Game Mess Mornings 07/29/22

You know, like a dummy beer. It's the internet. You're busy.
Let's do this for July twenty nine, twenty twenty two. For the next
hour or so, let me help you sort through the world of gaming on
Game Mess Mornings Live with me Jeff Grubb. Today the dinosaurs are in Indie
games now. But first please join me and welcome me today's co host Game
Mess Mornings. It's Tamoor, who's saying, everybody from Giant, I'm doing
good. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. I'm it's been a
good week. I felt productive. It's weird for me, so I'm gonna
take it as w I'm taking this product. Jeff. I don't know if
anyone's told you lately, but you're doing great. Thank you so much.
Dam I really appreciate that. I've been I've been waiting to hear it,
specifically from you, and so it's great to Okay, okay, yeah,
well, well it's true, you're doing great. I watch I listen and
watch as much as I can most more news. I am tuned in and
it's been great. Yeah, fantastic. I just want to be there when
you wake up, when you well out of bed in the morning. I
can only stop my day by listening to your voice and a guest voice and
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let's see before we get into the Game Mess, let's explain ourselves.
Each weekday, I, Jeff grewill help piece your gaming life back together.
That includes breaking news, the catchup where we discuss the biggest topics consuming the
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YouTube. Hello YouTube, Okay, we have a lot to get into,
so let's start the morning mess with Sony warns of a weaker PlayStation business as
game sales wobble. This comes from Tom Warren at The Verge. Tom gave
a pretty good breakdown to some of the numbers here. Let's go through those
first two point four million excuse me. PS five's shipped or sold in.
That's up four percent, but PlayStation software sales are down twenty six percent year
over year. Meanwhile, PlayStation Plus subsubscribe sub subscriptions are at forty seven point
three million, that's up two percent. But then monthly active PSN users one
hundred and two million is down three percent. So you can see some like
I think the wobbling is a really good term from Tom where you could tell
like it's just this this top that is trying to find equilibrium after you know,
shooting up during the pandemic and now it's like where are we going to
sort of settle into a groove here? And it feels like the industry is
just like, yeah, people are buying more hardware, they're buying less games,
they're going out there, you know, they want to have the console,
but they also want to do other things with their money, and it
just feels like the industry is trying to figure out where all of that is
going to land in terms of like the wider market. These numbers, though
pretty good obviously though PlayStation still supply constrained, right Yeah. I think it
all comes down to that supplier constraint, and you're right, it's just a
matter of where is it going to land. Surprisingly, I found that I
don't know from an anecdotal perspective, it is getting better. I think that
the interesting thing is that comes like in fits and waves, where it's like
it'll get better for a bit, and then it's like, again, it's
going to be rough right now. I've over the last week or two,
I've found multiple times that it was easy to purchase a PlayStation. I obviously
didn't, but I grabbed a link and gave it to other people who are
like, here you go. You don't have to line up right now.
It's basically like buying on I think this is a lot of battening the hatches
for the smiths and the holiday period when people will be wouldn't when both hardware
all hardware will likely be in demand, and it's going to be way harder.
It will return to the I imagine because it's a higher demand to the
early days where it was basically impossible to get that stuff. And I think
it's this is generally just a warning that, hey, we're coming up to
the Christmas, the holiday season, the spending season, where people are gonna
want these things, and we're going to prep people by telling them, hey,
it's going to be a weaker business for a little bit because it's going
to be tricky. But yeah, fundamentally, though, the the the difficulty
in buying stuff is naturally gonna ebb and flow, and this is shore it
bears, it bears out in the numbers so far, Yeah, and so
many, Like you said, kind of just preparing people for what could happen
for an uncertain immediate future. Anyhow, it cuts its forecast profit for the
PlayStation division in game sales. It's says it's see it's annual profit outlook.
It's warning of a weaker PlayStation games sales for forecast. The forecast comes as
Sony revealed its ship two point four million PlayStation five consoles in recent quarter.
And then while hardware sales are slightly up, you're over your software sales plummeted.
Sony blamed the game slump on a lack of big PlayStation titles this year
compared to twenty twenty one. So clearly, while right now the immediate future
the immediate past that they're like, Okay, there's a slump. Once God
of War is here, I would expect many of these issues to resolve themselves.
Right yeah, I think that that is going. It's going to be
really interesting because God of All is obviously a system seller, and right now
we're in a weird time where system sellers, when they come out, it's
no guarantee that they'll have a good impact because the system is just on there.
So it's fascinating. I imagine God of All will have an uptick.
It's going to create an optick in purchases, for sure, but those that
optic is naturally the ceiling on it is defined by the lack of availability of
PlayStation consoles. I think from Sony side, what they're probably telling themselves is
like God of All the first game this is it will be a Ragnarok,
will be a game that has a long tail, so when those supply constraints
ideally do even out, this will be one of the games along with Miles
Morales, Spider Man, Horizon and a Demon Souls and a few others that
will propel people to you know, buy these games, and it will still
have a pretty good attach rate, and who knows by that time. By
that time there could be even bundles where it's like the God of All Ragnarok
bundle. But yeah, it's it's definitely going to move units a little more,
but those units aren't going to be like mind blowing because it's just hard
to find that. And in previous generations it would be a simply case,
so simply a case of I say, simply, but it would be a
case of you know, adjusting supply to meet demand, whereas the situation we
have now is they can't adjust supply to meet the demand because the components.
Yeah. So, but speaking on the future of like the component shortage,
Sony did sound a little bit more hopeful on that front. Sony now hopes
hardware shipments will improve later this year, as it believes that it is mostly
supply chain disruptions that are affecting PS five shipments rather than a lack of components.
So it's like it really has been components this entire time, Sony at
least is intimating here that maybe that is going to not no longer be the
case, and now we're going to be dealing with more wobbling. But now
it's just wobbling in that supply chain as they try to get that all figured
out to a point where it could be a little tatter and they can get
more more things to where play where people are demanding it right now, instead
of just like in fits and starts here and there where like okay, we
get a huge shipment to America right now PlayStation five's and then in a month
it's like there are no play Station five anywhere and a bunch of popped up
in you know, some other countries somewhere. So they want to make be
able to like do a more regular paste out release of these consoles over time.
It's see Routers reports that Sony now has revised its annual profit forecast down
sixteen percent for its gaming business as it anticipates another fall in games sales next
quarter, alongside cost associated with its recent three point side three point seven billion
dollar Bungee acquisition. Uh yeah, I mean when you have like big costs
like that on your books. Yeah, there's gonna be a drop in terms.
Like if that is when they're reporting that cost, it's it's gonna hurt
them, but like they'll bounce right back next quarter. That's the kind of
thing where that money was either just sitting in their bank or they got it
with pretty good terms, you know, as even as interest rates go up,
they probably got it with pretty good terms. That's the kind of money.
Making their money work for them by getting Bunchie is going to be worth
it in the long run. But yeah, they'll probably take another hit next
quarter. Uh, let's see, and this last a little bit here.
Sony's PlayStation game sales are the latest sign that the gaming industry is slowing down
after a big boost during the initial stages of the pandemic. Microsoft doesn't reveal
its own Xbox hardware shipments, but the company saw Xbox hardware revenue dip eleven
percent in its recent quarter, alongside a six percent dip in Xbox Content and
services revenue and a seven percent decline in overall gaming revenue. While Microsoft had
a straw fiscal year for Xbox revenue, the company is also warning that the
gaming revenue and Xbox content and services revenue will both decline next quarters, So
this is not a Sony or Xbox problem. They are both expecting more of
this, like correction to the pandemic. They'll probably maintain a lot of the
momentum they got because once you sell a console to a person they have it.
It's much easier for them to decide, oh, I want to buy
another video game like that. The hard part is getting them to buy the
console. But it's still They're expecting some of that entertainment budget to go elsewhere,
and that just makes sense. Yeah. Sony was asked about the possibility
of raising the price of the PS five. This comes from Tom Ivan at
VGC. Sony has refused to be drawn on whether current economic pressures could lead
the company to increase the price of the PlayStation five. In April, Sony
raised the Japanese prices of a range of consumer electronic products, including some cameras,
Blu ray players, home theater systems, headphones and speakers. It said
the price revisions were being made in light of ongoing semiconductor shortages and other external
factors that have caused the cost of raw materials, manufacturing, and distribution to
increased. During its first quarter earnings call on Friday, Sony was asked about
this and it said about a potential potential price increase for PS five At this
point in time, there's nothing specific we can share about your about price increases,
so they're not even gonna like sort of entertain this question. The only
reason this makes sense to ask about right now is because Meta raise the price
of the quest to Facebook whatever you want to call them. There is no
chance of Sony doing this right. They are too well aware of the backlash
this would create. I think they're too well aware of the backlash just to
create. And also it's just the worst time from a PR perspective when you
can't a lot of people are struggling to buy it. So I think that
the problem you have is if you raise the price now and it's not immediately
available as is, people are going to be like, well, I'm not
gonna pay more money and put in hard work to find this thing. I'll
just go and find something cheaper, and chances are they'll find an Xbox or
a switch or upgrade or decide to invest in a PC or something like that.
I think it it is like a bit. It would be shooting themselves
in the leg and it would would now would not be the time for it.
I think traditionally console manufacturers don't raise prices. I think the only time
that never happened was when Nintenda released the O LAD and that was more expensive
than the launch price of the original Switch. That's the only time that they
think of it ever happening. The way we do it in the industry is
they create. They they increase the price of a console by by introducing a
revision, which is a you know, a PS five you know pro or
something like that, or they create some sort of bundle way it looks like
you're getting more out of it while in reasing the price. So if they
chucked in five digital games or something like that, which is probably cheaper than
bundling in a bunch of physical games, and then raise the price, that
would be a way to do it. But I don't think they look at
this core unit and they go, this is a this is we're taking the
baseline model, a baseline price of this model and just raising it. The
meta thing is like it is the difference there is PlayStation and console game hardware
is it was established product that they didn't need to figure out. Mainstream penetration
on, whereas VR hardware in a many ways is still trying to get penetrate
the mainstream and reach there. And the reason the oculus quest can go up
is because I believe they sold it at costs for a really long time,
or they weren't making money on it in a major way, and they needed
to do that because they needed to sell the idea of VR as much as
the actual VR product as well. And if it's super expensive. One of
the main downsides where people was VR is a thing that they believe is quite
costly to invest in, So the quest too is kind of big thing.
Was it's the thing that you don't need to plug into anything else, you
don't need anything else, and it's dirt cheap, so and it's very good.
So that was the kind of thing. But I think the realities of
the situation have now reached a point where either they believe at matter that they've
reached the market penetration that they want where they can now raise the price,
or they simply cannot afford to carry on doing it at that price selling it
at that price, and the the flip side of market penetration is no longer
a concern to them because they need to recoup some costs. Yeah, well,
Tam. One of my favorite capitalism simulating games is well, I mean
everyone knows it's Tingles rosy Rupy Land, a game where you play as Tingle,
and the entire mechanic is you need to get money, and then you
need to guess how much money this person wants for the thing that you need
and if you if you come up with a price that is too low,
they just keep the money. They don't give you the thing. Now,
it's not how it works, but it's a good like it's a good thing
where it's like all this stuff is made up. The economics is like not
a hard science. It is trying to guess what people will be okay with
and that clearly met as like we can get away with this price increase right
now. PlayStation is just in such a different market right where the Xbox Series
S exists, and it's like this thing that's like selling pretty well and pretty
easily available, and it's one of the main reasons that, according to Microsoft,
the Xbox Series X and S have been like the market leader for the
last three quarters or something like that. Obviously, supply constraints on PS five
a huge reason for that as well. But the availability of the Xbox series
s plays into that and these things competing in the same space. Microsoft is
not going to raise the price of its consoles. Sony's also not going to
do it. But this is the reason why these two things are too easy
to compare. Video gamers, gaming fans way too loud, and it would
just be such a backlash, it would be such a hard thing to push
through. Where in the VR space, it's like, if you don't want
to Quest two, what are you gonna do? Go buy a valve in
decks for a thousand dollars and plug it into your PC. Like Plus two
is just not competing in the same way with other devices, so they can
get away with it. Even even then there's backlash against that one as well.
Yeah, the funny thing is like, even at that press, the
Quest two is pretty good, it's still worth it. Like I don't know,
maybe I'm speaking out a turn, but that thing was I was surprised
at how cheap that thing was, and even at his current price, I'm
like, that's good man, right, it was just funny thing that you're
getting is good, right, It's like and I get there, like this
is. It's so bold of them, like and not like it. I'm
like, oh, it's so impressive. But it's like they're just, hey,
hey, this thing's worth it at this price too. Typically you would
see a company be like, Okay, what we could do is let's just
cut off one hundred and twenty a gigabyte model and we'll sell We'll keep selling
this the current high end model for the same price as it was before,
and then we'll introduce an even more capacity model for even more money, and
that will raise the average sales price. They're like, no, just raise
the price of everything. I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever, go
for it fair. They are chucking in beats, say, but if I
remember correctly, that's that's true. That's a great good point. That's a
great game, and it's the game you would get if you're getting one of
these things. Yeah, you're right, very very easy to mode and stick
all of your anime intros in there, which you know you have to do.
They should just do that for you. They should honestly just do it
for you at this point. All right, Yesterday was the Annapurna Interactive Showcase.
There's a bunch of games here in this list. A lot of stuff
is just like, oh, now it's getting ported from one platform to another,
Tam, did you catch up on this? Did anything stand out to
you? I watched a couple of things, and honestly, the thing that
I'm most excited about is the Wilds. I mean, I'm at a point
where I'm like, I forgot most of that game, it's probably time for
another play through. And I thought the same thing. Yeah, I've not
played the DLC yet, so I think I might start that very very soon.
I streamed the original Out Worlds and I did this thing where I set
the you know, the world there's ending music. I set that to a
button on my stream deck, so I just randomly press it at weird times
and the entire chat would be like, what the hell is going on?
So I'm excited to jump back. But in terms of other games, like
the things that I'm most interested in are Sadly. The one that I'm most
interested in is sadly something that we know little to nothing about, which is
Kattacker. Hash is a new game. His studio is called ula. I
think it is yeah or something like that that that looks cool. There's also
Hohokam's coming out as well, and the Lost Wild seems interesting. That's what
I'm showing here. It looks like, yeah, it looks like if you
if Capcom were to make a Dana Crisis with the new Resident Evil model,
right, That's exactly what I hope it is. Yeah, because like I
love the I love the that we've reached the stage where developers will be like,
if you're not going to make it, willed it? Yeah, and
and and we'll just make things and discover increasing right because it like it was
like, if you're not going to make a metric gain you, we will.
And now it's like, if you're not going to make the modern Dino
Crisis first person game like that looks just like Resil seven, we'll do it.
I'm like, well, okay, really you could do that. It's
just fantastic. Yeah, So I'm I'm excited that at the prospect of that.
I hope it does work out for them and it is as good as
everyone wants it to be. But yeah, those are the main things that
stuck out for me. There's a few other stories that were like a few
other games that were just like, hey, we've has a bunch of developers
talking about their games, which look interesting, but I'm still waiting to see
more about the games like Forever Ago, for example, it's like a road
trip game with an old man, which seems pretty pretty interesting, but I
want to see more of that less of the people just being like, Hello,
we're in Germany and we have been making some games. Isn't that cool?
Yeah? But yeah, I was into a lot of games coming to
switch, a lot of games coming to game Pass. That's nice, that's
always good. Let's like Solar, Ash Mckette, Pathless. I think these
are all coming to Xbox, to Mkenton, Solar, Astron game Pass,
Outer Wilds they say, still coming to switch. The report's still happening,
although they were very apologetic about how long that's seemingly still going to take,
so probably still gonna be a while. Yeah, I don't know, I
was into it. I overall tend to like many Antiparna games. I still
kind of can't get the taste of the recent reporting about Antiparna out of my
mouth, where it's like, Oh, they're just la dude bros, just
like any other Hollyway Hollywood bro that you would expect so to meet in Hollywood
and uh, and they kind of just want to make their money. I'm
like, okay, yeah, I mean I see, so they're not like
some perfect publisher. It sounds like a lot of other publishing outfits. Hopefully
these developers that are working with them can get their games made and treat their
employees right. And yeah, ultimately, if they if they're giving us the
games that are interesting and the people who are in partnerships with them are being
treated well, who cares what if they do bros, then be dude bros.
Whatever. Man bros. Could do a lot worse. And currently looks
like they're just putting out interesting games and funding them. So as long as
the people below the dude bros Are doing the right things whatever. Yeah,
that has been the case, and like many of these some of these studios,
that has not been the case. But hopefully the reporting and they sure
that stuff up. But yeah, it's it's not at every studio. The
other game I forgot to mention, it's thirsty suitors from out on Loop Games.
I'm super excited about that because it's just it looks really cool. Right,
I'm gonna bring up that trailer right now. Yeah that yeah, also
looked very good. It's like interesting like Kata Takahashi like he was working with
them before, with that previous studio that had some issues, and it's interesting
that that studio clothes I can't remember the name of it, maybe check and
help. But now like, oh, but they're still working with Kata Takashi
did go back to them, so it's like, okay, maybe there's still
something there where it's like the issue wasn't with Annapurna. Maybe the issue was
the other way, but the studio yeah yeah, uh yeah. Thursty suitos
looking very cool. This vibing skateboarding like yeah, life sim I don't know,
it's very cool. Yeah, it's like a dating life South Asian representation.
That's really cool. Sergios is my dude here with his hellam alle it
there? Yeah, okay, it looks really awesome. All right, so
let's let's see. Valve won't allow awards and reviews on Steam stop images starting
at September. This comes from j Peters at the Verge. Valve is making
a big change that the way developers can market their games on Steam beginning September.
First, graphical assets developers use in their store listings will only be able
to include game artwork, the game's name, and any official subtitle. Images
won't be able to include review scores, award names, or logos, text
that markets discounts, or text promoting a different product. Here's Valve's reasoning for
the change from a blog post. It's our goal to make it as clear
and straightforward as possible for customers to find games to buy and play on Steam.
Recently, we've noted Recently, we've noticed hard text or logos, and
even some review score being included by game developers in their graphical asset images.
This made us realize our guidelines haven't been as clear as they should be.
As a result of not having clear, defined rules, we've seen we've seen
additional to graphical additions to graphical assets that are creating a confusing and sometimes even
inaccurate experience for customers. I mean, what are they fucking talking about?
Like all marketing is inherently sort of a lie, right, Like all the
it's like all about like building buzz and making you feel like you're going to
miss out. And one way that companies often do that is like, here
are all the nines out of ten moments we got? I don't know,
I mean, this doesn't seem like a problem to me. It's our goal
to make it as clear and straightforward as possible for customers to find games to
buy and play on Steam. Has anyone who wrote that you Steam in the
last five years, Because let me tell you, whoever you are, you've
got a lot more work and a lot more important things to worry about than
images with reviews and pictures of reviews or like scores on it. Because Steam
is a nightmare hellscape of discovery and the ability to find stuff. The only
way I successfully will find stuff is when I know exactly what I want and
I go there and I type it in. If not, I am probably
getting into just some sort of nonsense like rabbit hole, where I won't find
anything and it's so weird. I don't really understand this. Yeah, I
mean, did they explain somewhere? Like some game logos themselves have become so
small that it's hard for players to tell what the name of the game is.
In other cases, graphical asset images are so cluttered with the war logos
and ratings that it is distracted and hard to read. This sounds like old
man stuff, like I can't see what the name of the like it's right
there also right next to the image, Like, I don't see these issues.
I don't get this. I feel like this is a case of I'm
going to be cynical and say when you have When I go to a Steam
page, the main thing that draws my eye and attention is the main unit
right where the screenshots are. Everything else around it is a complete mess.
It's real clod like. If they want to fix stuff, fix everything around
that main unit. Yeah. For me, I think the easiest way to
get a candle on what a game is and whether I'm interested is just use
that a scroll thing and go through the images, maybe look at a video.
And I think developers marketing very smartly realized the rest of Steam is bullshit
and it's confusing people. Let's just put the image here with all the review
scores, and I think what has happening is Valve is gone. Well,
we have all this annoying shit down here where we put review scores and quotes
and links and this kind of stuff, where all the data that we need
people to pass to make these decisions, or like, all the extra sections
that they have, it's just being it's pointless. So let's take it out
of there and make sure that they go there. And like game boxes have
had review scores past to them in like Game of the Year awards emblems pasted
on their front for forever. This just feels like it's part of how you
sell games. I mean, honestly, I think I might honestly find it
helpful when I look at a game's art and they show me this has been
reviewed by reputable sources, and that's like, of course they're cherry picking.
I know they're cherry picking, and maybe this is not a fully accurate representation,
but at least tells me that, oh, this game has been recognized
by people who have played it and they did give it a score. They
played enough to give it a score. And I know if I go to
look for reviews, there will be more like I make that split decision,
like in a second where I look, I'm going through Steam and I see
a game, I'm like, okay, this moment, Oh, ign reviewed
this, That's okay, I'm gonna go maybe see if there are other reviews.
If it's just uh, and then if it's at this, you know,
on the other hand, if it's like oh, here, it's like
some sevens and eights out of tens, and I don't recognize any of these
sites. Maybe that kind of turns me off a little bit, like I
find it informational to an extent. Yeah, And like I'm on a Steam
page right now, and it's so silly because the smallest text on this screen
currently is the review part of it, like the logo. The other images
in the carousel are way bigger than the text, Like they're way easier to
pass. So if anything, they should be like looking at how they present
text and the other sections below it instead of instead of what is going on
like this stuff on the side, which is like is this game relevant to
you? It's all these like genre signifies, online PvP, Steam achievements.
I don't care about any of that, I mean, and all that stuff
stufe by like the like the community and done by algorithms. I kind of
want like more places for the developer themselves to be like, here is what
our game is, and here's like what it can do when you actually play
it, and here's how you can might feel about it. None of that
stuff is like well, many of those things are cluttered up by stuff that
is created by the altgornthumber by the community, and so it's like it gets
confusing and it just feels like this gray smudge that I ignore in most cases
on theme. Yeah, and there's also a complete lack of consistency, Like
I went to the Noman's sky page and there was reviews there. I'm now
on the Red Dead Redemption two page no reviews. There's like there's no review
section here, So like, what is someone supposed to do if they go
to a you know, a page and they're not They're not guaranteed to get
the same information on every single one, Like how do I now look at
there's nothing on this Red Dead Redemption to store page that tells me about the
quality of the game, Like there's no review here unless that's go all the
way down and go to the customer review section. Like it's baffling. Like
then, if you're going to do something like hey, you can't put review
or logo award logos in your images, make it mandatory to ensure that it's
up front and send the review put side of it so people can get a
very good glance of some quotes from reviews. It has stuff like reviews are
positive, but like what is that? What is that for? If I
clear that, it goes down to the bottom where Steam, you know,
user reviews are there. And I don't know about you, but I don't
always use Steam user reviews because ridiculous. Yeahlessly positive, overwhelmingly positive. I
glanced at that, and that's it. There's a lad hair that's scored nine
hundred dollars in red Dead Redemption too and says it's not worth it. So
what am I supposed to do it? Yeah? What I supposed to do
with that information? Yeah, that's a that's a tough one to part see
exactly. It's like when I look at those reviews, I often come out
more confused. So yeah, absolutely, I don't know. Steam is they
sell a lot of video games. They kind of feel like they could probably
get away with like definding stuff however they want. This just feels like a
weird backward step from their laz fair attitude where it's like, hey, just
just you know, sell games ever you want, We don't care, and
like suddenly to like wake up and be like, well we don't want review
scores in image. It just feels out of nowhere. I'm like confused by
it. Let's see mega Man franchise is now sold thirty eight million units.
This is this came from earlier this week. I just kind of wanted to
bring it up because I thought it's a pretty good point of comparison between all
these different things here. Let's bring up the asset thirty eight million copies sold
for MegaMan. That's the one that's stuck out to me. But it's like,
that's one of the reasons we might not be getting more because that series
has been on for so long, and yet the rest of an Evil series
one hundred and twenty seven million units sold, So you can see maybe where
Capcom thinks it should be putting its should be investing its resources now. At
the same time, Devil May Cry series twenty six million units, but of
course that's also a younger franchise than MegaMan. So let's see how Let's go
through the Street Fighter series forty eight million units, Monster hundred eighty four million
units, and Dragon's Dogma series six point eight million units. When you look
at these numbers, it's like, do you think there's a chance of MegaMan
to have a future alongside all these other things that Capcom is obviously like double
down on Resideval, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter. These are working for us.
Do you think MegaMan could ever get there? I would be surprised if
Mega Man comes back in a major way. Like I don't see Mega Man
getting a Triple A experience. I think Mega Man Saturday will all be always
be confined to we put a small team to make this kind of indie experience,
or we've taken all the other Mega Man games and once again package them
into a rerelease of some sort, and here it is again, please buy
it. Which is a shame because I think there's a lot of potential in
that franchise. It is like this is gonna sound blasphemous, but like it
has sonic energy, you know, like they they could turn it into a
good animated series. They could turn it into a great comic series again and
you know, create some really cool I don't know, Sonic Mania style experiences,
and I don't see Capcom having much interest in doing that. Isn't Battle
Network coming out again? So yeah, the Battle Network Collection is coming soon.
That's the next thing. Yeah. Yeah, So, like I don't
know, I feel like Battle Network has got a lot of legs in it,
and maybe this is a chance for people to you know, jump in
and show that they care about Mega Man by supporting that and buying that Mega
Man type of those Mega Man experiences. But I would love to Mega Man
has always been a character that I enjoy, but I've never played and not
played. I never, like super fell in love with the original games,
the Battle Network stuff that I dipped into a more my jam. But I
truly believe that there's a really cool modern Megavania game to be made, if
you know what I mean, Like A, I love the idea of a
studio taking Mega Man and turning it into a bigger Metroidvania style game where you
know, you going around collecting powers and you know, I don't know,
maybe like zero is knocking about as if it's like Samus the evil version of
Samus or something to show like that. The other number here, what was
a Dragons dog was six point eight million. That's for the first game,
and it's like, you know, updates or whatever. That's pretty good for
Dragons Dogma. So far do you expect when Dragons Dogma two comes out that
it could be like a ten million seller? Like could it get to that
next level of being a major, major blackbuster? Do you want me?
Do you want my honest troop? Yes? I do. I think when
when Dragons Dogma comes out to no one's going to give a single man no
No, I think Mega Man, not Mega Man. Dragons Dogma two.
What we've done is what we have is Capcom is about to have their mirror's
edge to a moment. Yeah, I say that. I say that as
a big Dragons Dogma fan. I know we have a lot of folks in
Giant Bomb community but also passed off that love that game. I want it
to succeed, But in my heart of hearts, I feel like that game
is gonna come out and people are gonna be like, what is this?
No thanks and just move on. I feel like the Dragons dog I'm a
fan base has been really good about sounding louder than they are, if you
know what I mean. Yeah, because because you know, the game was
a sleeper hit and then it kind of had it built up slowly. But
it's like one of those things like if you're a champion of it, you'll
be pretty loud among those champions because they're like, not everyone was a champion
of it like some games. So yeah, I think it kind of also
depends on the timing, like when do they put it out. If they
put it out at the right opportune moment, it could hit in a big,
big way. We've seen indie games now come out and everyone they look
like they're being you know, there wouldn't be a major deal, but because
of when they're released, they are like the perfect thing at the perfect moment
when people needed it, and they pop off in a massive way. Elden
Ring is not a great example because it's from software, but like the timing
at which elden Ring came out helped it incredibly, Like they literally no one
else was around it. That's partly because people moved away from it, but
also they want a lot of other games coming out, and it owned like
the Conversation for a couple of months and that was like a big deal.
And obviously Dragons Document is a very different type of game, but it also
has an elder Ring energy to it, where it's this big, open world
game and it will have a lot of really cool like dynamics, gameplay,
dynamics and mechanics, so it could do something big. I really wanted to
succeed, but deep down I have just this itching feeling where it's going to
be one of those things where it got made, where all the people that
play it are happy that it got made. It's probably a decent game,
maybe it's an amazing game. And Itsuno San has it out of his system
because you know, this is his baby and he's been trying to make it
for ages. He's like, God damn it, I keep making you amazing
government cry games. Let me make the one game that I want. And
then he makes it, and maybe we just move on from there and that's
the last of we see of Dragon's Dogma. But I don't know, man,
there's something about it. This makes me feel like we're setting them up
to really get some party in their face. He said all that shit,
I didn't say anything in years. When you come back to clip this,
the rubb it in our face is just you leave me out of it,
all right? Hey, I say I want it to succeed. My feeling
is that we might be like we have, We might have oversold it to
Capcom and then you know what, you know what, I want to succeed
because if it succeeds, that's one step closer to get in the god Hend
remake that I've we've been dying fall. That's what this has all been about.
I knew it, Okay, I knew it all right. Uh,
let's see famits to Japanese physical charts. I'm bringing this up just because we
get a little bit info about Live Alive and how it's doing. It was
number one for the week in Japan. Uh. These are the physical sales
seventy one, one hundred and thirty seven. So if you add in uh,
you know, assumed at least thirty percent digital, it's going to be
right around one hundred thousand. It's probably more than thirty percent, so maybe
even near one hundred and fifty thousand units. That's pretty good for a game
that's sort of no one ever talked about, most people did not talk about
until it got announced that Nintendo to act a few weeks ago with h D
two D remake. And now here it is, and it seems to be
kicking off. I guess game is going to be a pretty good, a
pretty successful thing. And yeah, the kind of thing that's like, oh,
this is the exact right kind of game to do HD two D,
where it is not the super supermassive, big budget thing, but it's a
really good recreation of what we already had, and it's gonna make easily enough
money to justify keep doing things like this in the future, right, Yeah
for sure. I I just thoughted it and I'm having a great time no
it JRPG Expert down Rock, it seems to be having a great time where
yeah, we're in the brief discussions that we have had, but yeah,
this is a kind of thing where it's like, hey, take something.
I feel like this. This kind of style could be Nintendo's new like remake
approach where they're like, hey, let's take our old games that you know,
maybe we get an Earthbound game like this, right yeah, you know
what reminds me of like when like a hip hop song will sample like an
old, old older like so like Michael McDonald's song, Uh yeah, yeah,
yeah, like what it was, I'm like regulate all right, Like
yeah, it's like okay, now Michael McDonald's song is in the top forty
again, what the hell is going on? That's what it feels like.
H two D is the hip hop of gaming. It's what I've been trying
to see exactly. Yeah, uh's the Switch still selling very well. It's
like when you could bind all the models, it's at like eighty thousand,
and you compare that to the supply con strand consoles PlayStation five at ten thousand.
Uh, well, like the eleven thousand and then Xbox Series S and
S right around five thousand, So the Xbox Series X and S still seems
like it's probably outpacing Xbox One. But yeah, once PlayStation five is able
to get as mini units in Japan as they can, it's probably gonna keep
growing ten thousand, eleven thousand. PlayStation five also still wrote like really low
that system. Even though PlayStation doesn't sell as well in Japan as the Switch,
it still should be at like forty fifty thousand like every week or something
like that. So yeah, uh, all right, finally for the news.
Also, I want to PlayStation four eleven eleven eleven past eleven. PlayStation
four as sold last week one hundred and twenty five new two dsllls. There
you go. And every time I see like, oh yeah, there's still
new two ds is in Japan, I wonder if I can get those for
cost. But we'll see, all right. FTC Chair up ends antitrust standards
with Meta law suit. This this comes from Cecilia Kang at New York Times.
This is relevant to a lot of news in gaming because of acquis acquisitions
that just you know, haven't gone through yet, specifically activision of Microsoft.
Well, let's read so we can kind of like lay the groundwork here for
why that may or may not matter. Lena Khan may set off a shift
in how Washington regulates competition by filing cases in tech areas before they mature.
She faces an uphill climb, and this is Lena Khan is the Federal Trade
Commission like leader. Early in her tenure as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission,
Lena Khan declared that she would reign in the power of the largest technology
technology companies in a dramatically new way. We're trying to be forward looking,
anticipating problems and taking fast action, miscon said in an interview last month.
She promised to focus on next generation technologies and not just on areas where tech
behemoths but were already well established. This week, Miss Khan took her first
step towards stopping the tech monopolies of the future when she sued to block a
small acquisition by Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook of the virtual reality
fitness startup within the deal was significant for Metas development of the so called metaverse,
which is a nascent technology and far from mainstream. In doing so,
Miss Khan up ended decades of antitrust standards, potentially setting off a wholesale shift
in the way Washington enforces competition across corporate America. At the heart of the
FTC's lawsuit is the idea that regulators can apply antitrust lawsuit without waiting for a
market to mature to the point where it is clear that companies hold the most
power. The FTC said such early action was justified because Metas deal would probably
eliminate petition in the young virtual reality market. There there's some more history here
about like the you know what the standards were previously, But basically, like
the short version of it is a deal would get blocked by the FTC if
it was very clear that it was moving one company more towards a monopoly.
That is not necessarily it's it would be very difficult to prove that here.
So it feels like khn is trying to do something here where she is establishing
a new standard and people like analysts, let's see the Ftec's lawsuit against Meta
in the budding virtual reality market is a deliberately experimental case that seeks to extend
the boundaries of merger enforcement, said William Kovichick, a former chair of the
agency. She such cases are certainly harder to win, so this feels like,
like he says, an experiment to see if they can broaden the regulatory
boundaries that they have. And it's sort of weird because this for hundred million
dollar deal. It's kind of the way the system is supposed to work.
We've talked about this before, where if you are a small, young company
and you want to try to do something, one of the clear incentives to
do that is you want to get just big enough where you're not profitable,
but a bigger company sees the profit in you and buys you. And by
blocking one of these deals, that could de incentivize people from investing in those
ideas in the future. Now, that's not going to happen in every case,
but that it will be the argument for why this is probably not a
good thing. It's probably gonna be a big part of the argument when what's
this actually goes to court if that happens. Obviously, though the thing that
people are concerned about here or concerned whatever. Like. The reason this might
be interesting is because what does this mean for Microsoft acquiring Activision. I think
a lot of speculation will be like, well, anything can happen now,
if they're going to block this, they could block anything. To me,
this sounds like, well, the reason they pick a small thing off to
the side is because they do want to test this, and while this test
is ongoing, they're probably not going to do anything else too crazy, right,
They're probably not going to buck the Activision deal at all. No,
I think it will be a little a long time before this becomes a standard
thing. And like you said, they want to experiment without like upending the
entire system before they even know the ins and outs of it and the limitations
and advantage this advantages. I don't think it has any impact on the Microsoft
Activision acquisition at all. I agree. I think that's I think it's just
if they wanted to do something about that deal, they probably would have by
now, I think, and I think they're looking past this. And I
also think, like if you look at the target here, Microsoft and pretty
good standing with most regulators and lawmakers in Washington, Facebook very much not and
Facebook is an easy target. No one likes them, No one likes Mark
Zuckerberg. If you are going to test these new ideas at these new possibilities
for regulation out, you're going to do it and Mark Zuckerberg, Yeah,
And you know that also increases it's your best chance of winning too, because
you know the courts they might oversee this also might not like Facebook as much.
It might see more of a threat for them because they've had this pattern.
And I just think this is going to be their focus and Microsoft's probably
going to continue escape by I feel like this is one of those use cases
where it's like, you do it to that company because this in the process
of doing it, you will understand and discover so many hurdles and pitfalls and
things to think about that by the end of it, regardless of whether you
succeed or fail, you have just a metric shit ton of understanding and data
to look at to be like, this is what we need to think about.
This is why it's good, This is why it's a bad idea.
These are the common like precedents that this are the precedents that will likely set
etc. Et cetera. And yeah, you do it with this company,
like, I feel like it's the perfect target for it, because by the
end of it, you'll be like, we've we've encountered every challenge and question
that possibly we could encounter. And then you take that information and when you
use it on smaller companies are less complicated and less you know, have let's
have a knock on effect. It will You'll you'll probably be like, we
we can approach this and we know how to tackle this because of all this
stuff that we did from just clapping Mark Zuckerberg's cheeks for a year and a
half. Right, uh and yeah. As peace Machine points out, this
is all applies to us, and regulation for these kinds of deals is global,
and the European market is completely different with much stricter regulations, and who
knows what will happen there. A few weeks ago we got like, oh,
this deal my close in thirty days because it passed a certain threshold in
America. It's like, well, yeah, yam in America, that doesn't
mean the deal will finalize because Europe could still stand in the way. And
that's still true here. If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I would take this
opportunity to release a social video of him doing the from the Star Trek Wrath
of Khn. Yes exactly, and that now is the time mark. There's
never been a better time for a Wrath of con friends, please yeah,
yeah, all right, let's get to the catchup. Just a few things
here. It updated people on Xbox Live August. Games with Gold have been
announced. Uh you know it is. It's Games with Gold. So it's
Caligo, Scourge Bringer, Saints Road two, and Monaco. I like Scurge
Bringer, I like Monaco, I like Saints Road two. I've never played
Calico. But this, you know, continues to be the kind of thing
where it's like I'm glad I got you know, game pass, Like that's
what I'm happy still happening. What's gonna with Games of Gold? It just
seems to be a really weird thing running on fumes, right, like who
like, who cares? It's all it is. It's like this weird thing,
like they pops up once a month and people are like, well that
looks pretty bad, Like that's that's all it ever is so especially compared to
a recent PlayStation plus, you know, a library update where they're like,
here's the Yakuza game and Tony Hawks pro Skater one plus two remake and stuff.
I'm like, wow, that's really good. So yeah, I feel
like Games with Gold is only currently being enjoyed by people with like an Xbox
three sixties Yeah right exactly. Yes, someone like in their back room and
they like they whenever they have a break, they just go in the back
room. And someone like forgot to cancel Xbox Live Gold at the business,
so someone's like, man on work, I get to play all these great
games. So yeah, Nintendo is returning to Bits Summit. But Bits Summit
is Japan's largest indie game event. It's happening in August sixth through seventh.
This is Nintendo's first time back in three years, and it's booth will have
seven indie games. So Nintendo getting back out there doing something. I heard
that Hollid Night it is going to be there. Oh wow, really,
this is what you're gonna do. This is what you're gonna do to people.
I have heard that Holid Night folk song will be at bits on me
everyone, But it's not gonna be the You gotta go out back, you
got to know the password. I will just try to sneak in the back
and yeah, yeah, don't get arrested everybody. Uh god. I think
it's cool that Nintendo's going back to BITS. I like Bit Summit from what
I've seen of it, I've never been able to go. If I ever
do go to Japan, now, maybe I'll try to time out with BITS
Summit because it looks like a good time. The indie scene in Japan has
like really grown alongside this specific summit, like bringing them all together, and
I think a lot of like smaller developers and tree I'm like looked around be
like, oh, there's way more of us than we were expecting. We
just didn't know that we had a community here and bit someone has been central
to building that out, and that's yeah, based on it is one of
the coolest events in like modern gaming, like in the world. Like I've
never been there. I was BIT somehit adjacent for a little while, but
I spoke to a bunch of people that worked on it and continue to work
on it, And I've always had a back and forth with people because they
want us to come a lot. It's tricky because it is in Japan,
but it's a show that's one hundred percent worth going to if you're there.
And can go there. But if you're not, I would say, like
you can like tune in remotely. And it's really really, really cool just
to keep up on the news of what's going on. It's like a it's
almost like an information share as much as it is like a gathering of the
indie community in Japan. And there's some really amazing stuff that is being made
in Japan in the indie scene. That Bit Summit is pretty much the only
place that is surfacing it to the rest of the world. So yeah,
it's worth attention to and shout out to the people that are putting that on
ear after year. All right, let's get to the poll here. Do
you think that's Star Wars Nights of the Older public remake from Aspire ever comes
out? Is this did? Is this the new one? New one?
Uh? Nope, that's nothing that was from from yesterday. Let me go
ahead and grab that. It will be fine, don't worry about Yeah,
there we go, There we go. I asked about folders, way more
interesting. Do you use folders on your gaming platforms to organize your games?
Yes? That's thirty six point nine percent said yeah, yes, sixty three
point one percent said no. I don't I think like even that among those
yes ers, I bet a lot of them set it up once and forget
about it, because that's how I listen. If there's a I'm never keeping
games that I'm not playing on my consoles. Right. If I'm not playing
that game, it's gone. Like I will never have more than maybe three
or four games on a console unless it's a pollable console. If it's a
switch, I'll keep all the games on there that I have. I think
I might be able to I might say in the future, but like on
on PlayStation, Xbox, pretty much Steam anywhere else, like if once I'm
done with the game, I delete it. I brought this up yesterday when
we were talking about this, but Steam just created an adult games folder for
me, and it's got let's see Fight Angel General Live six. Some of
these are just like, well, there's honey Pop of course, let's see
the Quarry is an adult game according to a Steam Uh, Sex with Stalin
is an adult game, as you might expect it to be. But you
know, yeah, Kuza like a dragon and trying to see if there's any
other stop. You know, it's very stiff and rigid. Yeah, let's
see Suck You Bus, which is like a first person one that has like
you could you see movies in that one? So actual it's an actual adult
game. There you go, yeah, and steams like we gotta take the
logos off. I did not. I'll just a furry cyberfucker too. There
it is right there in my thing launched. A new launched this week.
All right, let's see, I have a new question for are you everybody?
I even put a clarification because people will take the stuff pretty seriously.
I will Dragons Dogma sell? Well, all right, let's do that one
in said I was gonna do. Are you planning to purchase a new console
before the end of the year? That's not fun. Let's do it.
Will Dragons Dogma to sell, like, let's put a number on it,
like north of like nine million cell more than I would say, what Dragons
Doguma one was that whateves? Like seven million? It's like seven million million.
Let's say let's say nine million. Okay, more than nine million copies
and then I'll just put it in here. No, that's just seven that's
do seven okay, the original same as the original, more than seven million
more than the seven million the original has sold. All right, there we
go Game mess mornings, Yes or no, that's easy, and then let's
post this and then tam, you got anything happening for the rest of today?
You got anything you want to promote, anything you want to talk about
and happen over game spot watch my dump truck is out now. If you
want to see Jan say the word clibbed, which is so absolutely ridiculous to
me, I like, I was checking in and on on the show.
I'm gonna listen to the rest of it, and I've seen I haven't watched
the clip but I saw like the image, and I like the way that
you guys have spelled this word clipboard instead of clipboard. Was he like thinking
of cupboard? Like exactly that? Exactly? Cupboard is a very stupid word.
Cupboard, cupboard? Cupboard? What board for my cup? Yeah?
The two words cup and board don't combine to make the thing that you are
then looking at. Right, Yes, it's anomally, Yes it's an anomaly.
Yes it's a bad anomaly. But flip and aboard come together and they
look exactly like the things that you fused to make that word and the skipper
birthday. Yeah, I'm gonna listen. I'm gonna go to the giant bomb
Twitter account right now and just tweet anyone planning to use the know, anyone
planning to do sick tricks on the skippard today, Hell yeah, you got
Everyone should watch a voicemail dump Truck has been really fun for the last several
weeks. You everyone should be listening to. If you're not, so,
definitely check out the latest one. Subscribe to that on podcast feeds or whatever.
Today Ranking of Tech and Indians is going to wrap up today for everybody,
so be sure to check that out. And then, yeah, we
got the weekend. Any plans for the weekend, taim I'm gonna play some
Live Alive. Yeah, dig into that. I might watch some anime because
I am known anime enjoyer. I've got something to catch up on.