Nintendo's Switch 2 Digital Games To Start Being Cheaper Than Physical

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, Welcome to Games Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
<v Speaker 1>tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
<v Speaker 1>fun new developments in pricing and more. It's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>a good one because we have Renelle Crawford on the show. Renelle,
<v Speaker 1>how are you doing?
<v Speaker 2>Pretty good? Pretty good? Pretty good? I'm chilling.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, glad to have you on man and keeping up
<v Speaker 1>with your stuff on some social stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Really always appreciate when I see in the feed. How
<v Speaker 3>are you feeling about video games these days?
<v Speaker 2>How could stop a blast? I'm having a blast as
<v Speaker 2>long as I'm offline with it, you know, Yeah, throw
<v Speaker 2>my phone out of a window and then just just
<v Speaker 2>play the game. I'm having a blast.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's the way to do it, right, is like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you just put it out of arms reach and then
<v Speaker 1>all that stuff immediately goes away like a snap of
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<v Speaker 3>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the morning mess here with switch To games
<v Speaker 1>in the US will have different prices for their physical
<v Speaker 1>and digital versions. And right now, when I was trying
<v Speaker 1>to find the right headline for this story, everyone has
<v Speaker 1>a different perspective of whether it's like, oh, digital games
<v Speaker 1>will be less expensive or physical games are going to
<v Speaker 1>be more expensive. Now Nintendo has weigh in on this,
<v Speaker 1>but we'll discuss it when we get to it. So
<v Speaker 1>let's go ahead and lay down the story here real quick.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo has announced price changes to switch To titles in
<v Speaker 1>the US, with digital versions costing less than their physical counterparts.
<v Speaker 1>From May twenty twenty six, new Nintendo titles exclusive to
<v Speaker 1>switch To will have different MSRPs. Cost will depend on
<v Speaker 1>retail partners who quote set their own prices for digital
<v Speaker 1>and physical games. That's according to Nintendo. The platform holders
<v Speaker 1>said the change simply reflects the different costs associated with
<v Speaker 1>producing and distributing each format and offers players more choice
<v Speaker 1>in how they buy and playing Nintendo games. The example
<v Speaker 1>here is I believe it's let's see Yes Yoshi and
<v Speaker 1>the Mysterious book. Pre Orders have started for that, and
<v Speaker 1>the game has a digital price of sixty dollars and
<v Speaker 1>a physical price or you know, a suggested physical price
<v Speaker 1>of seventy dollars. This this is something that has been
<v Speaker 1>happening in other territories right now for quite some time.
<v Speaker 1>I guess people were mentioning that this has been happening
<v Speaker 1>since the launch launch of the switch to in Europe
<v Speaker 1>and countries around the world. But the United States is
<v Speaker 1>we're the most entitled in the whiniest so people are
<v Speaker 1>going to hear about it when changes happen here, and
<v Speaker 1>that's that's what we're going to do.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 1>I get that Nintendo came out renow and said, no,
<v Speaker 1>we're not raising the price of the physical versions. We're
<v Speaker 1>giving you a discount on the digital version. I'm struggling
<v Speaker 1>to wrap my mind around, like you could just you
<v Speaker 1>could say that, but to me that this game always
<v Speaker 1>looked like it was going to be a sixty dollars game.
<v Speaker 1>So in my head, what it looks like is the
<v Speaker 1>physical versions more expensive, And that gets to the nature
<v Speaker 1>of pricing right where.
<v Speaker 3>It's all made up.
<v Speaker 1>So the idea that like, well there's a natural price
<v Speaker 1>and it's like you're going to get a discount or
<v Speaker 1>a premium on top of it.
<v Speaker 3>It's all kind of in our heads, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, because it's yeah, like you said, it's the
<v Speaker 2>choice of was this going to be the sixty period
<v Speaker 2>or is this them saying now we can raise the
<v Speaker 2>price and use the digital remaining sixty to say that
<v Speaker 2>the price is not actually being raised, which we all
<v Speaker 2>know they always want to raise the price. It feels
<v Speaker 2>like that's how it alwayshould have been, right, Digital should
<v Speaker 2>always have been cheaper than.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's been a talking point for years, right yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, So for this to happen, you know, coincidentally
<v Speaker 2>as physical are demanded to be more expensive now because
<v Speaker 2>of everything that's going on, it does, Yeah, it does.
<v Speaker 2>It does, a little little question mark does come up.
<v Speaker 3>For sure. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>It's and you know, I see people in chat saying
<v Speaker 1>this is a good thing, right, like the digital will
<v Speaker 1>be less than the physical, And I think had this happened.
<v Speaker 3>Ten years ago, that would have been my position for sure.
<v Speaker 1>But as you pointed out, we know now, or at
<v Speaker 1>least you know at this point where I've realized that
<v Speaker 1>these companies want to charge as much as they can
<v Speaker 1>possibly get away with. So my skeptical, cynical approach to
<v Speaker 1>this is like, what are they really trying to accomplish
<v Speaker 1>by doing this? It's like giving a discount on digital?
<v Speaker 1>Is it actually a discount? And what they're really trying
<v Speaker 1>to do is is push people towards digital because it
<v Speaker 1>will end up will end up making more money at
<v Speaker 1>that lower price because of all the costs associated with
<v Speaker 1>the physical version. That's certainly a possibility, but it also
<v Speaker 1>just feels like, yeah, I mean, this gives them more
<v Speaker 1>room to maneuver and to raise the price of physical
<v Speaker 1>versions or make people more comfortable with the idea of
<v Speaker 1>a physical version that costs more because oh, yeah, costs
<v Speaker 1>more to produce. We know that the cost of production
<v Speaker 1>for a product actually rarely comes into play with the
<v Speaker 1>final pricing decision.
<v Speaker 3>They price it at what they can like the most
<v Speaker 3>that they can get away with.
<v Speaker 1>So it's hard for me to like reverse engineer that
<v Speaker 1>and be like, oh, they have a good reason.
<v Speaker 2>To do this, right, yeah, yeah, because in the same breath,
<v Speaker 2>this probably won't be the last price increase, right, there's
<v Speaker 2>a strong chance, like this is just the introduction, you
<v Speaker 2>know of, like at some point maybe physical, I mean
<v Speaker 2>digital becomes sixty and physical becomes eighty ninety. Right, maybe
<v Speaker 2>maybe they just kind of slow creep it up and
<v Speaker 2>then slowly digital goes back into sixty five seventy as
<v Speaker 2>they keep pushing it up. As of right now, I
<v Speaker 2>can't say I'm too mad, but saying I can see
<v Speaker 2>the future right of, like, dang it, that might suck
<v Speaker 2>in the future, but it is what it is for now.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think that's kind of where I'm at as well,
<v Speaker 3>where it's like.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, I was expecting this game to be sixty,
<v Speaker 1>I can pay sixty and get it. I'll get the
<v Speaker 1>digital version. I was always going to get the digital version.
<v Speaker 1>So this hasn't hurt me too much one way or
<v Speaker 1>the other. And I do understand the cost associated with
<v Speaker 1>the physical one. So if this is them saying, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we can keep making the physical version of the game
<v Speaker 1>if we have this higher price, I can justify that
<v Speaker 1>all that to myself and make it make sense. I
<v Speaker 1>think what you got at of, we can see the future,
<v Speaker 1>we know where this goes. Where this makes it easier
<v Speaker 1>for them to raise the price of the physical version,
<v Speaker 1>especially so that in a you know, a year's time,
<v Speaker 1>when they do want to release that three D Mario
<v Speaker 1>and they want to have an eighty dollars version on
<v Speaker 1>the shelf a ninety dollars version on the shelf in.
<v Speaker 3>A couple of years.
<v Speaker 1>That's a lot easier to do now that you've decoupled
<v Speaker 1>these two things, because you could still have the advantage
<v Speaker 1>of setting your digital price at at the price that
<v Speaker 1>people have become very comfortable with, and then you get
<v Speaker 1>that profit margin on that side.
<v Speaker 2>Do you see others kind of following suit with this
<v Speaker 2>collector's tax?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean I think that's just where physical's going, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the collector's tax of we are going to have smaller batches,
<v Speaker 1>We're going to print fewer games. You know, the we
<v Speaker 1>were talking about next gen PlayStation, next gen Xbox, I
<v Speaker 1>mean renew Do you think those things launch with dis
<v Speaker 1>strives built in or they're going to be external drives
<v Speaker 1>at best?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Yeah, that that fraud digital digital, which you know,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna cross road up because I really don't buy
<v Speaker 2>physicals unless it's something that I just like the ip
<v Speaker 2>of I like and I love, right, the last one
<v Speaker 2>of all was like Barter's Game three, right, like just
<v Speaker 2>because I wanted.
<v Speaker 3>To have it.
<v Speaker 2>So for me, you know, not a huge, huge deal.
<v Speaker 2>But I have friends who like to, you know, have
<v Speaker 2>the physical. Will I be more enticed if the base
<v Speaker 2>physical have a little something that comes with it, right,
<v Speaker 2>like the old days of like she used to come
<v Speaker 2>with like a watch, you know what I mean, Like
<v Speaker 2>like regular games like based not even collectors addition used
<v Speaker 2>to come with cool stuff. So if they start doing
<v Speaker 2>that and then give us the collector's tax, could be something,
<v Speaker 2>could be something I could be interested in that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I think that that is the direction this
<v Speaker 1>all heads of heads in in that the fiscal versions
<v Speaker 1>will have to feel even more special, and then that
<v Speaker 1>means that there will be fewer of them, and that
<v Speaker 1>means the price will be higher, and that sort of
<v Speaker 1>becomes a self perpetuating cycle of the people leftover who
<v Speaker 1>are actually purchasing these things are the least price sensitive
<v Speaker 1>among us, and and and like value these things higher,
<v Speaker 1>so that price just keeps going up and up and
<v Speaker 1>up over time.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think that when we get these new consoles that
<v Speaker 1>they at the very best, they do have external drives,
<v Speaker 1>so they are going to be in a natural yes,
<v Speaker 1>sold separately exactly, and then that means that it automatically
<v Speaker 1>becomes like the vinyl market of today, where when a
<v Speaker 1>band releases an album and they want to sell something
<v Speaker 1>at a premium price to their biggest their biggest collectors,
<v Speaker 1>people who just want to have a physical thing to
<v Speaker 1>either mount on a wall or keep in a collection. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>they can, they can do that, but people most people
<v Speaker 1>don't have record players, So that's that's just like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that is full. They know who that's for, and they
<v Speaker 1>target that audience with the most like the highest quality
<v Speaker 1>thing possible to charge the highest price possible.
<v Speaker 3>We're not that far away from that.
<v Speaker 2>That so ugly that you said VI Like, I know,
<v Speaker 2>I get it, and then it's the truth. But god,
<v Speaker 2>Lee PlayStation and Xbox, Nintendo physicals going the way of
<v Speaker 2>the vinyl where it's like something special for the old
<v Speaker 2>heads out there sounds crazy, but it is actually probably
<v Speaker 2>what's going to happen.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I we'll see, Like, yeah, I don't blame anyone
<v Speaker 1>in the moment for being like, yeah, this this is
<v Speaker 1>fine and potentially even good. We've been asking for us
<v Speaker 1>for years. It's just every time we ask for something
<v Speaker 1>and we get it, it's all for me. It feels
<v Speaker 1>like in video games and brilliant capitalism as a whole,
<v Speaker 1>it's always a monkey paul. It's always the fing finger
<v Speaker 1>curling on the monkey paw of like, oh, we didn't
<v Speaker 1>realize that this thing that we wanted went with all
<v Speaker 1>of these costs that we didn't even think about, because
<v Speaker 1>we're not psychopaths running you know, CEOs of these corporations.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I always give us the price increase, but
<v Speaker 2>never the price decrease. Right, everything went perfectly from here
<v Speaker 2>on out.
<v Speaker 1>It would still not change, right if the if like
<v Speaker 1>the economic conditions that they operate in suddenly like went
<v Speaker 1>back to the years and they're like all these man,
<v Speaker 1>all the coster back to what they were, they would
<v Speaker 1>not give us those those price increases back.
<v Speaker 3>No way, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Fox McLeod is officially appearing in the Super Mario Galaxy movie.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Andy Robinson at VGC. Nintendo and Universal
<v Speaker 1>have announced a major crossover appearance for the Super Mario
<v Speaker 1>Galaxy Movie a week before the film's release. Announced on
<v Speaker 1>social media on Thursday, the Super Mario Galaxy Movies Excuse
<v Speaker 1>Me Official profile revealed that Star Fox protagonist Fox McLeod
<v Speaker 1>will appear in the sequel. It's just a poster for
<v Speaker 1>the movie or now it's and it's Star Fox there
<v Speaker 1>in all his glory, and they're not trying to hide it.
<v Speaker 1>This is he's not in the background. He is the
<v Speaker 1>star of this poster. It's it's pretty wild to see
<v Speaker 1>people thought that they saw star star Fox Fox McLeod
<v Speaker 1>in the background of some videos and I was like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that sounds right.
<v Speaker 3>That feels like something a brief cameo.
<v Speaker 1>Now the way that they're positioning it could be more
<v Speaker 1>than that, maybe a less brief cameo.
<v Speaker 3>But what is this say to you about their plans
<v Speaker 3>for a his appearance in this movie beat?
<v Speaker 1>Uh, star Fox's future in other movies and then see
<v Speaker 1>Star Fox in video games?
<v Speaker 3>What do you think? Uh?
<v Speaker 2>Still no Star Fox in video games. Don't don't look
<v Speaker 2>forward to that. You got ten years? Yeah, not happening. Hey,
<v Speaker 2>look this, this, this, this makes us want to marvel
<v Speaker 2>up the whole thing. Right Now we got star Fox,
<v Speaker 2>Now we get Kirby, Now we're getting you know, Metroid
<v Speaker 2>next in the movie. We're getting everybody put your hopes
<v Speaker 2>to the ceiling because everything you ever dreamed of is happening.
<v Speaker 2>But hey, I think people have been waiting for for
<v Speaker 2>my boy Fox to come back for so long. Anything
<v Speaker 2>would be cool. Personally, I would love like a nice
<v Speaker 2>little small game first, you know, nothing too crazy, just
<v Speaker 2>a nice little forty dollars banger. Yeah, would be great.
<v Speaker 2>I think that would be perfect to start off with
<v Speaker 2>Star Fox. Don't give us a super high production one yet.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think people are really ready for it, but
<v Speaker 2>let this come out, let us fan base build even more,
<v Speaker 2>and I think we could we have some more Fox
<v Speaker 2>in the future.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I definitely just want them to kind
<v Speaker 1>of maybe do a Starfox remaster collection with like the
<v Speaker 1>Super Nintendo in its original version and then give us
<v Speaker 1>it in a weird sixty frames per second version.
<v Speaker 3>That would be cool and weird.
<v Speaker 1>Do the same thing for Star Fox sixty four, kind
<v Speaker 1>of update zero so that we can play it on
<v Speaker 1>something that's not a WEU kind of put all those together,
<v Speaker 1>and then maybe a few of the other side side games,
<v Speaker 1>the Namco one, even Starfox Adventures. Bring all that stuff back,
<v Speaker 1>let people get reacclimated to it, and then I think
<v Speaker 1>a future of Starfox would be just make it very stylized,
<v Speaker 1>either stylized in the direction of, oh, this is like,
<v Speaker 1>what if we had super effects graphics chips today, the
<v Speaker 1>thing that made the polygons work on the Super Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>back then. What would it look like if that technology
<v Speaker 1>just just got introduced now, something along those lines, or
<v Speaker 1>something maybe anime inspired, animation inspired or like the puppets
<v Speaker 1>they had for that one E three showcase.
<v Speaker 3>Something's just very.
<v Speaker 1>Stylized, just to make it feel like it stands out
<v Speaker 1>could go a long way, and then the gameplay.
<v Speaker 3>Can be the very familiar Star Fox gameplay.
<v Speaker 1>As far as as far as disappearance in the movie,
<v Speaker 1>I do expect it to be kind of a substantial
<v Speaker 1>cameo so that they can set up the Marvel GMCU
<v Speaker 1>miss of it all where they have to be working
<v Speaker 1>toward a Smash Brothers, right. That is, that's such a
<v Speaker 1>popular brand, It's so popular with such a wide and
<v Speaker 1>varying demographic set that it's just like, yeah, that should
<v Speaker 1>probably be the end goal. And you know that it
<v Speaker 1>also helps that they are probably looking at having some
<v Speaker 1>new version of Smash Brothers, probably Smash Brothers Ultimate Deluxe
<v Speaker 1>or whatever. In the next year or so year. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I mean they like to have it in the second
<v Speaker 1>year of their consoles, right, So I do think that
<v Speaker 1>they're going to have try to have something so they
<v Speaker 1>could sell it throughout the entire generation.
<v Speaker 3>That's what they like to do with Smash Brothers. I
<v Speaker 3>know it's weird.
<v Speaker 1>Because ultimate feels so ultimate in the definition of the word,
<v Speaker 1>but that they'll find some way to sell that to people.
<v Speaker 2>Again, I think, right, right, I can imagine, I can
<v Speaker 2>imagine it. I think that uh, I would have liked
<v Speaker 2>for it to have been a surprise in the movie.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's weird, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Like that would have been a huge We would
<v Speaker 2>have went crazy if we would have assume that in
<v Speaker 2>the movie theater. So now we have to deal with
<v Speaker 2>like how much is going to be enough? Right, like
<v Speaker 2>because at first, if he had just passed by, we
<v Speaker 2>would have went crazy, great time. But now he has
<v Speaker 2>his own poster. They're pushing it four days before the
<v Speaker 2>movie comes out. Now we're thinking he has has a
<v Speaker 2>substantial talking role where it's like he's walking and talking.
<v Speaker 2>It's escalation.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like we're already talking, like we're already talking about
<v Speaker 1>his like him getting his own movie or him showing
<v Speaker 1>up in Smash Brothers. That's where we're at mentally, so
<v Speaker 1>that means, yeah, you're right, like his appearance in this
<v Speaker 1>movie has to feel like worthy of all this excitement
<v Speaker 1>and we worthy of that poster, and I'm with you
<v Speaker 1>in my head.
<v Speaker 3>I keep building it up to be more and more
<v Speaker 3>and more, and.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe it won't be like yeah, they chose to put
<v Speaker 1>him out there up front, like a week before the
<v Speaker 1>movie's out, saying come see this movie because star Fox
<v Speaker 1>is in it. Fox McLoud is in this and it's okay,
<v Speaker 1>so you know how, like what does that appearance look like?
<v Speaker 1>And then what are the surprises they're holding back? Like
<v Speaker 1>there's got to be even more, right.
<v Speaker 2>That's where I'm at a out. I'm like, all right,
<v Speaker 2>they put this out there in the front, so this
<v Speaker 2>isn't even a big one for them. Maybe there's now
<v Speaker 2>there's someone now Kirby's coming, you know what I mean,
<v Speaker 2>Like that at the end of the movie. That's where
<v Speaker 2>I'm att or none of that happens, right, very strong
<v Speaker 2>chance and like we don't get anything so too crazy.
<v Speaker 2>It's just a nice ending with a nice little easter
<v Speaker 2>egg of the next movie coming and they have to
<v Speaker 2>do this for marketing. Now I feel like they didn't,
<v Speaker 2>but who knows, what do I know? You know what
<v Speaker 2>I mean? Like they have whatever, they have statistics and
<v Speaker 2>surveys that say they need to reveal the entire movie
<v Speaker 2>before it comes.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, right yeah, now, I mean you're not wrong,
<v Speaker 1>Like Illumination shows very much like that company that has
<v Speaker 1>done all that data act, you know, acquiring all that
<v Speaker 1>data so they can see the best way to promote
<v Speaker 1>their movie.
<v Speaker 3>And you're right, they could just be following a.
<v Speaker 1>Playbook being like, what character do we have that feels
<v Speaker 1>different and exciting? Oh, Fox McLoud, he's in there for
<v Speaker 1>a second. Put him on a poster. Nothing would stop
<v Speaker 1>them from doing that. And because it's all about they're
<v Speaker 1>just trying to get that one inciting moment where you
<v Speaker 1>buy a movie ticket, right and when anything yes.
<v Speaker 3>Anything yes, and then it's over.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever, whether you enjoy the movie or not is almost
<v Speaker 1>you know, it doesn't matter at that point. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>if this helps facilitate that, they absolutely would do it
<v Speaker 1>regardless of the actual appearance.
<v Speaker 3>And it's you know how much it matters to the
<v Speaker 3>final film.
<v Speaker 1>I'm getting excited though seeing stuff like this is pretty cool.
<v Speaker 1>I definitely hope they are building up to a cool
<v Speaker 1>Smash Brothers thing where these characters can get you know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe maybe Fox Mcloud's not going to get his own movie,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, if there's a show that happens where
<v Speaker 1>like a bunch of these characters can have their own
<v Speaker 1>episodes or own arcs and that builds up to a
<v Speaker 1>Smash Brothers movie, I would welcome that.
<v Speaker 2>My question is what characters will have to be in
<v Speaker 2>the Smash Brothers movie for it to be a Smash
<v Speaker 2>Brothers movie.
<v Speaker 3>Right right?
<v Speaker 2>I mean you have Mario.
<v Speaker 1>You probably need that original like the sixty four.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, sos will have to get an appearance at
<v Speaker 2>some point, I.
<v Speaker 1>Mean ness or an equivalent, right, Like, there's a strong
<v Speaker 1>chance that they're like, Okay, maybe we're not gonna do
<v Speaker 1>nests because our situation with Mother and earth Bound is
<v Speaker 1>weird right now, but we would have to swap in
<v Speaker 1>someone from the wider eventual Smash Brothers cast that feels equivalent.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, that's actually not a bad idea Sonic could
<v Speaker 1>show up in something like this. I would wouldn't be
<v Speaker 1>surprised if everyone involved between you know, Illumination, Nintendo, Sega,
<v Speaker 1>and Paramount.
<v Speaker 3>Right if they're all like, come on, we're not.
<v Speaker 2>Only helping you get this money.
<v Speaker 3>Point, yeah, yeah, let's get that money.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I think they build up to a small
<v Speaker 1>roster that feels equivalent to the N sixty four to one,
<v Speaker 1>and then they go from there. That gives them a
<v Speaker 1>lot of room for sequels to grow, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>you ever seers, Yes, exactly. All right, let's keep going here, everybody.
<v Speaker 1>I know it's Thursday, but we're gonna celebrate shut the
<v Speaker 1>fuck up Friday just a little bit early because everyone
<v Speaker 1>needs the chill about this. I did not include this
<v Speaker 1>story yesterday because I'm like, maybe it won't break wide,
<v Speaker 1>and then I saw it everywhere, So everyone needs the
<v Speaker 1>chill about Tomadaci life, living the dream, having no profanity filter.
<v Speaker 3>All right.
<v Speaker 1>We want this game to launch in a way where
<v Speaker 1>we could just get very weird with this game. And
<v Speaker 1>I do not know how Nintendo is gonna feel about
<v Speaker 1>all these like the immediate first clips I saw right
<v Speaker 1>now of this game where people be like, here's a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of words that refer to human genitalia and we're
<v Speaker 1>just gonna throw that and that's gonna be the name
<v Speaker 1>of my city in Tomadacci Life. And it blew up,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, hm, I know Nintendo does want to
<v Speaker 1>give us that freedom, but they're gonna probably have those
<v Speaker 1>conversations again.
<v Speaker 3>After this early sort of surge of excitement.
<v Speaker 1>About this game, it does seem like that filter is
<v Speaker 1>very limited, if it's there at all, And I think
<v Speaker 1>that's what led in to Nintendo, like they thought about
<v Speaker 1>this or no where there is the built in screenshot
<v Speaker 1>and video sharing is turned off for this game specifically
<v Speaker 1>because of this stuff. So they've already sort of seemingly
<v Speaker 1>made their choice of like, we know probably what's going
<v Speaker 1>to happen with this game, how can we sort of
<v Speaker 1>limit you know, the bad feelings that we would have
<v Speaker 1>if there was a bunch of stuff being shared that
<v Speaker 1>makes this game look like it's crazy and potentially you know,
<v Speaker 1>obviously profane, but potentially filled with hate speech. And they're like,
<v Speaker 1>how do we sort of mitigate that? They came up
<v Speaker 1>with a solution and it immediately didn't work, so I
<v Speaker 1>could see them being like, we got to sort of
<v Speaker 1>undo this. And I want to have that freedom because
<v Speaker 1>this game is about my ability to sort of express
<v Speaker 1>myself and have the game express itself back to me
<v Speaker 1>in the ways that surprised me. And I want all
<v Speaker 1>those options there, and I don't want to sort of
<v Speaker 1>be limited by the worst people among us maybe using
<v Speaker 1>this game in a way, although I just can't imagine
<v Speaker 1>those people coming to Tomadaci life.
<v Speaker 3>So hopefully that's not a problem. Maybe it will be,
<v Speaker 3>but I don't know. How do you view this?
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that this game is gonna get to
<v Speaker 1>a one point oh release with this profanity filter not
<v Speaker 1>in place?
<v Speaker 2>Ah? Man, It's tough. It's tough because every time they
<v Speaker 2>take away the filter, they always regret it, right, every
<v Speaker 2>time they give us that freedom there, they always are like,
<v Speaker 2>all right, that's uh sorry, no more. And it's always
<v Speaker 2>because of the worst right I think of like black pipes, emblems, right,
<v Speaker 2>creating your own like or like anything.
<v Speaker 3>Right anything, yes, absolutely anything.
<v Speaker 2>And Nintendo, I don't know, it's tough that they're gonna
<v Speaker 2>put They're gonna put it back for sure. They can't
<v Speaker 2>deal with it, you know, like it's it's gonna be
<v Speaker 2>too ugly.
<v Speaker 1>They're gonna have those conversations for sure, and they're having
<v Speaker 1>them right now. And there's gonna be people who are
<v Speaker 1>like I told you so for sure, and and and
<v Speaker 1>those people are gonna be the lawyers who run a
<v Speaker 1>big part of like Nintendo of America, And yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>I think they're I think you're right. My hope is
<v Speaker 1>it's something that gets implemented in an update, so we
<v Speaker 1>can have like a one point zero on the card
<v Speaker 1>that is pure and could be a file that gets
<v Speaker 1>shared so we have an easy access or way to
<v Speaker 1>easily access this in perpetuity. Once that becomes the option
<v Speaker 1>there that still feels like a possibility because this game's
<v Speaker 1>coming out very soon. But I think they'll probably update
<v Speaker 1>it with a filter and hopefully it just doesn't get
<v Speaker 1>too aggressive.
<v Speaker 3>Just yeah, it only.
<v Speaker 2>Takes it only takes two or three like viral pols
<v Speaker 2>for them to say, let's let's just really back. The
<v Speaker 2>only way I can see this surviving is unless the
<v Speaker 2>opposite side of the spectrum happens when you get really cool,
<v Speaker 2>really like fun innovative stuff that they can push like
<v Speaker 2>kind of in front of it. That could kind of
<v Speaker 2>make them say, well, you know, there's some weird those
<v Speaker 2>you know, like but like look at this, look at
<v Speaker 2>this cool stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Right and the other.
<v Speaker 1>There's even another flip side of it of people who
<v Speaker 1>are like, I'm starting like my name is just like
<v Speaker 1>Christian gay Lord, and it's not letting me use my
<v Speaker 1>Christian name in here has the word gay and it's like,
<v Speaker 1>that's just what you know, that's my name.
<v Speaker 3>What can I do about that?
<v Speaker 1>And now I can't have myself rep resented in the
<v Speaker 1>game because of this aggressive filter, And they don't want
<v Speaker 1>that either. They do want people to feel like anything
<v Speaker 1>as possible and you can escape the world and go
<v Speaker 1>into this Tomadaci life and have anything happen and you
<v Speaker 1>don't have to worry about the rules of society and
<v Speaker 1>all this stuff.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, that's what they're going for.
<v Speaker 1>That's why they prioritized having a very limited filter and
<v Speaker 1>then not letting you share the videos and the clips
<v Speaker 1>in the in the screenshots. But yes, especially a couple
<v Speaker 1>of days, I might might change their mind.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The funny thing is too, like I do believe that
<v Speaker 2>they maybe just weather the storm and not really say
<v Speaker 2>anything about it. Like after like the first you know,
<v Speaker 2>week or two, you know, like people it's going to
<v Speaker 2>die off like that that those attention seekers won't get
<v Speaker 2>they don't find something else to try and seek that
<v Speaker 2>attention from it, then like they just have the freedom,
<v Speaker 2>you know, they're they're cake and eat it too. But
<v Speaker 2>exactly it's whether in that storm and that's a gamble yep.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly, it's like these early days where that's where they're
<v Speaker 1>trying to sell this game, and they're very in It's Nintendo,
<v Speaker 1>they're very sensitive about this stuff. So and they think
<v Speaker 1>about all these things, right, do they really think about that?
<v Speaker 1>They absolutely do. So, Yeah, the early days is when
<v Speaker 1>this will be a problem. And then you know, a
<v Speaker 1>month from now, when this game is just another game
<v Speaker 1>that's out, this will no longer be a conversation point.
<v Speaker 1>So hopefully the game can get to there and we
<v Speaker 1>can just the cool people can just have this cool
<v Speaker 1>game and we don't.
<v Speaker 3>Have to worry about the freaks trying to ruin it
<v Speaker 3>for everyone else.
<v Speaker 1>All Right, we are going to take a quick break.
<v Speaker 1>We'll be right back after some ad messages. If you
<v Speaker 1>want to skip out on these ads, you can do so.
<v Speaker 1>You become a member by going to GiantBomb dot com
<v Speaker 1>slash join. There you can find ad free versions of
<v Speaker 1>the video and audio program. Go ahead and grab those.
<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, we will be right back.
<v Speaker 3>We're back. It's game mess morning. Still.
<v Speaker 1>That's Renelle Crawford. I'm Jeff Grubb. We're getting back into
<v Speaker 1>the headlines with more. Triple A games are reportedly costing
<v Speaker 1>three hundred million dollars or more to make. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. Ever see reporters say
<v Speaker 1>a game quote only sold a million copies, as if
<v Speaker 1>that's nothing to be proud of.
<v Speaker 3>Well, we might now know why.
<v Speaker 1>It's no secret that Triple A budgets have ballooned in
<v Speaker 1>the last decade or so, but it now seems that
<v Speaker 1>the cost of making a game is getting to a
<v Speaker 1>point where it's almost impossible to make that money back
<v Speaker 1>unless you create a generational hit. Speaking on Blue Sky,
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreyer explained while most publishers avoid giving
<v Speaker 1>concrete data on their budgets for Triple A games, the
<v Speaker 1>figures he's hearing from developers are three hundred million dollars
<v Speaker 1>or more and sometimes, excuse me, sometimes much more. This,
<v Speaker 1>according to Schreier, quote helps explain the current state of
<v Speaker 1>the industry. He notes that these numbers are primarily for
<v Speaker 1>US and Canadian developers, and that the majority of these
<v Speaker 1>budgets are spent on developer salaries and have very little
<v Speaker 1>to do with executive compensation, most of which is apparently stock.
<v Speaker 1>Looking at the numbers, a game on a three hundred
<v Speaker 1>million dollar budget needs to sell at least six million copies.
<v Speaker 1>It's seventy dollars a piece to break even. And that's yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's kind of what I'm hearing about Marathon. Marathon is
<v Speaker 1>what stoked this conversation where I was talking to some
<v Speaker 1>sources and this is before the game was coming out,
<v Speaker 1>but they were like looking at some numbers and it's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this thing looks like it's going to do between one
<v Speaker 1>and two million copies at launch, and what it really
<v Speaker 1>needs to do is between seven and nine million to
<v Speaker 1>justify the cost of operating Bungie, which is the cost
<v Speaker 1>of making a game. I think people have this idea
<v Speaker 1>of like, well, you can't just take the salaries times
<v Speaker 1>the number of years, times the number of people and
<v Speaker 1>then put all that together and come up with the
<v Speaker 1>cost of making a game. It's like, no, that's exactly
<v Speaker 1>what you do. Because it caught the people are the
<v Speaker 1>ones making the game. That's where the costs come from.
<v Speaker 1>And when you do that for American salaries, especially like
<v Speaker 1>on the West Coast, where a lot of these developers
<v Speaker 1>used to be and I more and more frequently are
<v Speaker 1>not at because the studios are closing these or the
<v Speaker 1>publishers are closing these studios. You get a very very
<v Speaker 1>high number. That was two hundred million dollars five years ago,
<v Speaker 1>and it's got to be creeping up because those salaries
<v Speaker 1>have increased.
<v Speaker 3>The demand for those developers went up a ton during the.
<v Speaker 1>Pandemic, and you kind of can't take that back at
<v Speaker 1>a certain point because you've got to maintain those people
<v Speaker 1>or close the studio.
<v Speaker 3>So obviously that three hundred million dollar a number.
<v Speaker 1>We look at that and Renald I knew we would
<v Speaker 1>end up here and end up here and it felt unsustainable.
<v Speaker 1>But I don't know what we do about it now.
<v Speaker 1>It just feels like, yeah, we're gonna have to just
<v Speaker 1>stop doing that, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I wonder that it's a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of like they got to shoot for the stars, right,
<v Speaker 2>We don't want them to not want to make the
<v Speaker 2>next try and make the next biggest hit. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like that's that's cool in theory, right, However, the chances happening. Man,
<v Speaker 2>it's just so slow, even for a bungee, you know
<v Speaker 2>what I mean, Like even for a bungee, Like the timing,
<v Speaker 2>the everything has to be so perfect for them to
<v Speaker 2>hit that banger out of the park that Like it's
<v Speaker 2>just like they just released it after our Graiders and
<v Speaker 2>now there there was no chance of them doing that, right, Like, yep,
<v Speaker 2>there's just so too many variables. People aren't buying new games.
<v Speaker 2>It's ugly. It's ugly. We just got to really back
<v Speaker 2>find a way to make a cool game. You know,
<v Speaker 2>that's forty dollars, that's small, take a couple of years,
<v Speaker 2>you know, to make, and just real the whole thing back.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's like unsustainable has been the word for a decade,
<v Speaker 1>and it's because it's like the market forces that led
<v Speaker 1>us to this point where games cost three hundred million
<v Speaker 1>dollars like those just have not been been dealt with
<v Speaker 1>because it's kind of the only way to stand out
<v Speaker 1>if you're making a game, Like that's what you're the
<v Speaker 1>point you started with, Like we don't necessarily want developers
<v Speaker 1>and publishers to not try to make the best game possible.
<v Speaker 1>And if you say, as a publisher to your team
<v Speaker 1>of developers in Los Angeles, go make the best game
<v Speaker 1>possible so that we can stand out on the shelf
<v Speaker 1>when being compared to every other game. The one sort
<v Speaker 1>of weapon you have in your toolkit is spend more
<v Speaker 1>money than anyone else does making this game. Get the
<v Speaker 1>best developers, let them have the most amount of time
<v Speaker 1>just working on this thing, and that necessarily leads to
<v Speaker 1>a very expensive product. And you do that because that
<v Speaker 1>helps market the game, because you could say you've never
<v Speaker 1>seen anything like this before. Now there are obviously a
<v Speaker 1>handful of studios who have found alternative paths, games that
<v Speaker 1>are almost certainly still very expensive.
<v Speaker 3>But like from Software's got.
<v Speaker 1>Their own voice and their own way of saying this game,
<v Speaker 1>you must play this game, regardless of how much time
<v Speaker 1>it took us to make or whatever, Like there's another
<v Speaker 1>reason you're coming here other than just the visual polish.
<v Speaker 1>And Nintendo has sort of broken themselves away from that
<v Speaker 1>decades ago when they went from the GameCube to the Wii,
<v Speaker 1>and they're like, we're gonna stop chasing these high end trends.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna just make our own stuff. Stay in our lane.
<v Speaker 1>They're Nintendo and not everyone's Nintendo's. There's just not a
<v Speaker 1>lot of ground to go to if you're one of
<v Speaker 1>these other publishers that you know, when I say, like
<v Speaker 1>Tronic Arts, no one's getting the warm and fuzzies about
<v Speaker 1>Electronic Arts. Electronic Arts kind of has no choice but
<v Speaker 1>to make a game that's more expensive than anyone else.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, or of course, like they're what they're clearly
<v Speaker 2>already doing too, is is finding some sort of cash
<v Speaker 2>cow and then making the games, right, Like Electronic Arts
<v Speaker 2>is good, right, They're good FIFA, Madden, you know, Ultimate Team.
<v Speaker 3>Pegs even for a while.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Apex Legends. People spend one hundred thousand dollars a
<v Speaker 2>year on these games. They can make whatever they want,
<v Speaker 2>you know, at least for the most part. A lot
<v Speaker 2>of other companies can't do that. I don't even know.
<v Speaker 2>I don't I can't even imagine what they could do. Again,
<v Speaker 2>I always say that the I see Marco transactions as
<v Speaker 2>a muzzle, you know, like obviously a lot of us
<v Speaker 2>don't like them necessarily, but hey, we can keep games
<v Speaker 2>alive with them, and right now they're the best bet
<v Speaker 2>for gamers, right because I could choose not to buy them, right,
<v Speaker 2>and they don't affect the game right, and it keeps
<v Speaker 2>the game costs low price low. So they need to
<v Speaker 2>come up with something like that, you know, like in
<v Speaker 2>More maybe more Microsoft, I don't even know, but.
<v Speaker 1>That I mean, that has definitely been the strategy for
<v Speaker 1>the last couple of years, right. It's like, let's find
<v Speaker 1>our game that we can make that can be a
<v Speaker 1>micro transaction factory, and we can go after the whales
<v Speaker 1>and and you know that that could be our lottery
<v Speaker 1>ticket that pays for everything else. But we've seen that
<v Speaker 1>the appetite for that has certainly diminished, and there's just
<v Speaker 1>people have chosen their hobby game where they are willing
<v Speaker 1>to spend one hundred thousand dollars on a game in
<v Speaker 1>a year. Like the people they're willing to do that
<v Speaker 1>have their game already and the idea that you're going
<v Speaker 1>to be able to peel them away after the after
<v Speaker 1>they've already made that investment in that other game.
<v Speaker 3>Or you're gonna be able to create new versions of
<v Speaker 3>those whales.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, no, this market is a certain size that
<v Speaker 1>it's going to grow over time, for sure, but you're
<v Speaker 1>not going to be able to like manufacture that excitement
<v Speaker 1>for one of these games out of nowhere, even when
<v Speaker 1>it's very good, like in the case of Marathon, it's
<v Speaker 1>going to take many years for you to sort of
<v Speaker 1>build up in a Warframe style way. I bet just
<v Speaker 1>keep delivering on the hits here and every time you
<v Speaker 1>have a new expansion, there's going to be more players.
<v Speaker 1>And if you do a really good job like a Warframe,
<v Speaker 1>you can do that. But that is not the business
<v Speaker 1>model that Bonjie Bungee's operating on. It's too expensive for sure.
<v Speaker 2>And even again, even like a Warframe, which again came out,
<v Speaker 2>you know, so long ago, where people were still choosing games.
<v Speaker 2>You know, like people have already all picked their teams,
<v Speaker 2>their size, they got their war zones, et cetera. People
<v Speaker 2>aren't picking new games, man, They're just not interested in
<v Speaker 2>new games. The only thing again, thinking like other than
<v Speaker 2>a gaming quarantine where no one, no new games come
<v Speaker 2>out for like a couple of years and people's excitement
<v Speaker 2>build again, where people love games. Yeah, right, that's like
<v Speaker 2>the only thing I can see remedying this this entire situation.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, it's yeah, I think that there is.
<v Speaker 1>It's a fever in the industry of like chasing after
<v Speaker 1>these bigger returns by any more money on your games.
<v Speaker 1>It's a bit of a sickness, a symptom of the
<v Speaker 1>capitalist system that we're in, of course, and I think
<v Speaker 1>at a certain point it does sort of have to
<v Speaker 1>just break.
<v Speaker 3>And that means I feel like we're in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of it.
<v Speaker 1>Of this, This industry feels like it has sustained a
<v Speaker 1>not fatal blow, but a very damaging blow to the
<v Speaker 1>way people feel about the excitement that people hold for games.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that what you just described is going
<v Speaker 1>to happen, and.
<v Speaker 3>We're in the middle of it a little bit. A
<v Speaker 3>lot of people have just tuned out.
<v Speaker 1>We got epic games, I think has deeper problems than
<v Speaker 1>people got a little bit less engaged than Fortnite, but
<v Speaker 1>they people have been less engaged in Fortnite. And it's like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm even myself. I would see Fortnite clips in the
<v Speaker 1>past on social media and I would be like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>what's going on here, And now I see it, I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>oh Fortnite. Still, I'm like rolling my eyes hard. It's
<v Speaker 1>like they've like lost me. For goodness, They've exhausted me,
<v Speaker 1>right exactly, and I think a lot of people feel
<v Speaker 1>that way, and at the same time, a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people still feel like those are still the games that
<v Speaker 1>are my option. Yeah, there's some other stuff over here,
<v Speaker 1>but I had so much fun in the heyday of Fortnite.
<v Speaker 1>I'm looking to feel like that again. But my option
<v Speaker 1>is still just Fortnite and a couple of other games
<v Speaker 1>that are inspired by Fortnite. I think they're going to
<v Speaker 1>have to sit on the sideline for a couple of years.
<v Speaker 1>This industry is going to have to come up with
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of innovative, innovative new ideas. Right now, that's
<v Speaker 1>that is Friends Slop and that has been working in
<v Speaker 1>a really good way. But for that budget of like
<v Speaker 1>a forty dollars game, a fifty dollars game, a sixty
<v Speaker 1>dollars game, plus, they're gonna have to come up with
<v Speaker 1>innovative new ideas that really like invigorates these people again,
<v Speaker 1>and we feel pretty far away from that in this moment.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And because it's also because of like the culture
<v Speaker 2>in general, right people are curious in games, but also
<v Speaker 2>people aren't really excited and jumping into new games that
<v Speaker 2>everyone isn't talking about right, Like people was very excited
<v Speaker 2>for Fortnite. Fortnite feels like such a huge thing, and
<v Speaker 2>it was, but because everyone was a part of it, right, Like,
<v Speaker 2>everyone downloaded it and played it, right, they're looking for
<v Speaker 2>a big moment apex. Everyone downloaded and played it, like
<v Speaker 2>though arc raators held divers. Everyone down a little bit
<v Speaker 2>and played it because it was spreading like wildfire on
<v Speaker 2>social media and it was just big. That excitement and
<v Speaker 2>like that cultural moment where everyone wants to be a
<v Speaker 2>part of it is just happening less and less and
<v Speaker 2>less likely to happen, so that even if your game
<v Speaker 2>is amazing, if you don't rally the social media to
<v Speaker 2>become like fun and clippable and all that stuff people see,
<v Speaker 2>the game is lesser, Like yeah, Steam numbers gotta be
<v Speaker 2>up there, Like you had a certain time like together,
<v Speaker 2>it's uh, it's ugly. Do they, like you said, friends
<v Speaker 2>slop is pretty good? Do they start to leach off
<v Speaker 2>of like indie game stuff, right, Like you have a
<v Speaker 2>game ding game that's there and you just you just
<v Speaker 2>jump on those I mean it's become an angel investor,
<v Speaker 2>you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, oh yeah, like oh like you mean like directly
<v Speaker 1>getting involved in like just saying here that any game
<v Speaker 1>is working with you. Yeah, for sure, all these companies
<v Speaker 1>are always being like, here's our new publishing initiative, that
<v Speaker 1>that will happen. I mean, I think for sure of
<v Speaker 1>what's happening is a company like Epic is, let's fire
<v Speaker 1>a thousand people so we could save some money, sit
<v Speaker 1>back and wait for what we did last time, which
<v Speaker 1>was we put out Fortnite and it wasn't the Fortnite
<v Speaker 1>we know today.
<v Speaker 3>It was a different game.
<v Speaker 1>And then pubg happened, and they're like, we're making that now,
<v Speaker 1>and they're gonna wait for that to happen. They are
<v Speaker 1>gonna look at early access, and they're gonna look at
<v Speaker 1>the indie space, wait for some like very smart and
<v Speaker 1>development team probably coming out of nowhere releasing a new
<v Speaker 1>idea that just is like a very very cool thing.
<v Speaker 1>And then a company like Epic will be like, can
<v Speaker 1>we make the slick version of that for the masses,
<v Speaker 1>And we're gonna sort of just wait on the sideline
<v Speaker 1>and try to save some money and operate in a
<v Speaker 1>maintenance mode, which is a crazy thing to say about Fortnite,
<v Speaker 1>as big as that is. And they'll still take their
<v Speaker 1>money from Disney and make all the Disney related stuff whatever.
<v Speaker 1>They're gonna wait for that next big inflection point that
<v Speaker 1>they can hop on and go from there. The bad
<v Speaker 1>news for them on that side of things is it
<v Speaker 1>is getting to the point where those indie games are
<v Speaker 1>are looking and feeling and comparing to the biggest games
<v Speaker 1>in the world, and maybe we won't need the slick
<v Speaker 1>version of that. The indie version we get just will
<v Speaker 1>be that select from the people.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that will work maybe once or twice, but then
<v Speaker 2>people are really gonna gonna they're switching on the flip
<v Speaker 2>and say, oh though, you're just making an ugly knockoff
<v Speaker 2>of it, because it's crazy because the exact opposite of
<v Speaker 2>the perception of Triple A Games is happening with the
<v Speaker 2>indie games, right, Triple A games, you need the polish,
<v Speaker 2>you need the budget. You gotta be big, you gotta
<v Speaker 2>be here, you gotta be cool. Everyone has to be
<v Speaker 2>playing it with the small indie quote unquote.
<v Speaker 3>Friends a weird freak.
<v Speaker 2>Gotta be a fucking ugly, random, weird thing that look
<v Speaker 2>key no one really heard about yet. But you're hopping
<v Speaker 2>on it first, you know, like the hipster like things
<v Speaker 2>that's going on, and I'm a part of it. That
<v Speaker 2>was Super Battle Golf thing like real quick played it
<v Speaker 2>once or twice. It was out of there. You know.
<v Speaker 2>It's just such as it's all a weird, a weird
<v Speaker 2>thing right now for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, it's uh.
<v Speaker 1>I'm looking forward to how the indies kind of approach
<v Speaker 1>all this stuff because.
<v Speaker 3>They will have cool ideas and I love that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>These big companies are gonna have to figure something out
<v Speaker 1>because three hundred million dollars the market just can't support
<v Speaker 1>multiple games like that.
<v Speaker 3>Spider Man. Yeah, that was That's gonna sell enough.
<v Speaker 1>The Spider Man games being three hundred million dollars, You're
<v Speaker 1>gonna sell enough there to make everyone involved happy, although
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure they wish they could get the price down
<v Speaker 1>of that.
<v Speaker 3>One quick note on this before we move on.
<v Speaker 1>There's always that talking point of Ghost of Sushima cost
<v Speaker 1>sixty dollars or sixty sixty million dollars excuse me to
<v Speaker 1>make and that number apparently came from some LinkedIn profile
<v Speaker 1>from someone who left the studio four years before that
<v Speaker 1>game came out. That number is certainly not real. That
<v Speaker 1>game costs more than that.
<v Speaker 3>I bet that.
<v Speaker 1>I bet, relatively speaking, Ghost of Sushima is not as
<v Speaker 1>expensive to make as a Naughty Dog game, but.
<v Speaker 3>I bet it's still pretty expensive. More than one hundred
<v Speaker 3>million dollars for sure, and probably a point a bit
<v Speaker 3>more than that.
<v Speaker 2>And that's what we probably get more of, just the
<v Speaker 2>same ips, right, Like we just get just ips. That's
<v Speaker 2>it works already happened, yeah, right.
<v Speaker 1>Because the like every money you spend on making a
<v Speaker 1>new Horizon game, right, that's like you're spending a dollar,
<v Speaker 1>but it feels like you're spending like seventy five cents
<v Speaker 1>because the money is not just going toward making that game,
<v Speaker 1>it's going toward broadening Horizon, and everything like pays for
<v Speaker 1>itself because now more people are buying that version of Horizon,
<v Speaker 1>and the camera about the TV show and the TV
<v Speaker 1>show with people back.
<v Speaker 3>Into the games.
<v Speaker 1>They view it as this this network that feeds on itself,
<v Speaker 1>and they're going to try to keep replicating that. But
<v Speaker 1>that also gets still a point of like, oh, now
<v Speaker 1>you're sprawling in all these direction directions. What if people
<v Speaker 1>wake up one day and the majority of people be like,
<v Speaker 1>I don't care about Horizon anymore?
<v Speaker 3>Like that happened with Game of Thrones, right, Game of Throne.
<v Speaker 1>Like, people, they're still making games, Game of Thrones TV shows,
<v Speaker 1>and I guess the latest one.
<v Speaker 3>Is very very good.
<v Speaker 1>That that series is not anywhere near the peak of
<v Speaker 1>what Game of Thrones.
<v Speaker 3>Was at its height, although I guess the.
<v Speaker 1>Show is still growing very much. But people get what
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Like it was the cultural Zeit guest there
<v Speaker 1>for a moment and then everyone woke up. It's like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm kind of over this that happens.
<v Speaker 3>So there's risk involved in all of this, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Eight PlayStation studios have closed since PS five was launched.
<v Speaker 1>Jonas mackew over Game Reactor just did a quick timeline
<v Speaker 1>here in twenty twenty. Manchester Studio closed. In twenty twenty one,
<v Speaker 1>they can close Japan studio Travesty. In twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 1>Pixel Opus closed, then they closed London studio Firewalk and
<v Speaker 1>Neon Koi in twenty twenty four, and then this year
<v Speaker 1>they have closed Blue Point Games and Dark Outlaw Games.
<v Speaker 1>So this story goes hand in hand with that last
<v Speaker 1>story right where the cost of making big games is rising,
<v Speaker 1>therefore you have to put your bets on the most
<v Speaker 1>surefire things, and that means if anything has a question
<v Speaker 1>mark around it, it immediately is like on the chopping
<v Speaker 1>block and a Blue Point Games, where it's like, obviously
<v Speaker 1>you know how to use a blue Point games. You
<v Speaker 1>take them, you put them on X or Y, you
<v Speaker 1>let them, let them loose for three or four years.
<v Speaker 1>Then you sell that and it's going to be a
<v Speaker 1>remaster or remake of some cool game. So easy to make.
<v Speaker 1>That make sense. And when the other game costs three
<v Speaker 1>hundred million dollars or more to make, suddenly a Blue
<v Speaker 1>Playing Games makes less sense.
<v Speaker 3>And they rose the studio let alone any of these
<v Speaker 3>other ones.
<v Speaker 1>Dark Outlaw, which was going to be you know, the
<v Speaker 1>Call of Duty Zombies guy, that was going to be
<v Speaker 1>his new game, and they gave him like multiple chances.
<v Speaker 3>The Firewalk was his previous studio. So yeah, this this
<v Speaker 3>goes hand in hand right with the rising cost of
<v Speaker 3>making games.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, small demos on popular games, bring those back,
<v Speaker 2>crash even up with spiral for a demo. All right,
<v Speaker 2>give us the demo, let us see if we even
<v Speaker 2>like it. If we like it, love it, maybe you
<v Speaker 2>keep going on with prediction. I don't know. They got
<v Speaker 2>something different.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, like just like early access for some of
<v Speaker 1>these bigger games or like yeah prototypes.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, like not even early access, yeah yeah, like tell
<v Speaker 2>us about the writing of the story, like before you
<v Speaker 2>even get intovolved with anything.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So one mentioned to me recently I can't remember.
<v Speaker 1>I think it might have been Phil Salvador on the
<v Speaker 1>show yesterday. Uh that like apparently developers have begun doing
<v Speaker 1>the thing of they have a trailer for their game
<v Speaker 1>and then based on whether or not and whether or
<v Speaker 1>not it gets enough wish list on Steam, then they'll
<v Speaker 1>decide whether or not they're gonna make it.
<v Speaker 3>And I kind of like that idea. Yeah, Like it
<v Speaker 3>means there's gonna be a lot of that.
<v Speaker 1>Like you might be messing around with trust a little bit,
<v Speaker 1>but if people don't wish list the game, you broke
<v Speaker 1>trust with people who weren't gonna buy back again, and
<v Speaker 1>you could probably get them back if you release another
<v Speaker 1>trailer that they think is dope. And so like that's
<v Speaker 1>definitely along those lines of what you're getting at. And
<v Speaker 1>I think you're right that they developers and publishers need
<v Speaker 1>to get a little bit more store, like like can
<v Speaker 1>we sniff out people's excitement a little bit early and like, yes,
<v Speaker 1>start building a story, a narrative around. Here's why this
<v Speaker 1>game matters, Here's why it's cool, and here's why you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna you're gonna want to pay attention.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And unfortunately I think they got to pay more
<v Speaker 2>attention to again, everything has to be stylized. Now. It
<v Speaker 2>has to look cool like in clips, like it has
<v Speaker 2>to look Yeah, it gotta just be like holy crap,
<v Speaker 2>you know what I mean, Like by like the style,
<v Speaker 2>not even the story, the cat none of that. It
<v Speaker 2>has to just look cool at the very like least,
<v Speaker 2>which you know I'm not the hugest fan of because
<v Speaker 2>I'm a gameplay over anything else guy.
<v Speaker 1>But it has to just look cool, yeah, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>and for me it's like if you can make the
<v Speaker 1>style and the animation enhance the gameplay, it's like that's
<v Speaker 1>where that's my butter sound right there.
<v Speaker 2>That's because that's what happened already with the Rock Band game.
<v Speaker 2>Lad a new Guitar Hero game. It's Guitar Hero, right,
<v Speaker 2>we know who the tarho is. We just want more
<v Speaker 2>Guitar Hero. But it came out and people are like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>this looks kind of ugly, you know, Like also, who
<v Speaker 2>cares a guitar hero, you know what I mean, Like,
<v Speaker 2>it's those characters are in the background of something you're
<v Speaker 2>not looking at. They're literally peripheral vision characters. Yeah, but
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't matter. It has to look cool.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's got to be.
<v Speaker 1>It's got to look good in that gift to make
<v Speaker 1>people feel good about spending the money.
<v Speaker 3>For sure.
<v Speaker 1>It's like in a post like Tetris Affect World, right,
<v Speaker 1>where yeah, that's just Tetris and the gameplay is perfect.
<v Speaker 3>You don't need to do anything. We have some ideas.
<v Speaker 1>We're going to sell those ideas by pairing it up
<v Speaker 1>with crazy visuals and awesome audio design.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, oh, yeah, that does work. I get it,
<v Speaker 3>and it looks good in gifts. Yeah, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, PlayStation closed a lot of studios over the
<v Speaker 1>last six years. Probably not done yet either. Well, we
<v Speaker 1>still haven't heard about what's going on with fair Games.
<v Speaker 1>It feels like one of these days we're just going
<v Speaker 1>to wake up and be like, oh, yes, of course
<v Speaker 1>that studio's done and that games that were coming out.
<v Speaker 3>But we'll see, all right.
<v Speaker 1>The RAM crisis is forcing super popular kids console to
<v Speaker 1>raise prices again from Zackuphison at Kotaku. The Next Playground,
<v Speaker 1>a kids focused motion control console that exploded in popularity
<v Speaker 1>last year, is the latest bit of video game tech
<v Speaker 1>to announce a price increase directly connected to the ongoing
<v Speaker 1>RAM shortage caused by AI hyperscalers rushing to build data centers.
<v Speaker 1>On March twenty fifth, and an open letter posted online,
<v Speaker 1>Next CEO and co founder David Lee announced that starting
<v Speaker 1>next month, the company's flag Ship console, the Next Playground,
<v Speaker 1>will receive a fifty dollars price increase, bumping from two
<v Speaker 1>fifty to three hundred. This is the second price increase
<v Speaker 1>in less than two years. So okay, so yeah, the
<v Speaker 1>damn is right because think about this, like we are
<v Speaker 1>talking about new hardware coming out or whatever, and we're
<v Speaker 1>talking about is the switch to going to get a
<v Speaker 1>price increase? This is a tiny little box that just
<v Speaker 1>that like was always meant to be very cost effective.
<v Speaker 1>It came out years ago, and it cost three hundred dollars.
<v Speaker 1>Now that is what you would pay for a switch
<v Speaker 1>one in twenty seventeen. Like that is, and that you
<v Speaker 1>know that was a long time ago, and that you
<v Speaker 1>know that was underpowered itself, so too yes, I like
<v Speaker 1>the next playground. We actually got it crazy. My wife
<v Speaker 1>got one for free. She actually got two for free
<v Speaker 1>as part of this deal group that she's incause they
<v Speaker 1>were kind of just giving these things away a couple
<v Speaker 1>of years ago, and then they charged you on a
<v Speaker 1>subscription thing on the back. On the backside, it's like, okay, cool,
<v Speaker 1>And now it just took off in the last year.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, yeah, that thing was neat. It's like a
<v Speaker 1>connect for the right audience. It's like that Tommy Talla
<v Speaker 1>Erico in television, the Anigo television. But like, actually good,
<v Speaker 1>it makes sense. And this thing now costs three hundred dollars.
<v Speaker 1>They don't want it to be that expensive. They want
<v Speaker 1>it to be an impulse purchase at the holidays for families.
<v Speaker 1>So this thing needs to be three hundred dollars. We
<v Speaker 1>are certainly looking at a PlayStation six that has to
<v Speaker 1>be eight hundred dollars, maybe even more. It stinks out there,
<v Speaker 1>right now, what do you think?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, two fifty to three hundred sucks?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>Is it change that that that two to three?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Right?
<v Speaker 2>If this was two twenty five to seventy five, maybe
<v Speaker 2>maybe right, three hundred is a whole nother thing. We're
<v Speaker 2>one getting those those price increases, and people already are
<v Speaker 2>not looking forward to the costole. Like I don't know
<v Speaker 2>anyone who's like, right, I'm ready to turn in my PSI,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like no one is saying that. And I
<v Speaker 2>don't think they will for at least five more years,
<v Speaker 2>Like I don't think people are ready at all. Uh
<v Speaker 2>So with that, with plus a price increase, plus the
<v Speaker 2>fact that it will have AI, so we're gonna be
<v Speaker 2>looking at the thing that we don't want that's causing
<v Speaker 2>the prices. Probably, Yeah, the pain will be right in
<v Speaker 2>front of us, and they're gonna market it as such,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like they're gonna they're gonna have new AI
<v Speaker 2>thing where you could do this and do that, and
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna be upset. We're not gonna be happy for it,
<v Speaker 2>Like it's it's gonna be ugly. I don't think we're
<v Speaker 2>going to see. We haven't seen anything like what this
<v Speaker 2>next generation will.
<v Speaker 3>Be, Like yeah, I mean when you're describing it, it's
<v Speaker 3>like that could be. It could be a blood bath.
<v Speaker 1>Like in terms of people not showing up for the
<v Speaker 1>new console unless they are giving a given a real
<v Speaker 1>tangible like Fomo possibility, pomos all they're gonna have in
<v Speaker 1>terms of just like you have to have an exclusive
<v Speaker 1>game you just can't get anywhere else that's better than
<v Speaker 1>everything else.
<v Speaker 3>That's a pretty tall order on its face.
<v Speaker 1>And if you don't have that, how are you going
<v Speaker 1>to commence anyone to spend the money on that new console?
<v Speaker 1>And the answer might be they won't be able to,
<v Speaker 1>and people might just sit back with their PS fives
<v Speaker 1>and be happy because all the games they're playing, and
<v Speaker 1>probably all the games will come out for the next
<v Speaker 1>couple of years after the PS six is there will
<v Speaker 1>come out on that console.
<v Speaker 3>It's like that.
<v Speaker 1>It could just be a cliff that these companies are
<v Speaker 1>headed toward, and I don't know how they deal with that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this one, this one, this one might actually be
<v Speaker 2>pretty bad. The only things PlayStation is has is that momentum,
<v Speaker 2>A little bit of PlayStation momentum, right, yeah, a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of people who may get it just in case,
<v Speaker 2>you know, because the PlayStation five shortages were so crazy, Right,
<v Speaker 2>there's a couple of that there. But as far as
<v Speaker 2>everyone really rushing out that game, whatever that game is, man,
<v Speaker 2>it's already hard. You can't. We can't make a good,
<v Speaker 2>great game now right. You're gonna have to throw multiple
<v Speaker 2>You're gonna have to be the next gout of Ward,
<v Speaker 2>the next Last of Us, the next Horizon, the next
<v Speaker 2>everything on that console for us to even think about
<v Speaker 2>moving over right, Like one game won't even do it.
<v Speaker 2>It's going to be a collection again of great exclusives.
<v Speaker 2>That's a gain in itself.
<v Speaker 1>They might hope that, like Grand Theft out of Six,
<v Speaker 1>kind of runs a little bit shit on on the
<v Speaker 1>spot so that people are like, and then you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's probably gonna run pretty good on a PS five
<v Speaker 1>pro I bet, but I bet they'll be like, oh
<v Speaker 1>now just wait for the PS six and get the
<v Speaker 1>we'll have a PS six version of it. Then that
<v Speaker 1>might be their best bet. And that's kind of sad
<v Speaker 1>that a game I have already been out by then, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>what's going to go to the will come out right exactly,
<v Speaker 1>so that's gonna be.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, an Xbox is real, really ugly. I don't know
<v Speaker 2>what they're going to do because people don't even want
<v Speaker 2>their current Xbox Steam. You gotta have Steam on it.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, yep, it's all right.
<v Speaker 1>The Xbox just not even part of this conversation, right,
<v Speaker 1>It's going to be they're gonna want to sell ten
<v Speaker 1>million of those things and be happy with that compared
<v Speaker 1>to you know, Xbox three sixty, which is like eighty
<v Speaker 1>million or something like that. It's just a whole different
<v Speaker 1>universe that they're in now, all right, last couple of
<v Speaker 1>stories here, Uh, we have a cousin update.
<v Speaker 3>Everybody, they're updated.
<v Speaker 1>They're patching cousins in Capcom Capcom street Fighter six. I'll
<v Speaker 1>read that headline here from Kenneth. Capcom addresses the street
<v Speaker 1>Fighter six incest storyline fans have been losing their minds
<v Speaker 1>over the funniest fighting game patch note of all time
<v Speaker 1>will read some variation of quote. We altered the incest
<v Speaker 1>storyline in Alex's backstory. At least that's what it sounds
<v Speaker 1>like street Fighter six is doing. Alex, a veteran fighter
<v Speaker 1>in Capcom's fighting game series, was added to street Fighter
<v Speaker 1>six earlier this month, and while that on its own
<v Speaker 1>should be caused for celebration, fans were less enthused by
<v Speaker 1>the character's storyline, which included him getting his second cousin
<v Speaker 1>and stepsister Patricia Yes doing many things with her. They
<v Speaker 1>even had a kid on the way. The fandom was
<v Speaker 1>sent into a tailspind trying to figure out how to
<v Speaker 1>explain this as less weird than it comes off as.
<v Speaker 1>Even if you debate the legitimacy of the brother sister relationship,
<v Speaker 1>they are definitely still cousins. This is a quote from
<v Speaker 1>the team talking about it. We apologize for any confusion
<v Speaker 1>that recent topics regarding Alex's story may have caused. While
<v Speaker 1>we have not changed the care aracters backstories, after internal
<v Speaker 1>review by the development team, we plan to revise certain
<v Speaker 1>text passages that may have been misleading in the near future. Additionally,
<v Speaker 1>we have published a supplementary episode on Buckler's boot Camp
<v Speaker 1>to provide further insight into the characters emotions and backstories.
<v Speaker 3>All Right, yeah, hey, this is weird.
<v Speaker 1>They and the fact the fact that Cap Goob kind
<v Speaker 1>of at the height of their power right now to
<v Speaker 1>come out and be like, look, we're sorry about the incests.
<v Speaker 1>We're not going to get rid of it, but we're
<v Speaker 1>going to explain it better. Excuse me, what are you
<v Speaker 1>talking about? A weird story?
<v Speaker 2>Huh yeah, you mentioned Game of Thrones and the incests just.
<v Speaker 3>On this episode, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, uh, we'll have
<v Speaker 3>to explain it themselves here in a little bit. We'll
<v Speaker 3>see what that looks like.
<v Speaker 2>What do you think I have no clue how this
<v Speaker 2>has even became a thing. You know what, what are
<v Speaker 2>we blaming that fault here? Because this was this is
<v Speaker 2>a silly miss up.
<v Speaker 1>It's like unnecessary, right, Yeah, you could just have changed
<v Speaker 1>the story from the beginning.
<v Speaker 3>I don't I don't know.
<v Speaker 4>All right, guys, guys, guys, I got you in this
<v Speaker 4>one because apparently it's worse in the Japanese version. So
<v Speaker 4>I think they might start removing language like and at
<v Speaker 4>that moment I knew she was no longer my sister,
<v Speaker 4>they might take some of that stuff out. I'm thinking
<v Speaker 4>that might be a good place to start.
<v Speaker 3>No, no, it is this, Sean.
<v Speaker 1>This is the one where you tell me where it's
<v Speaker 1>like there's a scene where it's like, oh, she was
<v Speaker 1>no longer my sister, and then in the next scene
<v Speaker 1>it's like a flashback to him holding her when she
<v Speaker 1>was a baby or something.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, they made some customer for this ship where
<v Speaker 4>it shows them through the years of him holding her
<v Speaker 4>as a newborn and then them dancing at their wedding.
<v Speaker 2>Oh god, oh.
<v Speaker 3>God, let's make some changes. Capcom. Let's get to work.
<v Speaker 3>Let's get to work. Oh no, all right, let's let's
<v Speaker 3>move on.
<v Speaker 1>Jesus Christ, Jackson, Jack and Dexter fans prepared to have
<v Speaker 1>your heart broken. Basically, Sinzera y Sanzaru, a development team
<v Speaker 1>pitched to Sony on remaking Jack and Daxter.
<v Speaker 3>They did some spec.
<v Speaker 1>Work where like, hey, we're gonna rework some of these
<v Speaker 1>cut scenes and show what it can look like in
<v Speaker 1>a modern engine. And they did a pretty good job,
<v Speaker 1>and then apparently there were some conversations and then it
<v Speaker 1>never happened. So that's the heartbreak here of if you're
<v Speaker 1>waiting for Jack and Daxter to make its return, the
<v Speaker 1>eternal hell that you live in continues, you're you're not.
<v Speaker 3>Gonna get that.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's what seems to be happening or what At
<v Speaker 1>a certain point, Brunel, they they gotta start looking to
<v Speaker 1>the back catalog a little bit more, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, don't don't delete all of the hope. Yeah, put
<v Speaker 2>you put your meters up. The mark is looking ugly.
<v Speaker 2>They're gonna start tapping into that nostalgia. Jack and Dexter's
<v Speaker 2>coming everything is coming at some point, they gotta throw
<v Speaker 2>everything at you. PS six, new Jack and Dexter it
<v Speaker 2>comes home.
<v Speaker 3>I think you're right. I would echo all of that.
<v Speaker 3>All right, that doesn't go in the headlines. Everybody.
<v Speaker 1>Let's get through the rest of the stuff we gotta do. Here,
<v Speaker 1>we have the pull question from yesterday. I'm gonna go
<v Speaker 1>ahead and refresh. We'll get the results of that right here.
<v Speaker 1>Do you have a PC gaming handheld? We wanted to
<v Speaker 1>check in on this. I do have one, so do
<v Speaker 1>forty seven percent of respondents. Man, that really tells you
<v Speaker 1>what kind of.
<v Speaker 3>Audience we have over here.
<v Speaker 1>Thirty six percent say said no, and I don't want one.
<v Speaker 1>There's going to be the people happy with their switches
<v Speaker 1>or happy with their consoles. And then seventeen percent say no,
<v Speaker 1>but I do plan to get one. Okay, so it's
<v Speaker 1>still some people waiting on the sideline. But man, act now,
<v Speaker 1>because those prices are just going to keep going up.
<v Speaker 1>How about you right now? How are you playing games
<v Speaker 1>like these days?
<v Speaker 2>You go?
<v Speaker 1>Do you have a console that you've always been going
<v Speaker 1>to have you switched over to Steam or anything like that.
<v Speaker 2>I got it all. I do it all PC. I
<v Speaker 2>mean console to PC. I've been having a lot of
<v Speaker 2>fun with PC just because games could be cheaper there
<v Speaker 2>and oh yeah, a lot of random stuff over there.
<v Speaker 2>But I love my Steam Deck to death. It's probably
<v Speaker 2>my favorite device since like the PSP, since the Sidekick,
<v Speaker 2>Like it's my favorite device. I love the Steam Deck
<v Speaker 2>and it's so underpowered and uh yep, my screen has
<v Speaker 2>a couple of dead pixels on it, but I love
<v Speaker 2>it so much. I don't know what it is. It's
<v Speaker 2>it's to fill the controls like the touch pad. It
<v Speaker 2>it's just a great device and it just.
<v Speaker 1>Feels yeah's just like you just they they present games
<v Speaker 1>in such a forward way of like you picked up
<v Speaker 1>this thing to play a game. We know that, so
<v Speaker 1>when you turn it on, let's get into those games.
<v Speaker 1>And so, okay, that's like a number one check mark
<v Speaker 1>that I need. That's why I like to switch so much.
<v Speaker 1>It's a gaming device and knows it. That's how it
<v Speaker 1>presents itself. And the Steam Deck does that as well.
<v Speaker 1>And then the Steam Deck's like, and we're gonna give
<v Speaker 1>you everything you need to kind of play whatever game
<v Speaker 1>you want and if you want to, if you want
<v Speaker 1>to get freaky on the desktop mode and start installing emulators.
<v Speaker 3>We're gonna rarely supplement that make sure that's easy to do.
<v Speaker 3>It just feels like a thoughtful device. I'm so obsessed
<v Speaker 3>with my Steam Deck.
<v Speaker 2>Stemos is also so good. I love the again the
<v Speaker 2>touch packs, so I can play some random, crazy games
<v Speaker 2>that doesn't really make sense on that device, and I
<v Speaker 2>can make it make sense, especially with the community controls
<v Speaker 2>and shit. It's great.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yes, right exactly, just yeah, thoughtful from top to bottom.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we do not have a new poll question
<v Speaker 1>because we are going to be doing The Bomb twelve
<v Speaker 1>in the week again, no episode tomorrow, everybody, We're gonna
<v Speaker 1>be at packs. We'll get to the Bomb twelve here
<v Speaker 1>in a second. We should kind of tap into what
<v Speaker 1>we're doing on Giant Bomb here real quick. Today we
<v Speaker 1>are going to be talking over excuse mean, the the
<v Speaker 1>Xbox Partner preview that that event that's happening today.
<v Speaker 3>We're going to be talking over that.
<v Speaker 1>Y yeah, that is today, and then the voicemail dump
<v Speaker 1>truck will happen after that. So all that's happening this afternoon,
<v Speaker 1>and then tomorrow we're not going to have any normal
<v Speaker 1>you know, programs.
<v Speaker 3>Instead see us at PAX and that goes through the weekend.
<v Speaker 1>All right, With that out of the way, were now,
<v Speaker 1>why don't you tell people where they can find you
<v Speaker 1>on the internet, what you have going on and all
<v Speaker 1>that good stuff for sure?
<v Speaker 2>Short form social media TikTok, a big closed fist. That's
<v Speaker 2>eight b it closed fist, just talking about video games
<v Speaker 2>every day. I got some long form video game essays dropping.
<v Speaker 2>I'm dropping a how to Enjoy Games in twenty twenty
<v Speaker 2>six video essay coming on YouTube. I have a Checkpoint
<v Speaker 2>the show if you miss G four like Attack of
<v Speaker 2>the Show kind of vibes. It's live. I mean it's
<v Speaker 2>not live, but it's in person at like an old
<v Speaker 2>game studio in Burbank called Game Realms. They let us
<v Speaker 2>film there after hours. It's really fun, it's cool, it's
<v Speaker 2>cool stuff. It's called Checkpoint the Show.
<v Speaker 1>People should go check all this stuff out again right now.
<v Speaker 1>I love your stuff really great follow on social media
<v Speaker 1>and elsewhere, so people should make that happen. People are
<v Speaker 1>dropping the wink and chat. People should get on top of.
<v Speaker 3>That absolutely all right.
<v Speaker 1>I think we got everything out of the way, So
<v Speaker 1>what we should probably do now is in the week
<v Speaker 1>with the bomb. Twelve, everybody, these are the twelve games
<v Speaker 1>that really matter to people who are really playing games.
<v Speaker 1>You all submitted what you been playing over the last week,
<v Speaker 1>and we do.
<v Speaker 3>Have the results right here.
<v Speaker 1>Let me go ahead and start with number twelve, which
<v Speaker 1>is World of Warcraft Midnight people checking out the expansion there.
<v Speaker 1>Number eleven is Mugenics, which I think popped off the
<v Speaker 1>chart last week, so it's popping back on here. That
<v Speaker 1>game apparently is going to be coming to console here
<v Speaker 1>in the future. I bet it will come back on
<v Speaker 1>the list at that moment. Number ten is Esoteric EBB.
<v Speaker 1>Number nine is Warframe. Number eight is Kingdom Come Deliverance
<v Speaker 1>to making a reappearance on the chart. Number seven Resident
<v Speaker 1>Evil Requiem. Number six is Monster Hunter Stories three, then
<v Speaker 1>Destranding two at number five. Number four is Crimson Desert,
<v Speaker 1>which is not cracked the top three yet, which I
<v Speaker 1>also think says something about our audience. A lot of
<v Speaker 1>people playing that game, but not necessarily everyone in our audience,
<v Speaker 1>but still quite a few people. Number three, though in
<v Speaker 1>the top three, we have Slay the Spire two, then
<v Speaker 1>Pokemon Pacopia dropping from one to two this week, and
<v Speaker 1>number one going from two to one is Marathon. As
<v Speaker 1>I think the word of mouth on that game just
<v Speaker 1>continues to spread, and regardless of whatever it's doing with
<v Speaker 1>its budget versus what it's selling, it's succeeding as far
<v Speaker 1>as the audience who's playing it is concerned and it's yes,
<v Speaker 1>and it's its ability to sort of attract like those
<v Speaker 1>people's friends, right they start saying, I'm having a good time,
<v Speaker 1>you should come play this with me. That I think
<v Speaker 1>is working and it could work over time. So I'm
<v Speaker 1>getting the itched to go back and check out more Marathon.
<v Speaker 1>I kind of want to do the single player side
<v Speaker 1>of it, of like you go and you place the
<v Speaker 1>rook or whatever and going by yourself. That's how I
<v Speaker 1>use to place Club G And I've heard people say
<v Speaker 1>it's like very similar of like you. It's like could
<v Speaker 1>feel like a horror film of like everything is scary.
<v Speaker 1>It's like that's what I like. So I'm gonna give
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna give that a shot myself.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a good Top twelve. I like this audience.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, people, people are tapped and they know what they're doing.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you everybody for submitting your game. If you want
<v Speaker 1>to contribute to the Bomb twelve next week. Excuse me,
<v Speaker 1>I'll get the form link updated on giant bomb dot com.
<v Speaker 1>Just scroll down a little bit. You'll see this week's
<v Speaker 1>Bond twelve. You'll see a vote here link over to
<v Speaker 1>the left. Submit your game. We'll get the results next Friday.
<v Speaker 1>All right, with all that out of the way, I
<v Speaker 1>think it's time to wrap up this show, wrap up
<v Speaker 1>the week.
<v Speaker 3>We'll see you all at Pax.
<v Speaker 1>Renelle, thank you so much for hanging out with me
<v Speaker 1>today and talking about video games.
<v Speaker 3>Man really appreciate it for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for having me.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely anytime we'll make it happen again. Thank you all
<v Speaker 1>for watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself,
<v Speaker 1>and goodbye.