No Nintendo DIrect and Mario vs. Donkey Kong Review Review Round Up

You'll be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for
February fifteenth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so, let
me help you sort through the world of gaming on Games Morning's Live with Me
Jeff Grubb. Today is the most real romantic day of the year, the
day we get the Xbox Business Update podcast. But first, please join me
and welcome today's co host, the Game Mes Mornings. It's Janet Joe.
Everybody, jan How are you doing. I'm feeling fantastic. I nailed Valentine's
dinner last night. Oh I'm swear to god if my partner doesn't wipe me
up. What's up, Internet, It's got to be happening. It's got
to be happening. I did do those little cakes that has the butterflies fly
out and the kids. The kids struggle a little bit, so they like
half open, so only a couple of them fluttered out, and then we
were able to get the rest to like slowly pop out eventually. But they're
fun. And now the kids are just winding these little paper butterflies up and
throwing them all over the house now, which is actually kind of a nightmare.
Now, I got these things everywhere you could. You could start hiding
them in books scrub Yeah you god, that's like actually a shoot good idea.
I would love that. I love the idea of scaring people that just
get books off my shelf. Those are my books. Ask for permission first.
Oh, okay, here's the easy way to get Dan Reikert. Okay,
if Dan Record ever goes into your house, reload these butterflies into a
video game case. Oh, there you go, because I feel like Dan's
curiosity, like, oh, I've never like you have this game. I
have this game too open? And then okay, it's HiT's good. I
buy butterflies honestly, like we have. We send them games all the time
for Blake Club. We could just put a few in there for the Blake
Club game. I guess I would like I would like to capture it the
moment it happens, right, is the snake in a can trick? Is
that still a thing? Is that something I've just said? Has that ever
happened to you? It's never happened to me, so I assume it's not
like a going concern. It's never happened to me. But I can't say
that I've often opened up a can or a jar of peanuts and an excited
man. Yeah, Like, how often am I opening like a tube shaped
ten I'm not, Like, I haven't opened a new thing of like tennis
balls in like twenty years, so I can't believe anything else. We have
to send down a can of snakes. Yeah right, okay, all right,
fantastic. I love it, but it's going to get into his eye
and then he won't be able to play because he can't see. Doctor Bryant's
like, yeah, he's got a boo boo on his eyeball. Oh boy,
it's hey, yesterday there was a lot of news. Today. It
feels like where the fuck's the news? And I think everyone's kind of holding
for this Xbox thing. There's plenty to talk about. We'll get into all
of it here in a second, but mostly I don't know. I'm like,
hey, things slow down a little bit on this side of things.
That's fine with me. I got a ton of games I'm still playing.
How are you feeling about like looking at the games you played this year,
and like when you get to the end of the year, like, are
a lot of these you think are gonna end up on your Game of the
Year list. I haven't really been looking at the latter half of this year
grub and I feel like it's this is gonna be another good year for game
releases. I do think the top half of this year, or even the
top two months of this year, have been incredibly stacked that I think they
will sustain their momentum. Like I feel like Prince of Persia is unique enough
of a thing that will stay in like our minds till December time. Same
thing with like a Dragon, especially a big game that's coming out next week
comes out yairth It's going to be a big thing I think for a lot
of people at the end of the year. Yeah, and I feel like
Final Fantasy seven remake will get It's a revenge for me cutting it off the
list. One year of GB the Game of the Year could be could be
Rebirths year after all, We'll see. Let's explain what we do here most
weekdays, I Jeff Greb will help peace your gaming life back together. That
includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all
these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will make
me look smart. If you were watching live on Twitch Welcome. You can
always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings,
or find the RSS on GiantBomb 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
Hey, where is that Nintendo Direct? And Nintendo Direct was maybe supposed to
happen this morning? It is? It just clicked over to eleven am Eastern
time here and based on my chat, I think I'm gonna say that it's
not happening yet. Looking over here, no one's talking about Hey, this
thing just happened. You guys should go watch this. That was only ever
a rumor, was never confirmed. Nintendo never said anything about it. I'll
say that I never knew a date for sure, Jane. What I was
hearing for for about a month ago was Yeah, they should do something by
the middle of February. That's what they're aiming to do. And I felt
pretty good about that, and I still feel pretty good about that. I
think we'll probably get something now earlier this week. Jen, I did hear
and I hate when this happens, because it's like I gotta like go out
and say this, and everyone's gonna be like, you're just trying to cover
your butt or we're mad about this, so we don't even want to hear
it. But the Xbox Business update is something that maybe through Nintendo a little
bit for a loop. That was something Microsoft moved up and Nintendo was like,
oh, that's happening, happening the day we were going to do our
Nintendo Direct maybe we might delay it. This was a conversation that did happen
at least at Nintendo of America, and that I do think it's a possibility
here that they are now at least gonna wait until some time after this update.
The question there, Jan is it's a little bit weird because they wouldn't
do it on a Friday, because that's Saturday in Japan and the podcas doesn't
happen until quite a bit late in the day today, so borring some later
today version of this Nintendo Direct partner showcase dropping on YouTube, maybe they just
move it to next week. I don't know, Jan, what do you
think. I think probably just move it to next week. I think as
soon as those Xbox podcasts, Rumbling's got put out into the ether. I
think it's a wise move from Nintendo to hang back and just wait till next
week whatever type of presentation they're going to bring out, Like I don't think
they're going to announce anything about the switch to yet, but maybe this is
a smaller direct, and no matter whatever the size or news that is going
to be revealed in this podcast, I would wait till next week. Yeah,
it's Nintendo's going to make their own podcast maybe, Like we're just speculating,
so I don't know. I wouldn't be like completely shocked if they just
like right after that podcast happens they put out the direct, just a video,
real quick, with no announcement. They would do that for many directs
and partner showcases. They don't announce this beforehand necessarily so that it could happen.
We'll see, but it's justice likely what you said, Jan that it
just yeah, take it to the next Tuesday, next Wednesday, no harm,
no foul there. Maybe there's something that was gonna shadow drop. Doesn't
if they delayed to next week, probably not because that would maybe screw things
up, So we'll see. Or well, maybe that game just the game
that's gonna shadow Drop does still just come out today. Suddenly it shows up
on the shop and someone has to put a YouTube video instead and it kind
of ruins their day. It does seem like this is something where it's like
it is a last minute decision of throwing a wrench into the works. Yeah.
I don't know. Maybe it was a more promotional material for Mario Versus
Donkey Kong, just to get that in front of more eyes perhaps, But
even if that was the case, like that game's out now, it's out
Friday, so yeah, it's could be out tonight. It's gonna be out
like you know, the late the late release tonight. I think we'll get
the reviews, the review roundup of that here in a second. But they
as far as Nintendo first party stuff going, I mean, it really feels
like a partner direct because Nintendo has several games that they've announced previously that they
keep putting out YouTube trailers for. There's been a lot of stuff from Mario
Versus Donkey Kong. Obviously that game coming out this week that you would expect
that, but Princess Peach Showtime, which comes out next month, that's been
getting in a lot of YouTube like updates over the last week or so,
including something like, Hey, here's a reveal like all these other versions that
Princess Peach can dress up as in the game, things that you would be
like, hey, this would this could fit into a direct. Now they're
just putting them out as YouTube trailers. Sounds like Nintendo first party stuff is
not going to be showing up in a direct anytime soon necessarily, but hey,
I'll still be excited about a partner direct. A lot of things could
happen there. Feels like, you know, depending on what is happening between
Microsoft and Nintendo and this and this partner direct, they Intimate, Hi Fi
Rush, all that stuff could still show up in a partner showcase. So
we'll see Pensimate would be very good on the Switch. Benimate would be fantastic
on there. All right, so let's get to the roundup. Reviews are
in for Mario Versus Donkey Kong. This comes from Jim Norman at over at
Nintendo Life, who put these reviews together. Thank you, Jim. The
iconic game Boy Advance puzzle platform Mario Versus Donkey Kong is all set to swing
on to Nintendo Switch later this week. A free e shop demo has been
doing the rounds for a while now, but today we have got our first
impressions of what to expect from the full game. Yes, the critics have
had their say, and we are here to give you the critical rundown.
Starting with Eurogamer given in a four out of five, which particularly praises the
way that the levels progress. It's a lovely package and another pleasant stop on
the switches protracted farewell. The more I played, the more I found myself
collecting fragments of memories of the Game Boy Advance original, which I thought I
had lost. IGN dropped slightly from the Eurogamer score, giving it a seven
out of and said it shouts out the new visuals and co op mode,
but bumps up against the game's lacking difficulty. Curve Mario Versus Donkey Kong might
not be as polished as a mini Mario toy fresh off the assembly line,
but it's just as full of charm and fun to play with. Game Spot
gave it a seven out of ten, saying recapturing the clever aha moments of
puzzle platforming that made its predecessor so memorable, all while packing distinct visual improvements
and quality of life tweaks that bring out its charm like never before. And
then Polygon said it was a good time, but would have preferred to see
the game Boys Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong ninety four. Obviously, Mario verse
Donkey Kong is a good game, and this is a good new version of
it. There's just one problem. It's not the best game in its series.
And yeah, I hope Donkey Kong ninety four just pops on to a
game Boy nso here in the next month or so. That would be great.
Doesn't seem like that's necessarily gonna happen any interested? Mario versus Donkey Kong
suddenly is a very busy time of year. Yeah, help, it's a
puzzle platform er. Jan I, did you ever play Donkey Kong ninety four
for the game Boy? Negative? It was not interested. Yeah, I
don't think i've hot take here, greb or a hot confession here. I
don't think I've ever liked Donkey Kong. Wow, Okay, that's fair.
Is that based on like the Donkey Kong country games or what? The games
have always looked gross and terrifying to me? Oh? Okay, that's because
the Donkey Kong Country games, then the the Silicon Graphics visuals. Okay,
I think it's because it reminds me of Claimation, Yeah, I see that.
I mean it's definitely what they would do is they would design the characters
on a Silicon Graphics workstation and then basically just export those as fucking JPEGs or
something in P and g's and they're like, all right, now this is
a sprite on in a Super Nintendo game, and like that, Like losing
the detail in that translation was weird. I was there for it. Now,
Donkey Kong ninety four is like a secret awesome game. Well at the
time it was a secret awesome game. Now it's like an obvious, well
known awesome game where it's like it tries, it tries to like present itself
as the arcade game in the first four levels, which you know, the
Donkey Kong arcade game was four levels, and then after that it's like,
oh, it keeps going and turns into this really great puzzle platform where Mario.
You play as Mario and you have the move set of what like eventually
would be in Super Mario sixty four, with like the side jump and the
backflip and all this stuff, and it's like, it's a really excellent game.
Now Mario versus Donkey Kong is a sequel to that that I do.
I thought at the time when I well, I thought at the time it
looked weird, so I didn't play it all that much, And then when
I did eventually play it, I was like, it loses some of the
magic of Donkey Kong ninety four. I'm still gonna check in on this,
but it's a it's a busy time. I have been still playing a lot
of Bilatero when I'm not playing like a dragon, so who knows. But
when it comes to the Switch, Jan, I am feeling like, hey,
do you want to spend a little bit more time in my switch.
I did pick it up last night to install a game on it, and
I was like, you know, I'm already kind of feeling a little bit
nostalgic about the switch, and that like now might be the time to do
that, because when we get a switch to it might just be like such
a continuation of the Switch. It's like, oh, that never went away.
So I'm like, I think I want to spend some time with my
switch kind of look back and if they put out a new game for me
to play here and there. I'll be pretty happy with it. But overall,
this is kind of what I was expecting from Mario versus Donkey Kong.
You think this is going to set the world on fire or anything, No,
not at all. I think it's going to be another Mario title.
It's like, oh cool, this is here. I'll pick this up and
it's going to make the nostalgia rounds for sure. Of people that remembered it,
played it, or at least have always wanted to play it, and
now they have a better means to do so. Yeah, there's a lot
of children out there they're like, no, this is better than Donkey Kong
ninety four, and they're just wrong, but they're out there. Ahead of
its business update, Microsoft reportedly told staff every screen is an Xbox. This
is from Andy Robinson at VGC. Microsoft reportedly told employees that it views every
screen as an Xbox ahead of its much anticipated business update. A recent internal
town hall meeting, which has been reported on previously reportedly saw Xbox president Sarah
Bon Sarah Bond proclaim that every screen is an Xbox. According to a new
account by Inverse, Bond is then to set, said to have discussed Xbox's
strategy on existing on multiple kinds of devices and its greater ambitions of becoming the
number one cross platform gaming company. To illustrate the idea of an Xbox on
every screen, Bond reportedly showed images of Breakout, Xbox and PC hit Powerworld
running on tablets, TV screens, monitors, and handheld devices. Internally,
employees expressed surprise at seeing so much Powerworld and joked about the possibility of an
Xbox handheld, which has also been rumored. According to Inverse, Microsoft's gaming
division will publish an Xbox Business Update today February fifteenth, being an Xbox podcast
set to release at noon Pacific time and three pm Eastern. Yeah. I
mean, I think this does feel like the strategy that they're going for jan
of, like, hey, what would we want to make Xbox just be
they spot the problem. The problem is they've been able to sell a five
hundred dollars piece of machinery to about as many people that want to buy a
five hundred dollars box. And that's not just Microsoft, that's Microsoft and Sony.
I think we're gonna get to a story here with Sony in a second
about like them having a little bit of a fallout from their latest earnings report
that plays into this. But Xbox, so, hey, we we can
keep trying to bang our head against the wall of trying to get new people
to spend five hundred dollars on a console, or we can find a solution
to bypass that and reach people who will never ever spend that money up front
to start playing games on in an Xbox ecosystem. Now, I mean,
I get that, but I also think it's very hard. Once people spend
that five hundred dollars, that's the thing that keeps them invested in the ecosystem,
right, They're like, they are pot committed, and if they could,
oh, I'm over your playing games through Xbox and it's just this thing
I buy access games through on whatever device I'm using, people won't feel that
much of an attachment to it. Do you think this can work? Do
you think they're gonna lose something in this translation? I think I think they're
going to gain a significant audience, a casual audience for sure, by by
treating every screen as an Xbox, But you definitely do lose the the buy
in and the commitment of like Okay, I've bought this console. Now I'm
going to stick to this console. I think you're quickly going to get the
streaming fatigue that a lot of us get because of all these like the numerous
multiple streaming out It's like you get your Prime Video, you get your twob,
you get your Pluto, you get your Crackle, you know all these
hot services, hot crackles, and then you're Crackle and then you're just stuck
there wondering and have the choice paralysis of like what do I watch? And
sometimes if your internet connections a little bit funky, you can't even watch something.
I feel like that could definitely be the case moving forward with Xbox if
they decide to go like through an app based thing where they are just on
TVs or just on like a small Roku like device where ah, this shit
doesn't even work right now. Yeah, And I think, like, obviously,
I think they're thinking about trade offs. They have spent a long time
catering to an audience that cares very deeply about the Xbox brand, maybe to
a fault, but that's an audience that will spend a lot of their discretionary
budget on video games. And so it's like Okay, yeah, maybe it's
a smaller audience, but it could potentially be more money. Now they're going
to an audience that is maybe for lack of a better term, more casual
and saying, hey, we're going to bring the games to where you are.
All you need to do is bring a interaction device that you're comfortable with,
whether that's your smartphone or if you want to connect a controller for your
TV. That's the last mile here. If you do that, then we're
off to the races. And I mean, I think they're probably right.
They might know better than I would that there are enough people out there like
that that are ready and waiting to do exactly that that will then become lifelong
people who spend money on their products through that service, and that's going to
make this all make sense for them. I just I think back to it.
Maybe things have changed since this, but I think back to the Wii
where it's like, yeah, Nintendo got the casual audience out there, and
they bought three games for their Wii and then they never touched it. Well,
they kept playing it, but they kept playing those same games over and
over again, and they're like, I'm not going to keep buying games.
I already spent the money that I'm going to spend on this thing to have
fun. That's already happened, and I still have a great time with we
Sports. I don't need to have another one of these now. Maybe that
maybe the casual audience that Microsoft has identified that exists out there is very different
from that one that was on the weed that I just described, And that's
probably true, But I don't know, does that sound like a concern to
you, Jan? I feel like this is maybe giving Microsoft too much credit
and being too hopeful in the situation of where I'm thinking that is the mobile
market much bigger than we are anticipating or thinking of that they're going to factor
in that much into these plans. And I just keep thinking about the Activision
Blizzard King acquisition and how much Call of Duty Mobile is big, And you
know, what the fuck is the King game? Not Bejeweled Candy Crush.
Yeah, and that's a big thing. And if they can wind up catering
Scout, I know you have things to say right now. If they can
cater the experience on a mobile platform on your phone to be streamlined enough,
then I think they may be able to capture that casual audience better on mobile
than they could on like your Samsung TV perhaps, And that same casual audience
that like only has the one thing for their Wii. I think those people
have become more savvy to seek out more types and styles of games because I'm
thinking, like, my partner has like a subset of her friends that all
play Call of Duty together, and I thought like, oh, maybe I'll
squad up with y'all. And then they pulled out their phones and they were
like, no, we play Call of Duty on mobile on our phones.
Mm hmm, Like that's wild. That is wild, And there are a
lot of people out there that do that absolutely, and they already bought their
big expensive device. It is their phone. They're not going to buy another
one. I think there is that there's two routes, and maybe that they
actually end up doing both of these. But there's two routes that that I
see as like a potential for Microsoft to make all this stuff work in their
favor. The one is the mobile route that you just said, and that's
something they talked about where they're going to have a Microsoft Xbox Store that they
want to have available on iOS an Android that you can get called duty and
all these things through, and you know that's something that regulators might enable,
might empower them to do, and say, enforce Apple and Google to say,
hey, you have to host these alternative stores on there. And if
they do that, Microsoft will be in a position to have one of the
bigger stores. Now, bigger does not necessarily mean it's going to be anywhere
near the default pre installed store like the App store. It might. No,
it's probably never going to get anywhere close to that, at least in
my opinion. I could be wrong. But that's a very tough uphill climb
to commence a lot of people to sideload in another store. Sign in every
small little hurdle that you describe there, every obstacle, you lose, you
know, eighty percent of the people that might have done it, and it's
like you lose another eighty percent until you're left with I guess a million people
have installed this compared to the hundreds of millions that have these devices. But
maybe maybe they have a plan there to get around all that. I don't
know. The other side of it is is this like handheld route, But
it's like, how do they get to this handheld route? And you know
it's Microsoft, they make Windows. The solution if I were in charge and
I was like, hey, this is what you need to do to make
this all happen would be, let's find a way to have a version of
Windows and maybe this goes back to Windows ARM or something like that. They've
tried this in the past. That's why I'm like skeptical about this as well.
They have a version of Windows that can run really well on handhelds,
not necessarily ARM handhelds that can be x evy six, but maybe also run
on televisions so that you're not going through the Samsung OS, you know whatever
whatever they use. They don't even use Android. They use something else but
like like twyz in or something and whatever. It's called ties in I think
it is. There's like all these TVs that have their own os is,
Roku and Google OS's. If Microsoft could have their version, that's like no
Xbox is just built in and it works and it's a very seamless experience,
and you are in our ecosystem now, and we will offer this to TV
manufacturers for free or well even incentivize them by including six months of game Pass
if you buy a certain TV and now it's just our ecosystem in there and
it works well. That's what I would go for, And I think that's
a potential solution here. It's Microsoft, though, and I think they would
struggle to be able to produce an OS that would work well on TVs.
Maybe even they're struggling right now to get Windows to make sense on handheld computers,
and that's a computer. So they have uphill climbs in every directions,
which is why when they talk about we are like looking past the box,
like, yeah, I get that, but the box works. You've sold
twenty seven million of those, and none of this other stuff is proven.
So I think they're looking at a lot of opportunities, but there's a chance
that none of them could work. I don't know, what do you think?
Yeah, it's just peculiar too that it almost seems like they're abandoning the
box that has served them well and gotten them to this point. And then
the rest of everything that they're pitching and trying to do is all uncharted territory.
Specifically for Microsoft. You know, we're we could look at other Microsoft
branded handhelds or pocketed oble devices, the Microsoft the Windows Phone, the Microsoft
Zoom and you know, middling success. I'd say not not not super popular.
The surface is good, yeah, yeah, the surfaces have good like
hardware, software integration, and a lot of cases not across the board.
Some of those surfaces were like that dual screen surface was Android and things like
that. But yeah, the Windows version still had a lot of good integrations,
so they've done some of this stuff in the past. Yeah, I
listen. I feel like talking about weird little handhelds to you and I probably
the worst two people to talk about them too, because are just pension to
just gowk and look at any little thing with a little screen and the little
keyboards. Because hey, I'll tell you, I'm still thinking about picking up
a PlayStation portal that a potential Microsoft pocket Xbox console or whatever sounds very incredibly
appealing. I just don't think that sounds super appealing to the wider gaming audience.
Yeah, yeah, I don't think it does, despite seeing the PlayStation
portal constantly sold out. I don't know if the Xbox audience other maybe like,
hey, they're going to bundle in six months of game Pass into it,
so you kind of have free games with your device. I could see
that being acceptable, but I just don't know what that looks like, and
I just don't know if Microsoft is able to produce that actual device. Yeah,
and I just I do think, like I mentioned it already, but
that smile problem of like, hey, it is pretty easy to get to
stream games to people's homes and uh, these days it looks and works pretty
well, but most people don't do it. And I think most people don't
do it because actually connecting the controller to their to their TV is just enough
of a hassle that they're like, never mind, I don't I don't want
to do that. It's Bluetooth. I got to go in the menus on
this TV and connected controller via Bluetooth to this TV. What is it?
I don't what is that even? And that that this is like this is
the casual audience that we're talking about. And they might already have the controller
in their home, they don't even have to go out and buy one.
But I think that those small little things where it's like if the TVs came
with a controller, that would be different, but that hasn't happened yet,
and it doesn't I don't when we don't know if Microsoft has a plan to
like to solve that, or if they or if they even like did do
that, whether or not that would actually matter if people be like, oh,
yeah, I don't know what I did with that controller. I threw
it. I don't even know why that was there. I threw it off
into a closet and I never looked at it again. I think there's still
a lot of questions about changing people's behavior and even like lubricating that process by
making it like setting it all up so that when you turn on the TV,
you're immediately in an Xbox ecosystem and you have the control where even if
all that work together, I don't necessarily know that that's like, Okay,
now people are going to be playing Fortnite there, and when they spend money
on micro transactions, we're going to get that money. I don't know.
I feel like you, they would have to hit it and it'd have to
be amazing from the jump, and I just don't think, Yeah, I
don't think they're capable of that grub yep. I think that the history wuld
suggest that they would need a lot of time to get things right, and
I think that would be enough to like to discourage everyone involved. And it
also feels like this set an approach or this strategy that they're approaching on now
of every screen is an Xbox or this possible portable device. It seems like
this has come up in maybe like the past month or so, rather than
something that they've been planting. They've definitely been planting one and Game Pass everywhere.
But in terms of what you're presenting grub of trying to change people's behavior,
I think Apple even tried to do that with Apple TV and saying like,
hey you can you can hook up your your Bluetooth controllers and play Apple
Arcade here. This is a great way to check out Apple Arcade, and
unfortunately not a lot of people are checking out. And Apple really good at
changing people's behavior. Actually, Apple's like one of the better companies. So
here's a new thing, and if you don't have it, you're gonna feel
like you're missing out. Microsoft is not good at that. Microsoft does not
make people feel like they're missing out in a lot of these things, or
else they would have been able to bring HoloLens to market before the Apple Vision
Pro. Even though the Apple Vision pro is apparently CosIng like migraines and burst
blood vessels and all this stuff that thinks still going to be a success.
People are still gonna end up getting the right people, getting the right people
all right Over. At Sony, its shares fell the most it has fallen
in two years after it said the PS five growth has likely peaked. This
comes from Tom Ivan at VGC. Sony shares recorded their biggest intra day fall
since February twenty twenty two, after the company said the PS five sales growth
had likely peaked. As reported by Bloomberg, Sony shares fell as much as
eight point four percent on Thursday and closed down six point five percent following the
publication of the company's latest quarterly financial results. While Sony had previously hoped to
ship a record twenty five million PlayStation consoles during its current fiscal year ending in
March, it now expects to miss that target by four million units. It
had also forecast a gradual decline in PS five unit sales from next fiscal year
onwards, and said it has no plans to release any new entries in major
franchises like God of War, Spider Man, and others during the twelve month
twelve month period ending in March twenty twenty five. If the platform has already
peaked in growth, then the outlook outlook could be much grimmer than what we
had even had in mind for its game business. And this is where we
kind of entered the conversation Jan and it's like, yeah, this is something
that I think is setting off some alarm bells for a lot of investors,
where gamers are looking at that statement about for the next year, no new
injuries in God of War, Spider Man and other franchises that are like that,
and that's like a concern because people were already like, well, we
got Spider Man last year, but they must be reloading for next year and
it's like, no, that's not even the case. So fans are feeling
pretty antsy because they, like a lot of first party Sony games. Investors
are like, hey, the PS four was big and very good. Now
we need growth. It needs to be even bigger. And it's like it's
not even necessarily stagnating. It feels like it might not catch up to the
PS four or surpass the PS four suddenly, which is something we assumed as
a given last year, where it's like, no, it's going to catch
up to that, and it's like, oh, the way it's going right
now by the end of this generation is very easily, especially what Sony is
saying where they're expecting slower PS five sales next year and they're already like going
to miss our target for this year. That's just that the PlayStation business overall
and the long term from PS four to PS five is contracting. At the
very least, it is stagnating, and that is not great news for Sony,
which makes a lot of its money through PlayStation. Now it is making
more revenue than it ever has before, made ten point eight billion dollars I
think in the last quarter, a huge amount of money, but their profits
were down twenty five percent year over year. Now they're looking at like,
Okay, we have this money coming in, we're gonna we're gonna take profits.
We're gonna figure out how to make that happen. But that's when they
begin talking about all these other things like, hey, we're gonna get more
aggressive of putting games on PC and all this other stuff. We're gonna try
to find ways to make more money from the things that we're doing. But
this is like it goes back to it, Hey, there are it's not
all green over on the other side when we were talking about Xbox for the
last few weeks because of the reports that some of those games might be going
to PlayStation. It's not like, hey, Sony has won the console war.
Now it's all clear sailing from here. It is PlayStation won the console
war, and oh boy, now what there is no obvious answer. They
are in a situation where they're looking around like we might have to do some
something more drastic than we originally thought. And that's how we get back to
a point of like, yeah, PlayStation is the clear top dog when it
comes between Xbox versus PlayStation, but even Sony might have to get center doing
things more drastically. Is that how you read this jam when we when we
go through all these statements and the results from investors. Yeah, I think
so, Grub. I think that is like the part of the motivations for
what Sony is is trying to do now while they're in this waiting limbo period.
And I I'm just thinking that, like I believe a lot of people
that have picked up a PS five that are not like playing their PS five
every single day or are up to date on the news hot releases, have
just picked it up for like the one title, one or two titles.
For a lot of people, that was Hogwarts Legacy. For whatever reason,
the marketing was really good that people thought you had to pick up PS five
specifically. Yep, they did with them. There is like the Horizon Freak
audience that we have yet to understand, but also the audience that peaked it
up solely for Spider Man or they're waiting for something like the Last of Us
three and then they're and then they're going and they're playing all the games they
play online with their friends that they were playing on the PS four, and
they're continuing to play up at apex Legends in Fortnite and Call of Duty and
and for a lot of people who didn't feel need to go get the Spider
Man's and and some of these other games you mentioned, they're probably just still
playing on the PS four. And that's like the other thing here is that
the diminishing returns in terms of like the kinds of games you're able to play
on from one device to the next is it's the returns have been so diminished
that if you were already playing Fortnite and your Fortnite on your PS four or
you're probably not rushing to go spend another five hundred dollars to play Fortnite on
your PS five. Yeah it'll look better, Yeah it'll run better. You
get almost no other benefits. You're still playing with your same friends. It
is still the same game, all the features are the same. And so
these companies are like, okay, so how do we get people excited to
buy these systems? And there is just continues to be no obvious answer other
than for PlayStation spend three hundred and fifty million dollars making new games. Hey,
people will be they will feel fomo if they are not able to get
Spider Man three because we're gonna spend so much goddamn money on it. You're
gonna feel like you are missing out on an event. And that does work.
That increases the risk, and it's increasing risk while also the returns for
soon you might potentially be diminished because the PlayStation five might not sell as good
as the PS four, So they're selling to fewer people and their profits are
down. So it's like, yeah, they are selling better than ever in
some ways. In some ways they aren't. But regardless, the stagnation is
a problem because the costs are going up inflation is a problem, so everything
the costs are going up in other ways as well, and the games themselves,
they yeah, they increase the price, but not enough to keep up
with all these other costs. So yeah, it's a precarious situation for everybody,
but especially for these big companies like Sony and Microsoft that are looking for
a pathway forward and have yet to find it. Greb, do you think
the Insomniac leaks have wound up being having a bigger effect than we initially thought
where folks are specifically looking at Insomniac or these these Marvel tie in games or
Marvel games in general and thinking like, oh, I really like the folks
that make Spider Man. I can't wait till Wolverine comes out. And then
they see like the general timeline of things where Wolverine isn't even projected to come
out until twenty five at the earliest, that a lot of those people are
just like, wow, that will wait. And also with the staggered release
of Final Fantasy Rebirth and I forget what the next one is, uh,
Final Fantasy Revengeance. That's what they should know it. They did say in
the name of them on after Rebirth already didn't, didn't they? I thought
they, Yeah, they did. I don't remember what it is either,
remember I don't. I don't know, but I feel like unfortunately a lot
of people uh or thinking like oh, I'll just wait till all of them
come out, not knowing that like it's gonna take at all of them to
come out. And and yeah, I think the initial COVID fomo of trying
to pick out pick up a PS five has already died down that for a
lot of people, it's like if you didn't already have one, I think
you figure out a reason why you don't need one. And I definitely think
that devices like steam Deck and assist Roger have kind of uh interrupted that gaming
space of like, well, you know, I can get more games over
here, and then some of those PlayStation games will eventually come out here too.
I don't know. That's like where my head is at with it.
I think you're onto something because I think for the people that could not find
one during the pandemic, you had to come up with a story, you
had to tell yourself for why you didn't need one, and then it's very
easy to start believing that and then it gets to the point, well,
I'll wait for the game I really care about. Maybe that's rebirth for a
lot of people. Maybe that like shakes, lose a lot of sales.
But then you start to see, well, man PlayStation five is on sale
pretty frequently, and it was on sale a lot last year, a ton,
and we see now, like Sony has explained that, like they were
trying to get to that twenty five million number and they were like doing everything
they could to make that happen. So they were very frequently working with retail
to cut the price of the PS five so that they got very aggressive on
that, and that was one of the reasons they that their profits were down,
is because they got aggressive on pricing. So their profits should be back
up next year. But they got very aggressive with it, and yet Sony
still didn't hit their mark, and people, I think began thinking, well,
I've waited this long and I did spend that money instead on a Steam
deck or something like that, and that's not going to be a lot of
people. But whatever whatever they did, they're like, Okay, i've waited
this long, Well I'll just wait for the Slim. And then they waited
for the Slim and now there's talks of a PRO, so I've waited this
long, I'll just wait for the pro. So Sony might be hurting them
on that side, they're hurting themselves on that side as well. I have
a friend that did the same exact thought process grub. He messaged me and
said, I really want to get rebirth, I get the slim or wait
for the pro, and I'm like, dog, I don't even know if
a pro's coming out, Go get the slim right now if you can get
it for cheap, And then he wound up twiddling his thumbs and still has
not picked up a PS five. So I think that that use case of
the person kind of waiting to pick up a PS five continues to go on
as there's this general limbo of like, when are the big PS five exclusives
coming out? And am I playing it on the best possible version of the
PS five yep? Or am I like waiting to get a deal on like
the old PS fives yep? And Michael Learly O'Leary and chat points out that
like Sony didn't say, hey, we're in the second half of the PlayStation
five's life cycle, and people did take that in a pretty negative way,
because I think the original translation in a lot of places was we are in
the later stages of the PS five, and I think that does sound a
little bit more grim. But now we're entering year five of a console that's
probably going to have a seven to ten year life cycle, So this is,
yeah, they mean it in that way. The actual concerning thing is
them telling investors that they expect to sell fewer PlayStation fives next year than they
did this year, and that they just missed their target by four million.
And now, like I was looking at it, and originally I was like,
they should get past the twenty one million number that they set for this
fiscal year by the end of March, but I think they're at like they're
at Are they at sixteen million or eighteen million? I think they're around there
either. They have three to five million to go, and a lot of
that's going to come down to Final Fantasy seven rebirth pushing a lot a lot
of PS fives, and that's probably gonna happen, but it could be close.
Honestly, it could be close to get to twenty one million. So
yeah, there is like, hey, if their business is contracted on the
PlayStation side of things compared to last generation. That is going to scare of
a lot a lot of investors, and then that is going to handcuff Sony
on what they're able to invest in. We already see that viewer and fewer
games are getting green lighted across the industry, and Sony's going to be a
situation where it might have to pick and choose a little bit more because it
has a little bit less leeway because investors are asking for bigger returns more quickly.
And it's just it is tough. It's a tough business to be in,
to be in one of these console manufacturers, and it's and if we
are looking at this industry through the prism of like as goes Microsoft and Sony,
so goes Gaming, there's reasons to be like this is this is concerning
I think as always for me, the silver lining actually not even silver line.
The bright sky over here is there are great things happening across the industry
that have nothing to do with Sony and Microsoft. Great games coming out all
the time. Yeah, the Microsoft taking a little bit of credit for Power
World. Power World would have done just fine without game Pass. And then
like hell Divers too doing great. That's a that's a Sony published that thing,
but that's doing great on Steam. And then there's a million other things
popping off on Steam. And Nintendo's gonna have a new new hardware here pretty
soon. So there's a lot of things that are going to change the landscape
here very quickly, so that this conversation that we're having right now is not
might not even be the predominant conversation about the state of the industry here very
soon. But as it stands today, these are the big concerns facing down
both Sony and Microsoft, and they're gonna have to They are gonna have to
figure it out. Microsoft seems to have a very aggressive, let's change up
everything strategy. Sony's might be a little bit more handcuffed in that as well,
in that they can they have the thing that works, they have to
find a way to make it work even more and make even more money.
Instead of abandoning that and going and trying a bunch of different things. It's
like, no, you got to stick with PlayStation. That's the business that
makes us money. So people see it feels like they Microsoft and Sony inadvertently
and probably purposely also played a weird game of console chicken, only to dramatically
go into two different seques. Absolutely, Yeah, that was weird. How
Like earlier it was like, we're gonna make basically the same console, and
are we gonna get the last Are we gonna set eight or ten years?
Yeah? And are we gonna set this price to six hundred dollars? We're
gonna do that, We're gonna do It's like, no, five hundred shit,
We're gonna do five hundred two. And it's like yeah, Like they're
definitely like they were had to have face to face, nose to nose at
the beginning of this generation, and then I think both of them looked around
and be like, what do we Why we got to stop caring about this
other company is doing. We have to figure out what we're doing to grow,
uh, because beating the other company will actually not accomplish us anything.
It's not gonna get anything that we need in terms of what actually makes us
money, what actually pleases the investors. We need growth, and so both
companies have kind of abandoned that those concerns for the big part. And I
think again, Jim Ryan got out while the getting was good. Jim Ryan
positioned the PS five in such a way that it looks much better in a
much better place than the Xbox. And now he doesn't have to figure out
all these much more complicated how do we grow the PlayStation business beyond the market
of people that were just here deciding which console to buy. All right,
let's take a break. Let's take a break and we get back. We
got a few more headlines, including a little bit more from Sony. We'll
talk about that right after this. All right, we are back and actually
jam before we do anything else. Have you ever heard of X Men?
Yes? Did you watch this trailer for X Men ninety seven this morning?
I did not. Would you mind if we get I would love that.
This is going to play poor for audio listeners, but you know, I'll
have a play so they can hear the audio a little bit. But yeah,
they'll play bad for audio listeners. Sorry, everybody, let me get
screen. Yes, I'm gonna share it to you in just one second.
Let me just get it framed up for everybody first. There's that for a
little peak behind the scenes. Here. Grub slacks me this morning saying,
hey, we could watch the X Men ninety seven trailer, a you a
fan of the X Men, I said, I spent cartoon to be clear,
X Men cartoon, sure, sure, but based on timing. And
then I threw my phone at the ground. I laughed, and a fod
scout fell over and rolled down a hill. And then we both looked at
each other and laughed. And then I replied back, am I a mark
for X Men? All right, let's let's see you guys. Can you
guys hear this X Men next Saturday morning? Where it is? Can't you
see it? I'm grateful. Yeah, have the chance to say goodbye.
Fate lies in our hands now. Now, now, this has been the
thing I've been the most excited for since they acquired Fox jan. Oh,
we have to stay vigilant. The Professor get us with his dream. No
matter how dark it is, They're gonna do it. We must believe in
each other. Oh that's all. We get this done by working together as
a team. Jeez, Bob, keep buzzing in my ear. That's Logan's
baby. Oh oh sweet, my x Men. Yeah, Magneto, the
last will and Testament of Charles Xavier. Everything he built now belongs to me.
Okay, yeah, that looks actually really good. Yeah, I love
that cartoon, and so I hope I hope this new season X Men ninety
seven starts with previously on X Men, and then I'll get chills and I'll
be ready to go very excited about that. Already got chills, yeah,
man, for folks that want more X Men content, I had to highly
reckon then checking out the current one of the current comic book runs. It's
really good. Shit, really, that's fantastic to hear. I'll check that
out. They're grab you're familiar with. I know that this trope has been
done before. But the Council of Ricks, right, and Rick and Morty
like a bunch of ricks fighting each other. Imagine that, but a council
of saber Tooths. Okay, well that's even better. That's way better.
Imagine a world where a bunch of Sabertooths get together and like, how the
fuck are we gonna fuck with Logan this year? And then one of them
is a Captain America. Man. Okay, well, I'll check that out.
I had Marvel Unlimited for a while. I should maybe get that back
and catch up and then see if I want to buy some of the new
runs. As I get caught up, on all that stuff. All right,
Let's get back to the video game news. Marvel Spider Man two hits
over ten million copies sold. This is from Georgiana game spot. Mar's Spider
Man two is officially exceeded ten million copies sold on PlayStation five, marking a
new milestone for the game. According to Sony's latest earnings report, it says
that Insomniac's Marvel Spider Man franchise has now sold over fifty million copies, which
includes the PC ports. Mostly wanted to bring this in here as a reminder
these games are still selling very well, like that they are able to launch
new things that are to PS five exclusive and get to ten millions sold very
quickly. You know, it's not selling as fast as like Tiers of the
Kingdom, which got to twenty million very fast, you know, not much
longer than what it took to Spider Man here to get to ten million.
But like very few games are doing what Zelda has done with the last two
entries in the Zelda franchise, and Tiers of the Kingdom sold very very fast,
and there are more switches out there than there are PS fives. So
this is a very good number for Spider Man two. I think that they
are probably over at Sony like this. Spider Man continues to work. We
are very happy, and Somniac is going to be making that Venom game that's
probably going to cost half the price it cost them to produce these other games,
and it's going to make us just as much money, probably very close
to that's going to do very well, And then we're glad that they're working
on X Men and Spider Man three and all this other stuff. They have
got to want to replicate what has happened with Spider Man at some of their
other studios with other ips. Is that even possible, jan, I don't
think it is. Grub. I feel like, specifically with Spider Man can
either be a cash cow or a giant thinker, depending on how it is
brought to the greater general audiences. Because fuckers love Spider Man, and the
thing is people fuckers as well. Sorry to call you all that, but
that's what we all are today. Also love the X Men. For the
longest time, like Wolverine and Spider Man were the two most popular Marvel characters,
Marvel comic book characters of all time until the MCU kind of re arranged
that. I don't know within Sony's existing roster what they could adapt with other
I P. I also don't know Pritt instance, Madam webb Man might hey,
I'm I'm a big fan of Dakota Johnson. All I will share.
You know, I didn't realize until recently that she's Don Johnson's daughter. Oh
yeah, babies are everywhere there. Yeah. But like I feel like Sony
has a good roster of talent, I just don't know what ip he would
wind up working out that wouldn't feel like uh like comic book exhaustion at this
point, Like Harry Potter is already being done with Harry Potter. They're probably
gonna go back to another Lego game with Harry Potter. We were talking about
that with Jordan yesterday, and that makes a million percent sense. But like
the ones that are obvious to us, they're obvious to these companies. I
just don't think there's a lot of other ones out there that are like,
oh, waiting to be tapped into. Tron's not going to suddenly take over
or something like that. No, it really is, like you're right,
it is x men, And I honestly I think X Men's primed to like
come back in a big way. I think the show is going to like,
you know, kind of start that off a little bit, but like
the timing. But I like when I look at the news, I'm like,
man, I wish I'm gonna go. I want it. This makes
me want to go read the X Men. Something like deals with these topics
in a way that I is digestible and moral and all this stuff. And
I think X Men will be in a good place where it's like, hey,
the time makes sense for that kind of storytelling again, and people are
going to be craving that. I just the list is very short. It's
very short. And new ips. You know, we talk about new ips
and it's like we like the deprecation of new ips versus existing ips that get
licensed because these companies have looked at it, they've done the math, and
it is more expensive and or just as expensive but more risky to try to
puh to get a new IPR off the ground. And so they're gonna keep
looking at other options that are out there, and I just don't think most
of those are going to be anywhere near a Spider Man. Obviously, they're
not going to be Spider man, but even near it, I don't think
that's on the table either. Like I'm trying to think, like would you
try and adapt The Boys to a video game? But even then, like
where in like the Boys show, like do you play as do you play
as Homelander? Do you play as what's his face? To try and take
down the superheroes? Even like gen V where you're like pretty much an X
Men and like a young superhero, I don't know what approach you take to
that. And then I don't know you have a show like Invincible, and
Invincible had a lot of heat coming out of season one. Season two took
a little bit, maybe a long bit of time to come out, and
there's like four episodes, right, we're waiting for the second half exactly.
I did catch up on those that show fucking rules, Scott. I love
good. I love Invincible, But like you know, if they invested over
time into like okay, here's another Invincible thing, and and I think they
could build something up there where it's like these games are pretty big, but
that's just not a guarantee, and the games would have to be very good
to get to that point, I think. And yeah, if you're making
a great game that solves a lot of your problems just out of the gate,
and that there's just yeah, beyond that, a lot of these franchises
will struggle in a way that I think these companies know deep down that they're
going to struggle, and yet what other choice do they have that's like,
this mitigates some risks, so it's better than nothing. H Greb excuse my
ignorance here, but does Disney's deal with Epic and like the magnitude that that
is of like what one point five million billion dollars, does that affect Disney
Disney's working relationship with other studios at all? Or is this just like a
specific focus of that. No, so the way and especially wouldn't work that
way because Disney is investing that money into Epic, so it would be the
one like calling the shots a little bit there. It's not going to be
calling the shots like it still only has a minority stake in Epic, but
it's like the money is going in that direction, which would give the leverage
to Disney to be able to do even more if they wanted to. But
no, there is no as far as we're aware, with the partnership to
produce games inside of or alongside Fortnite that are related to Disney. None of
that is to the exclusion of licensing those games elsewhere. That still seems to
be one of the main video game business priorities over at Disney. All right,
John Drake, if you're listening, get ready to cut the check.
I don't know to me or to whoever. Blue Astrobot ooh yeah, oh
Eve, even like a blue like sack Boy. Super Mario three D World
style game could be really cool because you've got the four family members, so
you do like a four player co op three D Mario World sort of thing.
That m very cool. These last two stories real quick, we're gonna
jump ahead to Embracer confirms it's now laid off fourteen hundred employees and says more
cuts could be coming soon. This is from Tom Ivean at VGC, basically
just kind of putting a number to all the stories that we've seen and that
they're not done yet. And you know they're not done yet because fourteen hundred
employees. While a lot, this next tideline kind of puts it really in
perspective. Embracer has canceled twenty nine unannounced games between July and December twenty nine
games that weren't even announced have been canceled, and the people working on those
mostly have likely been either laid off or waiting around, like waiting to see
what's gonna happen. Maybe they've been moving from somewhere else. But there are
a lot less games for these a lot fewer games for these people to be
working on. And that's just that's where we're at right now in the industry.
Is that we were coming out of the pandemic and everyone say we've gotta
be making games, games, games, and now everyone is retreating, especially
Embracer, who is an especially bad circumstance here. I don't know, Jan,
how's all that make you feel? Doesn't make me feel good at all.
Grub Daman neither make me feel good at all. And I think,
uh uh, Embracer can go get fucked. Bracer can go get fucked.
God. Remember, like right from the beginning when it happened, it's like,
hey, can I talk to the CEO about like the strategy here?
No no response, Well, they like, we'll see what we can do,
and then they never ever talked and never explained it. And now it's
so obvious. It's because they didn't have one. They did not have a
strategy embracer. What about you embrace these nuts? Fucking got them all right?
Pull a question from yesterday? How do you think backward about ability will
work on switch To? Is? Is this the rightest? I mean,
let me refresh this, make sure this is good. That's right? Yeah?
No, uh, yes, there we go. How do you think
backwork compatibility will work on switch To? It won't work at all thirteen percent.
Twelve percent says it will generally require users to pay for an upgrade of
fifty two percent says it will work for every game, but they won't run
better in fift twenty three percent is it will work for every game, but
they will run better. This is yesterday's Okay, well, this one is
well me, I'll answer this live in front of everybody. How are you
feeling about upcoming PlayStation five games? Yeah? There we go. This one's
from twenty three hours ago. I have plenty to look forward to, and
I don't have a lot to look forward to. I'm gonna go with I
have plenty to look forward to, So the third party games like fal Fantasy
Thirty six percent agree with me. Sixty four percent say I don't have a
lot I'm looking forward to. I think this is the uh we talk about
like fanboys and like huge fans of these of these platforms. From the PlayStation
side of things. Four months now, there's been some anxiety out there about,
hey, they have not like I spent I've invested a lot of money
in this platform. I bought it right away. I've been playing a lot
of these games. But in the past you would tell us, you would
give us a showcase and say, hey, this game's coming out two three
years from now, and you haven't even really done that in a very long
time, beyond like the confirmed God Now it's at Wolverine game, the Wolverine
game beyond Wolverine, which we don't know when that's come. I mean,
there's not a lot of insight into what else PlayStation is doing in terms of
first party and when you look at it, a lot of that makes sense
because Naughty Dogs game is probably years away. The a lot of those other
studios are like you look at you go one by one, it's like that's
probably years away, that's year's away. Maybe Ghost two. And this is
when we talk about a lot of Ghost of Sushima two, that one could
be coming at any year now, but it's obviously it's not coming this year
or even early part of next year. So it's like, okay, yeah
that you know, while that one felt like it maybe could happen, that's
also not too surprising. Maybe taking five to six years to make that game
is what they're gonna do, and we're gonna end up in a situation where
it comes out later in twenty twenty five. But I don't know how about
you, Jan, Are you feeling like, hey, the PlayStation five is
getting some use and we'll continue to get used throughout this year. It is
currently getting some use and it will continue to get used throughout this year.
That's where I'm at. Yeah, I think these console warriors need to put
their shields and swords down, just just go touch some grass. Yep.
Yeah, yeah, plenty of games out there. Yeah, Ghost of Sushimi
one is not even on PC yet. That's a good point, Like once
that happens, things will stop. That'll probably signify that they're getting ready to
ramp up to some of those other things. And hey, if you were
one of those people that have only bought APS five for the one game.
There's a couple other games out there that you can only get on the PS
five. Check those out. Those are good. Valhalla, yo, I
feel like it was a crime putting Valhalla out when it did, because there's
some sleeper banger story bits in that game that I really suggest people seek out.
Krados is even more of a sad father next Gin sad dads out there.
Let's go, uh new pole question? Are you picking up Mario versus
Donkey Kong on switch? Just interested? Let us know yes or no.
We'll talk about that on the show tomorrow. Here on Giant Bomb speaking a
Giant Bomb jan we have let's see later today voicemail dump truck, were doing
that thing, We're gonna do that thing. I gotta I gotta look at
you like, should have planned that thing more? Maybe we we'll see.
We'll definitely have voicemail dump truck. Everybody will definitely have a UPF Tomorrow.
We're gonna be playing a grab bag of games. See, yeah, what's
what's up? Maybe because I don't know, Bailey wants to pop up on
a thing, Maybe I'll just get her for UPF and and or bc RT.
Okay, yeah, we can throw a lot of stuff into upf forgetting,
Like it's like, go an extra half an hour or something, play
five games. Yeah, maybe we do that. Maybe we do that.
And then I got that backle on and tomb Raider collection and stuff like that.
There's a lot happening, so, oh shit, a lot to catch
up on. I might have gone code for another game that I'm very curious
about. Oh, grub, remind me to send something. I'll just send
it to you after this. But there's a game that I came across that
screams you, oh okay. It reminds me of the Case of the Golden
Idol. I'm like, well, this is an ooh that's my jam,
that's my shit. I can't wait. I am. The next one I'm
most looking forward to is Expeditions, a mud runner game, and this morning
and slack Nikki's like, hey, let us let me know if you guys
get to get ahold of that one I want to play. I'm like,
yeah, listen, you got to fight me for it first, but if
you want to talk about that game, I will talk about that game with
you. I am very excited about Expeditions. It comes are out I think
a couple days before my birthday. Everything's turning up Jeffrey's birthday this year.
I turned forty one for some reason, and everyone's like, Yeah, we're
gonna give him everything he ever to reward that we're going to reward specifically,
he made it all right, Jan Thank you so much for talking with me
about video games today. Man, I really appreciate it. It's my favorite
way to start a Thursday. Thank you all for hanging out with us today.
You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good
one, Take care of yourself and goodbye, and maybe a Nintendo Direct happen
so you yell at me.