, those ones. That's
<v Speaker 1>who's a specifically pro. Probably not a good deal for Capcom.
<v Speaker 1>Keeps coming back to it, right. The third party developer
<v Speaker 1>seemed to love it, Like if you're making a game
<v Speaker 1>that also has to sell and you work at Xbox,
<v Speaker 1>it's oh, this is rough stuff. Yeah, all right, a
<v Speaker 1>poll question, we have that here somewhere. Let's go ahead
<v Speaker 1>and bring that up. Okay, are you disappointed that Sony
<v Speaker 1>canceled Bluepoints Live service God of War game? Again? Let
<v Speaker 1>me bring that up for everybody. I'm going to vote no.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see if anyone voted yes. Five percent of people
<v Speaker 1>voted yes that they are disappointed that Sony canceled Bluepoints,
<v Speaker 1>a live service God of War game. I am disappointed
<v Speaker 1>for the people that had to spend that time working
<v Speaker 1>on it. And I also bet that had we seen it,
<v Speaker 1>have we had a chance to like like glean the
<v Speaker 1>ideas that they had come up with for this game,
<v Speaker 1>I bet we would have been impressed. I bet it
<v Speaker 1>was pretty solid stuff. But yeah, ninety five percent of
<v Speaker 1>people did not want this boy. That just speaks to
<v Speaker 1>that mismanagement again. Huh right, Melissa, It's yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you know, it's strange because I think if
<v Speaker 2>you had a bunch of people who actually were directly
<v Speaker 2>involved in the industry making these higher up decisions, I
<v Speaker 2>think a lot of people could have told you they'd
<v Speaker 2>been getting sick of live service games long before people
<v Speaker 2>started putting a lot of money into them. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>then something like Marvel Rivals happens and shuts me up.
<v Speaker 2>But that's that's that's a rarity that is not the norm.
<v Speaker 2>And you have to consider Rivals being free to play
<v Speaker 2>an established ip, you know, and and essentially just being
<v Speaker 2>an Overwatch killer as why it's so popular, and how
<v Speaker 2>it's almost impossible to strike that catch, that lightning with
<v Speaker 2>anything else right now. So I get it. It's just
<v Speaker 2>sucks for the people who were employed to work on
<v Speaker 2>this game, and there's going to be a gap now
<v Speaker 2>because everyone's turning around and going, you shit, delete the
<v Speaker 2>live service, delete the live service stuff. And there's a
<v Speaker 2>lot of that. There was a lot of that in development.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and then it's like, okay, and now what do
<v Speaker 1>we pitch to the Sony Executive's next that they want
<v Speaker 1>to hear, and there's nothing, no one, no one knows.
<v Speaker 1>And that's the scariest part. It's like, well, stop working
<v Speaker 1>on the thing we thought they wanted because they don't
<v Speaker 1>want it anymore, and so now what do we try
<v Speaker 1>to make that they do want? Oh boy, that's scared.
<v Speaker 2>And you're still going to have people up top who
<v Speaker 2>were like, so after they buy the game, how do
<v Speaker 2>they how do we get more money? And then being like, no,
<v Speaker 2>this is just a it's a single player campaign, it's
<v Speaker 2>an opening shut It's going to be great, and they're like, we.
<v Speaker 1>Can charge one hundred dollars to get played three days early?
<v Speaker 1>Is that good? You like that?
<v Speaker 2>Really? Get a special skin? You want a digital art?
<v Speaker 1>I have a new pole question. We'll get to that
<v Speaker 1>here in a second. Before we do that, though a
<v Speaker 1>listener content, why don't you tell people where they can
<v Speaker 1>find you on the internet what you have going on?
<v Speaker 1>Any special special messages here for anybody? Let me know.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm a listamer Kante, I am at alyssa underscore
<v Speaker 2>mark on the hell site x, which is actually Twitter.
<v Speaker 2>I'm on a blue sky with my name Alissa, mrk
<v Speaker 2>and I am live streaming on twitch a listamrk. I
<v Speaker 2>will be doing that right after this. I like to
<v Speaker 2>do a little mix of game news and gaming, kind
<v Speaker 2>of trying to bridge the gap between games journalists and
<v Speaker 2>twitch streamers and see what kind of world that is
<v Speaker 2>for us. It's an interesting one, but yeah, that's what
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing. I'm also on Patreon a listamer conte and yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if anyone wants me to write anything cool, just hit
<v Speaker 2>me up. I'm freelancing.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome, excellent. Yeah, everybody go make sure you give all
<v Speaker 1>listen some love. Thank you so much for doing the show.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see here new poll question. Have you ever spent
<v Speaker 1>more than ten dollars to buy a game for your
<v Speaker 1>mobile device? Yes? Or no? We will discuss this on
<v Speaker 1>Games Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking a Giant Bomb.
<v Speaker 1>Later today we will kick off the latest season yet
<v Speaker 1>again of Blake Club. Dan has already finished up Terminator,
<v Speaker 1>that was just two episodes. You finished that. He is
<v Speaker 1>now going on to Drake of I think it's Drake
<v Speaker 1>of the ninety nine Dragons, which I think we're going
<v Speaker 1>to call Reikert of the ninety nine Dangins. We got
<v Speaker 1>to pick the stupidest name every time, so I think
<v Speaker 1>we succeeded this time. So we'll get that going here
<v Speaker 1>at the normal time, which I think is three pm
<v Speaker 1>Eastern noon Pacific. You won't want to miss it. Of course.
<v Speaker 1>This is a infamously bad game. It is a game
<v Speaker 1>that people really really always bring up. Is one of
<v Speaker 1>the worst games of all time, and especially the Xbox version,
<v Speaker 1>which is what Dan will be starting with. If it breaks.
<v Speaker 1>If it stops working, which is a distinct possibility, we're
<v Speaker 1>giving him permission to restart it on PC, so he
<v Speaker 1>does have at least one outlet. We'll see how that goes.
<v Speaker 1>All right, that's gonna be a good time. Listen, thank
<v Speaker 1>you so much for hanging out with me today and
<v Speaker 1>talking about video games. I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for having me. I always appreciate you.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, anytime we'll make it happen again. Thank you
<v Speaker 1>once one more time. Thank you to everybody who was
<v Speaker 1>listening and watching. You were the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself,
<v Speaker 1>and goodbye.