Mario & Luigi Brothership Developer Wanted an "Edgier" Mario Design

<v Speaker 1>Don't be bait. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
<v Speaker 1>this for December fourth, twenty twenty four. For the next
<v Speaker 1>hour or so, let me help you sort through the
<v Speaker 1>world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with me
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Grubb. Today, another live service game gets the Axe
<v Speaker 1>and is the Switch to coming out in June. But
<v Speaker 1>first please join me and welcoming today's co host the
<v Speaker 1>Game Mess Mornings. It's Jan a show. Jan. How are
<v Speaker 1>you doing?
<v Speaker 2>I am doing completely fine. What's less than fine? Or okay? Man?
<v Speaker 2>Because it's I feel.
<v Speaker 1>More than man? Yeah uh fat like it's yeah, like fair.
<v Speaker 2>You know why I come seem sir?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So so there we go. But specifically in French Wednesday,
<v Speaker 2>Jeff Grub, it's December fourth. I don't like it. I
<v Speaker 2>don't like it.
<v Speaker 1>It's like you blink and suddenly you're staring down the
<v Speaker 1>barrel of Mike Manatti's birthday and you gotta deal with that.
<v Speaker 1>You gotta. We all have to deal with that in
<v Speaker 1>our own way, and I don't want to.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just thinking of where we will be as soon
<v Speaker 2>as the clock strikes midnight, and where we will bombard
<v Speaker 2>him with the Gift of Song. Yeah, NICKI and I
<v Speaker 2>have been chatting is about to where to have a
<v Speaker 2>team dinner, and we're pushing to do Coco, even though
<v Speaker 2>Coco isn't really like a like a big extravagant dinner spot.
<v Speaker 2>That's fine, But nearby is a kind of like a
<v Speaker 2>Korean bar where shenanigans may ensue. Grub. It's one of
<v Speaker 2>those joints where you just order off the iPad and
<v Speaker 2>it just drinks out the wazoom.
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, I like that. That's fine, that's a good time.
<v Speaker 1>I would enjoy that. Yeah. God, you know, this time
<v Speaker 1>next week, we're there. We are fully there. We're getting
<v Speaker 1>we are fully there. This time next week, we're doing
<v Speaker 1>a ton of work to get set up for GB
<v Speaker 1>at night and then immediately.
<v Speaker 2>Doing stuff for the Game Awards. So yeah, exciting, folks.
<v Speaker 2>I can't wait for y'all to see behind the scenes
<v Speaker 2>photos of Dan and Grubb in a makeup chair.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's gonna happen. Yeah, I should, Yes, I should
<v Speaker 1>go to my barber at the airport. On my way there.
<v Speaker 1>I should go get my you know, you know it's
<v Speaker 1>called right January night, it's called air cuts.
<v Speaker 2>It's called air cuts, you see, speaking about air cuts.
<v Speaker 2>Shouts out to barber Jan for fitting me into his
<v Speaker 2>very busy schedule and supplying me with the resources I
<v Speaker 2>need for dumb ideas.
<v Speaker 1>So shouts out to barber Man. All right, yeah, I'm like, wait,
<v Speaker 1>what kind of like are you allowed to say? What
<v Speaker 1>kind of resources?
<v Speaker 2>And I had skeed something about a certain attachment for
<v Speaker 2>a camcorder? Sure, because yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Well I'm excited. It's gonna be a good time
<v Speaker 1>and we are going to get a lot of work
<v Speaker 1>done on this trip, is the plan. So yeah, it
<v Speaker 1>should be fun and it'd have been nice to see
<v Speaker 1>all been a few months, so yeah, that'll be great.
<v Speaker 1>Let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb,
<v Speaker 1>will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes
<v Speaker 1>breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
<v Speaker 1>For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
<v Speaker 1>bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If
<v Speaker 1>you are watching live on twitch welcome, you can always
<v Speaker 1>listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
<v Speaker 1>for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS on giant
<v Speaker 1>bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later
<v Speaker 1>with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube, All right,
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot to get into, so let's start
<v Speaker 1>the morning mess with X Defiant to end service on
<v Speaker 1>June third, twenty twenty five. This is from Sal Romano
<v Speaker 1>at Kamatsu. Publisher Ubisoft and developer Ubisoft San Francisco will
<v Speaker 1>dlist free to play multiplayer first person shooter X Defiant
<v Speaker 1>starting today and then shut down servers on June third,
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five. The company's announced existing players will still
<v Speaker 1>be able to continue playing and access upcoming content until
<v Speaker 1>the servers close game files. Steven Tatilo is also reporting
<v Speaker 1>that both Ubisoft San Francisco and Ubisoft Osaka are shutting down,
<v Speaker 1>with up to two hundred and seventy seven staff to
<v Speaker 1>be laid off. Half of the X Defiant team will
<v Speaker 1>be moved to other projects. X Defiant first launched in
<v Speaker 1>May of this year. Rank God, that's wild. Wow. Yeah, Stephen,
<v Speaker 1>he expounded upon some of the details here, and I
<v Speaker 1>know he included some corrections here, so I'll just go
<v Speaker 1>and order. Yeah. He mentioned that Ubisoft SF and Osaka
<v Speaker 1>are both closing. The two hundred and seventy seven people
<v Speaker 1>to be laid off are up to two hundred and
<v Speaker 1>seventy seven, and he said Ubisoft has hoped game would
<v Speaker 1>compete with Call of Duty, but recently was denying shut
<v Speaker 1>down rumors amid declining player numbers. And then of course,
<v Speaker 1>now now here we are, and then Ubisoft SF production
<v Speaker 1>studio is closing. Ubisoft SF Business office will remain open,
<v Speaker 1>and then the Sydney ramp down. There's also you know,
<v Speaker 1>a team in Australia that is going to ramp down
<v Speaker 1>will be for the production team there. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>mean this is where Ubisoft's at right where you know,
<v Speaker 1>they are taking a bunch of different like you know,
<v Speaker 1>let's call them chances. They're making a bunch of different
<v Speaker 1>games that very much are chasing, very much chasing trends,
<v Speaker 1>and they're doing the ub Soft thing on that side
<v Speaker 1>of things. They're also making games in the ubi Soft way,
<v Speaker 1>which means several massive studios around the world all working
<v Speaker 1>on each of these games. And I saw a chart
<v Speaker 1>and I would love to track get Down honestly if
<v Speaker 1>someone in check it was from Superjuiced. Who is Joost?
<v Speaker 1>He's an analyst I think in Europe he you know,
<v Speaker 1>and sometimes his numbers could be a little. But he
<v Speaker 1>did a little a chart basically saying how much each
<v Speaker 1>company makes per employee, like how much I think revenue. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was how much revenue you make per employee, And
<v Speaker 1>some of the companies were like five hundred thousand dollars
<v Speaker 1>per employee, Like EA makes around five hundred thousand dollars
<v Speaker 1>for every person for every head that they have to
<v Speaker 1>pay for at their studio, and so that's that's a
<v Speaker 1>pretty good number. So that's pretty good in terms of hey,
<v Speaker 1>where we have a large margin here, there's a couple
<v Speaker 1>of studio. There's like one studio above that in that
<v Speaker 1>range maybe six hundred thousand, and then there's you know,
<v Speaker 1>kind of drops down. But a lot of them are like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>at least two hundred thousand dollars per employee, you'd be
<v Speaker 1>Soft was at like ninety five thousand dollars per employee
<v Speaker 1>for how much revenue they're making. And I'm clearly that's
<v Speaker 1>just unsustainab well, because especially employing developers in San Francisco right, Like,
<v Speaker 1>there's no way that that can make sense unless some
<v Speaker 1>of these games are beginning to grow and that's not
<v Speaker 1>been happening.
<v Speaker 2>Mm hmm. Yeah, it's unfortunate, Greb. I have a couple
<v Speaker 2>homies working at Ubisoft in San Francisco, so I'm not
<v Speaker 2>one hundred percent sure if they're going to be affected,
<v Speaker 2>whether they're part of the devs or the business office.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, the writing has been on the wall, unfortunately,
<v Speaker 2>with ub Soft just misstepping left and right, not just
<v Speaker 2>this year, but the last couple of years. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what course correction looks like for you
<v Speaker 2>be Soft at this point, especially with you know this
<v Speaker 2>x defid bet not working out, But we who could
<v Speaker 2>have who could have seen Xifie not working out? Who
<v Speaker 2>could have looked at several other titles the Ubisoft has
<v Speaker 2>been putting out and like the muck around them, or they.
<v Speaker 1>Could have looked at the history of their own shooters
<v Speaker 1>that have actually succeeded the long run, like the Not
<v Speaker 1>Vegas Rainbow six Siege, which did not perform very well
<v Speaker 1>for the first several months, if not longer. It might
<v Speaker 1>have been the whole whole first year that that game
<v Speaker 1>just wasn't really working, and now it continues to be
<v Speaker 1>one of the most successful live service shooter games on
<v Speaker 1>the market. Yeah, has a huge, dedicated audience that's stuck
<v Speaker 1>with it for years and it just took time to
<v Speaker 1>find its footing. Now I recognize we are in a
<v Speaker 1>different place and maybe maybe that story is not going
<v Speaker 1>to happen as frequently. You know, maybe the market has
<v Speaker 1>sort of solidified in terms of people have chosen their
<v Speaker 1>game and so the chance for another game to have
<v Speaker 1>that same story has diminished. But I think there's also
<v Speaker 1>you know, I think the reality is Ubisoft just can't
<v Speaker 1>afford to assume that that can happen again, and that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, if they have to have a success right
<v Speaker 1>out of the gate, and they're struggling to do that.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, I think we might just keep ending
<v Speaker 1>up in this situation, especially with a game like X Defiant,
<v Speaker 1>Like you're saying, like who could have guessed? Like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the word around that from the beginning was it's going
<v Speaker 1>for call of duty and some people like it, and
<v Speaker 1>then the more we play it, the more people are like, no,
<v Speaker 1>I'm good.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, it's a it's gonna be especially challenging grub
<v Speaker 2>when you have a good call of duty this year
<v Speaker 2>and you don't have the time or resources to wait
<v Speaker 2>around for X Divine to organically grow or try and
<v Speaker 2>seize a pocket of the Internet audience. X to find
<v Speaker 2>was this free to play? I don't remember.
<v Speaker 1>It was free to play.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that's especially challenging when you know the buy in
<v Speaker 2>for the cheapest buy in for Black Op six is
<v Speaker 2>getting game pass. God, it stinks all around, but you
<v Speaker 2>can't help grub and they will never do this internally,
<v Speaker 2>or at least at the top. But look at the
<v Speaker 2>top of you be soft and point fingers all the
<v Speaker 2>way up there as to who the issues may lie with.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that is another very good point here
<v Speaker 1>that you know, once again people who make this stuff
<v Speaker 1>getting punished for an environment, a culture, a business that
<v Speaker 1>has been they found itself in this situation because of
<v Speaker 1>the leadership and because of the decisions they made, and
<v Speaker 1>they're a specific aversions to risk and you know, saying hey,
<v Speaker 1>we got to make more, more and more bets on
<v Speaker 1>Assassin's Creed and trying new things is you know, if
<v Speaker 1>we're going to try new things, what we're gonna try
<v Speaker 1>is let's make our own call of duty. And I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you know, going back to that point, you know, even
<v Speaker 1>even if this was a relatively good one of those
<v Speaker 1>we've seen that never work for anyone ever, that Metal
<v Speaker 1>Medal of Honor game. Going back years and years, it
<v Speaker 1>almost felt like the rest of the industry had learned
<v Speaker 1>this lesson. So what is Ubisoft even They must really
<v Speaker 1>have something if they think they can break that spell.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, no, it turned out they were one
<v Speaker 1>in the same situation once again, and that comes back
<v Speaker 1>to leadership.
<v Speaker 2>And it's especially unfortunate because you know, after hearing you
<v Speaker 2>talk about it, and I've recently circled back to a
<v Speaker 2>game like Star Wars Outlaws and seeing like this game
<v Speaker 2>is completely fine. I am enjoying chunks of this game,
<v Speaker 2>but like the launch of it so messy. This is
<v Speaker 2>you be soft as why grub I don't understand why
<v Speaker 2>people can even have hope for beyond Good and Evil
<v Speaker 2>too eventually coming out because of all the breaks that
<v Speaker 2>they're stepping on. It's just wild to think that Ubisoft's
<v Speaker 2>best game this year maybe a two D print of
<v Speaker 2>Persia game that came out in January, and that team
<v Speaker 2>is gone.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Christley just dissolved and absorbed into other teams.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, absolutely wild. I don't even know if it's an
<v Speaker 2>argument of you be soft being risk averse at this
<v Speaker 2>point and just not having any creative bones all right,
<v Speaker 2>no vision at all, Like no greater vision for like
<v Speaker 2>the scope of like the next couple of years. It
<v Speaker 2>got brought up yesterday or two days ago with Emma,
<v Speaker 2>but Mortals Phoenix Rising, I felt like was kind of
<v Speaker 2>laughed at when it eventually launched, but it secured a
<v Speaker 2>certain audience with it that didn't quite click with Breath
<v Speaker 2>of the Wild, and I think there's totally room for
<v Speaker 2>more Zelda likes and that sequel that they were planning.
<v Speaker 2>I think I had a lot of interest in it
<v Speaker 2>because of its ties to like Polynesian culture. We don't
<v Speaker 2>have a lot of games that do that, per se
<v Speaker 2>and them canning that versus and just going towards another
<v Speaker 2>Assassin's creed and pumping more money into Skull and Bones
<v Speaker 2>kind of informs me as as a person that Ubisoft
<v Speaker 2>doesn't is an aiming to make better and newer games
<v Speaker 2>with a bright ideas.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know, it does seem like they are going
<v Speaker 1>to keep trying to persevere and kind of do things
<v Speaker 1>the UBI soft away going forward, like they you know,
<v Speaker 1>they're in a situation now where if they wanted to
<v Speaker 1>be like, look, we look at our numbers, look at
<v Speaker 1>how much we make per employee. We need to kind
<v Speaker 1>of scale back drastically and maybe do massive sweeping layoffs,
<v Speaker 1>and they continue to like mostly avoid that. You know,
<v Speaker 1>they've had a lot of big layoffs, but they still
<v Speaker 1>employ a ton of people. And even here they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna layoff a lot of people. We're gonna have
<v Speaker 1>more than two hundred people, a lot of people, but
<v Speaker 1>we're going to take a lot of these other people
<v Speaker 1>that work here and have them go to other studios
<v Speaker 1>to keep making a bunch of Ubisoft games. So I
<v Speaker 1>guess I take hope that maybe they can sniff their
<v Speaker 1>way out of this a little bit, and most of
<v Speaker 1>these people that work at Ubisoft can come out the
<v Speaker 1>other side with their jobs intact, because a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people do good work at UBI Soft. There's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of very talented and creative people at the studios, and
<v Speaker 1>they just work in an environment that doesn't, you know,
<v Speaker 1>facilitate that one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 2>It's any of our criticisms of the Ubisoft grub I
<v Speaker 2>feel like is mostly at like the management level versus
<v Speaker 2>like the development talent that they have because they've proved that,
<v Speaker 2>especially with Prince of Persia. Grub Like, they can make
<v Speaker 2>amazing games, it's just the people calling the shots at
<v Speaker 2>the top a bummer.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, yep, definitely.
<v Speaker 2>Why not more Trials Grub.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, God, listen, man, I love Trials. They should make
<v Speaker 1>a new Trials. Red Links is the studio that does that, right,
<v Speaker 1>and they I don't know what's going on with them.
<v Speaker 1>They just kind of make one Trials after another. I
<v Speaker 1>kind of hope they're still just making more Trials.
<v Speaker 2>In like a world where speed running has kind of
<v Speaker 2>become like no longer a super niche thing. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>feel like, and shareability of clips has just become easier
<v Speaker 2>and easier with TikTok and just this website formally known
<v Speaker 2>as Twitter and now Blue Sky, you can make a
<v Speaker 2>game like Trials pop off in such a way and
<v Speaker 2>do the craziest type of runs in levels. If you
<v Speaker 2>were to put Trials out.
<v Speaker 1>Now, yep, yeah, I would, And I'm a huge Trials mark,
<v Speaker 1>so I would love that. All right, let's stick with
<v Speaker 1>this story, but kind of get what they are saying
<v Speaker 1>about the future. Ubisoft still dedicated to live service after
<v Speaker 1>its call of duty competitor came up short. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Eddie mccoit game Spot. Ubisoft recently made the shocking
<v Speaker 1>announcement that it would shut down it's called duty Competitor,
<v Speaker 1>X Defiant, close San Francisco, and lay off nearly three
<v Speaker 1>hundred people in what was just the latest unfortunate development
<v Speaker 1>for the people who make video games in this business. Now,
<v Speaker 1>and in internal memos from CEO Ues Gim and Chief
<v Speaker 1>Studio's boss Maurice Sophie de Wobo have emerged that the
<v Speaker 1>note has emerged, I should say, Kimo said in a
<v Speaker 1>memo obtained by Insider Gaming, the decision to cancel X Defiant,
<v Speaker 1>close Ubisoft San Francisco and Osaka, and ramp down at
<v Speaker 1>Sydney office was among the most difficult decisions we had
<v Speaker 1>to make. Gumo praised the X Defiant teams and its
<v Speaker 1>ambition to challenge the best shooter on the market. However,
<v Speaker 1>it was not enough, he admitted. For those being laid off,
<v Speaker 1>Gumo said he expressed his deepest gratitude and that the
<v Speaker 1>company will do everything possible to help affected staffers. Guimo
<v Speaker 1>went on to say Ubisoft is indeed going through turbulent times,
<v Speaker 1>adding that he is working with his executive team to
<v Speaker 1>find the best solutions so we can maintain control of
<v Speaker 1>our destiny. When Ubisoft stock price began to tank earlier
<v Speaker 1>this year, some theorized the lower company value might make
<v Speaker 1>the company an acquisition target. In October, a report claimed
<v Speaker 1>Ubisoft was talking to ten Cent about all manner of options,
<v Speaker 1>including turning Ubisoft private or having ten Cent acquire the company.
<v Speaker 1>Nothing has materialized from this as of yet, but Guemo's
<v Speaker 1>wording about being able to maintain control of our destiny
<v Speaker 1>suggests something may be afoot, or perhaps it doesn't mean
<v Speaker 1>that at all. Also, what a stupid thing to put like,
<v Speaker 1>who like, no one working for you? Because they don't
<v Speaker 1>have control of the destiny, You'll be soft even if
<v Speaker 1>they like are you know the stock options shareholders? That
<v Speaker 1>doesn't give them a set in any of this. What
<v Speaker 1>are you talking about? Like? No one cares about that.
<v Speaker 2>It feels achy, Yeah, he.
<v Speaker 1>Said, I'm doing everything I can to help us regain
<v Speaker 1>momentum so that we can continue to make Ubisoft a
<v Speaker 1>key player in our industry. A creator known for its
<v Speaker 1>unique and exceptional video games, Gamo said in his memo
<v Speaker 1>to staff. As for the memo, sent to staff by
<v Speaker 1>Maurice Sophie de Wolbe. It was published on Ubisoft's own
<v Speaker 1>public website and shed some additional light on what happened
<v Speaker 1>with X Defiant. She said that the game had an
<v Speaker 1>encouraging start, but failed to attract and retain enough players.
<v Speaker 1>The game is too far away from reaching the results
<v Speaker 1>required to enable further significant investment. We are announcing that
<v Speaker 1>we will be sunsetting it, she said. The executive went
<v Speaker 1>on to say that Ubisoft's lack of success with X
<v Speaker 1>Defiant doesn't mean the company will stop pursuing games as
<v Speaker 1>a service titles. In fact, she said games as service
<v Speaker 1>remains a pillar of the strategy, citing examples of success
<v Speaker 1>like Rainbow six, The Crew and for Honor and yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I get it, Jen, Like, you know, you have a
<v Speaker 1>bad day, but I'm still dedicated to the poker table,
<v Speaker 1>right and I'm still dedicated to the slots. We're going
<v Speaker 1>to go up back there and tomorrow is going to
<v Speaker 1>be different. They sound like addicts, a little bit, like
<v Speaker 1>they've had the big taste of the big win with
<v Speaker 1>something like Rainbow six Siege and they're like, well, you know,
<v Speaker 1>another lottery ticket is out there, and we will hit
<v Speaker 1>with that one and a bunch of people's lives are
<v Speaker 1>you know, hanging the balance.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's the especially unfortunate, unnerving thing that really upsets me,
<v Speaker 2>Grub is the way that they're talking despite this being
<v Speaker 2>a difficult situation for them. It comes off very callous
<v Speaker 2>just talking about destiny Grub and like maintaining the company
<v Speaker 2>and like I'm going to talk to my board of directors,
<v Speaker 2>not like my board of directors is just people that
<v Speaker 2>I've a bunch of yes men that I've filled in
<v Speaker 2>with people that will never disagree with me. It just
<v Speaker 2>comes off very super disingenuous, even in terms of like
<v Speaker 2>CEO talk crub.
<v Speaker 1>Yep and I you know, what else can they say?
<v Speaker 2>Really?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know, I make the reference to you know,
<v Speaker 1>gambling with live service games. But but it's like, I
<v Speaker 1>think in their estimation they look around and it's like,
<v Speaker 1>what else can we say can justify all of this,
<v Speaker 1>all of that, all that we employ, all of the
<v Speaker 1>resources that we wield underneath the ownership of Youbsoft, and
<v Speaker 1>you know, and we built it this way specific on purpose,
<v Speaker 1>like this is the way we wanted to build it,
<v Speaker 1>and so we have to continue to justify it, and
<v Speaker 1>nothing else can really do that other than a big
<v Speaker 1>live service success that has the potential to make infinite money.
<v Speaker 1>I remember, like talking about EA green lighting games when
<v Speaker 1>they said when they when the forecast would be a
<v Speaker 1>fifteen percent profit margin, and I got some pushback from
<v Speaker 1>dev's I remember Dave Dave Lang was like, no, maybe
<v Speaker 1>they want infinite money, and it's like, yeah, I think
<v Speaker 1>for a lot of a lot of these developers when
<v Speaker 1>they're when they're looking at anything that has live service
<v Speaker 1>on it, the hope is infinite, like they want they
<v Speaker 1>wants to just go to the moon. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>time and time again we're seeing the chances of that
<v Speaker 1>happening are reduced each time because once another game comes
<v Speaker 1>out that is a live service success, it just joins
<v Speaker 1>this pantheon that takes more of the oxygen out of
<v Speaker 1>the room and there's just yeah, yeah, Bungus, just one
<v Speaker 1>more lane, bro, just add one more lane to the highway.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like at a certain point, like if you
<v Speaker 1>if you get paid by getting more more people to
<v Speaker 1>use your lane, there's only so many people driving somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>I know that's not exactly the traffic analogy, but that's
<v Speaker 1>I think UBI seft is in that situation. They're going
<v Speaker 1>to build a toll road next to a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>other toll roads that are being used and people enjoy
<v Speaker 1>using way more.
<v Speaker 2>It's just and we need to build walkable cities, grub
<v Speaker 2>with good public transportation. How is Los Angeles gonna host
<v Speaker 2>the Olympics?
<v Speaker 1>Yep, exactly, Oh my good good luck with that, la.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's let's take a quick break. We'll come
<v Speaker 1>back and we'll talk about Nintendo Switch two. More rumors
<v Speaker 1>are out there. We'll get into all of that right
<v Speaker 1>after this. All right, we are back into it. Let's
<v Speaker 1>talk about this one. Alleged switch To accessories are already
<v Speaker 1>being sold online. This is from Tom. I've been at
<v Speaker 1>VGC Vendors on China based e commerce website Ali Baba
<v Speaker 1>have started selling accessories that are allegedly compatible with Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>switch To. They include switch To carry cases and screen protectors, which,
<v Speaker 1>if genuine, would confirm previous reports that Nintendo's next console
<v Speaker 1>will have a larger form factor than its current one. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>these cases have the little you know, the cub, the cubby,
<v Speaker 1>the sort of cutout for it is larger. It's bigger,
<v Speaker 1>and somewhere between a switch and a Steam deck. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>it's how people are describing it. Of course, Nintendo has
<v Speaker 1>yet to officially reveal its Switched successor, but the company
<v Speaker 1>has confirmed plans to do so during its current fiscal year,
<v Speaker 1>which ends in March twenty twenty five. Yeah, I mean
<v Speaker 1>this isn't too unusual, right, Like you think about a smartphone,
<v Speaker 1>like often one of the ways people will find out
<v Speaker 1>what the next iPhone is going to look like is
<v Speaker 1>they some cases go on sale on Ali Baba based
<v Speaker 1>on the specifications provided by Apple two third party vendors
<v Speaker 1>so that cases can be ready to be sold on
<v Speaker 1>day one. And I think that things lined up where
<v Speaker 1>it's like a lot of these vendors probably had stuff
<v Speaker 1>in the works, machining being produced so that they could
<v Speaker 1>have these things ready to go and fit a switch
<v Speaker 1>to by the end of this year, when maybe the
<v Speaker 1>switch to was originally supposed to launch. So here we are,
<v Speaker 1>and I think the weird thing, Jen is all these leaks.
<v Speaker 1>We knew what happened, and we knew that these things
<v Speaker 1>would provide more information about the switch too, But Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>doesn't seem to mind so much or else they would
<v Speaker 1>have just announced this thing already, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think Nintendo's completely fine letting everything else happened
<v Speaker 2>in the world, virtually everything else happened in the world
<v Speaker 2>before they're ready to announce the switch to officially. It's
<v Speaker 2>it's funny, Grub, because I feel like, of course this
<v Speaker 2>is when the leaks would start happening. It would be
<v Speaker 2>in terms of accessories versus like any devs, because how
<v Speaker 2>are you going to hurt a relationship with an accessory maker, right, Grub. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you can really if you could
<v Speaker 2>tell like a mad cast to stop making third party
<v Speaker 2>controllers or whatever. Yeah, I cannot wait for the deluge
<v Speaker 2>of other things to start happening, Grub. We have access
<v Speaker 2>to the Giant Bomb store, we might as well start
<v Speaker 2>selling our own switch to accessories.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, well, switch to carrying cases,
<v Speaker 1>switch to decals, just uh, just our faces. You could
<v Speaker 1>put it all over the entire cover. Yeah like that.
<v Speaker 2>If you if you buy the new blanket hoodie on
<v Speaker 2>store dot giant bomb dot com, that hoodie pocket should
<v Speaker 2>fit a switch to perfectly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's true. That's a switch to pocket right there.
<v Speaker 1>We get we should brand it as such. Definitely, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think you know, peripheral makers, successory makers, like yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they got a head start based on specifications they might
<v Speaker 1>not even have like been, they might not have a
<v Speaker 1>relationship with Nintendo directly. One company might have a relationship
<v Speaker 1>with Nintendo, and that stuff just gets out there and
<v Speaker 1>then everyone starts building it because you know, Susan needs
<v Speaker 1>to go to manufacturing. I bet it's pretty easy to
<v Speaker 1>get your hand on that stuff. And then of course
<v Speaker 1>once the switch too is out that Nintendo just wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>be able to stop someone from making a case that
<v Speaker 1>fits a switch to. That would just be of course
<v Speaker 1>that they could do that. As far as information from developers,
<v Speaker 1>that stuff is a little bit more scattershop, But that
<v Speaker 1>does lead into the next story. Nintendo switch To should
<v Speaker 1>be should release around June and sell for more than
<v Speaker 1>four hundred euros. That is a headline from David Caballero
<v Speaker 1>at Game Reactor. Game Reactor has had a history of
<v Speaker 1>a pretty decent rumor recording and tracking stuff like this down.
<v Speaker 1>But of course no guarantee that any of this information
<v Speaker 1>is exactly how it will happen. But let's read it here.
<v Speaker 1>There is already a response to this morning's rumors that
<v Speaker 1>made the launch of the Nintendo Switch successor in the
<v Speaker 1>current fiscal year impossible. According to former Game Reactor editor
<v Speaker 1>Juan A. Fonseca, a as per gathered from various sources
<v Speaker 1>on nintend Duo, suppose Nintendo Switch to will arrive around
<v Speaker 1>June twenty twenty five, maybe July, for a price between
<v Speaker 1>four hundred and five hundred euros. These claims from various
<v Speaker 1>developers are in line with other recent leaks and the
<v Speaker 1>assumption that Nintendo is simply unable to produce enough machines
<v Speaker 1>to meet demand for a hypothetical launch in the early
<v Speaker 1>part of the year. Nintendo's declined to comment on this
<v Speaker 1>new information. There's rumors all over the place. Jan there's
<v Speaker 1>some people that still think, hey, some people claim it
<v Speaker 1>gets announced in January, comes out in March. There is
<v Speaker 1>more people, I think who are thinking, like, hey, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>April's still possible. I think even with this report here,
<v Speaker 1>comes out around June. I think that's like by the
<v Speaker 1>end of June, is what that means. By the end
<v Speaker 1>of Q two, which would be in June, so April
<v Speaker 1>may anytime in there. It could still happen. But we
<v Speaker 1>are We're getting to a point where, hey, something that
<v Speaker 1>comes out in even like even June, we're talking like
<v Speaker 1>a six month lead, which would be plenty. But if
<v Speaker 1>it's any time before that, they're going to have four months,
<v Speaker 1>maybe two months to promote this thing. Do you think
<v Speaker 1>that's a problem at all on issue?
<v Speaker 2>I don't think that's a problem at all at this point,
<v Speaker 2>Grub because I feel like everything that they've been holding
<v Speaker 2>onto is probably I would hope, ready to go that
<v Speaker 2>they if the games are done or are close to
<v Speaker 2>being done, then they have the option to start working
<v Speaker 2>on marketing materials. Maybe they don't. They're not even super
<v Speaker 2>concerned about marketing the switch to other than announcing switch
<v Speaker 2>to you know there the next administration in the United
<v Speaker 2>States may affect how things are going to be priced
<v Speaker 2>out in the future, So that causes a little bit
<v Speaker 2>hesitation on the consumer side for me, and I wonder
<v Speaker 2>if that is a thing that Nintendo's also trying to
<v Speaker 2>factor in, or if they're just trying to, at least
<v Speaker 2>from the jump, go for the Japanese audience or the
<v Speaker 2>global audience excluding the United States for now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think they will try to factor in any
<v Speaker 1>sort of uncertainty of pricing due to tariffs into the
<v Speaker 1>price from the jump. So when I hear four hundred
<v Speaker 1>to five hundred euros, I'm like, yeah, that sounds about right,
<v Speaker 1>And I bet it's closer to five hundred than four hundred.
<v Speaker 1>And that's euros, which you know these days is not
<v Speaker 1>too far off from the value of the dollars. So
<v Speaker 1>between four hundred and five hundred dollars as well, very likely.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, I mean I think I would have been
<v Speaker 1>shocked if it was below four hundred dollars, regardless of
<v Speaker 1>the economic environment. But I think with tariffs, if they
<v Speaker 1>you know, four fifty four, seventy nine ninety nine in
<v Speaker 1>that range, you know before ninety nine, that gives them
<v Speaker 1>a little bump of like, Okay, we probably are making
<v Speaker 1>a profit right now, but if tariffs go off, go up,
<v Speaker 1>we can absorb that into this price and then we
<v Speaker 1>could just hope for an exception in the future or
<v Speaker 1>that those tariffs go away. Good luck with that. Tariff's
<v Speaker 1>very rarely go away, biting biding keptains of the Trump's
<v Speaker 1>tariffs that always happens. So yeah, I I think that
<v Speaker 1>all of that uncertainty continues the factor in why it's
<v Speaker 1>been so weird, and it's like, well, you know, they
<v Speaker 1>didn't know Trump was going to win, Yeah, but they
<v Speaker 1>were holding on until after the election. Anyhow, that was
<v Speaker 1>you know what Cat and Christa, I'm sorry, Kit and
<v Speaker 1>christ thank you, Kitt and Krista said over on their show,
<v Speaker 1>and that they would know. It's like, oh, yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>makes a lot of sense that they would want to
<v Speaker 1>like wait until that stuff was settled, and now less
<v Speaker 1>things are settled. So yeah, I think that's a big
<v Speaker 1>reason why we have not heard from Nintendo about this
<v Speaker 1>thing in any like solid way. But yeah, they got
<v Speaker 1>to put this thing out. They have to put this
<v Speaker 1>thing out pretty soon. So I'm thinking, yeah, June sounds
<v Speaker 1>reasonable to me. By June, I think this thing is
<v Speaker 1>actually in our hands because maybe it is less likely
<v Speaker 1>that they wait until the holiday of next year, especially
<v Speaker 1>with the way that the switch one sales are trending.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, no way that they wait till the holidays.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like June is a safe bet. My guestimations.
<v Speaker 2>You know, you get that audience that are getting out
<v Speaker 2>of school or the audiences that have their gimmicks coming
<v Speaker 2>out of school, and you know, you need to occupy
<v Speaker 2>sometime while the gimmicks are going to basketball and summer
<v Speaker 2>camp by playing on the switch too. Folks. Here's what
<v Speaker 2>we do. We just pre order or by now all
<v Speaker 2>of the Switch to accessories that we find in all
<v Speaker 2>Baba or on store dot giant bomb dot com, and
<v Speaker 2>we'll be fine. We'll have enough money for when the
<v Speaker 2>Switch two comes out. I also think grub that maybe
<v Speaker 2>there are external influences affecting Nintendo in terms of not
<v Speaker 2>just the upcoming administration in the United States, but perhaps
<v Speaker 2>they've heard a very vocal person pushing for a wearable device.
<v Speaker 2>Yea switch.
<v Speaker 1>You heard that. They're out there listening. They're on the
<v Speaker 1>streets and they're like, have you heard this man shouting
<v Speaker 1>about the watch? Yeah, they've seen joined the chorus of
<v Speaker 1>his voice. They've seen the success of the alarmo, and
<v Speaker 1>they thought, well, why don't we put that on our wrists?
<v Speaker 1>You know, I know that and Christa don't work at
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo anymore, but they probably have whispers and they've probably said,
<v Speaker 1>this guy won't shut up about a watch. We're kind
<v Speaker 1>of concerned, and we don't have the resources to do
<v Speaker 1>a wellness check on we're scared, so please, for the
<v Speaker 1>love of God, put out a watch for this guy.
<v Speaker 1>A watchow Aristo. These are coming from chat Jan Larmo.
<v Speaker 1>That's okay, I.
<v Speaker 2>Like a watch. Aristo crat, the Aristo crats Okay, oh
<v Speaker 2>my god.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Hey, I think four hundred euro to five hundred euro,
<v Speaker 1>four hundred dollars to five hundred dollars. Uh, you know
<v Speaker 1>without a watch, doesn't make any sense. But they're a
<v Speaker 1>watch in there, and then I'm good, yeah, And then
<v Speaker 1>I think, yeah, that's kind of remember that's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>for the LCD screen. Like they're still going to release
<v Speaker 1>an O lead version later very long. Yeah, and that'll
<v Speaker 1>get them, you know, when they when they get to
<v Speaker 1>a point where it's like if they do there are
<v Speaker 1>tariffs and they are very painful, and they still feel
<v Speaker 1>like they can't raise the price of the switch, which
<v Speaker 1>they might not feel that way. They they might raise
<v Speaker 1>the price of the switch to in the face of tariffs,
<v Speaker 1>and because they'll be able to get away with it,
<v Speaker 1>because everyone understand it will be happening everywhere. But if
<v Speaker 1>they can't, it's like, well, one way they can stealthily
<v Speaker 1>raise the price is release that O lad for all
<v Speaker 1>the nerds that want to have the best version of it,
<v Speaker 1>and you know that will be over five hundred dollars.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, there's.
<v Speaker 2>No way that the o LED launches within the same
<v Speaker 2>year of the switch to right.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if there's no way, probably not, because
<v Speaker 1>just like making these things seems to be the big
<v Speaker 1>reason we haven't have received them yet. And so why
<v Speaker 1>like have the headache of bringing another warehouse, you know,
<v Speaker 1>manufacturing plan on online. But you know, maybe one of
<v Speaker 1>the reasons they're having difficulties is because they make that
<v Speaker 1>in from the beginning and they were always planning to
<v Speaker 1>have some options very soon. I don't know, man, I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna miss that old head screen all right. Last, well,
<v Speaker 1>we can't pull stories more. Let's get into them. Mario
<v Speaker 1>and Luigi Brothership. Developer wanted in Edgy or Mario, but
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo said no. This is Chris Scully and VGC acquire
<v Speaker 1>the studio behind Mario and Luigi Brothers, says it originally
<v Speaker 1>wanted to give Mario an edgier look, but Nintendo wasn't convinced,
<v Speaker 1>and a new ask to ask the developer interview on
<v Speaker 1>the official Nintendo website A choir designer Hitomi Fruada of
<v Speaker 1>FA Faruda. Faruda explained how she had originally designed Mario
<v Speaker 1>to look different to how we had in the past,
<v Speaker 1>but then Nintendo suggested it wouldn't fit the art style
<v Speaker 1>of the previous Mario Luigi games. Our challenge was to
<v Speaker 1>develop three D visuals that would bring out the unique
<v Speaker 1>appeal of the Mario and Luigi series and differentiate it
<v Speaker 1>from the other Mario games. Faruda said, I'm ashamed to
<v Speaker 1>say it, but we weren't conscious of that when we
<v Speaker 1>started development, which led us to making a huge detour
<v Speaker 1>in our search for a new Mario Luigi style. At
<v Speaker 1>one point, we ended up trying to present an edgier,
<v Speaker 1>more rugged Mario instead, she laughed. Then we received feedback
<v Speaker 1>from Nintendo that we should aim to make the art
<v Speaker 1>direction identifiable by fans as belonging to the Mario and
<v Speaker 1>Luigi series. After that, we were able to narrow down
<v Speaker 1>our focus to how we could combine the two things.
<v Speaker 1>The appeal of illustrations featuring, for example, solid outlines in
<v Speaker 1>bold black eyes, and the charm of pixel animations depicting
<v Speaker 1>the two characters moving around comically in all directions. I
<v Speaker 1>think that's when we finally started to develop an art
<v Speaker 1>style that's unique to this game.
<v Speaker 2>Damn it, Nintendo, why do you do this, nintend to
<v Speaker 2>let other people have.
<v Speaker 1>Fun, let other people play in your space, like you're
<v Speaker 1>opening up your playground, or like you're not allowed to
<v Speaker 1>use the slide that way. You can't climb up the slide,
<v Speaker 1>you have to go down it. You're that kid at
<v Speaker 1>the at the playground, Nintendo, and it stinks. There's some
<v Speaker 1>images of this, let me see if I can find it,
<v Speaker 1>but it and I think I think this is official,
<v Speaker 1>but like it like kind of what makes Mario look
<v Speaker 1>like he's more in an adventure RPG?
<v Speaker 2>Like oh maybe maybe like.
<v Speaker 1>A Golden Sun character a little bit, or or even
<v Speaker 1>like a Dragon Quest character a little bit. You know,
<v Speaker 1>let me hear him mute that so you guys don't
<v Speaker 1>hear that typing from that? Oh you don't hear that, okay,
<v Speaker 1>Mario and Luigi. I Nintendo's got a I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if it's a bad habit, it's just who they are
<v Speaker 1>of just not letting people, not letting their developers, either
<v Speaker 1>at Nintendo or at these third party studios that work
<v Speaker 1>with them, try different things. They're like they like, hey, no,
<v Speaker 1>Mario is just this and that I think that hurts
<v Speaker 1>them in the long run, right.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, one hundred percent. You know, you can't really grow
<v Speaker 2>grub if you're not willing to take a couple of risks. Also,
<v Speaker 2>I feel like anytime an established franchise has made an
<v Speaker 2>offshoot game or a spinoff game where things are kind
<v Speaker 2>of slightly different winds up building a very dedicated audience.
<v Speaker 2>Like I know a lot of people are out there
<v Speaker 2>that enjoy some of the spinoff Sonic games that aren't
<v Speaker 2>a two D platformer, the RPG one, not the Buyerware one,
<v Speaker 2>but also the Sonic Battle Game on the Game Boy Advance.
<v Speaker 2>People dig what's wrong with given Mario a little jacket
<v Speaker 2>or a fun little scarf?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and like kind of like just making this hair
<v Speaker 1>a little bit spikier, right, giving them that smirk. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. I think that, you know, a thousand year
<v Speaker 1>Doors still held in such high regard because there were
<v Speaker 1>so many very strong characters with very strong design, and
<v Speaker 1>I think that they're sometimes able to recapture that magic
<v Speaker 1>to a certain extent with the writing and the characterization.
<v Speaker 1>But then the design is like no, that's just a
<v Speaker 1>bob bomb, and Nintendo says you can't have a bomb
<v Speaker 1>bomb look different than a bob bomb, So that's what
<v Speaker 1>it's going to look like. And I just think that's
<v Speaker 1>a shame. And I don't think Mario Luigi Brothership got
<v Speaker 1>any favors from being easily identifiable as a Mario Luigi game,
<v Speaker 1>because I I compare it unfavorably to previous Mario Luigi games.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's like, it's an okay looking game in
<v Speaker 1>some ways, but I'm like, okay, the transition to three
<v Speaker 1>D here lost some of the charm of the very
<v Speaker 1>excellent animations from the pixel art that they had on
<v Speaker 1>Game Boy Advance and later on the DS. And then
<v Speaker 1>you know, that's been a problem with the series for
<v Speaker 1>a long time when they would try to remaster and
<v Speaker 1>remake some of those games and they would make the
<v Speaker 1>art worse. Yeah, so it's like, I don't think that
<v Speaker 1>was I get why they were like, that's important to
<v Speaker 1>the market, and maybe that's gonna help the sales, and
<v Speaker 1>you know that's all they care about. But well, I
<v Speaker 1>wish they would let their teams take more chances and
<v Speaker 1>try the different things of these characters.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's so interesting because I feel like Super Mario
<v Speaker 2>Brothers Wondered had so many different opportunities and had those
<v Speaker 2>opportunities grow up to be different. So why not let
<v Speaker 2>a completely different game and different team have that same leeway?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? I you know, why not let Mario Luigi be
<v Speaker 1>more things than just like, here's what this always is.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, no, I think they can. You're making a
<v Speaker 1>new game in the series. Let that, you know, sub
<v Speaker 1>series grow in its own direction and new and interesting ways.
<v Speaker 2>What if instead of brothers their lovers?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Why not brother brother lovers? Sure? All right? Uh,
<v Speaker 1>it turns out most of you spend more time watching
<v Speaker 1>games than playing them. This is from Zach Swizen at Kotaku.
<v Speaker 1>A new report reveals that most gamers typically play video
<v Speaker 1>games about seven hours a week. In that same period, however,
<v Speaker 1>they watch eight hours of video game related video streams.
<v Speaker 1>In other words, a lot of people reading this are
<v Speaker 1>spending more time watching Twitch than playing video games, as
<v Speaker 1>reported by Games Industry dop is. This claim comes from
<v Speaker 1>a newly released report by Media Research and is based
<v Speaker 1>on data collected from gamers in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden,
<v Speaker 1>South Korea, and Brazil. Study looked at how many hour
<v Speaker 1>hours different gamers spend playing games as well as watching
<v Speaker 1>video about games, and looked into how that correlates to
<v Speaker 1>in games spending habits. Yeah, I think you know that
<v Speaker 1>makes sense to me because I've seen how successful those
<v Speaker 1>Here's eight hours of video histories to fall asleep to,
<v Speaker 1>and you can do that while you sleep. You could
<v Speaker 1>watch these videos you sleep, and you just can't do
<v Speaker 1>that while you're playing a game, and so it's just
<v Speaker 1>easier to consume that video about games in the background
<v Speaker 1>of your life while doing other things. And all that
<v Speaker 1>shows is, hey, people want to be playing games, and
<v Speaker 1>when they can't be doing that, they find ways to
<v Speaker 1>engage with games in other ways. And that's these videos, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Also accessibility factors in grub and not just accessibility
<v Speaker 2>in terms of being able to play the game, but sometimes,
<v Speaker 2>you know, times are times are tight grub, like you
<v Speaker 2>can't afford to play every single game out there. Also,
<v Speaker 2>I feel like which streams streamers in general, gameplay videos
<v Speaker 2>have kind of become the new demos for a lot
<v Speaker 2>of folks, true, right, where you know they don't have
<v Speaker 2>the means to be able to download something or invest
<v Speaker 2>the time to to try and play a game. So
<v Speaker 2>I'll watch a trusted, a trusted, charismatic group of individuals
<v Speaker 2>to play a game and then maybe I'll check it out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah. On a homegirl of mine didn't feel inclined
<v Speaker 2>to play Silent Hill Too because it was too spooky
<v Speaker 2>for her, so she instead deferred to watching someone play
<v Speaker 2>Silent Hill too.
<v Speaker 1>Right, completely viable, And I think that's it shows that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, people can feel connection to games even through video,
<v Speaker 1>through live video, through through VODs and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>You can it almost it almost counts as playing the
<v Speaker 1>game in my opinion, if you're watching someone that you
<v Speaker 1>really connect with play a game alongside them, and whether
<v Speaker 1>that's in person or over the internet. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>think this is just another way of engagement games and
<v Speaker 1>it speaks to the medium and how much people are
<v Speaker 1>locked into it.
<v Speaker 2>For instance, grub, I think I have watched more hours
<v Speaker 2>of Mario Party being played versus actually playing it myself.
<v Speaker 1>Huh, And I can be that about you. SAME's true
<v Speaker 1>for me, all right. PlayStation Coo says, I cannot express
<v Speaker 1>how happy we are with the reception of Astrobot. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. Despite the huge
<v Speaker 1>acclaim and awards buzz that team of Sobey's Astrobot has
<v Speaker 1>led to, the platform has only shifted around one point
<v Speaker 1>five million units since its launch, which, while a strong
<v Speaker 1>figure for a title that could take home many of
<v Speaker 1>the biggest awards at all the ceremonies around the world,
<v Speaker 1>does in a way feel a little low. But fortunately,
<v Speaker 1>Sony and PlayStation's co CEOs see Astrobot as a massive win,
<v Speaker 1>something that they affirm in a recent interview with the BBC.
<v Speaker 1>Herman Holst stated, I cannot express how happy we are
<v Speaker 1>with the reception of Astrobot. Hopefully this reception will mean
<v Speaker 1>that PlayStation puts more of an emphasis on single player
<v Speaker 1>stories and platformers once again, and trends away from the
<v Speaker 1>live service approach they've been taking us of late. Yeah maybe, hey, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad that they are like talking this way about
<v Speaker 1>this game. I think part of it is reassuring to
<v Speaker 1>me as a fan of the game, sure, but I
<v Speaker 1>think also a part of it is just like building
<v Speaker 1>a narrative around this is the kind of games that
<v Speaker 1>are important to PlayStation and like the fact that people
<v Speaker 1>love playing this is something that we hold like deer
<v Speaker 1>and want to replicate. And I think there's also a
<v Speaker 1>history of PlayStation caring deeply about having games that are
<v Speaker 1>in the conversation for game of the year. I think that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, that's one of the things that like hurt
<v Speaker 1>you know, Deacon Saint John and his game was that
<v Speaker 1>it was it was seen as a blemish on the
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation studios, you know library, where it's like, it's not
<v Speaker 1>as good as the other games there are, even if
<v Speaker 1>it was an okay game. I think a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people at this point decided this is a fine game.
<v Speaker 1>It just wasn't as good as these other ones that
<v Speaker 1>are always in conversation for game of the year. And
<v Speaker 1>I think that bothers PlayStation to a certain extent. So
<v Speaker 1>having Astrobot be the latest in that lineage, they're like, no,
<v Speaker 1>we won't. We can make more of this, we should
<v Speaker 1>make more of this. I just don't know if there's
<v Speaker 1>a world excuse me, which a PlayStation mascot platformer ever
<v Speaker 1>moves a lot more copies than this did.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's god. I can't even think of a world
<v Speaker 2>grub because I don't see Ratchet another Ratchet game coming
<v Speaker 2>out soon. For as much as I'd love it, no
<v Speaker 2>Sly Cooper coming out any soon. I think all the
<v Speaker 2>bets are behind Astrobot, and it is comforting to see
<v Speaker 2>Sony pleased with the reception of it, despite it not
<v Speaker 2>matching the expected sales goals or desired sales goals at all.
<v Speaker 2>So you know, my hope as someone that has enjoyed
<v Speaker 2>Astrobot is all right, let's not completely exploit Astrobot, but
<v Speaker 2>let's ask let Astrobot cook. Let's see what astrobot can
<v Speaker 2>evolve and grow into from here, and then maybe it
<v Speaker 2>can become a solid pillar of PlayStation's lineup moving forward.
<v Speaker 1>Sorry, just in chat someone referred to mister Fantastic as
<v Speaker 1>a loofy like, and I'm just like, we've moved so
<v Speaker 1>far away from God's light.
<v Speaker 2>You can't someone someone that even is even okay and
<v Speaker 2>trying to get into one piece. We can't.
<v Speaker 1>No, no, got guys, come on so much. She's been
<v Speaker 1>around so much. I don't care if it was sarcastic.
<v Speaker 1>I know it was sarcastic. I know it was a joke.
<v Speaker 1>The fact that you made the joke to hurt me
<v Speaker 1>is what I don't like. There and it works. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's descriptive. That's what I don't like the fact that
<v Speaker 1>it worked.
<v Speaker 2>They're the first family of Marvel. They came out Hella early.
<v Speaker 1>You can't test. I don't think probably God all right,
<v Speaker 1>last story here, yeah, no, last couple of stories here.
<v Speaker 1>Intel's second generation ARC B five eighty GPU beats in
<v Speaker 1>videos RTX forty sixty for two hundred and fifty dollars.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Andrew Cunningham at Ours Technica. Basically, short
<v Speaker 1>version is you know, I'll read this here. Intel's launching
<v Speaker 1>new B five eighty graphics cards that offer sixteen gigabytes
<v Speaker 1>of RAM, targeting the sub three hundred dollars price range.
<v Speaker 1>These cards aim to outperform Invidious RTX forty sixty in
<v Speaker 1>terms of performance per dollar, especially at fourteen forty P
<v Speaker 1>resolution and with ray tracing enabled. Intel claims that the
<v Speaker 1>B five eighty is about ten percent faster than the
<v Speaker 1>RTX forty sixty at fourteen forty P and twenty four
<v Speaker 1>percent faster than the previous generation are A seven fifty.
<v Speaker 1>The increased RAM capacity is particularly beneficial for ray tracing performance.
<v Speaker 2>Well.
<v Speaker 1>Intel hasn't announced the B series GPUs the launch of
<v Speaker 1>the other B series GPUs. The launch of the five
<v Speaker 1>hundred series suggests potential higher end B seven hundred cards
<v Speaker 1>in the future. Yeah. Ay, the two hundred and fifty
<v Speaker 1>dollars GPU card spaces continues to be like that is
<v Speaker 1>the butter zone for most people where they want to
<v Speaker 1>spend their money. Like that's about as much, yeah butter
<v Speaker 1>and ndidio has sort of just been like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we're not We're putting our efforts in the higher end,
<v Speaker 1>and we'll just keep kind of putting out cards that
<v Speaker 1>are pretty similar in terms of performance at at the
<v Speaker 1>sixty especially at like the forty to fifty range. So
<v Speaker 1>having Intel coming in and being like delivering a competitor
<v Speaker 1>that actually is a competition for Nvidia. You know, AMD
<v Speaker 1>is already out there doing that, but now there's a
<v Speaker 1>third one. I think this is a good sign. And
<v Speaker 1>I'm like the first time, like, hey, if I were
<v Speaker 1>to build trying to build a cheap PC, I definitely
<v Speaker 1>would consider the Intel GPU at this range.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you know, building a PC is already intimidating
<v Speaker 2>grub but one of the most intimidating parts for me
<v Speaker 2>for the longest time was cost of entry. Oh, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>knowing that there are other options out there for folks
<v Speaker 2>that don't want to splurge and get like the newest
<v Speaker 2>n video card out there, and knowing that there's a
<v Speaker 2>viable option out there that is like yo, sub three
<v Speaker 2>hundred dollars even is super neat yep.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And people mentioned like he wasn't Intel CEO just
<v Speaker 1>fired slush Quid. Yeah, mean, yeah, they got a lot
<v Speaker 1>of problems over there. Yeah, this CPUs have been They're fucked,
<v Speaker 1>They're bad. The last two generations have got that issue.
<v Speaker 1>Why I got one on this specie right now? I'm
<v Speaker 1>pretty sure this CFUs a little fried uh. And yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know making making CFUs is a very difficult thing,
<v Speaker 1>you know, do you are you ware of like the
<v Speaker 1>next generation of chip lithography, like the like what they're
<v Speaker 1>doing to make the to kind of keep up with
<v Speaker 1>Moore's law. There's so right now they you know, they're
<v Speaker 1>they print tiny little transistors on they're using kind of
<v Speaker 1>traditional means and it's it's very difficult, but they're getting
<v Speaker 1>down to like you know, three nanometers and smaller two nanometers.
<v Speaker 1>How big that these little like traces are on the
<v Speaker 1>circuit boards in the nineteen eighties, uh, while discovering while
<v Speaker 1>trying to make nuclear weapons, someone discovered that you can
<v Speaker 1>make ultra violet light or something like that, and you
<v Speaker 1>can make maybe it's ultra infrared something like that, but
<v Speaker 1>you can make very bright light lasers, and you can
<v Speaker 1>use that to etch these things onto the world's most
<v Speaker 1>perfect mirrors, and then that you could burn away layers
<v Speaker 1>of that and you can actually get now billions and
<v Speaker 1>trillions more transistors on than you ever could before. But
<v Speaker 1>it's a process that is extremely extraordinarily difficult, and it's
<v Speaker 1>taken since the nineteen eighty to today to start getting
<v Speaker 1>products that actually use this method of building chips. And
<v Speaker 1>it's like, that sounds very complicated, and it turns out, yes,
<v Speaker 1>it is. Like each machine that they build that can
<v Speaker 1>do this is like two hundred and fifty million dollars
<v Speaker 1>or something like that, something crazy like that. So, hey,
<v Speaker 1>making CPUs seems difficult. Intel definitely prioritized a lot of
<v Speaker 1>other things other than doing a good job at that,
<v Speaker 1>and now they're paying for it. But I think the
<v Speaker 1>GPUs are getting better, and so I I would consider
<v Speaker 1>the five eighty B five sixty whatever it was.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what's that I knew nothing about what you were
<v Speaker 2>just talking about, but it was incredibly interested. Why haven't
<v Speaker 2>we as a society pushed for more super lasers to
<v Speaker 2>build things?
<v Speaker 1>It turns out because it's very, very very hard to make.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's the reason why we haven't gotten more of them.
<v Speaker 2>Why are we trying to bioengineer bananas?
<v Speaker 1>Why do we.
<v Speaker 2>You have an answer for you?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, listen, we I love a bioengineered banana. Otherwise still
<v Speaker 1>have like giant seeds in them that are like rocks.
<v Speaker 1>Bioengineered bananas rule all right, that's my favorite saying.
<v Speaker 2>We figured out bananas, we don't need to do more.
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, you don't need to continenta okay, all right,
<v Speaker 1>that's that's my I think about that all the time.
<v Speaker 1>It didn't mean to make you shoot hotro You may
<v Speaker 1>me shoot out about bananas. Man. Hey, last story here.
<v Speaker 1>Giant Bomb at Night, presented by war Frame nineteen ninety nine.
<v Speaker 1>Next Wednesday, December eleventh, Yeah, five pm to eleven pm
<v Speaker 1>Pacific time. We'll be going live on you know all
<v Speaker 1>the channels where you watch us, YouTube, Twitch, giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot com, all that good stuff. As I always say,
<v Speaker 1>with these. You know, we did this last year, and
<v Speaker 1>we did it. This is not unless we get a sponsor.
<v Speaker 1>So shout outs to the Warframe for helping them make
<v Speaker 1>it make it possible. You know, this isn't an extra one,
<v Speaker 1>a bonus one we could do get to do outside
<v Speaker 1>of Summer Game Fest, and you know, and just the
<v Speaker 1>fact that we had someone step in and make it possible.
<v Speaker 1>We appreciate that. And it's still gonna be the show
<v Speaker 1>you like. And I'm really looking forward to having a
<v Speaker 1>lot of cool people on there. A lot of people
<v Speaker 1>are going to be in town and we'll hang out
<v Speaker 1>with our friends. It'll be a good time.
<v Speaker 2>Jan Yes, Yes, one hundred percent shouts special shouts out
<v Speaker 2>as always ever since we've joined fandom to Emma Fife
<v Speaker 2>for creating its production team and holding it down where
<v Speaker 2>I am not worried at all about it.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, it's kind of all taking care of itself. And
<v Speaker 1>by that I mean someone else is doing the work.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, shout out stay God bless Emma. Five. We should
<v Speaker 2>just put a shirt that says trust Emma. Oh.
<v Speaker 1>I would like that, I would get I would wear
<v Speaker 1>that constantly. Yeah for sure. All right, let's see here
<v Speaker 1>any other headlines. No, I'm gonna make a note here,
<v Speaker 1>go get an air cut. All right, there we go. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>poll question, let me get to that. I have it
<v Speaker 1>right here. Let me just frame it up a little
<v Speaker 1>bit better.
<v Speaker 2>All right?
<v Speaker 1>This is from Do we get the one from Monday? Maybe?
<v Speaker 1>Do we put um up there? Yeah? It should be
<v Speaker 1>up there. I think it's up there. Yeah, there it is.
<v Speaker 1>What is the best PlayStation boot up sequence? PS one,
<v Speaker 1>PS two, PS three or PS four? Two percent with
<v Speaker 1>PS four? Actually, what is the boot up sequence with
<v Speaker 1>the PS four? Is there? One is? Just make it
<v Speaker 1>like maybe a noise or something. PS three got the
<v Speaker 1>four percent. Thirty eight percent went with PS two. Again,
<v Speaker 1>I know a lot of people.
<v Speaker 2>Love that, but with a plurality of.
<v Speaker 1>The response is actually a majority, I should say PS
<v Speaker 1>one with fifty six percent, that is that's correct. I
<v Speaker 1>feel I voted for that one. Feel very strongly that's
<v Speaker 1>probably the best console boot up ever.
<v Speaker 2>I I do have a fondness for the PS two
<v Speaker 2>with the different sphere or spheres. The square is popping
<v Speaker 2>this stuff. Yeah yeah, you know what, if we're going
<v Speaker 2>to best boot up sequence of all time, I'd say
<v Speaker 2>it's PS one is up there, and then maybe the
<v Speaker 2>game Boy advances.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say game Boy advance, I like quite
<v Speaker 1>a bit very close. Yep, definitely. All right, we have
<v Speaker 1>a new pool question that I'll hit you with that
<v Speaker 1>in a second. Actually, there's right there if you want
<v Speaker 1>to take a snack a peek. In the meantime, though,
<v Speaker 1>a chan, what do we have happening on the website?
<v Speaker 2>No Blight Club today? Unfortunately, we may try and reschedule
<v Speaker 2>that to later this week. I you know, I might
<v Speaker 2>sense some collusion happening with Lucy James and Alex Navarro
<v Speaker 2>trying to get Dann a third game.
<v Speaker 1>Who's the same? I mean, but if we can't do
<v Speaker 1>it this week, we're definitely not doing it next week. No,
<v Speaker 1>and then, like you know, honestly, after that, I mean
<v Speaker 1>there might be holiday travel, people might be, yeah, be unavailable.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna get out of hand fast for Dan, and
<v Speaker 1>suddenly we're gonna be in January and she still has
<v Speaker 1>to beat the game, and people aren't aware.
<v Speaker 2>Alex Navarro has.
<v Speaker 1>Laid down an ultimatum where you know, Dan has to
<v Speaker 1>be playing his next games that Alex gave him at
<v Speaker 1>that Packs East, like almost a year ago, and it's
<v Speaker 1>it's it's a robo or no, it's Terminator three, and
<v Speaker 1>then Rise of the Machines and then Drake of the
<v Speaker 1>ninety nine Nights or whatever it is, nine nine.
<v Speaker 2>Dragons Dragons or something like that.
<v Speaker 1>Can never keep it straight. But he's got to start
<v Speaker 1>Terminator three by the second week of January, and if
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't, Alex said, there will be consequences.
<v Speaker 2>I've learned not to ever mess and to constantly fear
<v Speaker 2>and love Alex Navarro.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's why I'm glad there's like this barrier of
<v Speaker 1>Dan Reiker between me and him, Like clearly Dan's got
<v Speaker 1>his eye, and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna stay
<v Speaker 1>in the background. You know, Mike already got one game
<v Speaker 1>picked by Alex, So I'm like, I'm just gonna stay
<v Speaker 1>back here and kind of keep my head down and
<v Speaker 1>see what I can see what happens. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>what a consequence looks like, but I hope it's more
<v Speaker 1>bad games for Dan. That sounds great.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe it's the playholl three. At the same time, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know.
<v Speaker 1>There you go, that's that's what I want to see.
<v Speaker 1>New Polko, did you play x Defiant. Yes, no, well
<v Speaker 1>results for that, we'll get that on the show tomorrow
<v Speaker 1>here on Giant Bomba and Game US Mornings. I guess
<v Speaker 1>no Blake Club, and then we'll try to get some
<v Speaker 1>other stuff into this week. But you know, today I'm
<v Speaker 1>in a bunch of meetings. We've really got to iron
<v Speaker 1>out the last little bit for GB at Night and
<v Speaker 1>the GGA pre show. So yes, all of the work
<v Speaker 1>we're doing this week, we'll pay dividends in the future.
<v Speaker 1>Look out for that. But we'll probably have some fun
<v Speaker 1>stuff on the site tomorrow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, a voicemail dumb truck will pop off tomorrow. No,
<v Speaker 2>no worries there, folks. Maybe maybe something will pop off
<v Speaker 2>later today, no promises, but for sure grub game this
<v Speaker 2>morning is tomorrow and Friday.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, tomorrow and Friday. Look out for it.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody there We go, all right.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's going to wrap it up here. Nothing
<v Speaker 1>else to mention. Jana Chow, thank you so much for
<v Speaker 1>spinning today talking with me about video games. Man, I
<v Speaker 1>really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>It's my favorite way to start a Thursday.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you everybody for listening and why you are the
<v Speaker 1>best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
<v Speaker 1>take care of yourself and goodbye.