Game Mess Mornings 09/11/23

You'll mean, don't be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's
do this for September eleven, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or
so, let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess
Mornings Live with me Jeff Grub. Today, a lot of people are playing
in Starfield and embracers looking to eat gearbox off to someone else, but first,
please join me and welcoming today's co host Game Miss Mornings. It's Cam
Hawkins. Everybody, Cam. How are you doing? I'm doing great?
How are you? I'm pretty good? You know. I'm wearing my my
my pack shirt. Yeah, we're both wearing some pack stuff right now?
Did you wait? Did you wait in that merch line? And then to
do so? The first day I went, I saw like it was funny
because I was I thought I thought the outside like people were that were waiting
outside that was like kind of like a rest area. Yeah, And then
I'm like, oh no, this is the line to get in. And
so the next I told myself, like the next day, I'm just gonna
go there. Like first day we tried and think yeah, and thankfully like
there was someone there with like the all access I would just let us walk
in. We didn't have to wait in line like with the with everyone else.
So we were just waiting in the front of the line and once it
opened up, we just got in there. So we got and we got
in and out of there in like fifteen twenty minutes. That's what I see.
We were That was our plan and we should have done that. We
got there at ten and we got we got in. PR helped us get
in, shout out to gold and all that. Then we shot out to
them. Yeah. Then we so we're like waiting there and it's like,
well, the merch is are gonna open till eleven, and we're like,
okay, we should go get more b roll into a couple of other things.
Then we come back and apparently they opened the line at like ten thirty
and the line was already several hours long, and we're like, no,
we'll go, we'll wait, And then we're waiting outside with the sun beating
down on us, and then someone's like, once you get through this line,
it's another like hour wait. Once you're inside it's at home, Like
okay, all right, never mind, yeah, thankfully. I saw I
saw Chris Dring and he was like, hey, I'll get you something.
So I got my wife with Pickmans and that was pretty good. But Packs
was a good time. It was great seeing you. It was like it
was a lot of fun to see, like just a ton of people hanging
out again. That for me, that's what PACKS is about at this point.
It's just hang out with people and not not worrying about too much work,
like seeing games and stuff. Although I did see you handful of games
you had. You had a panel, right, you did your your Kingdom
Hearts panel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you scolded people for not paying
attention. It's my understanding that the name of the panel was like you weren't
paying It's like, what is it. It's like Hearts isn't confusing, you
just weren't paying attention, which I love. I love that name. Yeah,
No, I like, I mean, I do think that when it
comes to like the main plot of Kingdom Hearts, it is pretty straightforward.
You just have to play the game's in release order and you'll you'll know what's
going on. But there are obviously a bunch of subplots and things like that
where you can definitely get lost in the weeds. Like I'm not like Kingdom
Hearts isn't perfect. I'm not even willing to pretend like that it is,
but I do think that like, it is pretty understandable as long as you
play like the main plot of things, as long as you play the games
in release order. Cam, we're gonna you mentioned that we should do something
when I said you were gonna be on the show, and you're like,
we should do a Jerry PC console draft, and we're gonna do that.
Before we do that real quick though, like anywhere else, you want to
tell people where they could find you all that stuff, and I tell them
a little bit about yourself as I get this set up. Yeah, so
you can follow me on CAM Final Mix, on like all the socials that
you can think of. I am. I have a Kingdom Hearts podcast,
Unlocking Kingdom Hearts, which is kind of like a book club podcast where each
game is dedicated to a specific entry in the series. And we have myself,
Alex Array Korea, who is also a big Kingdom Hearts nerd, and
Jonathan Dornbush, who you know used to write for IgM. He's now a
Naughty Dog. We're all experts on Kingdom Hearts, and then Kevin Diaz over
at PlayStation Source. He's a newbie and he like to get the series,
and so like, you know, you have, yeah, you have someone
new. That is could be an audience circuit for people who are like exactly
listening to podcast is their way to get on boarded onto something exactly and just
away for like them, because normally I feel like Kevi is going to be
asking the questions naturally that other people might be curiously good idea. So so
yeah, and we're about four or five games in now. I Recode Recoded
is the next episode that should be out next month, and that's funny enough.
It's like by far the worst game in the series. But you know,
once we get over this, you know, he'll like there's I think
there's like two or three episodes left after that. And then yeah, and
then outside of that, me and Alex ray Carea are writing or co writing
a book on Kingdom Hearts through Limited Run or press run. It's going to
be kind of like a compilation of essays about the series. We there are
some things that we want to try and make happen that are pretty ambitious,
but like we don't want to We don't want to, like say what because
We don't want people to like expect anything for sure or like think that we're
making any sort of promises. But there's some cool stuff that we like want
to put into fruition that like hopefully happens, but if not, it's gonna
be a good book. If you don't know, Alex Raycrea has already written
a book on Kingdom of Marks through Boss Fight Books. So if you want
to kind of get somewhat of an idea of what this book is going to
be, check that book out. You can buy it on Amazon. It's
like fifteen dollars. Maybe it's a great book, so check that out as
well. Awesome. All right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
take turns picking out jpregs. We're gonna have six games each they're gonna have
the audience vote on it by the end of this episode. We're gonna make
this happen pretty quick. Camp. You can go first, what's the first
game on the cam JRPG console. I mean, I would be dumb to
not pick Corona Trigger. I would be dumb not to pick Corona Trigger.
Yeah, it's that's definitely the It's the one I think the most fan favorite,
right, it's kind of the easiest one to make happen. This is
I feel like for the ease, it's always like I have an idea of
what I want to pick, but I always feel like I have to pick
the thing that would be the scariest if you then picked it. So you
pick Chrono triggering. I think it'd be bad if you had this one as
well. Just because the name Final Fantasy seven. Oh okay, okay,
uh my next pick is Final Fantasy six, Final Fantasy six. I mean
that it's you know, one side of the other half a dozen. What
however, that saying goes all right, I'm gonna go with okay. So
with these things, it's like you gotta like, what's gonna move the needle
the most. I'm gonna go with Persona five. Okay, okay, uh
My next one, I'm gonna do Kingdom Hearts two Final Mix. That's my
favorite game all time. I would genuinely think it's one of the best JERRPG
has ever made. Can we I think what we should do is like for
stuff like there's like, you know, Persona three or four Gold everybody,
I just put Keenom Hearts two. Do you think that would be okay?
Or do you want do you want me to put final mix in there?
I think that when people think about Kingdom Hearts too, final mix, like
final mixes, is the definitive version. You know you do you think that
it helps your case? Now, I'm gonna put final mix in Yeah,
it would help my kiss? Okay, all right, definitely? All right.
Then I'm gonna I'm gonna try to hit another fan base. I think
I'm gonna go with Dragon Quest eleven. Okay, Okay. After that,
I'm gonna pick Oh, man, like I know this. I know I
could pick something. I know the fans might be like question mark on this,
but I'm gonna pick Pokemon gold silver, Crystal or if I can only
pick one crystal, but like I feel like that they're all kind of more
or less the same. No, that's right, That's how we would do
this. Man, that was a really good one that threw me off.
I'm gonna go with Let's see here. I'm gonna go sweaking into I'm gonna
hope that the real nerds helped me out here. That one was on my
list, that was on all the persona for Golden so that damn it that
really, that's out my my PERSONA five. I would hope that that.
I'll put Royal there. Just clarify, yeah, Royal no, yeah,
yeah, okay, what was I just had an id? Yep, super
Mario RPG. There we go. Always have, always have Mario in there.
If you can that. It turns out people like the cee Mario in
a list. Oh man, so funny enough, Like I had three more
picks ready funny enough. The next one I had, if it wasn't picked,
was paper Mario the thousand Year Door. All right, is that what
you're going with? That's a man, that's a really good one too.
Yeah. I think that's the one I'm picking. Yeah, I feel like
the other two are just a little bit too niche. We're like, yeah,
I'm like, I wonder if I should double dip on a series or
if I should go with something completely different. Man, I kind of want
to go with maybe a sl Strategy RPT or something. They're like really get
out out there. But yeah, you know what I will. I'm gonna
go with Fire and Boom Awakening. That was my next pick. Let's go.
That was my next pick. All right, there you go. You
saw I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna just put A and B here.
We'll put it up on Twitter, and we'll see who wins at the
end of this episode. That was fun camp, big job. All right,
let me do that real quick, everybody, and then we'll get this
episode started for real. Don't wonder whose list is mine when I'm with Kingdom
marks on it, which is best? Okay? And then and then the
reply and we are live. But I do think that like every time you
tweeted between you and I always picked yours, I'm the best at this.
Of course. Yes, we'll see what happens either way, it's a good
time A or B and set it to an hour. There we go.
Okay, all right, let's uh, let's do this, but first let's
explain what we do here most weekdays, I Jeff grewill help peace your gaming
life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own
original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona
fide expert who will make me look smart. If you were watching live on
twitch welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by
searching for game mess warnings or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com.
You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello
YouTube, All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's
start the morning mess with. Gearbox could be up for sale, Embracer reportedly
seeking buyers. There we go. We actually, are you on the right
scene? Okay? Actually? Did I ever go over here? You don't?
There? Everyone could take a look. There, there's a look.
I don't know if I ever actually showed everybody what we were picking. There
you go? Okay, this is Darren Bonthrew's at GameSpot. Gearbox Entertainment might
be up for sale again, as reports have begun to surface that owner Embracer
Group is looking for potential buyers for the company behind the Borderlands and Brothers in
Arms franchise. It's a series I haven't thought about in a while. Speaking
to Reuters, three sources familiar with the matter explained that Embracer has received interest
from prospective buyers. How much Embracer would look to potentially sell Gearbox for remains
a mystery, but for context, Gearbox originally purchased for one point which was
originally purchased for one point three billion back at February. I think it's actually
up to one point three ish billion, spending on how well those studio performed
after that, but either way, they they spent a lot of money on
a Gearbox. If Embracer decides to sell Gearbox, the high price tag for
the company will likely be one that can only be met by other major game
publishers. Gearbox marketing materials are already available for potential buyers, which consists mainly
of international gaming groups, said two of the people, according to a Reuter's
report, which adding that the two of the sources mentioned that this deal is
still in very nebulous, in a very nebulous state right now. Yay.
I'm Embracer just seems like they have done the full whip lash now and they've
gone from embracing the entire world to now looking to sell studios that they just
bought. One of the Marquee studios as well, one of the ones that
you would expect to be like would be the backbone of this entire strategy.
But it's starting to feel like what strategy this is? There is nothing happening
there, There's no there there. This is a publisher that is in distress
already and the studios that might have value, they need that money to even
make the whole operation work, right. Yeah, it's really upsetting to see
because I mean with Gearbox, like, well I think Gearbox, I think
Borderlands. I know that they do other things, they published other games,
but I feel like that is like the big sell for that company. And
seeing that they bought this company and they're now just like thinking about selling it,
it just it's just like, what are you doing? Because I remember
when they bought the h you know, Crystal Dynamics, the student like the
Western Square an ex suite of studios. I wrote an editorial thinking like this
is this is actually a win win because Square doesn't really care about these studios
and now it's studio is buying them, and it may be a fresh start
for these studios to you know, to like have the support that they need.
But this is just like sending the direct opposite message. It makes it
feel like that they have no idea what they're doing. It feels like that
they are just buying studios to potentially make money, and but they don't know
like any sort of strategy onto marketing their their assets, and it's just I
just don't know what I just don't know, like we they're anything can happen
at this point, like and and maybe it's one of those things that once
they do unfortunately like sell some of these companies, that they may get their
act together. But it definitely feels like that they just completely over extended on
the amount of things that they could purchase. And now we're seeing like they
are realizing that and they now have to revert back, and it's, uh,
yeah, it's sad to see. Yeah, it's it does seem like
they were operating down the under the assumption that money would keep coming in for
at least a couple more years, and you got to spend money to make
money like that type of comments exactly, and it's like, you know,
there's there's definitely something too that it's just you got to have a mitigation plan
in effect for when things go bad quick at which they did. And now
like now borrowing money because really what happened here interest rates went up and you
know that's not just like them borrowing money, but money flowing into investments or
whatever definitely began tightening, and and so you know, they were no longer
able to get that cheap money in Europe something I talk about a lot,
which is like, hey, it was relatively easy for a European big corporation
to get ahold of capital and then use that to buy a bunch of studios
that were undervalued in other other territories or in Europe itself. And you know,
you could see the strategy there of like, well you know this,
if you get a certain critical mask going there, you can be a big
publisher. But can you It's like it's it definitely seems like, well,
you maybe you could. Maybe in a perfect world this was all going to
work out, but clearly that's not the world we live in. And so
now this big publisher has to figure out how how to like get over this
immediate humpet creative created for itself of just getting so large and unwieldy, and
to the point where now that when they have all of these games that are
coming out now and are succeeding, it's not enough. And now Embracer Group
has to be like, we need to completely rethrink everything, and that means
abandoning this strategy, selling off some of these assets. And this is the
company that now owns the Lord of the rings ip and it's like this is
that's how much stuff they were out there buying, you know, the Lord
of the rings ip. At least, at the very least they know they
have one interested party that's willing to spend a lot of money, and that's
Amazon, so they can kind of maybe keep some of that stuff going,
keep that gravy chain rolling. But when it comes to Borderlands, it's like,
okay, well two K is doing a little bit with Borderlands, but
I don't have the sense that Borderlands is the future of two k's business.
Like they like mostly squeeze the juice out of that rock, right, And
so now they're in a situation where it's like it is either going to be
diminishing returns or you have to invest big so that Borderland's force feels like some
big new thing. And that does Embracer have the appetite to do that,
to work with two K to figure that out. Just two K want to
work Embracer on that stuff, and we don't we don't know these things,
so uh yeah, it's it's it's a weird situation. It's it's there was
never really an actual plan here, that's the biggest thing. And now all
these studios are paying the price because this this big corporation was just trying to
expand way too fast. Do you think that in a like a year,
we are talking about Embracer maybe looking to sell even more of its studios,
not not just like Gearbox, but or not even just sell its studios,
but maybe starting to wind down in terms of hey, like like bankruptcy things
like that. Do you think that's possible possibility? I mean, I mean,
it's definitely possible. Like I feel like we're seeing a lot of stuff
happening pretty fast and so and I think that Embracers kind of in a headspace
as someone who's a big Borderlands fan, right, I think that there's a
lot of stuff that they could do with the Borderland's IP. I think that
there's like potential to make, you know, they're doing the movie. I
think that there's possibility to do like an animated show or like even a live
action show. Like I think that Borderlands is suffering from the same problem that
Star Wars suffers from, where like it's always all focused around like the Skywalkers
and like that kind of thing, and they're with the games and the movie
and like we you know, there are some side stories that we have seeing
Tales Tales from the Borderlands. I haven't played New Tales yet, but like
even those they at the end of the day ended up connecting to the main
plot of Borderlands, And like, I do think that there would be ways
that they could implement that to make it to make its own thing that's still
in the Borderlands world, because it's really the world. I mean, the
characters are great too, but the world is what I think that really attracts
people to that franchise. And so I think that Embracer has been approaching these
these acquisitions as like, Hey, we're going to take these things and just
license it out and that's how we're making our money. Like they're not really
focusing on, hey, like let's make these really cool ideas with these ips
that we have to make something new and interesting and make people want to like
check out our other the other things that we're working on. Because especially people
that are like like us, I follow the industry intimately, Like when you
think about like, oh, this Embracer Group studio is doing this, I'm
really interested in seeing what this Embracer studio is doing now. And like I
just again, there's nothing that makes me think that that is the case,
which makes me really sad because I really love Crystal Dynamics and I'm I really
I like the tomb Raider Crystal Dynamics games more than most people do, like
I hot take, I prefer them over the uncharted games, at least the
first two tomb Raider games, and so like, I really am excited for
this turned to tomb Raider. But now with all this stuff happening, Yeah,
yeah, it's you lose faith in these studios because of their management.
And that's like that's just like a bad feeling to have when you know that
that team is talented. So I really, I really don't know. I
could. It's like it would not be surprising. It would be more surprising
if it didn't happen then if it did happen. But but I also don't
want to. I don't, I don't. I don't want to be too
pessimistic about it, Like I do think that once I do think that,
like once they I think obviously they've realized, like, hey, we messed
up. We need to figure things out. And I think hopefully in the
next year there still will be some losses, but they're going to really hone
in and figure their stuff stuff out if it doesn't have If that doesn't happen,
they need they need a new change of like the top they need to
like replace. Then you get a new CEO. They need to get a
new board, like whatever they got to do, that's got to change.
Yeah, I think I also don't want to be too pessimistic. The issue
here, though, is you look at what they're doing and like, I
don't it's hard to look at this and see a path to all this making
sense suddenly, Like you know, they closed Volition, Uh, they laid
off a bunch of people, they have already laid people off a Gearbox specifically.
Uh, there's no sign that they're done making cuts. And it's like,
okay, so what they're gonna make themselves more streamlined, more agile,
as these companies always say, And it's like, to what end? I
guess to I mean reducing costs, clearly, but you know what a good
way to reduce cost is to never buy some companies in the first place.
And it's like they weren't doing that, so like you're buying these companies then
to then cut them back, it's like were you trying to grow really big
or well, that's just not an option anymore. So your only option now
is to cut Like, I don't see a world in which, like you
go, you flip the switch from we're trying to get as big as possible
as quick as possible to now being like, all right, well we got
really big. Now we have to like get small against so we can so
all these hits can begin making us actual profit. It's I don't know if
it's going to work that way. That's yet it's like a really tough thing
to pull off, and it's it's something to pull off without destroying morale,
without scaring away a bunch of senior talented developers who are actually gonna make these
games for you, who are probably gonna be like I'm getting off this sinking
ship. I'm gonna go somewhere else, and then suddenly like there's no one
to make your games. So it's just a bad it's a bad situation over
there. I think it was pretty easily predictable. I think as people who've
been paying attention we talked about Embracer for a while now, most people are
like, this doesn't make a lot of sense. What's going on over there?
And I I mean, for years now. I've been trying to talk
to Lars Winger first, the CEO over Embracer, and they never they never
want to talk about this stuff. So if they have a plan, they
are being quiet about it. It doesn't seem like they haven't. Yeah.
Yeah, no, like no response is telling so exactly. All right,
we got a whole bunch more news coming up after this before we're gonna hit
a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay, let's get into more
news. Starfield debuts at number one in the UK box charts. This is
from Sophie macavoy at Games Industry Dot is. Starfield has top the UK physical
charts this week. GfK's report showed that the Space Action RPG sold more physical
copies on Xbox than it did on PC, not too surprising. Starfield's premium
upgrade, a box with a code that provided early access to the digital version,
has fallen to number thirty four after debuting at number seven last week.
This version experienced a seventy one percent decrease in sales due the game's wider release
on September sixth. The Xbox exclusive reached over six million players in two days,
making it but does as biggest launch of all time. Then there was
more to this chart, but we'll get to the rest of that here.
In a second, Starfield being number one physical, like, that's pretty good.
There was some more details here. It's like it's not like the top
selling physical game in the UK this year, but it's among the like it
didd better than Diablo four did, apparently, and Diablo four is on PlayStation
five and x Box and then Starfield's selling faster physically in the UK than than
Diablo four. That's pretty good, right, yeah, Oh yeah, that's
really surprising. Yeah. I know a lot of people really like Diablo and
like, granted, Starfield was the game that people were looking forward to,
I think that there was more excitement behind it, while Diablo four is just
like oh for the for the real Diablo sickos, like this was like oh
yeah, like we we've been waiting for this. But for I think the
mainstream audience, it's like, oh okay, Like I like Diablo three,
I want to try out Diablo four. But when it comes to like a
you know, a Bethesda Todd Howard RPG, there's just a level of excitement
behind that. I just can't that you just can hardly compare to you know,
and so I hitting number one is not surprising, but seeing the rest
of this list is pretty surprising. Like I don't know, like what's what's
going on here, but because I see like Mortal Kombat eleven Ultimate still on
this like top ten, like that like a sale or something that like boosted
or pretty aggressive sale. But you know, I think that it's all earned,
all all understood. Uh. I know that Starfield, you know,
from some outlets, it was pretty pretty mixed on the reception, but as
people have gotten their hands on it, a lot of people are really loving
it and it's what they wanted from Starfield, and that's great for the Bethesda
team. And I'm excited, you know, I've only hopped in a little
bit because there's just like a lot of games happening right now, but I'm
really excited to like fully hop in and give it my my attention. And
yeah, so exciting. Yeah. The thing to know about Starfield in the
UK when it comes to fiscal sales is like this is a little bit more
impressive because Axbox the physical sales don't do great in the UK. A lot
of people in the UK bought Xbox series s is and they are buying their
games all digital. This is something that Games Industry up is every week with
the GfK Report, they explained like, hey, the physical does much worse
on Xbox than digital, even relative to other consoles. So the fact that
Starfield is number one physical and then you can expect that digital did very very
well as well. And then of course then there's Game Pass on top of
that. So yeah, which is which is a really surprising sens like with
game Pass, like it's still sell sold this well, uh and I mean
like out, I mean, but the thing is there is an audience that
where having a physical copy still matters a lot to them, and so it's,
uh, but it just it just shows like how big of an achievement
this is for its specific region, because yeah, a lot of people they
primarily play on PlayStation, not on Xbox, and they you know, for
the people that you you know, for a lot of people that have that
PlayStation five, they're like, I want to get the S because I'm gonna
play yeah, really only game Pass and exclusive titles on this S and then
play everything else on a PlayStation. So yeah, it's it's really surprising.
I really didn't even like consider uh that when you when we first talked about
it. But yeah, it's it's it's great. It's it's a much needed
win for Xbox. You know, it's it's kind of hard to yeah,
like did not like regardless of how people feel about the game, it's like
it's doing what was supposed to do in terms of getting people excited about either
game Pass or buying games on there. And this is it's another example of
uh, you know, game Pass is an option. A lot of people
should certainly get played it through that subscription, but people video gamers like to
buy games, and they have and they continue to do so, and they're
going to continue to do so. And even these games that that are the
marquee, like hey get it in game Pass, Like why would you buy
this? Millions of people are saying, I just buy games. I'm gonna
buy this. Of course I'm going to buy this. Uh. And that's
It's so for Microsoft, that's it continues to be a pretty good sign,
I think, because it's like it gives them a buffer space on figuring out
how to make the game Pass strategy fully work. And really it's like it
is working how it needs to work today which is a supplement to people buying
games. It's it's it's both a supplement for the consumer in terms of,
hey, you have this option and it's a supplement for Microsoft. It's like,
well that this is people are still buying games, but then some people
are doing the subscription and then we're hitting like these slightly different audiences, so
it's working out well for them. What are your you know, I don't
want to go too much longer on this, but what are your thoughts on
the on the premium upgrade, like the idea of hey, pay thirty five
dollars, you get the steel Book, you get the early access to the
game, and I believe you get you get the DLC right the expansion that's
going to come out eventually. What are your thoughts on that. My thoughts
are that people can get the Columbros episode from the game mess besides podcast early
if they give us a little bit extra money I Patreon. It's like it's
everyone does this and I'm sort of okay with it. I know there's some
people that like have a philosophical difference or a problem with this, but it's
like, ah, if it doesn't seem that egregious it's very easy for people
to wait a week. I think it's if you want, and it's a
personal choice. And I'm like, yeah, people, these companies are always
going to try to squeeze more money out of you. Like that's it's hard
for me to get two up in arms about that these days. I don't
know, how do you feel? I think it's an interesting model, right
because, like, I'm someone who loves steal books, So for me,
I wasn't really the four being able to play four days early thing didn't really
matter. It's like, oh, I get a steel book and then I
get the access to the DLC for thirty five dollars. That doesn't seem that
bad. And then I get the four days as a bonus, which is
probably like the opposite of like how they probably tried to market this thing.
It's like, hey, you get to play the game four days ear and
then you get these like these other things on top of that. And so
I think it's I do think it's an interesting model, and I do think
that it is something that we might see more of moving forward, whether it
be from Xbox or other. For Xbox so far, for it's Horizon Vibe
did it and they had a lot of people playing that early and so Xbox
is one going to keep doing it. I think it's a really good supplement
to game pass again, where it's like this is yeah, like you get
either get the game pass people, or if you're gonna have the very excited
people who are going to buy it, maybe maybe find a way to get
a little bit more money out of them. The whole idea is like gamers
are people who will spend more money on the things they really like, and
you can do extra stuff with software you can't do with a lot of other
things, Like it would be hard to have the early version of a movie
that people pay extra for at the theaters to go see, like what does
that look like? That's kind of tough to pull off, and I do
think people would get kind of mad about that. They have a certain idea
of what ticket prices are supposed to be. We are a little bit more
malleable as gamers, and they are one hundred percent taking advantage of that.
It's they are taking advantage of us, like without a doubt, but that's
that's capitalism. What am I supposed to do about this? At this point?
I just can't. I can't get mad about it anymore. So yeah,
I'm kind of I'm fine with it, and like you know, Marino
was saying, if it's a game I'm really excited about, kind of sometimes
it kind of feels fun played early. So yeah. More Starfield news,
Todd Howard says Starfield mods support is on the way next year. This Sir
Will Nelson at PC Games in Starfield is getting official mods support and bethes the
Game Studios. Game director Todd Howard has outlined what we can roughly expect with
Starfield mods already everywhere, offering up joke changes and some sizeable improvements. No,
we have to wait until next year. From more in the RPG game
does sting a bit. In response to a Femitsu question about modding and Starfield,
which is already well underway within the community, Howard says that official bethest
To support is coming next year. When the mods are ready, you will
be able to do almost anything as we have done in the past, and
the will be supported next year. But we will do it in a big
way because we love to do it. Howard's quote and fimis who has been
machine translated and edited for clarity. This is the kind of usually how it
works. I believe you, God's been a long time since Skyrim and even
Fallout four, so but I'm pretty sure like there's usually a gap between the
games coming out and the official mode support. Obviously, moderns have a lot
of familiarity with the tools that test the uses, which is why we're getting
so many mods so early. But that official mods support will then unlock even
more creativity. And I expect od it's to be a big thing At Starfield
four years there already seemed to be. That community seems very excited about it,
so and I'm a big mod guy, so I'm I'm looking forward to
this in the future. But I don't know, how about you. Every
time I ask someone on this show this question, most people don't play with
mods, ever, how do you? How do you play? Usually I
normally don't play with I'm a console person, Like, if I can play
it on a console, that's where I like to play it. Nothing against
like PC gaming or anything like, they're not that cloud miller. But but
when it comes to h I mean, I do think he makes some fair
points about like you know, the troubleshooting and things like that that happens,
But he's never made a fair point in his life. He needs to go
back in his hole where he belongs. Sorry, keep going. No no,
no, no no. I love it. And uh so there are
certain things where like Skyrium, right, I've never played Skyrim because they're a
giant spiders in that game. I have severe racnophobia. I can't do it
shot. Like, so like there is instances where I'm like, do I
want to like get Skyrom on PC and just like put in the no Spider
mod or whatever it may be to take care of that, and like you
know, racknophobia modes and video games have become more commonplace. Squere next,
where's the for Final Fantasy six team? Where is it? And and so
like those are like really the only instances where I would see myself doing doing
something like that. But I do, you know, I do see the
cool mods, Like I'm one of those people when I see like, oh,
like they added like the Master Sword and like the Harulian Shield and the
sky Room, I'm like, oh cool, Like it's a buzzas I'm like,
oh, I gotta play Skyroom now, you know. But there,
but the mod community is super important and with Bethess, the RPG specifically,
I'm really interested in seeing like what people are going to do in that space.
But I'm just kind of an observer. I'm just like, yeah,
that's cool. That's cool you were able to make that work. Yeah,
I think I guess how most most people like to read about it in a
new story where it's like, oh, yeah, Thomas the tank engine again,
here we go. That's and like, you know, the Nick Cage,
Flashlight and Starfield that everyone's not everyone someone was mad about, but it's
like, yeah, yeah, like that's that's totally fair. I think at
a certain point it really can change the way you play. I ended up
like running like this bath House and sky Rim. There was a mod for
that. It's like fun to like turn these games into like these light and
business Management Sam's occasionally and uh. I also like the idea of going back
to eight bethesta game and sort of rolling a completely random character that starts at
a random place in the world instead of being like, you know, the
chosen one, and like, that's how I'll probably play it in a you
know, a couple of plays from now or whatever. So any mod that
enables that sort of thing, I'm down with. But yes, you know
at the very you see playing console, but this is the one company that
does the work to bring a lot of mods to console. There there Bethesta,
you have to like connect your Bethesta count. But once you do that,
just go on the PC, click a bunch of buttons, and then
you load up the game on your console. It's like, all right,
just click this button to play with the mods, and it's really easy.
It's actually pretty impressive that they made that work, and I expect them to
do that fully with Starfield going for it as well. The Elder Scroll six
is officially in early development, but don't expect to hear about it soon.
This is from Ryan Dinsdale at IGN. Bethesda has confirmed that it's highly anticipated
role playing game, the Elder Scroll six, which was officially announced the twenty
eighteen, has entered early development. Speaking to Vandal about the imminent release of
Starfield, bethest A Head of publishing Hinds confirmed that the Skyroom sequel has completed
the pre production stage and moved into the into the development phase. Cam we
could kind of like talk about this, but I kind of what there's a
specific thing we want to talk about here. Uh, Starfield's engine, which
I engine talk is always a perilous thing for people who play games because you're
going to hear developers being like, you don't know what you're talking about.
That's fair. So let's say the style of Starfield, that kind of the
visual look of it, it's very stiff. It is feeling I think it
against to feel pretty kind of feeling a little bit old in a lot of
ways, especially when you go to something like New Atlantis, which I think
looks really beautiful a lot of the time. Then you look at any foliage
and it's the stiff, completely still plastic looking trees. And in five or
six years, when when Elder Scroll six comes out, that stuff's going to
feel even less acceptable than it does now. I think. So I'm wondering
Cam. There was the recent rumors and maybe even confirmed that they're doing a
remake of Oblivion with where they're going to pair up the engines where it's going
to have the creation engine from from Bethesda like do a lot of stuff in
the background, and then they're going to pair it up with unreal engine for
the visuals. Is do you think there's a chance that they're doing that so
that they could be ready to make Elder Scroll six in the same way where
the visuals are done by Unreal Engine. Yeah, I mean like that that
makes sense to me. I think that I think that Unreal is from what
everyone's been saying, it's just a very approachable engine in resource like Kingdom Marts
three was made on Unreal like more or less Restarted Development because they switched engines
too, Unreal And I think that we've just seen a lot of people move
to that, to that tool that, you know, kind of based on
what you're saying that like, if they want to make the environments look better,
they want it, but they still want to use the kind of special
assets that are used in creation in for their RPGs moving forward. That you
know, I'm not I don't know the ins and outs of game development,
so I don't know like how how that how that really works where just like,
hey, we're going to implement like this engine with this and this engine
with that either, and how to optimize that in a way that it's going
to feel good to play, it's going it's going to run well. That
is something that I would love to learn more about. But if they can
make it work cool. If they can't make it work they should like definitely
figure out what their alternative is going to be instead of like potentially working on
this for years and then realizing like, hey, this isn't really working and
now we got a more or less restart development for this massive game that and
so like you know, this oblivion thing, like who knows when that comes
that's gonna come out. I mean, surely it's gonna come out before Elder
School six if it if it is a real thing by like Elder School six,
Like I'm not expecting until like the next decade. Like I'm like,
you know, like I'm expecting that in twenty thirty, Like you know that
that's just the situation. That's gonna be the pull question. Do you think
we're playing Elder Scroll six on this generation of consoles or the next generation of
consoles? I would be shocked, and I am played by the next by
this generation of consoles. YEP, I'm right there with you. Gotham Knights
has been rated for Nintendo Switch. This comes from Vicky Blake at Eurogamer Surprise.
It looks like Gotham Knights is coming to Nintendo Switch. Until now,
the game has only been playable on PCPs five and Xbox Series x NS.
But according to an update to the North American Ratings Board the s s RB,
it looks like the action RPG will shortly be making an appearance on Nintendo
Switch too, as spotted by the Eagle and Eye folks on the Gaming Leaks
and Rumors sub right, nothing else about the rating listing has changed beyond the
sneaky edition of Nintendo Switch to the platform list. Of course, it cites
all the issues with the game the SRB might have, but that is weird
and surprising, especially considering that the Xbox One in PlayStation four version of this
game I think got canceled. So it's like they, you know, they
were working on a version of this game that might have been optimized enough to
run on the Switch. Maybe now we're getting this. This is weird,
But this feels also feels like the kind of thing that could pop it up
in a Nintendo Direct this week if if that's were to happen, I don't
know, what do you think, cam Uh, I'm kind of surprised,
simply, yeah, yeah, because Gotham Knights did. I don't know how
well Gotham Knights sold, but I feel like it wasn't great but also it's
WB and WB has like fuck you money, they can just like do what
they want, and there might and I know that they have done some updates
that game since it's launch, and am I be in a better place now?
I haven't really returned to it to see. Then maybe they're like,
hey, like the Switch is such a big platform that it is worth the
investment to get it over there and and see how it performs. But I
do think that like, yeah, if it, if it does exist,
we'll probably see it in this direct that we're supposed to get this week,
that's rumored for this week. But cool, good, you know, hopefully
it performs well for them, or like I mean, like I don't want
to say that because I think the game is fine, right, Like I
think it, Yeah, it's fine, but cool, Yeah, I can
really say, right, it's just a man, It's it's just hard to
imagine. I suppose maybe it's one of those cloud versions, the s r
B what's probably still do it, But it's like, is that is that
worth it? At that point? Does anyone really buy those things? I
guess the Batman universe is popular enough that especially I think they probably are seen
like the needle move with that Batman Arkham trilogy that they were launching on the
switch and like, oh, there's a lot exciting about that. We got
a lot of pre orders. I don't know if I don't think that came
out yet, and they're like, well, what else can we do?
But this is coming so soon. If it's getting rated, they must have
made this decision a while ago. I don't. I will be very surprised
to see how they are very interested to see how this runs, because I'm
just not expecting good things from it on this Nope, yep, nope,
all right, keep lord to keep moving here. A new Nintendo patent suggests
switched to may finally solve stick drift. This comes from David Smith at Kataku.
If a new patent is anything to go by, which probably isn't,
Nintendo may have may finally have a solution for the persistent Joycon drift that has
affected so many of its controllers over the years. The same day, the
reports emerged that Nintendo has been holding closed doors demos for Perspective new switch To
hardware. A series of new patents filed by the Japanese hardware manufacturer appeared on
a US Patent Office's website. The filings seemingly depict parts that comprised the room
new hardware, as spotted by deck Serto. Among the filings are details of
a new joystick that deploys a magnetic field to communicate movement through the controller.
This is known as Hall effect joysticks. Everybody, we've talked about these before.
In fact, this one doesn't have it, but the version for the
switch that I have over there does have joysticks. And the whole idea here
is they won't ever drift. You can use them for twenty years and they're
not going to drift. All other mechanical joysticks will eventually drift. They just
will eventually break. So that's a pretty cool thing cam the I think.
The other thing here is there's no guarantee that these things find their way into
the base joycon or whatever controllers the Nintendo uses for the next switch of the
out of the gate. We can be oh, they're patenting this stuff and
they're gonna use it. Well, they patent stuff all the time and don't
use it. I hope they do. I think it would make sense,
but I just don't know. Like Ninteno, I don't know. Maybe the
having to repair all those joycons because they did do like the lifetime warranty in
the United States at maybe that was enough of a sting that like, you
know what, let's just avoid this. Even if we have to like pay
a couple pennies more per per component, it's going to be worth it in
the end. I don't know, what do you think? Do you do
you expect that the next switch is going to launch with these upgraded sticks?
I mean, like I think I don't know how the business of like manufacturing
prior to patent patenting something, but like we know that this has been a
thing that's been more or less made already with some third party controllers. The
draining cast had hall effects censors, So that's how old hall effect censors are.
Yeah. Yeah, And there's also been like other third party controllers I
have found, like to make driftless sticks. Yep. That Like I think
that that they should be able to h they know that it works, they
could start manufacturing that and then patenting it like after so that like when it
comes out there's no real issues. So if that, if that is an
app that they can do again, I do not know if that is like
legal, then I could see it coming out with the with the switch to
if that is rumored to come out like probably you know, fall of next
year around that time. And but but if it doesn't, like I honestly
haven't and it might be just the thing that I haven't had an issue with
it personally, I've never had stick drift issues with my joy cons, but
I have had it with my PS five controllers and so, which I feel
like isn't talked about as much. So it might be a thing where just
because I haven't experienced it, I think it's a little bit over over talked
about. But but but with Nintendo, you know, Nintendo being Nintendo,
being like, hey, we're gonna like deal with all of your stick drift
issues moving forward, and you know, Nintendo doesn't really it's like the last
company to do something like that unless it was a real issue. So it's
cool that they're that they realize that it's an issue. Whether or not it
does end up coming with the switch too, remains to be seen. Because
even with the switch one right, like the original switch, they did their
base model, they knew that there was like a battery life issue, and
not too long after they released an updated model with a longer battery life,
and so I could see them doing something similar with the switch too in these
joy Cons. Yeah, I think it's I'll think about that. Patrick Kleppick
was on here a few months back and we like he reminded me about like
how he reported on hey, Nintendo was like quietly just done a lifetime repair
thing for the joy Cons now, and we post that story. Apparently like
the next day Nintendo got so many more RMA request for joy Coons that they
were like, holy shit, we messed up. It's this bad man.
We never should have done this. And then they never really did that lifetime
thing, and in any other country. I think they might have started doing
it in Japan, but yeah, so it's like to be get that sticker
shock of like, oh my god, this this was really expensive. We
got to find a way to avoid this in the future. I think that
might convince them. But short of that, it is very easy to look
at one thing and look at another, and one thing costs less and less,
and you have to make, you know, several million of those things.
It's very easy to be like, well, let's just go with the
cheaper option. And so I think they will there's a strong chance they're going
to continue doing that. Just look at the fact that the Switch Too is
reportedly going to launch with an LCD instead of an O LAD. If you
want to be disappointing, because you should, prepare for disappointed with Nintendo and
a lot of these things, all right, A couple more stories. Nintendo
says no new content for Mario Kart Tour after the fourth of October twenty twenty
three. This is from my Nintendo News. Mario Kart Tour initially proved to
be a success for Nintendo when it launched back in twenty nineteen. Offered a
way for gamers to go on the go to dip to numerous tours, each
filled with either a new or a classic revamped track. Today, Nintendo was
announced on the game's news section that they won't be adding new content to the
iOS and Android game from Wednesday, the fourth of October. Going forward,
Nintendo has been adding courses from Mario Kart Tour as DLC courtesy of the Mario
Kart eight Deluxe Booster Course Pass, which is free for those with the sub
to Nintendo Switch Online spanshapack, blah blah blah. Yeah, this is about
this is about right. You could see other mobile games can go forever and
ever. But though that's like there's like ten mobile games like that. Maybe
maybe a little bit more. But I think if Candy Crush Tago has been
around since twenty twelve, it's just of course it's still number one, you
know, a clash of clans that's still still going. But if you were
like one like Nintendo, you run Mario Kart, make hundreds of million,
hundreds of millions of dollars over a couple of years, and then you start
seeing diminishing returns, yeah, eventually you just pull the plug on this,
especially when you almost certainly have Mario Kart eight Deluxe Plus coming out for the
Switch too. I'm joking. Of course, I hope they make a new
Mario Kart, but yeah, I'm not surprised by this, how about you,
Cam, Yeah, I mean it well, so part of it is
actually surprising to me simply because like if I remember correctly, fire Emblom Heroes
still gets support to this day, Fireman Heroes. I think it's the one
that like did especially well. The audience was like super engaged with Firemlam Heroes,
but also fire Emblam Heroes does kind of have that gotcha aspect to it
where you to monetize, Yeah, you're pulling the heroes and things like that.
So and with Mario Kart, like I'm sure that they could have added
new, new new characters, new things. Yeah, things that you could
have like paid money for cosmetics and that, but like, I don't think
that that works as well in Mario Kart than like some other uh some other
ips that they have and so and also like this is Mario Kart nine,
Like this, this just is what it is. Like it sucks that it's
a mobile it's a mobile game, but this is Mario Kart nine. And
I think that what they want to do is that they want to sunset this
game and they want to and they're finishing up the final wave of DLC for
Mario Kart eight. I would say I would expect within a year's time of
the Switch two's release, we're getting a new Mario Kart. It's gonna be
we're gonna get the Mario Kart ten. It's gonna be like, you know,
the Ultimate of the Ultimate version. I think it's I think we're finally
going to get like more Nintendo characters, not just Mario characters, but Nintendo
characters. They're basically going to super Smash Bros. Mario Kart yep, because
because why wouldn't they like it just makes total sense, and so I think
that that is what they're gonna I don't think because there has been like this
kind of like discussion like, oh, is it gonna be Are they gonna
call it a Nintendo Kart moving forward? And like, I think that's a
terrible idea, Like Mario Kart just has so much Oh yeah, identity,
Like rebranding it to Nintendo cart would be really do Mario and All Stars cart
transformed? That's what you call it. That's that's the that's the easiest answer
there. And and then just spit on Sonics Grave while you're at it.
H let's see the last two stories. Leaker claims live action Zelda movie is
in production between Nintendo and Universal my Nintendo News. Basically the headline is the
story here Cam okay, Yeah, I think I'm okay with this whatever,
you know, it's I think it's better than uh, the what's the name
of the studio that did the Mario movie illumination. I could be better than
them trying to figure out the tone of a Zelda movie. I kind of
I don't think it would be impossible for them, even if they did it
in their tone. If they kind of did a funny Zelda movie, I
think that could be interesting. But I think that maybe is the kind of
thing where it's like, you know those like Lego Star warsmal shows that they
put on Disney Plus and stuff like that, and then they've had on the
like for years and years. I think like that's a good place for like
an illumination Nintendo stuff to exist, where it's like, this is the funny
alternative to the real thing over here, and that's the Zelda live action movie.
There's a lot of questions about how this would work, but Mario made
so much money that of course they were going to do this, right,
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I am still a little surprised by how well
Mario sold, Like I did think it was gonna do really well. I
didn't think it was gonna do this well. And I think that when they
originally made this partnership, I'm sure that there were like multiple movies planned for
this. Mario is obviously going to be the first, and then and then
Zelda and then we're probably gonna get Mario two after that. But and then
I think that they're going to try and like do another ip that makes sense
for them, that they think is marketable, that you know that's under that
Nintendo banner. Yeah, Zelda is going to be interesting. I think that.
I think that Zelda is a would be a harder series to try and
make, like as a comedic family type movie than Mario, especially with it
being done by Illumination. Like, I think that if it was done by
a different studio that's that can that can definitely make serious films or like a
more serious tone, that would be a little bit more interesting. Like if
like if studio Ghiblik could do a Zelda movie, like that'd be incredible.
That being fantastic, of course, But but this is Illumination. You know,
this is the studio that made the minions and things like that, So
who knows. I definitely think again, this movie is definitely happening. But
what it's gonna look like, I couldn't tell you, and I don't know.
I would be surprised if the initial response when the first trailer comes out
is that Zelda fans are like all in on it. I think there's gonna
be a lot of I don't know about this. I don't know about that,
yea. So I mean everyone's got the idea of what it should be.
I mean I've kind of learned that recently, with like people being like
the story of Tears of the Kingdom offends me as someone who has seven copies
of the high Rol Historia. Oh okay, sorry, I'm not I thought
it was pretty cool. But so I think people are going to be bringing
in their their own desires and their own ideas of what Zelda should be and
what links should look and sound like. And that is going to be very
difficult to translate into live action any sort of version of that, let alone
the one that is going to please the most people. I think, Yeah,
maybe you just gotta just take a strong voice to it and say,
hey, we are going to we're going to translate this into a movie,
and we are going to establish something that's new but still familiar to Zelda fans.
It's probably the right move. Just do Outgreen of Time though, That's
that's what you do. Just do the Ogreen of Time story. That's pretty
easy. I think I would like to watch a movie about that. I
am so dumb. I did not realize that this was that we were talking
that they were doing a live action, so I was talking about animazing this
entire time. But it's still like no, I mean, like I'm still
because they will probably also have illumination involved in all these other Nintendo ip I
think another illumination animated film like Zelda is still possible. So like everything you
said spies in some ways, I think, and I was curious, like
like why not illumination? Right, So it's like everything you said, I
think applyes. So now they have if they are going to do this live
action with Universal, which makes a lot of sense, that's already like they're
pustion. I think it's more of a right move to do Zelda in a
live action sense, not an animated sense. Yeah, Like I mean,
I do think we've seen examples where Nintendo can make Zelda charming and funny and
more like kiddish, Yes, in that sense, but I think that people
want like an epic, you know, like an epic adventure like of of
Link and Zelda fighting Gannendorf, like that type of thing. I would I
would one hundred percent watch an illumination Zelda links Awakening TV show about Link going
on these funny, silly adventures in this weird dream world with all these talking
animals and stuff that would be cool make for a good show on Peacock wherever,
wherever the hells that wherever would show. But yeah, for a movie,
a lot of actions probably right, doesn't mean that's like right to the
point where it's going to be good. There's a lot of ways to beef
that up. But we'll see. Last story, just real quick, quick
hit. Roadblocks is coming to PS four and PS five. There's a whole
bunch of the Roadblocks news. I'm not gonna make sense it is. It
is a monolith at this point, and gigantic. It is doing some very
questionable things on this platform. But outside of that, like it's uh,
I'm surprised it hasn't happened soon. Yeah, me too. It's a PS
four and PS five, so it wasn't even on PS four. It's been
on Xbox for years. Oh yeah, yeah, Okay, I have the
I have the poll from let's see yesterday. But before we do that,
let's let's get these results. Cam you have let's see here. I have
the things right here. Let's go over it again. So for you the
best RPGs for like your JRPG console, you had Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy
six, Kingdom Parts two, Final Mix, Pokemon Gold and Silver, and
Crystal. I can like, now I'm looking at this list, holy shit
for Soona Park, Golden Pay for Mahrio, thousand Year Diller, Kingdom Parts
and Pokemon is what really did it? I think Final Fantasy seven Persona five
Royal is this is my now a Final Fantasy seven Persona five Royal, Dragon
Quest eleven sweak it into Super Mario RPG and fire mm Awakening, which Mike,
Yeah, Mike's very mex he thinks fire m a Wicket is not at
j RPG and I'd entertained that. Let's say, I'm just trying to get
away with Don. I mean, I didn't stand a chance as soon as
you've had a Pokemon game on there, and I didn't. I mean s
RPG's, if they're Japanese, they're RPGs. It's just yeah, it's a
tactics game. Yeah, like eat eat shit, Mike Manati, you heard
him. All right, let's get to the results here. I put it
on Twitter and Cam Hawkins wins fifty seven point five percent to buy forty two
point five percent with four thousand, six hundred and oh that's views, one
thousand and seven votes. So well done, Cam, that was yes as
soon as you had Pokemon on there, and I did not have an answer
to Pokemon. I was done, but I think King Parts moved it as
well. Good job. Well, I'll get my revenge. Someday. We'll
come up with another one. I'll come. Yeah, we'll do something,
all right, So let me go get the full here it's over here.
Have you ever played on the way that there we go? That's the new
one? Have you ever played a zero GX? Yes or no? Forty
five percent say yes, forty five percent say no. I hope everyone gets
a chance to play it soon. That would be ideal. Cam. You
ever play after zero g X? I have not. I have not played
enough zero game f zero GX is the one to play at this point.
It's a It is a fantastic game. So if the rumors are true about
that remake popping off soon hopefully this week at mast getting announced, give it
a try because that's a fantastic game. It's so oh yeah. I would
definitely give it a try. Since the speed is real good. It looked
fantastic. The music just a fantastic series. All right, we got a
new poll. Do you think Elder Scroll six comes out on this generation of
consoles? Yes? Yes, but cross gam with the next console or no.
I think you know I'm not gonna buy us. I'll vote off offline
everybody. All right, everyone a chat? So no fucking way, no
way. Dam Thank you so much for taking today to talk with me about
video games. Man, I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for inviting
me on. Absolutely we'll have you back for sure, despite your Kingdom Hearts
fandom, I promise, I see. I'm magnanimous. I can even even
when you're a Kingdom Hearts fan, I'll have you on the show. Thank
you everybody for watching. You're the best audience in gaming. We'll have more
on Giant Bomb this week. We're gonna go do a meeting about it here
pretty soon. Bomb Cast tomorrow. I'm gonna say, beast Cast bomb Cast
tomorrow. Wednesday, back with Game Mess mornings. We'll try to do a
Blake club this week. All that stuff. Until then, though, have
a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.