Game Mess Mornings 08/24/23

You'll be luck. It's the internet. You're busy. Let's do this for
August twenty four, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live
with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, Phil Spencer is looking at what is next
for Xbox after Starfield, and EA is cutting a huge number of jobs at
by Aware. But first, please join me and welcoming today's co host a
Game Mess Mornings. It's Jan Ochoa. Everybody, Jan, how are you
doing? I'm doing great. I was frantically looking around me for a fun
prop to bring in and I'm I'm propless despite being covered and stuff. Creaky
Legs sent me this along with a VCR that I was trying to find,
And now I have to have this Batman disgusting paraphernalia in my home. And
that was that a threat? It feels like a threat. I got a
battering for audio listeners. There you go. It's and it's got a little
like stand on it so it can be presented proudly in my home. The
kids. The kids were I'm like, hey, do you like They saw
it? Like what is that? I'm like, oh yeah, it's a
battering. You want to go like show mama, so like you have something
to do, and they're like, no, I don't care about that.
I'm like, yeah, fair enough, fair enough, jan It's it's flooding
here. It's been raining. It's flooding. Yeah, flooding like the I
ninety are are major highway that like runs like uh, you know along Lake
Erie. It flooded so bad that they had to send out the inflatable rafts
to go rescue like ten cars that were stuck, and it was it was
up to their windows. The water level so pretty rough out there. A
lot of my neighbors their basements have flooded. And right here I can hear
my sump pump going. So I just seed everyone like so pomp, I
seed everyone to like spirit bomb energy my sump pump and just like keep working,
baby, keep working, just keep doing your thing. It's so dry
down here. It rules, but it's it's all thanks to the sump pump.
So some pump, that's right, no sim pump today, some pump
we're not, but we do simp for the sump pump to be clear,
Yes, yes, absolutely, I'm I feel like a lot of times I'm
like, man, I'll pay a lot for this this place, and it's
uh, you know, we've damned a lot of choices, but stuff,
we paid a lot for this place, and I'm like, man, I'm
glad we got the one that did have like the super waterproof basement. Yeah,
that was actually totally worth it. So on days like this, we
looked at the weather. It looks like a hurricane coming out of Lake Erie
because it's just like this big rainy weather system and it's circling over us over
and over again. Like that's not supposed to happen. That's it's weird,
it's bad. That's I'm sorry, Grub. I'm giving you all of my
energy. Thank you. I will. I will bear the heat wave that
San Francisco is currently in. I will bear the seventy five degree temperature.
Baby, I'm so sorry, Grub. I was walking the pub yesterday,
shoot her over her this conversation between two older, older people. It was
like, I can't relieve it's it's seven four right now. Well my car
set it was seventy five. I can't. I don't think I could do
this heat. We got out of the car but got back in. Listen
I'm with them. I get it. If I got if it was sixty
five all year round and then suddenly it was seventy five, I would be
the exact same way, like, this is unacceptable. I changed my whole
life to be in this, this in weird San Francisco climate that doesn't make
any sense anywhere else in the world. And now and now it's like,
what I gotta be seventy five degrees? No way, I'm sweating. I
know I disagree with that. Uh yeah, it smell a curb episode somewhere.
Uh huh. It's happened all over the place, people dealing with natural
disasters and weather stuff. It's it's a whole thing. But thanks everybody for
joining us. We're gonna talk about the news here in a second, but
first let's explain what we do here most week days. I, Jeff Greb,
will help peace your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and
maybe even some of our own original reporting, which I have a little bit
of that for you today. For all these topics, I'll get the input
of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you're 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 EA's BioWare will layoff fifty and cut ties
with unionized Keywords playtesting group. The Certain Dean Takashi at Game Speed Electronic Arts
said that it's BioWare studio based in Edmonton, Canada, is laying off fifty
people on the team even as Dragon Age dread Wolf is in its late stages
of development. The layoffs will will likely be a blow to morale at the
studio and make the development environment more difficult. Gary McKay, general manager of
the developer, told employees in a statement today that the move is meant to
make the EA owned developer a more agile and more focused studio. EA has
an estimated twelve thirteen thousand employees and BioWare has around two hundred and fifty people.
This is about one fifth of their staff jan and this is not related
to the movement of Star Wars the Old Republic to that new studio that's outside
of EA. This is completely unrelated that this is directly affecting all the games
that people might be concerned about with the future of BioWare. In order to
meet the needs of our upcoming projects continued, and to continue to hold ourselves
to the highest standards of quality and ensure BioWare could continue to thrive in an
industry that's rapidly evolving, we must shift towards a more agile and more focused
studio, McKay said. It will. It will allow our developers to iterate
quickly, unlock more creativity, and form a clear vision of what we're building
before development ramps up. He added. To achieve this, we find ourselves
in a position where change is not only necessary, but unavoidable. As difficult
as this is to say, rethinking our approach to development inevitably inevitably means reorganizing
our team to match the studio's changing needs. As part of this transition,
we are eliminating approximately fifty roles at BioWare. This is deeply painful and humbling
to write. We are doing everything we can to ensure the process is handled
with empathy, respect and clear communication. They said jan that they are looking
to provide opportunities for all of these employees to apply for other jobs that are
open at other EA studios. Although they expect not everyone will will land on
their feet within EA, they could go, They're probably gonna have to go
elsewhere because not everyone's gonna be able to get a job with an EA.
When we hear this, Jen, I mean, I guess what's your current
feeling on BioWare. I guess I just wasn't really thinking of BioWare. They
weren't really occupying a lot of my brain space. And in the last couple
of months, you know, Dragon Age dread Wolf, like you mentioned,
God announced and I was like, oh wow, that's gonna be a lot
of work. And it is now going to especially be a lot of work
with these layoffs. I thought the corporate tech word I hated the most was
disrupt grub. I think my new word that whenever I see it in announcements
like this is agile. Agile. Yep, yeah, It's It's like agile
always doesn't. It never means the people at the top need to be thinking
more quickly, or need to take a pay cut, or need to come
up with ideas of their own. It always means we need to pay fewer
people less money. Like that's yeah, it's it's always an excuse to make
these job cuts. It's like no one at the top really thinks like why,
I don't know, grub, I feel like this excuse my naivete,
but like hey, if I'm at the top and I'm already making millions,
I'm like, all right, cool, I don't I'll take a pay cut.
So these other people below me that I have maybe built a relationship with,
have maybe seen on a day to day basis, if not, like
at least online exchanged emails with, been in a zoom call with seen faces,
exchanged fun pleasant emails maybe so they don't have to fucking lose their jobs.
And then I am now overworking and burning bridges with my current existing employees
that are staying. And you could tell how all of that what you just
said, and like that is encompassed in that word agile is works backwards from
We are now in a relationship with an outside of firm that is unionized,
and that means they are going to have to make demands upon us, and
that will ruin our agility. Boy, we need to be agile and working
with unions means we can't be agile, and it's like, well, that's
not exactly what it means. It's just the kind of thing that you get
grumpy about having to listen to what other people might need to make the job
worth it to them, and you don't ever want to consider that you are
only worried about your bottom line. And everyone sees through this. Everyone listens
to the show, knows that you know that they know that it is this
song and dance they put on. And here we are obviously the people are
you know, the people losing their jobs is front and foremost the thing that
people are concerned about. Here, other people also are worried about, Hey,
what does this mean for the games that BioWare was working on. They
commented on that I believe this is Andy McKay again. Our commitment remains steadfast,
and we are all working to make this game that dragon Age worthy of
the dragon Age name. We are confident that we'll have the time needed to
ensure dragon Age reaches its full potential. I can also tell you that every
member of our team, even those departing BioWare, deserves credit for crafting a
spectacular experience. These are our colleagues and friends, and we would not be
here without them. I am so proud of all the work our team has
done. While this is an extremely difficult day for everyone at by aware,
we are making changes now to build a brighter future. We're excited for all
of you to see what we've been building with dread Wolf. A core team
led by Mike Gamble continues their preproduction work on the next mass Effect. Our
commitment to quality continue used to be our north star. So jan I did.
I did a little bit of looking into this to see kind of like
what's the status because in the past on this show on grub Snacks, we've
talked about Dragon Age dread Wolf. People are very thirsty for information coming out
of BioWare, and for a while there it was like Dragon Age could have
come out this year. In fact, internally, at one point the date
that they were looking at was next month, September twenty twenty three. But
internally dragon Age four keeps getting pushed back. They moved the internal expectations to
March twenty twenty four a while ago. March twenty twenty four pretty pretty soon,
right, Well, guess what, it's not very close. It's not
coming out then either they pushed it back again. It is not coming out
until summer twenty twenty four at the earliest. At this point, and this
is you know, this is not them talking publicly. This is just from
my reporting. So you know, if it moves again, don't be surprised
in any way, because it's very I think it's very likely it moves back
even further. I expect this game probably to launch by the end of next
year. Like you come up, why I watch at the end of next
year when you get out before the end of fiscal in March twenty twenty five,
these this thing could keep moving right now though again, summer twenty twenty
four is what they're looking at, looking at at the earliest. This is
uh the kind of thing where it's okay, well, how are they going
to do that with fewer people, Well, guess what, They're bringing people
in from the mass Effect team. The mass Effect team is being drained a
little bit so that every more people can come work on Dragon Age dread Wolf,
and that naturally means Mass Effect. It is getting pushed further down the
line as well, So don't expect that anytime soon. Most people weren't but
push it back even further in your heads because mass effect is definitely being affected
by this. It's going to come out later, let's see. Yeah,
so the why of all this gen like, okay, so why why byoware
particular? I think most people can figure out, Like, you know,
buyowear has had a string of of of of not hitch at the very least,
and some of them were kind of you know, bad bad pumpkins on
really they just rotten pumpkins there that you got it, you open it up,
and since it looked inside and like no one wanted to deal with this,
and so like, okay, that's one thing, but it's like,
well that's been true for a long time, so why is it happening suddenly?
There's been some changes. For one, Apex Legends is on the decline.
That's just you know, they've talked about this publicly a little bit.
They had high expectations for their latest season of Apex Legends, and then they
told investors that they were too aggressive and too optimistic with those expectations, and
then internally they are now looking at it like Apex Legends is on the decline,
We do not necessarily expect it to reach the heights it once was at,
and we're kind of looking at a long term end of life for that
game, not like it's suddenly going to go away, but not not that
it's also going to be this driver of growth for EA. It probably isn't
going to be in They're no longer looking at that, so that's got them
tightening their belts a little bit. Then there's the change to EA's corporate structure.
This is another major thing that's kind of causing people to look at BioWare
a little bit more, uh, you know, with a little bit more
skepticism. And that is there used to be EA and it was everything,
and now there is EA Entertainment and EA Sports and these things are operating separately.
And there was a time when FIFA Ultimate Team and Madden Ultimate Team that
money was covering everybody. And now when they look at the books, the
E and the Madden FIFA Ultimate Team money is over there, and BioWare is
over here with all these other studios. Apex Legends was in there, but
Apex Legends no longer covering everybody either. So it's like, well, okay,
well we're looking at BioWare. They're not bringing in a lot of money,
and we're spending a lot of money, so what are we doing there?
And that that leads to them cutting jobs and now it's okay, they're
going to try to put out dragon Age. Does that turn things around?
That's the hope, But right now they're operating on the expectations that or the
reality that the studio is costing money. It's costs has racked up over the
last several years, but you know, last four or five years especially,
the costs have been racked up without a lot of big game releases other than
you know, the Mass Effect trilogy, and then you know, so they
got to they're trying to cut somewhere, and here we are. When you
hear all that, jan do you do you have? Do you still have
hopes for the future of BioWare, It's it's really hard to it's really hard
to to see a bright side in any of this because this is I was
not an existing fan of the dragon Age series, but now especially this has
sullied that for me. Yeah, with with BioWare specifically, it's one of
those studios where it's like, hey, I'm always interested in what you do.
Uh, sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn't. But like I I
hope y'all are doing okay, but with like the mismanagement happening here, it
just it just seems like it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth, especially,
and I don't know how much of this carries over into the mainstream audience.
I just I just feel terrible for all of the devs involved, everyone
like below the line here, because not only the folks of course AT lost
their jobs. Sure they may get moved around to EA, but that's that
seems like an empty promise at this point. It's also these folks that are
going to have to crunch or what might be one and a half years grub
right before this game even comes out, and who knows even after it comes
out, if it's going to be in like a good state, or if
it's going to be an instance where a publishers like, we just need to
get this out of the door. We're happened with anthem so exactly. You
know, like the track record is there of pushing a game out before it's
completely ready, not just an EA, but several other other publishers as we've
seen grub it. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good. I
want to say hey, unionized, right right, And of course, like
I I want to promote that, of course, but it seems like the
publishers straight from the top will be like, nah, we don't want to
work with you. Yeah, fuck you, Yeah, unionized, and we'll
walk away. Jesus. I mean, I think internally, if you unionize
at a publisher, maybe you have a little bit more protection from from that
sort of thing happening, but not necessarily, Like you could just as easily
find yourself in a situation where the studio finds a creative way to not have
to deal with a union. Let's eliminate yachts, yeah, right, man,
super yachts. Whenever I'm like, man, that's just there's clearly something
broken when someone could afford a two hundred and fifty million dollars yacht for themselves.
Uh, this is the writing was on the wall here back when the
split happened with with EA and then becoming EA Sports and the Entertainment. Uh,
Andrew Wilson said, and we're this, we're doing this restructuring to empower
our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability. And it was right
there, they said it, right, like this is each studio's get to
be accountable for itself and its own money. What about the people at top
have the financial accountability? Yep? What about that? Yeah? And it's
uh, I think whenever the financial accountability to them always looks like it's not
finished. Who cares put the game out? Like that's what they think accountability
looks like. And you know, like if this game once, this game
eventually launches, and if it does poorly because it is performing poorly, who
are they going to blame. They're not going to blame the people at the
top. They're gonna going to blame these individual studio leaders exactly. They have
empowered with their creative ownership. You know, go faster to this. Because
Mike Gamble's in charge charge of a Mass Effect. He was i think one
of the leaders on Anthem and Mass Effect and Dromeda, and so people are
like, well, I'm not now, I'm not excited for Mass Effect.
It's like, I don't really think it was his fault. It was clearly
the leadership above him pushing those games out before they were ready. You just
want to shake people sometimes, you know, definitely, or just like jump
people. This is an instance of like I'm gonna jump someone after someone and
Alley just do something, just get just go wild vr VR Jeff is gonna
come for you. You watch out at that. No one wants that.
He wants that. I don't know. That is a terrifying entity. My
children are afraid of R Jeff. You guys got to watch at mass So
the Dragon Age dread Wolf maybe next year, Mass Effect after that. EA
has had some success with with its single player games recently, but which doesn't
make sense to me, Grub, It doesn't make sense. It's I mean,
they have they have, they've had success in the single player games market,
and suddenly they're like, nah, it's not working. It's not gonna
work. No. I mean we look at it like dead Space did pretty
well. Uh. I think both the Star Wars Jedi games did very well.
You know, they started working on Star Wars Jedi the third one immediately
after the second one because they're like, and that was that was the thing.
It's like, if Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order or Star Wars Jedi survivor
excuse me, if that does well, then we'll do a third one.
And they immediately started working on it because when internal it was like this did
well, but like, if you look at EA as a whole, like
their financials do look a little bit grim because and it all goes back to
Apex Legends, like overstating that and the fact that for years now Battlefield has
been lost in the woods, and so Apex Legends was was already covering it,
was already doing it, like it was like, Okay, we're gonna
make money for ourselves, and we're going to cover the missing money from Battlefield.
They had already done the creative accounting there. The creative accounting might sound
illegal, wasn't illegal. They were just like leaving out Battlefield when they were
talking to investors and be like, look how good Apex Legends is doing and
saying don't look at the man behind the curtain, which was Battlefield just floundering.
And so then that worked. That worked for a while, and now
it's now they have to play Apex Legends discovering for every fucking thing here,
and it's like it no longer is. It is on the decline, so
that live service games continue to be a meal ticket and it kind of continues
to be a little bit of an albatross, where as goes these one two
big games, these publishers have so goes everything and then the studios at the
bottom or you know, you know, you know Byware studio at the bottom
of ya. Now it feels like, you know, two hundred and fifty
employees, it's kind of relatively smaller. Yeah, it's it's gonna pay the
price and here we are. You know, just just thinking of Byware being
like a bottom tier studio at a publisher just seems insane. Yep. But
I mean it's like it's just grub. Like five six years ago, we
walking around downtown San Francisco, you would see so many nerds rocking that end
seven hood. Yeah. I believe one of those nerds being Lucy James.
Yeah, I uh, I'm ready for more mass effect. I hope drag.
I've never been a Dragon age guy. I would like to get into
it. I have nothing against it. But I know from covering this stuff,
how many people are so so passionate about everything by Aware, and it
feels like, you know, that's why the studio continues to be around.
It seems like. But yeah, and I'm coming out of this, I
can only imagine this Dean Saisant story morale gonna take a big hit and what
does that give to the future of those games. Like I'm I'm looking at
EA's website right now under their latest releases, and in my head, there's
only really three single player games proper four proper single player games compared to everything
else, which is either games, live service games, or some type of
multiplayer game. Uh. The new swe being Immortals of Avium. Would you
know what, It's not that bad? No, Yeah, it's fine.
I think everyone agrees. It's kind of it's it's fine, like it's uh,
I think it's it's tone rubs people a lot of people the wrong ways,
especially rubed Dan the wrong way. And it's like, I'm glad glad
to know that, Like someone goes like Dan going in there and probly out
of the game's fine, but it's really not for me for these reasons.
Uh, And so yeah, I mean that, and that even that though
that's an EA partner game, an externally developed thing that they are publishing an
e A partner program. Games have done very well in the past, obviously,
the biggest one being It Takes Two, which was a massive success for
EA and for the studio that makes it. Mortals of a Bum doesn't seem
like it's gonna be able to replicate that. But you could also see,
like, man, maybe they do I Mortals of Abium two and it does
work and they iron out these kinks. But I don't know. It looks
pretty, you know, yeah, it looks pretty. It looks like a
big, expensive video game, and a lot of people want that, so
you know what, I think that they need to market it like that.
Yes, that's what I need to do. Yes, exactly like these people.
We've talked about this multiple times. People that bought a PS five for
Harry Potter don't have anything to play with it, or they're waiting for Spider
Man. Immortals of Avium. Is that type of flashy shit the populace wants.
That's why EEDM hits because of the flashy shit. Yes, yes it
does. All right, you know what, We're gonna take a quick break
when we get back. We're gonna talk about all of the stuff Phil Spencer
said over at games Com A fan favorite, one of my favorites is getting
remade by a Nightdive Studios. We're getting all of that after this. All
right, we're back, and Phil Spencer did a big interview over at IGN
where he had a lot to say. Let's start here and quick shout out
to Tom the Machine Ivan who's just gonna basically do every single one of these
stories. He must have been stuck at home while everyone else from VGC went
to games Com, So shout out to the machine. Xbox exec says Starfield
kicks off a multi year relay race of first party titles. An Xbox ex
executive has set Starfield's release is like a starting gun for a steady stream of
first party titles with the likes of Redfield and Starfield delayed to twenty twenty three,
last year was quite a slow year for Xbox releases, and the launch
of Arcane's Vampire Shooter and Made was ultimately very disappointing, and that's according to
Microsoft's head of Gaming Phil Spencer. Meanwhile, at Xbox, chief Marketing Officer
Officer Jared West told Games Industry Dot Biz that he's super excited about the regulars
the company has planned following Starfield's arrival on September six. This is, in
my mind, the doorway almost like a starting gun to what I think is
going to be a multi year relay race of first party titles. He said,
I was sitting there watching the same Starfield presentation you were this morning,
and I was like, this is really the start of something that's going to
lead to Fortza. Then in twenty four, as we go to hell Blade
and we think about Tower Born, which is on the show floor, we
think about a Vowed and we've got stories we haven't told yet that are going
to be unfold in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. And then if
you layer in also game Pass and third and third party relationships that we have,
I think we are entering a period that is the beginning of something that
is going to be really special over the course of the next several years.
Jan This is something that I think we've been hearing and hoping for from Xbox
for five years or something like that. Are we there? It feels like
we're finally approaching it. It doesn't feel like a complete baton pass. It
feels like we're still warming up and they're setting out the course. Yes type
of deal like they will. The puzzle pieces have been lined up and let's
see if we could stick the landing. It's exciting to think about, you
know. I'm I'm excited and I'm happy for the folks that have chosen Xbox
as their console of choice and only you ever want to get that or and
don't want to branch out to anything else because hey, those those people have
been starving. Yeah, and it's this this Jared West here is doing very
much like that meme of the masculine urge to say we're back five minutes after
saying it's over. And it's like five years of saying it's over for Xbox.
But if Starfield comes out and is a hit, I'm not gonna blame
them for being like, we're back, but it's not out. It's not
a hit yet. You kind of need to prove that that can happen.
And then and then begin that conversation I think a little bit more in earnest
because you know, I think if you take Red Fall out, or if
Red Fall was a hit, they could have been saying, look, we
were slowly building up for a while now with Pentiment and Hi Fi Rush and
then Red Fall or no Red Fall, and then Starfield and Forts a Motorsport,
and it's like, but now we got to be like, well,
we put out a couple of smaller good games and then Red Fall was a
disaster and so we had to reboot everything, and now the whole conversation went
back to zero, and now we're waiting for Starfield again. So it's like,
well, yeah, so Starfield could come out, and then any guarantees
like I don't even remember what Tower Born is, that Belfry game. Okay,
that's right, So yeah, any of those games though, Yeah,
we can get excited about them and you can have hopes for them, but
there's just no guarantees that they're going to hit the way that they want them
to at this point. So I don't believe blame people for getting excited.
I know that this has been the plan from my Xbox to have four big
first party games per year. They've said that repeatedly. They said that to
us on the couch a giant Bamba at a summer game fest. Uh.
I hope they get to that point because I think that's what people expect from
a big first party publisher like Xbox. Oh. I want everyone to succeed
grub yep uh yeah, gosh, I just I keep thinking for getting a
Redfall came out this year. Yeah, it's it's I mean, there were
some January games that came out that or January February March people were staying stuff.
Someone said Dying Light two and I got worried that that came out this
year, and like that, I was truly like falling off the face of
the earth. But it's like, no, that was last year, thank
god. But Dead Island two did come out this year. That's that.
That was fun. Yeah, and that's a good one. That's a that's
a fun one. Hi Fi rush of course. Yes. Oh Wild Hearts
God, yeah, are you for remakeer? No one knows what that is.
Real, glad to see two did go one point? Oh this year,
didn't it? Oh? Jeez, it did? Yeah, I listen,
we were playing Starfield. We can't talk about Starfield be able to do
that August thirty first look out for that at that point. Until then,
though, I think Xbox that kind of needs to be playing the Humble game
still. They need to just be like, hey, we are doing the
work. We're given the studios, all of the effort or all the sport
they need, which is a change from what we did with Red Fall,
and we can't wait for you to see what that looks like. At the
same time, this is the chief marketing officer of Xbox talking about this,
so of course not of course yeah, oh grub Trade Primary Master came out
in February. Wasn't that one? Yeah? That one? Man, that's
a good game. Though, I should just replay that again. I think
I played it twice. No, you don't need to play that again.
Other stuff damn hat all right? Next story, Phil Spencer doesn't see a
world where Xbox SERIESES has to men miss out on some games. Once again
from the machine over at VGC, Xbox Boss Phil Spencer has said the company
doesn't have any plans to allow the release of Xbox Series X exclusive games.
It's currently a mandatory requirement for developers to ensure that their games are compatible with
both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in order to release them for Microsoft's
consoles. Some developers have argued that having to cater to Microsoft's entry level console
is limiting the potential of current gen games and the Xbox release. Release of
one of this year's most high profile titles, Balder's Gate three, is currently
being held up by technical issues encountered by developer Larian Studios, which has so
far been unable to get its split screen co op mode to run to an
accept acceptable level on series S. On S specifically, we designed the box
with similarities to X and clear places where we're targeting a different performance, Spencer
told Eurogamer on Wednesday. And we're taking feedback from debs, including Larian.
I met with them today to talk about it, and I'm confident we're going
to find a good solution and we're going to learn. I don't see a
world where we drop S in terms of parody. I don't think you've heard
from us or Larian that this was about parody. I think that's more that
the community. What the community is talking about. There are features that ship
on X today that do not ship on S. Even from our own games,
like tracing that works on X, it's not on S in certain games.
So for an S customer, they've spent roughly half what the X customer
bought, they understand it's not going to run the same way. I think,
I mean, I get what he's saying, but the issue does seem
to be here that that that split screen co op is a feature that they
would that Larian would not be allowed to drop from the S version. They
would have if they're going to put that on the X version. It has
to also be on the S because that's a feature within the game, not
a graphical feature, which or thinks that Xbox is okay with not including on
the S. He goes on to say, I want to make sure games
are available on both that's our job as a platform holder, and we're committed
to that with our partners, and I think we're gonna get there with Larry
in So I'm not overly worried about that, but we've learned some stuff through
it. This is where he should be. This is where he should be,
right Jane. Where there's an issue with one specific games, one specific
mode on Xbox series suh That Yeah, okay, that's annoying that that it
takes some resources, but you need to send people over there. You can
need to go over there yourself, like you said, you've had you have
and figure this out, get it solved. If this isn't going to be
a thing that you're going to have with Xbox where you say this feature needs
to be on both consoles and if that's what they're doing, then great,
get it solved, and then Balter Skate three will probably be on Xbox,
you know, sometime next year. Yeah, i'd phil get in there like
roll up your sleeves. Yeah, And it sounds like that's what he's doing.
I think that's fine. You are. Are you ever worried about like
the Xbox Series S pulling down the scope of what games can be, because
I'm for me, I continues to be that doesn't seem like what's happening in
most cases. In most cases, it seems to be time and money are
the big limiting factors, and Xbox Series S doesn't even become a factor in
a lot of those cases. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's going to
be a factor. And I feel like if they had to make the hard
decision to say, like, sorry, all the S isn't gonna work for
these games, I feel like some of those some of that audience would be
like, all right, I'll go get the other one. I do.
I do agree with that. I think that I think you're right. Like
it's weird that I feel like the Microsoft audience or the Xbox audience would be
okay with that. Yeah, I think that they. I think you're right
though, though that if they in certain cases By Baalter's Gate three is going
to miss one mode on Xbox Series S and the rest of the game is
available on Xbox Series X. Of course, that's a slippery slope, right
if you start saying, oh, you don't have to put this one mode,
you're going to get exceptions from all these studios in cases where they almost
certainly could get it working on the S and they're like, it's just less
work, we could save money. We're worried about the X customers. They're
more likely to buy our game anyhow, And I think that's what Phil Spencer's
trying to avoid. And yet I think if they made that change, they
change that policy and let that happen, I think a lot of S owners
would be like, I'll either stream it, which would be an option here
pretty soon, I think for in almost every case, or they would just
get an Xbox Series X. As you were saying, all right, Xbox
Boss says current current gen console prices won't come down like they used to.
That's how they're gonna get up. This is from Tom Ivan at VGC Shout
Outs to the Machine. Microsoft's head of gaming has said the price of current
gen consoles won't come down over time in the same way as other systems have
in the past. Generations and just the real quick We've been saying this on
this show for years now. While previously it could be relatively cheap to buy
console hardware at later stages of its lifespan because reduced manufacturing costs might be passed
on to consumers, Xbox boss Phil Spencer told Eurogamer that's no longer the case.
The prices aren't coming down. He said, we see it now,
and that's why we did the Xbox series s. I know there's a bunch
of questions like what is it doing. We wanted to We wanted to make
sure we had a sub three hundred dollar console because we want to grow and
we think an entry level price point for many new families or players coming into
the market is going to be important. Spencer added, for us thinking about
where our hardware is going and reaching more customer customers, price point is in
important. But you're not going to be able to start with a console that's
five hundred dollars thinking it's going to get to two hundred bucks. That won't
happen because the core components that you use, you're used to Moore's Law shooting
up into the right, but your components, you can't buy them anymore as
a hardware maker, because nobody's making the kind that kind of RAM or other
components. It's not the way it used to be where you could take a
spec and then ride it out over ten years and ride that price point down.
It's why you see console prices, console pricing relatively flat, and that
I mean, that's definitely part of it. Also, the part of it
is I think they noticed that they can just keep selling consoles to the same
audience over and over and just by increasing the storage side size or making a
few other changes, and that's what they're going to do going forward. I
mean, that's what Nintendo has been doing for from the beginning, and that's
what I think they're like, there's not a lot of reason to lower the
price. The audience, the most price sensitive audience left console gaming a long
time ago from mobile gaming, and they're not going to show up even if
you were to sell an Xbox Series X for for one hundred dollars. So
the idea that you're gonna like work toward that point is not going to happen
anymore. It's much it makes a lot more sense to make premium feeling hardware
that appeals to the people who are most likely to spend money on your hardware,
and that is the same people over and over again, like me,
the suckers like me. So it's like the both sides of that coin there
are are true and I'm not too surprised to hear him saying this. But
at the same time, Jan, we have Sony working toward a potential slim
console. It's coming out who knows when, it seems like still maybe later
this year. I guess we'll find out, and then rumors of a pro
next year. And in that case, what is the pricing going to do
over there? Do you expect it with Sony to like slide the price down
or will they continue slotting things in it like four hundred and five hundred dollars?
Well, I mean we saw yesterday the little handheld thing he coming in
at like one ninety nine. I feel like Sony's going to be comfortable slotting
stuff in a slightly uh increasing prices of certain certain skews, but also just
flying underneath the radar. We need to just blame Nintendo for this grub.
Oh, this is Nintendo's foot a day because Mario Kart eight Deluxe It's never
gonna go on sale. You're never gonna get that for such sixteen were you
watching yesterday when I like, when I was wrapping up the show the UK
Mario Kart eight Deluxe was number one again in the UK last week. What
are they doing over there? It's the best selling game in twenty twenty three.
But grab, I think you nailed it on the head though about mobile
games being such a growing market and folks that previously we're all about console games
or whatever bouncing off of that and finding a different home on mobile because you
know, there are a million and knockoff games of Triple A titles. I
mean, like, like the people that would have bought PlayStation two and ninety
nine dollars to continue playing the FIFA games that we're coming out for years and
years on there, they are not buying those consoles late in the cycle anymore.
They are just playing on FIFA Mobile on their iPads. And it's of
course they are like that, that's that's it's equivalent. It gets what they
want and they don't even care about the differences. So yeah, and like
there's all the gotcha stuff and there's all like the micro transactions, but no
one thinks, like in most of these cases, no one's really thinking about
that. They are thinking about the upfront cost. That's the big barrier to
entry, and if that is zero, that's the path of least resistance,
and that's where they're gonna go, Wow, we should make a gotcha or
something. And that's hospitalism at work. You see. Jan's just head quick
cover. It's like, we can get them, we can get did you
see like I'm looking thinking about it grub right. These people they don't want
to pay the three hundred, five hundred dollars and then the sixties seventy dollars
to get in the door play the game, but over time they will spend
so much money. I'm thinking about these hooligans who've played Pokemon Go since the
very start. I'm thinking of my poor partner and how much Monday night,
how money Niantics swindled out of, not just her, but this whole household.
Catapustic chances. Jan has gone agile, watch out. It's just wait,
wait, folks, the fire up Unity or Unreal Engine, whichever one
we're on. Why not? But well, let's do both. Let's pick
a game with both. I don't care anymore. I go yeah, So
this sounds right. We saw clearly the evidence is there before our eyes,
like the switch has never gone down in price. In fact, they find
a way to increase the price with the old the PlayStation five and the PlayStation
four. Really even like, yeah, they they lowered the price of like
the Slim model a little bit, but they replaced it with the PS four
pro to keep that at four hundred dollars. The entire generation, I don't
PlayStation that has in the past been very sort of that. This has been
one of their weapons, one of their cudgels, and it does feel like
they are wielding that right now because there's been price cuts consistently over the last
couple of weeks in Europe for the PlayStation five, And part of that is
it definitely feels like them trying to clear stock in preparation for a Slim But
also it's hard not to read it as PlayStation being like we lost the activision
thing. Let's just fucking hurt Microsoft as hard as we can while we can
right now and just and build such a lead up that there's nothing Microsoft can
do about it. And that's that goes back to the beginning of Sony's PlayStation
where they came in to ninety nine announced the price one hundred dollars less than
the Ciga Saturn, and then every time Saturn tried to every time Saga try
to cut the Saturn price, Sony's like, nope, we'll make it cheaper
because ours is way less. It costs a lot less money to make up
PlayStation that doesn't make a Saturn, So we have all of this head room
that we could just keep under cutting Sega, and now we're costing Saga to
lose money on their hardware. And it was like Sony just using this really
great scheme of putting Saga in this really tough position, and then next next
thing, we know, goodbye Sega, no more Sega hardware. I think
Sony knows that that is always a weapon that could wield, and it feels
like it's doing it right now. But at the same time, Sony PlayStation
needs to be making money for Sony and that it is their their breadwinner right
now, and so I don't think that they're going to give up a lot
of ground on the pricing when they already got away with a price increase on
the PlayStation five. It's like they can get away with that they're gonna keep
getting away with it, you know. I think just seeing this constant jabbing
just reminds me of WWE versus a W. It's constantly making moves and saying
like no, no, we don't care about them, like yeah, they're
not in our view, we don't think about them in our scope. Meanwhile,
year's like three very specific moves to try and f over the other team.
Yep, it's it's pretty transparent, I think, all right. Sticking
with Phil Spence or Phil Spencer in Xbox Xbox Boss would love to find solutions
so games aren't lost when the three sixty store closes. This comes from Tom
the Machine Ivan at VGC. Once again, Microsoft's head of gaming has said
he'd like to find ways to ensure that hundreds of Xbox three sixty titles aren't
lost when the console's digital store closes next year. Although users will still be
able to redownload their previous purchases for the foreseeable future, Microsoft recently announced that
after the July twenty nine, twenty two before a closure date, it will
no longer be possible to buy any more games or DLC from the Xbox three
sixty marketplace. While many of these games will still be playable via other means,
around two hundred and twenty of them will essentially disappear forever. Recent VGC
analysis showed Xbox Boss Phil Spencer has since addressed this in an interview with Eurogamer,
in which he said he'd love to find solutions allowing those games to remain
playable. There's a list of what two hundred and twenty games that are not
back compat and I have that list and I've got it stapled on my forehead,
and like, how can we make sure you could still play them?
He said? How many of those are on PC? That's one thing,
because it doesn't necessarily mean you need to be able to play it on the
existing hardware that you bought fifteen years ago. But preservation is front and center
when all of these decisions are made. I will say that for us,
that preservation, preservation that's linked to only one piece of hardware is a challenge
because there can be a hardware love as well, people who love and want
this device to go on forever. But mechanical things will break over time.
But that's why we gave people this decision. But that's why we gave people
with this decision a year. I don't know this is a typo or something.
Let's say, hey, if you want to go buy things in the
three sixty store, we're going to give you a year head start. That's
what he's getting at, and you can go get those things and just know
that the list of two hundred twenty games is something that we see and we
would love to find solutions for those games to continue to play. I think
I believe him. I also think that the unseid thing there is we would
love to find solutions, and those solutions are not obvious, and a lot
of things stand in the way, including lawyers for a lot, probably a
lot of them, because it's like who owns the rights? Who do we
contrattack to get permission to do backward compatibility with them? If that was easy,
they would have already done it in most of those cases. I think.
So it's like, Okay, well it's hard, some things are hard.
You should still you should still find a way. I think that's he's
trying to say that they will look it away. I just don't know how
much does this get prioritized jan Probably not very highly, right, I Yeah,
unfortunately, I know that we were pretty light When we initially talked about
this story of like, oh, it's not a big deal, but then
thinking about how many Xbox Live Arcade games are probably going to get lost or
tossed to the wayside is a big bummer, And you know, it just
speaks to the continued talks of game preservation. I also feel terrible for someone
like Gerard the completionist. This is gonna kill him, This is gonna kill
We have to stop him. Yeah, someone please unplug all of his cables.
Yeah, put because just lock him up for his own safety until we
just have a talk with him and make sure he doesn't do this. Yeah,
for folks that don't know when they were closing the e shop, how
many games did he download and then try and finish or him around the games?
But I think it was something like sixteen thousand dollars or twenty six thousand
dollars worth of games. And the way the way the Nintendo Store the shop
worked was you couldn't do it in batches and you can only add so much
money per day, So they were just constantly for days and weeks at a
time, buying games on the e Shop one at a time and then waiting
that slow ass shit network to download those games. That it was excruciating,
and they made their video like snappy and entertaining, and it was excruciating.
Imagine living through it in real time. Oh boy? Oh no, yea.
It was basically a full time job. Yes, that's what that's that's
what they said. He like dedicated several of his staff the full time downloading
those games. And yeah, this seems like this could be pretty similar.
All right, let's keep going here. Call of Duty won't appear on game
Pass immediately if Activision Blizzard deal closes. This comes from Haley Williams at game
Spot. With Microsoft's massive deal to acquire Activision Blizzard looking more and more likely
to come, it's time to start looking at what it will actually mean for
the industry, and a new interview with IGN, Phil Spencer has tempered expectations
around Activision Blizzard games on game Pass, warning that there is work to actually
move games to game Pass. People think that the deal is going to close
and everything's available on game Pass. That's not true, Spencer said, when
answering a question about Call of Duty coming to Microsoft's subscription gaming service. There's
more, there's work for us to go through just mechanical work, it will
take us time to get the games up. He adds that the delay isn't
specific to Activision Blizzard acquisition nothing or noting that Microsoft's previous acquisitions have always required
time to get native games up on game Pass. Looking back to Microsoft's acquisition
of but THEESDA in twenty twenty one, it definitely didn't take long before as
the game started appearing on game Pass with twenty titles from the studio's back catalog
added just three days after the deal was finished. During the interview, Spencer
was grateful it was careful to avoid going into specifics about Call of Duty on
Game Pass, bringing a topic back to discussing Microsoft's proposed deal with Ubisoft and
how it relates to ongoing negotiations with the UK CMA. I think that this
will probably still happen pretty quickly after the deal closes. Day one, no,
I was. I don't think I was ever expecting that. But day
three still feels like day one and like the grand scheme of things, right,
So if if it happens a week or two later, that's still gonna
be like the deal just closed, and when we look back in time,
and I remember when the deal closed, then we got those games on game
Pass right away. There could be other factors here, I mean, he
says mechanical things, but some of these games might have lingering contractual obligations.
You never know, but I expect the older games will show up on game
Pass pretty quickly, and that's something they would want to make happen, so
I think they would prioritize that jan right, Yeah, because this is they're
gonna do like a multi prong triple prong approach to this, where they will
sell you the Collector's Edition, special edition for early access, and then that'll
be like what a week earlier, and then they'll sell it to you on
launch day and then if you have game Pass, you will have to wait
like a week. So they're going to get like three separate launches out of
this. So many prongs. I tried it. I guess that's only three
prongs. That's not as weird. Seth feels like if I had three three
prongs coming out of me, I'd be like, that's too many prongs.
So I suppose I do never mind, never mine, okay. Cosbat says
that chances that they'll do what they did with Halo and make Call of Duty
multiplayer free to play. I think, in the view of Activision, in
the view of Microsoft going forward, they have that already, it's called war
Zone. I think that they will continue to be like that is, the
free to play Call of Duty or Call of Duty Mobile and the traditionally premium
priced Call of Duty Multiplayer will continue to be that. That's that's I expect
that how it work? All right? When will Final Fantasy seven remake and
Final Fantasy sixteen come to Xbox? Well, Phil Spencer can't say that yet.
Fine fail. This is from Ethan gotchat Kataku. Years after its PlayStation
release and its e ventral PC port, Final Fantasy seven remake still isn't on
Xbox. Final Fantasy sixteen ended up being a PlayStation five console exclusive as well.
When will Xbox fans finally get get to play these hit RPGs on their
game system of choice. That's what I g and asked Microsoft Gamings CEO Phil
Spencer at games Com twenty twenty three. I'm not going to push them,
he replied, Square and Nix is going to have to find their own rhythm.
A PC version of Final Fantasy sixteen has already been confirmed, and an
Xbox version has been rumored to be a likely possibility at some point following the
end of a console exclusivity agreement with Sony. Will that be six months from
now or years? Final Fantasy seven remakes still hasn't come to Microsoft's platform,
even with its sequel rebirth right around the corner. Spencer spoke about the nuances
and slow burn nature of trying to trying to build up xboxes relationship with Square
Nix in a recent interview with IGN. I recognize that when people buy in
Xbox, they want to make sure that great games that they want to play
are coming. Uh, That's he said. The veteran executive added that he
in corporate VP Sara Bond have flown out to Tokyo, Japan to have conversations
with the RPG publisher, and that it was a big deal for the company's
new CEO, Takahashi Kiyu and Final Fantasy director Nyoka Yoshida to commit to that
platform. On stage at the recent Final Fantasy fourteen FanFest, something we talked
about on this show where fo Spencer has tried to you know, Tha thall,
the relations the icy relationship there a little bit and it seems like they're
making progress. Breaking news, everybody, preaky news. We are coming in
from our reporter in the field. Uh Mike Bananny, go ahead. What's
the weather like over there? The weather is Ohio. But in the news,
Larran has said that it no longer will bring split screen to series S
after meeting with uh mister Phil Spencer today. So that's what that's That's what
they came to actually is they're just not going to do that anymore. So
there you go. Yeah, so reading from the tweet here, super Heavy
confirmed that after meeting with Xbox spills Xbox fan Spencer, thank you so much.
I appreciated that yesterday we found a solution that allows us to bring Balder
Skate three to Xbox players this year. Still something we've been working toward for
quite some time. All improvements will be there with split screen co op on
Xbox Series X serieses will not feature feature split screen co op, but will
also include cross safe progression between Steam and Xbox series. This feels like the
right solution, right because I do think that series S, like you said
it, series S fans will miss out on some things and they'll go like,
Okay, I guess I did pay less money for this thing. I
think this is right, and I mean Xbox Series S, if you're you're
getting like you could feel split screen call up still feels like a graphical option,
right, because it's like you're now you have two games running at the
same time on one screen, like it's got to render everything twice or render
different parts of the world. That feels like it's in that purview. So
this coming coming to this agreement, I mean it's not ideal. Of course,
the ideal world is they get everything running on both systems perfectly, but
that doesn't seem like would have been an option here. And so hey,
this is exciting and this game's coming out this year now, Texbox. I
want to see the people that will complain about this. I want to see
them, Yeah, I want to. I want to meet them, right,
and it's I can't. I'm trying trying to think, like I think
Xbox Series S fans won't be like I think they'll just be like, oh
I get to play that game. Sweet. I wasn't gonna play at Swiss
screen. That's like a small number of people anyhow that would have been taken
advantage of that. And if you really want to take advantage of that.
There's a system for you. It's the Xbox Series. X uh. I
think there will be people that complain and be like I thought the Xbox Series
was supposed to be an x Gen system, and those will be called fanboys
and weirdos, and we don't actually have to listen to any of them.
It's I think of the Xbox Series as as a Toyota camera. Right,
Yes, you're gonna it's gonna get you to work. It's gonna get you
to work. It's not gonna get you through the mud or through like you
know, two feet of water if there's flooding on a highway. But there's
gonna be people of set that it won't. Still, despite knowing the limitations
of a Toyota camera, you know, it's like Jesus Christ, like,
I can't I can't suddenly go up this steep ass hill anymore? What the
fuck Toyota camera? Okay? Well I meanwhile, people other people be like,
I've had this Toyota camera for yous hasn't failed me? Since this is
this Brady just said this. This was I was gonna ask you, Jan,
you don't have an xt gen Xbox yet, does hearing this make it
less likely that you would consider a NEST. I don't know how likely you
would have considered nest before this, but does this make it less likely?
Uh? Less likely? Also, the stupidest thing to make it less likely
for me to get an S is I don't believe the Xbox Series S has
the fun wraps available for the Hell yeah, let's go, jan that rules.
I'm so glad you just said that. That's incredible. I'm gonna be
honest. I'm gonna be honest, scrub, I want to so good,
it's so good. As soon as Bailey on the Bobcast mentioned she was mesmerized
by that gift, I too was mesmerized by that gift. Care by that
gift non stop. Oh that's good stuff. All right, let's keep rolling
along here a couple more stories. Star Wars Dark Forces is getting a new
remaster. I've missed this yesterday. I was so wrapped up in rock three.
This from Joran Jang at GameSpot Nightdid Studios has announced that it's developing a
remaster of Star Wars Dark Forces for PCPs four, PS five, Nintendo Switch,
Xbox one, and Xbox Series X and S. While NIGHTDIF Studios didn't
reveal a release date Jesse yet. The studio will announce it later this year.
The port, officially and fitly titled Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster, will
include many new modern features such as four K resolution and one hundred and twenty
frame rate support depending on the platform. There will also be advanced three D
rendering modern games, game pad support, as well as achievements. The game
looks great. I might actually have it here, but Dark Forces is one
that I was already replaying with a fan update, a fan remaster, and
that was that's fantastic. I know Mike replayed it this year doing that same
thing, and so this game already holds up. It's one of the better
tune clones of that time. I am very excited about this. Jen.
Oh cool, it's a Star Wars boomer shooter. It's a Star Wars boomer
shooter. That's right. We're finally finally getting our representation Star Wars, finally
getting a video game. Kyle Karn in this one. This is the Kyle
Katarn series. Yeah, so you play as Kyle Katarn before he knows he's
a Jedi. Yeah, yo, okay. Cool. On the end,
of this game, I can't remember, but let's see him gonna show it
off a little bit, because it does look pretty good what they've done here.
Don't laugh at me. I was about to start preschool when this game
came out. You can see like some of the like updates they even made
to the cut scenes, which are they don't look like old cut scenes,
which is like, not, you're not always going to get that from a
remaster, where it's they're like, no, we'll just use the old video
files. It looks like they did some work there as well, and I
don't know, I don't know what like go went into making those cut scenes,
so maybe that was relatively easy for them to pull off. Either way,
though, this is Nightdive at their best, just taking those old boomer
shooters and make it sure that we get a chance to play them in a
new and great way. And they just haven't really missed on the shooter side
of things. They did that one kind of bum port of Blade Runner,
the point and click adventure game, and that, you know, I think
they've made some fixes to that. It's fine, But when any of these
boomer shooters, they've just nailed them, like Power Slave and Doom and all
that Doom sixty four I think they did. Yeah, so very excited about
this. All right, let's see here, Dunuva is coming to Switch.
This is from Nintendo Everything. Dunuva, which is associated with security for video
games, is now offering its protection technologies through the Nintendo Developer Portal as authorized
Switch middleware. This is apparently the first security partner on the portal, and
developers can access the official Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection now. Danuvo says it's a
revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy. The company points
out that in the past, it's been a possible a Switch title to be
emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore by passing bypassing the strong
protections offered on the PC version. Further stated, the Nintendo Switch Emulator protection
will ensure that anyone wishing to play the game has to buy a legitimate copy.
This is Danuvo for Switch, so it's like, we don't know for
sure what this will look like. Dunovo is always said in the past that
we don't affect performance. It seems multiple times that's been proven to probably not
be true. If you're putting danuv on switching an effects performance, a system
that can spare no performance, that's going to be frustrating. At the same
time, I'm not surprised that something like this is happening on the Switch,
a system that has now been cracked wide open, and especially for PC emulation,
having a solution for that. I bet a lot of developers are going
to take advantage of this. Jan You're right, And I just think we're
so late into the switches life cycle that it's like, why care, What
does it matter at this point, You're already working on whatever you're working on.
But I understand why this would be put in place. Doesn't mean I
like it. Sorry, kiddo, just told me that there's a spider over
there I gotta get for and Okay, I'll handle that very soon, kiddo.
Yeah, I know a lot of people who who emulate Switch games on
PC. So yeah, what we're gonna say, Well, Doug Foot points
this out in chat here is this maybe not really for the switch but more
of a test run of DANUVO on the switch two. I expect a Nubo
to be there on day one for Switch too. Yes, I think this
is part of that but Nintendo is also going to have its own suite of
anti piracy stuff ready to go for the Switch to uh like like it always
has for its new systems, So that'll only be one small part of it
for sure. But this is definitely about the Switch right now. The Switch
is not done. It is a it's a big, huge selling system that
sells a lot of software. Developers are going to be interested in this.
Nintendo is going to be interested in this. So yeah, it's it's about
selling games right now. Uh. Finally, aw Fight Forever's thirty player mode
is out, and it's kind of coming into the time where in the aw
Fight Forever needed something new to get people in because it's a thirty player mode,
and for example, VGC points out that the concurrent players on Steam was
below thirty players, and so there's not even enough people at sometimes to fill
out one of these matches on Steam. Now, of course that we look
today, maybe it's uh maybe there, maybe they has more than thirty players
now that this new mode is out. I don't know. Well, we'll
see. I don't expect this to change this game's fate in any real way.
At the same time, I would love to try this I would love
to have this mode work out. I too would like to try it.
It just seems like a bummer. I feel like there was just a lot
of stuff going. Uh. I don't always say wrong, but hampered the
release of aw Fight forever, and I don't I don't know if it has
cross play. Ideally it would, but I don't know if it does because
it's like a man, I would love to do a game night of this
where we get everyone on there and play this game. But if we if
we do that and we can't even get into like one thing loading because oh,
we're gonna play on Steam and people are like, well, I have
it on PS five, so we can't even play together. So say,
okay, I guess we'll just play with the people have it on Steam and
say not many people do, so we have seven of us playing and then
that's it, and it's like, yeah, that's not ideal. So I
don't know. We'll see, we'll see how this goes. I hope that's
that they are able to stick with this game and be like, no,
we recognize that it's not this massive hit out of the gate, but maybe
we can keep supporting it and show people that we will support it for for
years, so that when we put out an aw Fight Forever two Oh,
I know this is a game. Hey, look all the features that are
here at this time, and we know that the support's going to be there
for two three years, and they're gonna keep adding wrestlers, so I don't
have to buy a new game every year. That would be cool. Also,
you know they have their biggest what's what's what feels like one of their
biggest pay per views ever this weekend? Oh yeah, so hopefully they could
carry some of the moment into the game after that, we'll see I bet
we hear about aw Fight Forever during that pay per view. So yes,
it is going to be said at least once or twice. But they need
to put our guy Evil UO in this god damn video game, right,
That's why. That's what the people want. It's what the people need.
That's been the big issue so far. I think that's I truly deeply believe
that. All Right, I got a pull from yesterday somewhere over here.
I'm gonna get it going right there, Fade it up and scroll on down.
Are you getting the PlayStation portal for two hundred dollars? I'm gonna vote
yes right now in front of your very eyes. The results are six percent
said yes, twelve percent said I'll wait for a sale, and eighty three
percent said no. U Jan I'm I'm I'm definitely a guess, but I've
always said that's because I'm a freak for these things. Any chance you get
one, I too, am a freak for these things, and I love
a good I'm let me lay in bed type of solution. Yes, but
several of the stuff you were listing off yesterday on Game Mess with with Mike,
it's just like, well, why why isn't it going to do that?
Why won't it do that? So it makes sense you can streaming outside
the house. It does work exactly like any other PlayStation remote play situation,
but Sony isn't marketing that because they don't want that to be a selling point
because I bet they expect people will try that and won't work very well because
you're still streaming from your own PS five in your home, and then it's
like Sony can't control that environment in any way, so something goes wrong and
they're like, you said that I could play this outside the house, Now
you need to do provide customer support for me to get that working, and
the customer sport's gonna be like buy a better router, dipshit, And it's
like that, what can they do about that? So they're not even going
to make that a thing. So if someone calls says, hey, it's
not working outside the house, they could say, well, it's not designed
to do that. We're sorry, goodbye. Do you have any other questions?
So I don't blame them for presenting things that way. That said streaming
from the cloud, like that's I don't get that one at all. That's
the big thing where like this feels like that that's what this thing was was
built in mind with. But I guess not. I don't know, grub.
I need I need to bring everyone's attention to something that was brought to
my attention earlier in this episode. Apparently there's like an anime looking game with
anime uh men and ladies. That doesn't sound likely. Uh that is just
Spider Man? What really with anime ladies? Wait? Is it like officially
licensed? Well it's not. I'm when I say like Spider Man, I'm
like, because there are people swinging around like but it doesn't look like the
Spider the New Spider Man video game. The swinging definitely looks like he's pulled
out of a Spider Man game project for folks. Uh hello, project mugan.
Yes, I will drop the trailer in the check I got, I
got a trailer right here. I mean, I love for people. Oh
and there's guns. Okay, cool. Oh she's spray painting. It's from
a studio called Naked Rain. That's fun. Okay, yeah, I'm already
kind of seen it like they've got the Oh there may be psy ops in
a too. Oh okay, look at that swinging. Look at that?
Tell me that flip flipping dingein Spider Man. This is man, I this
is you know what. I love that we live in this world where we
get big, expensive video games and then a couple of years later we get
the anime rip off of it, and I use rip off of lovingly.
I think. I think video game clones are mostly a good thing. There's
obviously situations where they're not, like threes versus twenty forty eight, and that
was very frustrating work, Like you know, three just got completely squashed by
all those other ones, and threest did find I'm sure but it's like that
felt unfair. But in most cases it's like, no, this is how
gaming has always worked. I always say, like the second video game,
like it was video game, and then the second video game was a clone
of the first one, Like that's what turned it into video games. So
it's kind of hard to avoid this. That's a big lady the yo that
Hey, you know Project Naked whatever, Naked Rain whatever they got. Yes,
absolutely, leaning away from the bike to breathe org for Naked Rain.
All right, we got a new poll going up on a Giant Bombs YouTube
channel. Go to YouTube dot com slash Giant Bomb, and there on the
community tab you can find this poll. Are you excited for Xbox's release schedule
after Starfield? Yes, there's a lot, yes, one or two things.
No, there's nothing. No, I'm completely focused on Starfield. Go
ahead and vote on that and we'll discuss it Giant Bombs Game mess Mornings tomorrow.
Speaking to Giant Bomb, what do we have going on this week?
Jan Not immediately or maybe immediately after this, we will have a trailer park
roundup of everything that we were at least mildly interested in from Opening Night Live
voicemail dump truck later today, another episode of Game Mess Mornings tomorrow and upf
I believe we're doing it earlier again. Yes, right, that's the plan,
Yes, I think so. And real quick. If anyone's got a
playlist that has all of the trailers from Opening Night Live in order, you
can send that to me. Otherwise I'll get that put together real quick.
All right, yeah, what's up? Also, later today we'll be dropping
a quick look for one of the big games. Yes, yes, that's
right, that'll be happening. I'm gonna try to record a couple more quick
looks. We've got stuff happened earlier next year. All right, we're gonna
wrap this up. Thanks for JN. Thanks ranging up with me, Jenn.
I really appreciate it. My favorite type of Thursday. Thanks everybody for
watching. You the best audience in gaming. Until next time, I have
a good one. Take care of yourself. And naked rain, Naked rain
to stay dry? Why are those few? The pain? Naked rain?
All right,