Recapping the Xbox Partner Preview

Be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this from March
seven, twenty four, for the next hour or so, let me help
you sort through the world of gaming on Games Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grubb.
Today, everything from that Xbox showcase and what is the future of Final
Fantasy seven remake on other consoles? But first, please join me and welcoming
today's co host of Game mess Mornings. It's Janet Choa. Everybody, jan
how are you doing? I am here to further my agenda across the Internet.
I'm ready to inundate folks with my ideals of tiles, black coffee and
corgy companionship. Consider me one of your acolytes. I'm an acolyte of tiles
and coffee. Let's make it happen fantastic, and then I'll take a deep
breath and I'll step outside. That's what I'll do. Over here. I'll
let you hold scout. Thank you appreciate that. Yeah, No, how's
it going this week? You you got the internet figured it out? It
seems Oh my gosh, it turns out I love it and I hate it
when a technician will head to your place. Yeah, look at the problem
and then just be immediately upset, not with me, but with the previous
technician that's set it up. Oh fun, God, bless this dude.
He comes in, he looks at the setup and he goes like, do
you know who did this? Like I didn't catch the guys. I'm sorry.
Yeah, he goes like, I can't believe someone from our company would
do this this, no wonder you have a problem here, boss, Like,
okay, you you got the right the right one this time. It's
not like you got the one that actually does all the work around here.
Yeah. And like this dude like went on to explain to me about like
all this other stuff about like why this was wrong here, why that was
wrong? Uh, and then like very cordial, very nice, managed to
fix it. Oh also, grub, I wasn't expecting this dude until one
pm my time. He calls me in the morning and goes like, hey,
boss, I finished my other appointments. You want me to just come
over earlier. I'm like, yeah, do that please, let's go.
Okay, fantastic, it worked out great, Like it's in so how long
did it take me to actually actually fix? For my side of things?
It seemed like he just did one thing and magically it was on. It
took him about half an hour. Like I heard some I wanted to give
him some space and want to make sure that Scout wasn't freaking out. So
I heard some drilling, some some wrenching, and some zip ties happening.
Fair enough, Well, uh, you got it on just in time to
send Dan his video Oh God for Super Dance sixty four, which was excellent
work, Jan seriously, great work. Absolutely obviously they had any very good
But let's not sell the mid Atlantic accent you're doing in there for the newsreel
that is incredible stuff. Is that what that accent is? I've always just
considered that like an old timey radio voice. I could be misplacing the the
the gnomer, I could be misnomering there, but I I understand. I
thought that's what a mid Atlantic is like in movies. Mid Atlantic is,
you know, kind of sounding fancy but still American, not quite British.
But I think that is also qualified as like when in those new newsreels they're
using a mid Atlantic sort of hey, well we're talking it up here and
we're not like show where this voice is from, and it's like yeah,
okay, but you nailed it and I it took me a couple of seconds.
I'm like, no, that is just Jen. I'm like the Jan
hire a voice actor he did named Jannahoa. That's why I'm here, Folks
hire me. I'll be in your game. I'll whatever fanfic you have going
on and you need a voice I'm not yeah, I'll do it. Careful
man, I'll do it. You're ready to sell out. I am so
ready to sell out, y'all. Let's let's make it happen, everybody.
Let's make Let's make Jans dreams or reality. If you have an old man
character, oh I got shut out? Yeah, come on, come on,
people cut the check or you know, just reach out to them.
All right, let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff
Grebel, help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and
maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll
get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.
If you were watching live on twitch welcome, You can always listen to the
show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game mess Mornings, or find the
RSS on Giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with
chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have a
lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess with everything announced in
the Xbox Partner Preview showcase from yesterday. This is from Lottie Lynn at Eurogamer.
The Xbox Partner Preview Showcase offered us a look at a number of third
party games heading Xbox Series XNS this year. We were shown a variety of
trailers during the thirty minute presentation, including the taste of Japanese mythology inspired Kunitsu
Gami, Path of the Goddess, and the announcement of the Seekings Sinking City
too. Whether you missed the presentation or not, here as a rundown,
there was quite a few games in this thing. Jan you were busy at
the time, so I don't know how much of this you were able to
catch. I think it was like, it was a pretty good show.
It was a pretty good presentation. They just went trailer after trailer, and
there was enough like I'm at least curious to play that to know how I
feel about it that I was pretty happy with the end results. So it
started with the Unknown nine Awakening. This is a game from developer Reflector and
publisher Bandy Namco. It's a body hopping adventure and it will be arriving this
summer. Yes, it looks very assassins Creedy. It likes surprisingly like Assassin's
Creed. I could get into that. I think it's funny that I don't
have an appetite for actual Assassin's Creed. But if someone tells Assassin's Creed,
like all right, all right, I could get into this right, And
that's why I'm like, right now, it's like very excited, like okay,
ghosts Sushima. I'm gonna hop into that because that sounds great. You're
right, I don't need all the baggage that comes with Assassin's Creed. Not
that that would weigh me down. I would just ignore it, but something
about it, just like, I'm okay for now for the most part,
although I was interested in playing a little bit of Mirage Slight of Hand,
this was a CGI trailer, so it's hard to like fully understand what was
happening here. They sleight of hand references the fact that this character does seem
to be holding cards that might have magical powers, but they didn't say it
was a card game. They said. It is like a third person action
maybe stealth game. It looks very much like Dishonored in some ways, and
I imagine cards will probably play into the powers that you're able to do.
And maybe the cards are, like Mike said, maybe it's like a gambit
thing you actually throw the cards and they're charged up or something like that.
I don't really know. Again, it's CGI trailer. A little bit like
annoyed that we're still having to get like CGI trailers in these things when it's
like, I just want to understand what this game is. But I get
that that's a little bit easier to do than to get something ready. If
you're a development team and you're not ready to show it off, Having to
do all this work to get the game to that point for a showcase like
this probably just doesn't make sense these days. The Altars this is you'll have
to explore an alien planet, ensuring you stay safe from its deadly sunrises by
creating alternate versions of your self. They say, sounds easy, right.
This one was really difficult to get a beat on, Jen because it looked
like so many different games, and at one point it looked more like Fallout
Shelter than anything else, but the shelters in this giant wheel that goes across
the land. I don't know it was wild, but there's a lot going
on there. At the very least, it looked interesting. I was particularly
interested in this because apparently the main character's name is either Yan or Jam.
There you go. So I'm all in game of the year. Maybe it's
all it takes, everybody it takes. I do get excited when I hear
a character named Jeff. We're underrepresented in video games because not enough Jets around
here. Slide of Hands coming to both PC and Xbox Series X. That's
yes, PC and Xbox Series X via game Pass. Uh. And so
far all these games, I think most of the games in this list are
going to be out this year. Next up is Creatures of Ava. This
one I'm like very curious to, like, see how you feel about it.
Jan. It is a Pokemon adjacent thing. It is about this lady.
I think she has like, you know, the pied piper flute thing,
and she's going going out and maybe not capturing creatures but saving them,
and then she's not bad. I don't think she's like using them to battle.
I think she's using them to like like bring them and bring them to
a shelter and keep them keep them safe. So what a Pokemon game with
that deemphasizes combat? Does that sound interesting to you? Uh? It's not
specifically what I come to Pokemon for, but I do like the look of
this. I think. I think it's interesting that we haven't seen a lot
of Pokemon snap clones, and an early bit of this trailer is like the
main character pulling out a camera. Also, it looks like she's kind of
doing like a Ghostbusters beam at some of them to free them. I'm really
curious as to how the gameplay will be in this, but I like the
look of it a lot. Yeah, I like I'm also curious what it's
actually gonna feel like in the end. I can imagine like if you were
to take Pokemon and sprinkle on some Viva pinata where it's like we are going
to save some of these creatures, but you need to do specific things and
have certain items with you to be able to save them. That I think
that would be very interesting. Why not just more Viva Pinata? Yeah,
maybe a lot more Viva pinata. They should just make a Viva Pinata.
That's that's what we really need. That one's from eleven Bit Studios and they
do like make it and it is about it's a conservation allegory. So yeah,
if you're looking for your game to have a little bit more mindfulness in
there, this might be it. This is another one that's coming to both
PC and Xbox Series X and S later this year, and it will be
on Game Pass. Roadblocks Griefville Cross Chucky. This one really through before a
loop Jan. It was just straight up Chucky running around and we're like,
oh, is this what is this? And then the characters, the other
characters turned around and they were roadblocks characters with the flat faces and everything,
and it was very confusing because I'm just like, is are there are horror
games inside of Roadblocks now? And then I remember they had that Kissing Update,
which is like, well, we're going to make start making Yeah,
that's what the fans called it. The Kissing Update was like, they're going
to have new parts of Roadblocks that are for the older kids, and I
guess that involves what is basically a four v one asymmetrical multiplayer game like Dead
by Daylight, but with Chucky and roadblocks, characters? How much you're you
gonna play this? Listen, grub you all know me. I don't like
to poop poo on people's interests. But maybe the kids shouldn't have grown up
with ropeblocks. Maybe a mistake. Yeah, it does feel like, man,
we could have done better by these kids. Huh. Yeah. I
don't think I've ever seen a Chucky movie in full, but I don't.
I don't think they should add chuck you to anything. Have you seen the
Simpsons episode with the Krusty of the Clown, the Evil Krusty the clown doll?
Yes, Okay, we'll just watch that because it's just set to evil.
That's that's all kind of need to know, all right, Okay,
The Sinking City Too was announced. It's riving next year. It's one of
the games actually is coming out in twenty twenty five. I forgot I forgot
about that one. And it's also grimming to PlayStation five. It's a sequel
to The Sinking City, a horrific standalone tail set in the nineteen twenties United
States. I never played much Sinking City, but I know people who really
like that game, so hey, you're gonna get more of it. Final
Fatous fourteen Online got its date. It's coming March twenty first to Xbox Series
X and ST after years and years of being rumored, finally making leap over
to Xbox. Yeah, with the Starter edition beginning twenty first of March.
I feel like they would have made this a bigger deal or made it more
prominent rather than just like sticking it tacking it on at like the first ten
or so minutes of this yeah, I mean review. I think there was
a time in it, like previously when the guy did get announced, but
they did it at I think a Final Fantasy concert and Phil Spencer came out
or something like that, or maybe it was a Final Fantasy event. I
wasn't paying too much attention. I didn't care, but I think they previously
made a bigger deal out of it, so now it's like, now here's
the date. But you're right. It kind of feels like this is going
to be the thing that, despite the game being available in so many places,
it's probably going to be very very popular and more popular than a lot
of the things on this list. Monster Jam Showdown, a monster truck game
coming out t twenty four. I'm excited about this the Grave Digger was there.
I had no idea that the monster trucks could leave the arena. I
didn't know they were allowed to play in the world. Yep. Now they've
broken free of the confines of the arena and now they're taking over the world.
It's off road racing and freestyle driving game arriving later this year. Then
the Persona three reload expansion Pass was announced. This is episode aegis aegis I
don't know how to say it, but it is that previous DLC episode that
people are like, Hey, is that going to actually get included in this
and then they're like, well, no, it looks like they're not doing
that. They're remaking the original, they're not remaking Fez, which I think
had this, And it's like, no, they actually are going to do
it, and it is an expansion pass. You do have to buy it
separately, but it is included with game pass. All that said with people
are like, man, are they going to do that? That's weird.
They haven't done that. Every person down to every last manded woman then follows
that was set by saying I hate that. I don't like it at all.
I'm like, oh, okay, you are weird. I just okay,
thank you, Sean. I don't believe them. I think I think
you said it right. I feel like you said it right. I think
you're right. Yes, thank you. I think you're right that I'm right.
That's a very good point. Then. The First Berserker Kaisan a new
action RPG from Nexon. With the help of magic and a massive sword,
you'll be able to slash foes to pieces and soft puzzles when this game releases
on Xbox Series X and S. This is a from software Like. It
is a Soulsborn looking game. Uh yeah, but setting the dungeons and drag
or drug excuse me, dungeons and fighters universe. I can never keep all.
There's dragons and eggs and dungeons and fighters the DNF Duel game. This
is a spin off of that, and it's from software Like kind of game.
It looks I think it looked pretty cool in terms of style, and
the more I watched the combat, it was like a little bit stiff or
a little bit underwhelming, and I hope that that is not the case throughout
the whole game. Yeah, it looks a little little framing in certain bits
of that trailer. Yes, definitely had some performance issues and hopefully that does
not follow through to the final game. I don't think they gave this one
a date, so hopefully it has enough time to fix that stuff up.
Then there was Tails of Kinzera Zoo, which is a game we've seen a
bunch of times before, coming out next month on the twenty third of April.
It is a Metroid Venua, and it's a Sean pointed out, it's
one that plays a little bit more like Metroid, where you're gonna have a
projectile weapon and that's how you fight most of the time. So yeah,
I'm excited about that. Parts of it even looked like or so a huge
Metroid VNA head. We already got a great one this year. Give me
another one of those. It looked very good. I love any Metroid venue
with a ton of movement abilities, and this looks like it's full of them.
So cannot wait. Frostb so go go ahead. Yeah. For whatever
reason, low keirabites me of Crash band Acicoot. Maybe because of the masks,
but my brain is broken, y'all. Uh yeah, Crash fandic you're
definitely like eightped some of that style, and it's uh not, maybe the
best way at all times els Gatzera Zal. However, doing it in the
best way, it seems very in touch with that stuff in a much more
mindful way. Frostpunk two coming out July twenty fifth sequel to Frostpunk. I
think it looks It looks like a big budget sequel to a game that did
very well the first time around. I like Frostpunk a lot, and it
just seems like they're like, Okay, let's do that again, but spend
it even more money on it this time, and hey, I'm down.
I really like frost Punk. And then Kunitsu Gami Path of the Goddess first
announced at the Xbox Showcase last summer summer. Before that, something like that
got it. I can't place it now, but it's that Capcom action game
that has a whole bunch of other stuff in it, including I think we
saw some tower defense elements, but it seemed like it had like fifteen different
mechanics than they showed in this trailer. The very least, it's very stylish.
It looks like a combination of a bunch of different Capcom games, includes
being like Okami Layer, so there's a lot of cool stuff happening in this
game. It looks very interesting, and it also looks like they are like
minimizing dialogue, which I was excited about. It's like, no, they're
just gonna do a lot of visual storytelling. All right, Hey, I
love it, give me more of it. And I was pretty impressed by
this. But like with most games in this showcase, Jan and that was
the final game, it's like, man, I kind of just need to
play it to really know how I feel. It's not like, oh,
well, Nintendo showed their game that I've played before, and then here's a
remaster, and I know I'm excited about that. In this case, it's
like, hey, I think this looks cool. Good, I think I
forgot Stalker. The original trilogy was something we talked about yesterday. But it's
like most of these I just need to get my hands on and pat the
Goddess at the very least looks good, but I'm gonna have to play it.
Yeah. I still, even though I knew what game it was,
I still thought, for a second, is this only Musha? Oh right,
right, right, It's not only Musha, right, But yeah,
looking at the trailer, I'm I'm not quite sure what to make of it,
and I hope it just isn't one of those games with too many ideas
where it doesn't feel like it delivers on a good chunk of them. But
again, it's a it's a wait and see. It is a wait and
see, and that's totally fine. You're allowed to be that kind of game.
And so far, everything they've showed has been like, hey, no,
this is all green light. I'm like, yeah, keep going forward
with this. I will check in on this the next time you're ready to
show it, or if we get a chance to play it, that would
be great. But that's another one coming out twenty twenty four, and it
will be on game Pass, so you'll be able to try it if you
have game Pass. Pretty good showcase overall in terms of the presentation. Like
I said, also just yet another reminder like, oh yeah, game Pass
is still a pretty good deal. I think I've said recently, I think
PlayStation Plus is also a very good deal. It is, but it's like
you know, there's there's occasionally just a slightly more excitement for new games when
it comes to game Pass, and I think this was a good example of
that. Yeah, I think if anything, this is not only another endorsement
of like game pass is pretty good, but also PC game pass is also
pretty good. Grub yep, absolutely and most I see it. Okay.
I was gonna ask, was there any mention of like, hey, de
xboxes, they're cool, go buy a console or was it just pretty much
focused on the games, like nothing about hardware. Yeah. I think the
you know, the under current to all of their messaging continues to be and
has been for a while, and it was present here is we don't care
where you play the game. Play the game, play the game where you're
gonna play it. Uh, you know it is on game Pass though,
but you should probably play it in a game pass, but play on play
game Pass wherever you want to play game Pass. So I don't think that's
changing, And if anything, the suggestion seems to be they're going to be
doubling down on that messaging going forward. All right. Next up, Sony
has the Final Fantasy seven Remake trilogy on lock or maybe not. This is
from Levi Winslow at Kataku. I hope you weren't holding your breath for Final
Fantasy seven Remake Rebirth and whatever the will be called to come to a non
PlayStation console. The first two installments of the trilogy will apparently remain a PlayStation
console exclusives. In an interview with The Washington Post, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Vice
president of Second and Third Party Content, Mentors and Strategic Initiatives, Christian Spinson,
said that SNS, Sony and Square agreed to make the remake trilogy of
Final Fantasy seventy console exclusive when development on the project started. Spinson added that
the focusing on third party content is ingrained in PlayStation's DNA to this day and
connects to how we've worked together on Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. They go on
for a bet, but there is later an update. This is later in
the day. Washington Post reporter Gene Park, who did the original story,
has amended his interview with Final Fantasy seven Rebirth producer yosh Nori Katase to state
that only the first two games in the trilogy are confirmed to be PlayStation console
exclusives. It was a mistake on my part to write the sentence like that.
The entire Final Fantasy seven trilogy is not yet confirmed to be Sony exclusive.
The Post journalist wrote on Twitter now Jan that clarification, you know notwithstanding,
the next game is going to be exclusive to PlayStation at least for a
little while at the very least, but probably for an extended period of time.
This almost certainly just comes down to we don't want that messaging out there
because that's one of the bargaining chips that we want Sony to pay us a
lot more money still for to confirm the next game is actually going to be
fully exclusive, because as it stands right now, I'm sure it's like,
no, we have an agreement, there's some stuff out there, but you
can't just go out there and say that that's part of the marketing agreement we
would have, and we would need that to be figured out and ironed out
before we go out there and start talking that way. That's what this seems
like to me. I don't know, what do you think? Yeah,
and I it would feel very weird at this point for the third one to
not be a PlayStation exclusive. I like, is the general language just saying
PlayStation exclusive or PS five exclusive right now? Exclusive? Although I get this,
I get a sense that this next one's going to come out pretty quick
and we'll still be on price five. Sure, I think it just be
odd to expect it, like at and Launch, to also be on Xbox
or Switch or whatever the switch to would look like at this point, because
it does feel like this is a big, big, big bargaining chip on
Squares side, one of the only things it seems like that they are doing
business wise correctly versus a lot of their approach to other games, because I
don't know, I feel like, further down the line, maybe after the
third final Fantasy seven remake game is out and there's enough time you do a
collection on the Xbox and like you make that a big deal. After that
exclusivity deal runs out, yeah, like years from now, like then,
yeah, yeah, and that I think that's still actually on the table.
Even if it's like as it stands today, this is always going to be
inclusive, always is in like through this generation, it's not. There's no
way that that the deal that they have is in perpetuity, no matter how
much money Sony is given for this franchise to be exclusive to PS five as
it is in PS four before it. It does have an expiration date and
things can change at that point. But if you are someone out there who
is waiting, don't do that. You're you're you not. It is a
big question mark about when and then when it when it when it does expire
Sony's or Square Inex, I should say, their interest may have moved on
to something else and they might not have demand power, the development power to
actually get to the this ported over to other stuff in any quick way.
So just play it where you can find it now. Obviously, like Final
Fantasy seven Rebirth gonna come to PC at some time, and if you want
to wait for that one, I suppose that's fine. But yeah, this
thing is going to be a PlayStation game for the most part, and if
you really want to play it, you should be doing exactly that. I
saw. Maybe this was last week when the reviews were rolling out, but
I saw Gene Park saying that this, if he didn't already have a PS
five because of his job, that this would be the thing to motivate him
to do so to finally pick one up. I think I agree with Gene
in a major way. I feel like, if you have played Spider Man
or Miles Morales on your PS four you can know what to expect with Spider
Man two, and in like, looking back at it now, it's like,
ah, you know, maybe I didn't need to play Spider Man two.
I really enjoyed it a lot, Don't get me wrong, it's amazing
game. But man, g Rebirth and all the miscellaneous shenanigans I've wound up
falling into this would make me get a PS five if I didn't have one
for the job. Yeah, and I wonder. I think that that is
a sentiment, a word of mouth sort of marketing that is going to pick
up a little bit here, because so far it hasn't. That hasn't quite
happened, at least according to the data, like in places like Japan,
where we see Game Data Library says retail launch sales for Final Fantasy seven Rebirth
in Japan a sa drop from Final Fantasy sixteen of twenty two percent and from
Final Fantasy seven Remake of sixty three percent. Now, digital sales are expected
to be higher than either of those, but with the drop of retail sales,
I wouldn't expect it to be much higher than sixteen, and it is
definitely below seven remakes. So based on the numbers we have so far,
it seems like the people who are playing Final Fantasy seven Rebirth are the ones
who already played remake and then it's like a smaller portion of them. And
I think people are going to recognize here pretty quickly. It's like this is
a big tent pole thing that even if you were even if you didn't play
remake, well, now it's the time to go back. And they're probably
think they're going to have a two pack of both games that is going to
get a lot more people on board. But I think people are gonna realize
that, no, you don't need the one with the bigger number. This
is where a lot of the interesting stuff is happening with Final Fantasy right now.
I also think that splitting this remake into three parts is also still going
to bone them. Yeah, I think that's showing up in the numbers here
a little bit. And I mean, you know, selling it to the
same people over and over again, three three different different different times probably was
beneficial. But I think there are there is a certain subset of the audience
that I think is sitting now waiting till the end, and then maybe at
the end they don't actually pull the trigger on EXU like, well, I
waited this long and I just I'm playing other stuff now that that that could
happen. Let's see the Yeah, the game data library, who does keep
track of this stuff from like Famitsu sales, and this is just retail again,
not digital, points out. The more sluggish PS five sales for February
would also indicate the game is selling to its existing base. But it is
the second biggest retail launch on PS five yet, so that's a good sign
for Rebirth. The only game that was bigger in terms of retail else was
Final Fantasy sixteen, which did about three hundred and thirty seven copies in its
first week. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth did two hundred and sixty two thousand copies,
and then the next closest is Armored Core six which did one hundred and
fifteen thousand copies, so it's like and then you know, like a dragon
if it well did one hundred and two thousand copies, So it's like kind
of shows you like where things are, at least in Japan. So I
think it's a good sign. Final Fantasy is still very big, but more
people are showing up for the for the new sequel than necessarily for seven and
remaking Rebirth, but fair enough. The power of ben Star. Ben Star
moves moves people like like nothing else, that's absolutely right. All right,
We're gonna take a quick break when we get back. A lot more headlines,
including what's happening with Princess Peach in her Showtime right after this right back,
and Princess Peace Time demo was available now. This is for my Nintendo
News and a little more than two weeks from now, Princess Peach show Time
will be releasing exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has been gradually providing more
details about the game since they revealed it in a Nintendo Direct last year.
Of course, seeing it as one thing, but playing is another thing entirely,
and it is available now on the E Shop. I think I'm gonna
get this. I might try to play it, but I mean, the
game's out so soon. I might just wait for that as well. I
uh, I feel like we've gone it to a point grub where where demos
are back, Baby demos are. Yeah, Nintendo does a lot of them,
and I think if Nintendo's doing it, must there must be some evidence
that they that it works. Yeah, Like, uh, I don't think
I would have checked out Pickman four if it wasn't for that really good demo,
because they give you a really good chunk of it, but then going
back to something like Triangle strategy. I believe Octopath Traveler too also had a
pre le demos, huge on demos, and they like use it as like
a feedback tool. They use it as clearly it's marketing, but they also
like have they've done a great job of like letting you pick up from where
you left off, and the demo like squerre Inix is like s tier demo
development company. Uh I kinda wanna, I kind of want to check out
show Time. Yeah, I do too. I am uh at the very
I mean the very least I want. I want to show it to the
kids, But I think even you know, if I didn't have kids,
I'm like, I want to see what's going on with Princess Peach. I
like that character. This is cool that she's in her own game again,
and you know, there's like a lot of fun like costumes that she's wearing
like that. That's the conceit here, is that she's got all these costumes
that give her different powers, which is kind like a pretty common thing in
games these days. Obviously that goes back to Odyssey in a lot of ways,
but I don't know it's it seems pretty cool here. So ye,
I'm gonna I'm gonna check this out. Uh, And I'm like, I
could wait. Maybe I'll wait until we get code, but we won't get
code until it's out, so I might as well just play this demo and
see how I feel about it a little bit. Maybe we could stream it
on the site at some point. All right. New Fallout trailer gives our
best look yet at Walton Goggins, fascinating Gooul and Fallout. This is from
Michael McWorter at Polygon. A new trailer for Prime Videos Fallout TV series released
Thursday and gives us our best look yet at the show's gram posts apocalyptic story.
Did you get a chance to check this out? Jan? I did?
I love the Gog. I'm I'm down with the Gog. I love
Walton Goggins. He is both the Ghoul, he's also the He sets up
the story sort of as the narrator and at least in this trailer, and
he's probably gonna do do so in the show. And the narrator slash you
know, Vault Tech salesperson, and I think that was a good choice as
well, to like get use use every part of the GG right, if
you got him, you got them. Yeah, I'll see if I gott
bring this up. But I don't know what what's your knee jerk reaction from
this? It looks much better than I was expecting. I feel like we
run the gamut when it comes to video game adaptations for for shows like I'm
still not quite sure what Twisted Metal was going for. I have no interest
in the TV series, and my own experience with Fallout is pretty slight.
But I think I could get into the show. I kind of like the
the tone they're going for. It doesn't look bad grub that is. I
think that's where I'm at where I will say it doesn't look bad. I
am not sure it's like looking unmissible, it's like, oh, this is
this, can't it must see TV or whatever. I don't feel that way
about it after this trailer, But you're right, I'm not. Like.
That's also not criticism because I don't think it looks bad. I just work.
I hope it's not run in the middle. I hope it's not bland.
I hope the story is not just kind of like okay, like yeah,
so that's a lot of plot. I hope it like it is going
for something and actually nailing something, and we'll see that there's every possibility does
get there. It does have Jonathan Nolan who can write something that is you
know, intriguing at the very least. Uh, And I think that's something
that fall Out me. You know, you can't just be vault dweller trying
to survive in the world. Yeah, there's gotta be some mystery, some
other thing happening there, and I think Jonathan Nolan can do that. But
I'm you know, they have they're not really setting that up too much unless
this trailer is about here's this vault dweller who is naive going out into the
real world after living in the vault for forever, like you know, like
they said two hundred years something like that, going out the world and now
that that has hardened her. It's like, okay, yeah, I get
that. That's very familiar well Troden territory, especially for Fallout, Like that's
like the basic stuff you do in every single one of these games. I
saw that they had a dog in it. I remember the game has a
dog. So that's exciting, right, the meat, the dog for meat,
the dog meat, dog meat, that's right. Yes, good name
for a dog. Yeah, I don't know. It looks you know,
actually, the the Brotherhood of Steel stuff looks very good. I'm not sure
exactly if I think the suits look great on film, but they don't.
Again, they don't look bad. I think this character talk about like,
oh, you know, why did you join the Brotherhood of Steel? I
want to hurt the people that hurt me. It's like, okay, that's
sound. There's something there. I'm like very interested to see what happens with
that. Yeah. I also think they did a good job with the makeup
on Walter Goggins. He looks gross. Yes, definitely. I think it
looks like a combination of practical makeup and probably CG for like the nose and
stuff like that, and they nailed it. It looks. It looks very
good. And I'll say it looks like the game. I mean all of
the art looks like just straight up adapted from the game, not like Okay,
we're gonna like, yeah, here's one thing from the game, and
the rest of it is, well, we got to do our own stuff.
It's like, no, every like the Vault suits are the exact blue
and yellow from the game, The Brotherhood of Steel Power armor is exactly from
the cover of the game. The you know, flying ships look at exactly
like they do in Fallout three and Fallout four. The dog, I mean
it looks it's a German shepherd shure. It's just like, looks exactly like
the dog. Everything is exactly from the game, and I kind of appreciate
that. It's like, if you're going to adapt these these properties, like
use them, and this game or this show seems like it's doing that.
I want to see if they're gonna highlight how impractical a pit boy may actually
be in real life. Yes, yeah, right, that very frustrating to
use or whatever. I bet that would be a clever thing and good source
of comic relief. We'll see. Also, it looks like the world in
the show smells bad. Yeah, and that's always important. You want that
from apocalyptic thing. You know, all these people look like they need to
shower, all right, Ea, says APEX Legends will expand beyond the traditional
Battle Royale universe this year. This is from tom Iban at VGC. Apex
Legends players can expect to start seeing the game expand beyond the traditional batteryal universe
over the coming year as Electronic Arts looks to attract more players to the franchise.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Wednesday,
EA CEO Andrew Wilson outlined a plan which he believed can lead to incredible growth
for response live service game, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in February. Already
five years, Wilson said Apex Legends is one of the most successful new game
IP launches of the last ten to fifteen years, having built a community of
hundreds of millions of players with an enviable churn rate. Always envy people's churn
rates if you're thinking about streaming streaming services which are dealing with fifty percent churn.
We've got a core community in Apex Legends that has seventy five percent retention
over the course of a five year period. It's an incredible franchise. But
in the growth of the franchise, we do see ebbs and flows, and
where we've gotten to with f Apex is we've got that first cohort of community
that have been with us now for five years, and it's big, it's
large, it's global, and it's deeply engaged but then Wilson went on to
discuss the a strategy for growing the franchise over the next five to ten years
and said, this initially will be focused on making the game more accessible and
after that more culturally relevant to different markets. It's an incredible game. It's
a core game. It's not for the faint of heart when you come into
it, and that's part of the charm and part of why people love it.
But job number one for us is how do we make that a little
bit more friendly? And that's what you're starting to see. You're starting to
see it with season twenty, which is really built around how do we drive
more acquisition and more engagement. Let's start there real quick, Jan, is
that something you think you can that they could pull off with this? I
mean, making it a little bit more friendly is like maybe turning the dial
a little bit, right? Yeah? Do you lose too much of the
Apex Legends identity by making it more friendly or more approachable? Right? I
mean that's not really an option, right, yes, Because like you can't
lose that core that he's talking about, because those are the people they haven't
lost so far, and that's one of the big reasons this is still a
viable frame, viable game because it isn't growing super fast. So whatever they
do, they can't be too risky with it because they can't scare off who
they have. And do you see this greb as them launching a separate game
entirely with all of the Apex stuff, or maybe just like a separate mode
like you know how Fortnite has had several different modes like or brought back like
no build mode or something similar to that, like do they just have no
abilities mode? Right? So I mean, he says. Wilson says.
The next phase will then be how do we think about more modalities of play?
How do you expand Yeah, I think, which just means modes beyond
the traditional Battle Royale universe, and we'll start to see that in the coming
year. So this goes back to Titan Fall Legends, which was going to
be like the big Marquee thing, and that was always going to be Titan
Fall three in spirit, but inserted into the Apex Legends launcher in game browser,
and it will be all these different articles inside of Apex Legends that included
the Battle Royale and had and we'll start to have even more other ways to
play inside of there, and then the other big one will be Titan Fall
Legends. Now they're not doing that anymore, titan Fall Legends, but all
the other sort of smaller modalities of play will still pop into there. So
now this is all going to be part of Apex Legends as one launcher,
similar to what happens with Call of Duty these days, which yeah, like
right, it's like, okay, yeah, I definitely give that a shot.
But boy, I think this would have worked a lot better if you
were doing Titan Fall Legends still, but of course I think that, yeah,
yeah, can you just slide Titans into this game? Can you just
do that? I mean they better, I mean yeah at certain points,
like how they not pull that trigger in five years and these other modes.
I guess that gives you a chance to do that, But like, what
has taken so long? I don't know. I feel like they just don't.
It feels like EA has been searching for an answer with Apex to increase
the player counts and player interest from folks that aren't already in the ecosystem,
and I think the world is screaming at them. Jeff Grubb mes Ad mechs
add Titans, but they don't want to do it. I don't know if
I want another mode grub. I don't think I want a death I don't
think a dedicated deathmatch or dedicated maybe like four person squad dropping into the battle
reale is enough to ASSUAE me to check out APEX legends again. What about
an extraction shooter? Huh jahan, you know actually maybe? Okay, Well,
how about let's say you have four characters and you go down and you
run co op missions against like bugs. Maybe you know these robots and you
work together and you can call down maybe mechs being called down other things to
help you. You know what, what about they just make Rainbow six siege
but with AX. That's actually that's not a bad I get Yanks. They
already got the characters. It's not a bad idea. All have abilities.
They do most of them could like not most of them, but some of
them can set up defense like items and stuff. What about you do that?
EA cut the check there? Uh. The third phase will be how
do we really think about broader culturalization? Which is what you always want to
hear from CEO. There are so many markets, particularly in Europe and through
Asia. Where we just haven't broken through yet, and if you haven't yet,
you kind of just don't, right, Like people pick their game,
like go look at the steam most playlist, and I guarantee every single one
of you listening to the show will be shocked at how high PUBG still is
because of Asia, because people in Asia are still playing PUBG every single day,
five hundred thousand of them. They've picked their game, and Apex Legends
is not PUBG and people in throughout Asia want to play PUBG. So yeah,
you're gonna they're gonna put the Monkey King in there, right, they're
gonna do that thing and the Journey to the West like that we always see
and then that's that's cool, But every game does that you're not. That's
not gonna make much of a difference for you. So to me, this
is all part of the the broader We are actually looking toward the long end
tailoff of Apex Legends, and this is about growing where we can, but
understanding that smaller investments are the only thing we're gonna do because those bigger investments
are not gonna get the return we want. That's why type of fall Legends
got canceled because They're like, we can make this big triple A game development
investment into Apex Legends, and it's we don't believe it's gonna pay off in
the end. That's where they are with Apex Legends, So all this stuff
should be couched in that understanding that this is not about like turning the Apex
Legends from a big game into an even bigger game. It's about getting some
spurts of growth here and there so that they can have some pretty good quarters
in the future and make some you know, squeeze some more money out of
this before the end, which probably again is like five years away. I
also feel like them adding stuff like now we got the Monkey King is not
enough of like whatever cultural bag they're trying to go for grub, because it
feels like that's the most low hanging fruit. It's like if we added a
panda to the game, like, what's up, Asians? We got pandas
now, yeah, instead of actually having a character that is like, you
know, deeply rooted and has their culture as a main facet of their character,
or at least like that is just like who they are. Like I
believe folks watching live correct me if I'm wrong. But one of the original
Apex characters very heavy on like the Polynesian influence in how they present themselves.
And I think that carries more weight. It does to me at least,
rather than someone did you, like, we threw it Maui into the game,
right, gibraltars is Duglan's Plinty that Gibraltar, right totally, And I
think right that that carries more weight. And yet that only does so much
as well, right, like you, at a certain point, it's like,
hey, Overwatch already did all this and in many cases better in terms
of having these characters from different backgrounds and ethnicities, and and what you're doing
here is like, it's welcome. You should be doing it. That's what
we want. It's not going to shift markets, it's not going to ship
entire cohorts of players. Also, if you're I feel like having a culturally
authentic character is not just appealing to that specific culture, but to other people,
you know, Like I don't want to fucking play as a leprechaun ground
yeah, but someone that is like strongly deeply rooted in like Irish culture,
I could get down with that. Let me do that, Yeah, I
mean, and you know, that this is the thing, you know,
goes to the current controversy right now where people are freaking out about the consultancy
firm. But what that consultancy firm, sweet baby ink, really does is
make it so that when you do a character, you can make them really
specific and authentic. And that stuff is I love that stuff. Yeah,
give me Gibraltar is awesome because I could tell that it is born out of
a reality that feels true and that specific specificity is the real storytelling. And
I think that is something that you kind of can't make anay that that at
a certain point, that's table stakes these days. So it's like, yeah,
when he talks about culturalization and trying to appel worldwide, it's another uphill
battle. It's another like, hey, yeah, you should do more of
that. No one's saying you shouldn't. But but the like that being the
three the third pillar of this three tier strategy, Yeah, that's gonna get
you another couple percentage points, another turn of the dial, and it's worth
trying. You should do it. But it's not going to turn Apex legends
into you know, continuing to be the next Fournite or something like that.
I just looked at those PUBG numbers. Grub It's insane, it's shocking and
absolutely like adores PUBG and when I see them, like, oh my god,
there are so many people still playing that game. I enjoy finding like
quiet storms like that of like oh y'all, y'all have been here? Huh
okay cool. And that doesn't include PUBG Mobile, which is also huge,
just massive, massively popular. All right, let's see here. EA says
generative AI could make it thirty percent more efficient and boost monetization by up to
twenty percent over five years. Good luck. This is from Tom Ivan and
VGC Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has outlined the transformative impact he believes generative artificial
intelligence can have on the company and the wider games business over the next five
years. Speaking at that conference, he basically said greater efficiency coupled with deeper,
more immersive experiences will lead to significant audience expansion over the next few years
and provide a multi billion dollar growth opportunity. Wilson said that in the past,
it might take six months to build an in game sports stadium. Over
the last twelve months, that time is shrunk to six weeks and over the
coming years, it could be it could maybe be cut down to six days
now. Efficiency and uh uh you know, uh workers being able to do
more with less is a natural part of the you know, growing economies.
And so there is no way on God's green earth that a CEO is going
to ignore something like generative AI. They are going to try to implement it.
Now. I think that they are going to be stepping into a bit
of a beehive there if people see something that is obviously AI, and it's
going to feel like I'm paying full price for this and you are giving me
this shlock that you're giving me this this absolute slop, and so they're gonna
have to be very careful with it. And yet, Jan I'm just gonna
speak for myself. I use Photoshop and I started us the generative AI stuff
in there to like, hey, here's I'm gonna highlight this part of the
of the image. Can you just create border for me here? And it
does it, and it's like, okay, being able to speak English to
a computer and getting the results from it. I'm not going back either.
So, I mean, I can only be so much of a hypocrite here.
I think the reality will be we get through this and the end of
the day, EA is still going to need creative, artistic people to make
their games better than other people who all have these same tools. So hopefully
these efficiencies are a small, little speed bump and then we get on the
other side and once again we are just actually making bigger and better games with
as many people, if not more than ever before. But I don't know,
Jan, I think you're you know, you use creative tools more than
I do. How do you feel all about this? I think with CEOs
and like these big shareholder people only see is just the reduction of staffs,
right, Yes, of course yes. And I don't think the know or
have been able to see yet that just because you reduce the staff and you're
using more AI doesn't actually lead to anything more substantial or more creative at all.
You're kind of just filling in holes at this point, right, Like
like you said, Greb, like you're your use case for it is you
just needed a border versus like, Okay, you could tell Photoshop to make
a border, but if you're not gonna be able to articulate to it,
and it's not gonna be able to make an artistic border, of what you
actually want in your head. If you have like a grander idea, yes,
if you have specific ideas, yes, it's it is very unreliable.
I mean, listen, and I think it's gonna get better, jan It
will get better totally. Yeah, it gets better for everybody. Right,
and then the person, yeah, who is most creative is still gonna be
able to use those tools the best, right. I mean that, I'm
definitely that's an optimistic view. Sure, I just don't think Andrew Wilson is
gonna be a We're ever gonna be able to go to an AI and say
make me Madden twenty six and then it out ops a perly pristine game where
it was never touched by any human hands. It's just not gonna happen.
And if it does, the company that competes with him it says it says,
hey make me mad at twenty six, and it still has a thousand
people working on it to spruce up every aspect of it will outperform that game.
I think that's how this is going to work here. Yeah, like
you are never going to be able to tell AI at least where it is.
Right now, make me into the Spider Verse right, that is not
going to happen after Spider Verse comes out. Hey, I can totally rip
it off and appropriate all of that art style and all of those resources,
but you're never going to be able to come up with that type of stuff.
I saw the most insane thing, and someone is trying to make an
AI camera where instead where it will take the image in front of you and
then kind of spit out all these different I guess, like the scripting words
that you would have to plug in to an AI generator after the fact.
So if you just saw car, if you take a picture of a car
by a sunset, it'd be like car sunset, old vehicle, blah blah
blah to the left, and it's like, this isn't it Guys, Like,
I don't know what y'all are thinking. Also, like I want to
believe grub and this may be wishful thinking. I want to believe that the
consumer at home is smarter and better enough to tell when something is made better,
right, And that's not just in terms of products that we're consuming,
in terms of food or things that we're using, but also media that we're
consuming where it's like, hey, you know, maybe this cartoon that I'm
putting on for my children isn't as good as the cartoons I was consuming for
a specific reason. Or when that comes to games, right, like,
huh, this mobile game. I know it's a Mario ripoff, but like
Mario ripoffs used to be good, this feels like garbage. Yeah. I
mean, I think most consumers probably won't be able to tell the difference at
a certain point here in the future, but maybe, like subconsciously, maybe
still they will be able to, I hope, And at the very least,
I think that if something is just made with AI, people probably won't
care. But if another thing is made with AI and then also made better
by heavy people involved, I just think that that thing will be actually better.
And I don't see how that changes, because what we're here for is
I want to play something that feels like it was made with passion, and
that's just not going to happen if it's all automated. Yeah. For instance,
like in terms of using AI in a production atmosphere, I saw a
YouTuber bragging like, oh yeah, I don't cut my podcast anymore. I
just set it to AI and AI does it, and then I tuned in
or I fired up there podcast. The thing is, I get what they're
trying to do with AI, where I'll do like that Google meet or that
zoom style thing of cutting to whoever's talking. But in that process that this
creator has has yet to realize, you lose any type of reaction or like
facial recognition of like, oh okay, this person is responding to me nonverbally
by nodding their head or their furs or eyebrows. For by what asshole take
I have to say? I just grab I don't know, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, listen. What we know for sure is they're gonna
try, and they're gonna try to do it as cheap as possible. And
I just continue to think the good news here is there will be someone right
next to them spending a little bit more money, using people to do a
few things here and there that will do things better. And then we're just
right back to the arms race. There are two. There's too much competition
in games for them to be able to actually get away something that is legitimately
worse. So if you know, as good as AI can be, someone's
gonna be able to do it better with a little bit more work. And
then it's hard to see it going any other route than that just means we
balloon right back up and have as many people making games as always. But
I could be naive here, and if I am, let's find out,
we will find out. I want to hear and see the other folks in
this room that Andrew is in, like I want to. I want to
feel the pulse of all these people and see where they're a Stanley event,
Jen, I tell you that they love the idea of cutting labor costs.
Hey, your biggest biggest expense is labor costs. What are you gonna do
about that? And then Andrew Wilson screams ay, leave me alone. That's
that's what that's the vibe of that room. I promise you I know that
it is. But I'm just morbidly curious. I want someone to propose,
grub that we replace all of these CEO folks with AI have them, right,
wouldn't? I mean they already have been replaced by them? Like think
about like, how does Netflix make their decisions on content? Excuse me,
it's a little sick. They have algorithms that tell them what to green light
and what not to green light. What the fuck do we need the CEOs
for them. They're not the ones programming those algorithms. What are we doing
here? Everybody? It's they should already be replaced, all right. EU
says it's investigating why Apple terminated Epics developer account. From Tom Ivan at VGC,
the European Union has said it's investigating Apple's decision to terminate Epic Game's iOS
developer account. On Wednesday, it emerged that Apple had rescinded a recently granted
developer account created by Epic in Sweden with the aim of launching Fortnite and the
Epic Game Store on Apple's devices in Europe. We have requested further explanation on
this from Apple's Apple under the DMA, the Digital Markets Act, a European
Commission spokes first and told Reuters referring to a new EU regulation which aims to
ensure that so called gatekeepers like Apple don't use their dominant position in the market
to stifle petition. But basically, right, we're gonna like look into this.
Apple has like basically said that Epic is demonstrably untrustworthy, and then Tim
Sweeney argues back, like, you guys are basically doing the malicious, malicious
consent or whatever. It is just like agreeing to do things, but in
a malicious way. And so they're still fighting. They're still fighting, and
the EUS kind of having to be mom and like go and breaking them up.
So we'll see what happens between them. But as it stands, like
Apple and it's Apple and Google are both like, listen, we're gonna do
what we have to do to abide by the law. But if we could
still say fuck you, epic, we're gonna It's like, oh boy,
we're not gonna hear the end of this from Tim Sweeney. I don't think
anytime soon. So these companies are still retaliating and gets one another another absolutely,
but we don't know where this is going to land anytime soon. Tim
Cook is ready with some spray cans to tag up that epic. Mall right.
I just I always think about like Tim Sweeney, like emailing Tim Cook
and Tim Cook just kind of being like, man, that scene from Uncut
gems of like keep that guy out of here, don't let him in no
matter what. That's That's that's what I think of Tim Sweeney, all right.
That that's for the news. I'm gonna get the pull up here here
in a second, while I'm getting that set up, Jan, what do
we have going on on the website? Where can people find you on the
internet? All that good stuff? People don't find me on the internet.
Don't find me alone. Like I'm tired of being perceived as the children say,
actually, no, perceive me away. Today we got voicemail dumb truck
popping off. We have special guest Matt Shipman joining the pod today. The
tomorrow very exciting. I don't know how we're gonna do this with a schedule.
We have set out grub, we got game this morning's popping off tomorrow,
but we have unprofessional Fridays, the Mario Grand Prix, Grand Prix Artcard
eight Deluxe where you Sean, Mike, Manati and Damn are going to set
off and racing all those courses. Why we have a podcast to do later
that day. But hey, we'll see if we'll see how we can wind
up scheduling everything and yeah, exciting things. Exciting things are always around.
If folks missed yesterday's new season of Blight Club, I highly suggest that you
check it out because I think the hubris that Dan Record had and in terms
of conquering those rings was quickly stomped out by the rest of them. Put
them in his place. Absolutely jin But speaking of like those tools real quick,
you said mentioned rotoscoping. What else should I be doing if I want
a rotoscope something? Oh well, okay, so a little bit inside baseball,
folks. My internet connection has been up and down for the past couple
of days, so I had to do some resource flipping to like a couple
other computers, iPads, and then eventually my phone to cut together the super
Dan intro. But the current iteration of after effects the photoscoping tool is as
easier and as good as it has ever been. There's a lot less correction
going on, where you just trace over what you want to cut out and
then they'll pop it out. Huh technology, what concept? All right?
Pull a question from yesterday. Let's get that up here. You yes?
No? All right? Are you excited for multiverses to come back? Fourteen
percent say yes, eighty six percent say no? How about you? Jan
No, not at all, Like it feels like they're trying to pull the
wool over my eyes again and make money off of me. Yeah, even
though it's free to play, I mean, yeah, it's free to play,
but it's like they or is it? Yeah? It is free to
play, right, Okay, I can't. Yes, this one was free
to play and that you could buy characters and stuff, and people were doing
that, and then they took the game away. I mean, why would
most people who did that be excited about that game? Just wait till it
comes out and see if they're actually going to leave it out this time.
It's it's uncertain at this point, like the future of that game, So
I don't blame most people for being skeptical. New Pole question pretty similar.
Have you played Apex Legends? Yes? No? Or I have no interest.
I just kind of like to see if people are still like thinking about
maybe I should get in an Apex Legends. It feels like most people have
already made their decision on that game, But I at the very least like
there are people who are continuing to work on that. I hope that that
all that stuff they're doing with the new modalities of play take off. If
you put mix in there, I'll show up. I'll be there. I
think I've always like, I like Apex Legends, and I think I've always
been curious about going back. But yeah, in the same way where it
feels like everyone else has outpaced me, and that might like any newbies around
me are are aren't existent on the platform. That's the intimidating part. Grub.
Yeah, I'm like, I'll just go play titeh All two again.
Are they gonna white modalities? I'm thinking about this now. Are they just
going to try and do Valorant? Are they gonna just try to make see
us go with Apex? Probably? Yeah? Probably they probably will do that
and Beck again. That could work, But they should just put Titanfall two
in there. It's an option, that's what they should really do. Yeah,
that would be very cool. All right. I think that's gonna wrap
it up. Yeah, I think we're all set here. Jim, thank
you so much for spinting today talk with me about video games. Man,
I really appreciate it. I appreciate you, Grub. It's my favorite way
to start a Thursday. Hey, we'll talk about Unicorn Overlord tomorrow and BCR.
Yep on BCR, we'll make it. We'll mix some stuff happen with
that, and then thank you everybody for watching. You're the best audience in
gaming. Until next time, have a good one, Take care of yourself and goodbye