Perfect Dark Reboot is Allegedly in Bad Shape

You'll be go'll be beer. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for May eighth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so,
let me help you soar through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
Live with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, Nintendo shocks with a surprise new game
announcement and what is the future of Xbox after the company has lost the faith
of its fans and developers. But first, please join me and welcoming today's
co host the Game Mess Mornings. It's Lucy James. Everybody, Lucy,
how are you doing? And actually prefer if you if it's me is my
new title, which is Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty. Everybody here. She
has thirteen hours Huh. Fell asleep on the couch watching Bound Gottner restoration videos.
Oh hell yeah. And when took myself to bed at ten pm and
I was like, maybe I'll be awake for a little bit. Nope,
No, it didn't happen. Okay, I didn't like fall asleep at ten
that's nice, but wait, I don't want to sleep. It's seven thirty
pm though. Yeah, well I was gonna say, okay, yeah,
I was gonna say where the thirteen hours happened? Seven thirty. Wow?
All right then, And I did take a little nap in the afternoon because
I had the day off. So of course, man, that'll stacked on
top of one another. I like I said before we got started, I
like the idea of the way thirteen hours of sleep sounds. If you break
up a little bit, it's fine. Yeah, but you're right. I
don't think I've ever woken up after woken. I don't think. I don't
know if I've ever awoken after thirteen hours of sleep and been like that's what
I needed. It's usually like, oh man, okay, I wish I
would have got up like normal time and felt better about it. Yeah,
but this is the kind of week you want to sleep through. So I
get it. I completely understand. Yeah with Actane Gone, I don't I
don't want to wake up. Jane Austin Gone, I don't want to wake
up. Yeah, what's the point of this world anymore? Well, we'll
definitely talk about all that. But boy, what a day in news yesterday
though. Yeah, so you had yesterday off where you like and attention in
at all, where you're like, oh my god, social media is a
nightmare or what. So I was shooting something in our LA office and I
had to travel on Sunday. My flight got delayed coming back, so I
got in late on Monday and I was like, I'm taking some time back.
I will be in a couple of meetings. And I woke up and
I had a text from someone in the UK that just said, holy shit,
Xbox shut down Arcane and the High Fi Rush guys, And I was
like, because I thought Arcane all not to say that even just Austin isn't
terrible in itself, but I was, you know, I kind of got
shocked awake, and then I was just genuinely I had a meeting with the
FPS boys and we were all just depressed as hell. So yeah, yep,
it sucks. Of all the closures and I'm not saying, you know,
and every every single one has been terrible and terrible, but like Arcane
dishonored, Pray such important games to me, I really respect that team right
full was a miss, but it was out of their hands. I am
so upset and disappointed. And also High Fi Rush, like you know,
the team over a tango. High Fi Rush was the hit that they that
Xbox needed like that jolt in the arm and what the fuck are they doing?
Like I'm genuinely I just don't get it. And I honestly like,
if you all left at Xbox after the most of the nineteen hundred earlier in
the year and then these closures, God, how are you feeling, Jesus
Christ? Because like, what's the direction? I know we're talking more about
this, but yeah, and it's so hard to make sense of it too,
right, because it's you know, like it's the last couple of years
they were hiring hiring, hiring like crazy, and it's okay, do you
have you have a vision for all all these people? It's like, no,
we're laying off nineteen hundred people. It's like, oh Jesus, all
right, well, I mean you hired a lot of people in the last
couple of years. I guess it's like, okay, well, let's really
focus on these studios you got left. No, we're closing some of those.
What okay? What is the vision? It feels completely lacking in every
way, and you could I could have imagined a world where that was once
like okay you no, Hi Fi Rush is like something. It's a foundation
where you build from there, you get R. Kane Austin back on track.
Let maybe let them go back to Pray now that Pray has got this
like a word of mouth campaign that happened. They got a lot of people
on board for it, and it did really well in game Pass now and
I get that, like our R Kane Austin seemed like it was in a
tough spot of like a lot of people had left. Maybe it was it
was reportedly very hard to hire people for that studio in the last couple of
years. But boy, Tango Game Works seemed like the one that should have
just been able to make sense even in a post Shinji mccami world. But
the thing is as well from from Tango, I think LEXI, I know
you're in the chat. I think this was your tweet where it's like,
think about how weak the yen is right now. I think about Xbox wanting
to make a push into Japan, and like this was that Japanese studio.
Yep, if it doesn't make sense now, it must never make sense.
So it makes it makes sense, Phil Yeah, yeah, and the like
in the future when they you know, try another initiative and in any way
that involves Japan. Why would anyone give them the benefit of the doubt.
I don't think they will anymore. All right, let's explain what we do
here most weekdays. I, Jeff Grubb, will help peace your gaming life
back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original
reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide
expert who will make me look smart. If you are watching live on twitch
welcome, You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com.
You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello
YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's
start the morning mess with game developers react to Xbox closing down multiple studios.
This is from Luis Joshua Gudieirez at GameSpot. Earlier today, it was revealed
that Xbox is shutting down four of its studios. The studios include Redfall developer,
Arkane Austin and Tango Game Works. Since the announcement, various developers across
the industry have voiced their opinions on the matter. Dinga Bakaba, the director
of ar Kane Leone, shared their thoughts in a series of posts on Twitter,
called Microsoft's recent decision absolutely terrible and can you continued by saying, to
any executives reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment slash cultural
industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists
slash entertainers and help them create value for you. And the same thread,
Bacaba pleaded with executives to not throw us into gold fever gambits, don't use
us as a straw man for miscalculation slash blind spots. Don't make our work
our work, environment environment Darwinist jungles. As the post continued, Bacaba called
the closure of these studios a fucking gut stab. They continued by saying Leon
is safe, but please be tactful and discerning about all this and respect affected
folks's voice and leave it room to be heard. It's their story to tell
their feelings to express. Alister Hatch, the Regional director of Northern, Eastern
and Southern Europe at Bethesda you know, also a Microsoft employee, took to
Twitter to say the recently offs let them feeling angry, frustrated, shocked,
furious, speechless, dumbfounded, and perplexed. And then Adam Boyce Alice is
just about to leave as well, Like I think he posted like I'm kind
of you know, done with everything. Yeah, but like this was this
was before, So I feel like he feels safer in saying this. But
uh, right, right, that's that's kind of thing. It's like,
you know, And and so I saw someone quote tweet Dingers. It's one
of the guys who runs like like one of those law firms and everything,
and they were just like, oh yeah, this is the kind of thing
that would get you fired. I was like, wow, dude, what
a time to post that one, right, you know, like and you
know, we'll have a story related to that sort of concept here in a
little bit that that has to be pretty frustrated as well. But for Dinga
one, he is a really recognizable face. Would be a really bad idea
to firehand. Also, firing someone for saying for expressing the emotions that he's
talking about should have a place to be to set, to be set and
validated would be insane. And three, and most importantly to Microsoft, he's
in charge of the Blade game. They're not going to fire him, no
way, not when he's the one working on the game that they actually they're
not, you know, canceling and not shutting down. Adam Boys also like
who's the co CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios? Shout out to Adam simply shared
a screenshot of a geek Wore article from April revealing that Microsoft saw a seventeen
percent increase in revenue and declared twenty one point nine billion dollars in profit in
the most recent financial earnings report. It's also worth mentioning that it is into
Microsoft's first round of layoffs this year. Earlier in January, Microsoft announced that
it was cutting nineteen hundred jobs. I mean, wait, did you talk
about Mikey bar Street. We could talk about that as well, that that
was that was such a mech, But what do we call him? Like
Mikey yap Bara, Mikey yap Barro, Like he just is yapping on Twitter
saying, hey, uh, you know, we should think about Phil's feelings.
Basically, that's the paraphrase version, and it's not even that paraphrase.
That's exactly the point of the entire tweet. That's what he was trying to
say, like he has to lay people off, and you know this is
hurting him too, and no one wants to hear that right now. There's
a reason, honestly, that Phil and Sarah Bond aren't out there like doing
a round at this moment and aren't posting stuff on social media. They're just
like, they don't posted anything yet. I don't think so. I think
they're just taking their lashings because I think they understand they need to just take
their lashings here and we don't need like, yeah, I bet, I
bet it does suck to have to lay people off, not as much as
it sucks to get laid off and have your studio closed and and work on
something like an update to Redfall. That is the next story we'll get here
in a second. But like, yeah, and that mean, do you
mean the one that was being updated five hours before the news? Yep,
it's uh. And to have all this stuff like just ripped away from you,
that's the stuff that actually hurts. And the executive leadership is still in
charge after all this, and we'll continue to be in charge, it seems
like, so I'm not too worried about them. Yeah, let's jump to
that next story. Redfall was reportedly set to get an offline mode this month
before Arcane Austin was closed and this is from Chris Scullion at VGC. Redfall
was set to get its long promised offline mode this month before Microsoft decided to
close its studio down. According to a new report, IGN sources say developer
Arcane Austin was still working on DLC and updates for the game, working under
the assumption they would be released soon until it was announced on Tuesday that the
studio would be shutting down and all development would stop. According to the report,
an update was planned this month which was going to add an offline mode
to the game, something fans have been requesting since Redfall had even been before
it had even been released. In February twenty twenty three, three months before
the game was released, it was confirmed that Red Fall required a persistent online
connection even for the single player gameplay. The studio subsequently said it was still
looking It was looking to into removing the always online requirement for solo players.
So they did that. They have it ready to go. It's not going
to come out. And now when Red Fall, of course people a gonna
say, I don't want to play Red Fall whatever. When Red Falls servers
shut down, the game will just be unplayable. And they were about to
make it so it would last and you'd be persistent and people could go back
and look at this game as a cultural artifact whatever. For whatever reason,
you want to go back and play it. Some people legitimate and we enjoy
the game. So Nope, what's the servers are down? That's it,
it's going away. It's this kind of thing that's like, what, what
the hell? Why can't like, couldn't you just let them finish their work
given like some like a runway to before closing them down or something. I
don't know. It just all this feels so frustrating to me. That and
Star Effect that's really put an emphasis on that. I totally agree. So
is the studio is it? Is it shut down? Because I saw Schwei's
post and it was like planning to but then Matt bout my Booty Easy email
came out where he called to the studio is the wrong name? Yeah?
Huh, yes, he did do that, and then was it just like
that day? Was it gone? I mean, so the way that they've
talked publicly about all these things is like there's nothing more happening with these games,
like they're not. They basically like like Hi Fi Rush, right,
High Fi Rush will continue to be available wherever it is right now, And
we've heard reasons till the music licenses expire, yes exactly. And then High
High I Rush was also like recently rated for Switch or something like that,
and we knew they were trying to get it on Switch and it's like,
well, that's not going to happen now. It seems like it is getting
cut off in a pretty harsh way right now. There are probably if there
are employees in other countries where you know, the labor laws are different,
those probably have to like wind down more slowly. So that's probably where some
of the confusion comes in, I would imagine. But you know, like
ar Kane Austin, they could just that's Texas. They can just send them
out, yep, just cut them off. Yeah. We will have like
another conversation here about Microsoft, like from a different angle here in a second,
but like just to put a bow on on what has happened here.
Uh. The conversation around a lot of this is how can gamers continue to
trust Microsoft when it feels like they do not they get cold feet, like
there's an old image of but that's the plus Xbox and it had all of
these icons from these different games and someone went through and it's like and crossed
out the ones that just got closed down, and they they erroneously crossed out
Dishonored, which is Leon right that's the one that they I believe just OneD
one was co production between the two right and then just on two decided two
is Leon Death was Leon Blades Leon and Pray and Rightful were Austin, Okay,
but it like this is like an image that's like, oh wow,
that was exciting at the time, but this was Xbox, Like all these
games will get a lot more budget and be able to carry forward, and
more than half of them are crossed out, and it's like, man that
like anytime you come out in the future, now out and like promise anything,
people are gonna remember this moment of the times when they just crossed out
all those things that they were once excited about. And then of course the
people making the games, like the promise of the whole Xbox acquisition initiative was
hey, it's really dangerous out there to be an independent studio or to even
be at a publisher like Zennimax, where they're like looking around like, man,
where's the money going to come from? Hey, you know has money
Microsoft come work for us. You'll have a little bit of more freedom and
you'll have security, and now you don't. So how can anyone trust these
companies going forward? And really should they have in the first place? Oh,
LEXI just put the the image in yes, chat right, and that's
christ Yes. And it's like, I mean it's Dishonored, Red Fall,
Elder Scrolls, Fallout, High Fi Rush, Starfield, even Within and Pray
and now the only ones that aren't crossed off are the Elder Scrolls, Fallout,
and Starfield. That's that's rough stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's uh.
And I mean, hey, I seem going to talk about this,
but like Ninja theory, that's yeah, we talk about it now. I
mean, the guy helped come out in two weeks. Does anybody know spent
a long time working on a game like that? Do you think that xbot
like this? This is where right now, it's like Zaxbox going to continue
to support like studios like that, games like that, thinking even places like
Double Find that they own Compulsion. It's not a mega hit on the size
and scale of something like Cord Like, does it even matter anymore? Yeah,
it's that that's the sense that we get them now. A part of
what Matt Booty said in an internal email yesterday where he did called studios by
the wrong name. He said it this is about like reorganizing things to focus
more on our high impact games. And I mean what that means is we
have these franchises that are recognizable and can sell really well and it could be
a billion dollar franchise, something apparently Matt Booty says frequently about about their games.
Hey, this could be a billion dollar franchise. If you aren't a
billion dollar franchise, what do you think right now? I think across the
board, you have to be like you to assume that it's going to be
bad for you, and that in that you're going to end up in the
same situation eventually if you can't squeeze some more value out of your thing.
And uh, you know High Fi Rush did by going to PlayStation and then
a few weeks later it's closed. So yeah, it's it continues to be
very very frustrating and disorienting, and it feels it feels like this industry is
in such a tough spot to the point where where, you know, Mike
Manati posts a tweet yesterday about like, doesn't you know, I'm starting to
think that PlayStation and Xbox aren't the future of gaming, and uh, it's
really puts an emphasis on that as well. Right where how can the now
people will be like PlayStation is doing just fine, not a going to PlayStation.
Their growth isn't enough, That's what they say on all their stuff.
They're like, we want to be growing more, We're not. These games
are getting too expensive, you know. You know there's people like Sean Layden
out there talking all the time about how like these things like they saw they
could see the future when I worked there, they saw the future these things
getting more expensive and not enough people coming in and spending enough money to justify
that. Eventually those two things butt heads. So these companies that seem to
have, you know, at least for some only had some a lot of
stuff figured out. Xbox seemed like they were figuring something that would game pass.
Now it's like, oh, we had wool over our eyes. We
pulled back the curtains and there's no man behind there. What is the future
of the the like the premium console space in your eyes? Mmmm, streaming
subscription services. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I mean I think they'll
probably coast along, right, Like they'll probably find I mean, will that
will be hardware, but it won't be the driver anymore. It's gonna be
you know, how can we keep your money coming in in a regular cadence?
What can we put on our service that'll encourage people to subscribe? Yeah?
Yeah, it's just oh man, yeah, shit sucks, dude,
It's it's kind of it kind of sums it up. It's shit sucks even
even just like the thought of that, Like you know, fps last week,
you know, we were we had a Lana on and we were kind
of lamenting the good old days of like, oh, you know, PlayStation
would do something in Xbox would react, and that was how the consoles would
kind of you know, in terms of acquisitions or even in terms of game
releases, or in terms of hardware, And now it just feels like both
of them kind of like Xbox, certainly when it comes to hardware, has
lost that fight. But it also just feels like, I don't know,
it's we're kind of we're having we're moving into the subscription only streaming thing.
We're losing so much institutional talent, Like we're losing all this knowledge, all
of this, all of these incredible people and for what yep. Yeah,
And the industry has had a long history of not being able to find us
find spots for their senior talent to grow. I was watching I think it
was Danny's documentary about Pentiment, and you know Josh Sawyer talking about like I
can't work on something I'm not excited about. It's like, man, that's
that's someone that you need, Like, and there's a lot of there.
You know what, there are a significant number of people similar to Josh Seyer
who are senior developers who have been doing this stuff for a very long time,
and they they're like they've reached a ceiling and they're looking around for something
to be like, Okay, what what's my next challenge? And these and
these corporations are coming to them be like, your next challenge is and this
is not Josh Sewyer but someone saip, like your next challenge is making assets
for Call of Duty? What what are you talking about? Like, there's
got to be something else for them, And that's just like the creative side
in terms of them being able to continue to move up the chain of finding
spots where they can still be creative but feel like they are progressing their career.
That stuff also doesn't exist. So these people are getting burned out and
they're leaving, and then when they're not, they're getting laid off. So
yeah, it's it's kind of obsidian. I really hope that a vout does
well. Yep. I mean right, all these games that would like,
uh, you know's we'll get to this next story here very quick. But
yeah, all these games from Microsoft that have been announced. I hope that
does well because the writing's on the wall. If it doesn't, you know,
they got call of duty. They're good, so you can get out
of here. That's what that starts to feel like, all right. Next
story. Perfect Dark reboot is allegedly in bad shape. This is from Georgiana
GameSpot. The Perfect Dark reboot that was announced for PC and Xbox series X
Slash Slash S is reportedly experiencing some shaky development woes right now. Jeff Grubb
took time on yesterday's Giant Giant The Giant Bomb BombCast to speak about upcoming Xbox
projects. These included Perfect Dark and uh and things are apparently not looking good.
Yeah. So I talked about this on the BombCast yesterday, and this
is a you know, little tidbits here or there, but it's it's in
line with what I've heard for years nowhere where you know, kind of when
the Crystal Dynamics stuff was happening, and then now more recently that the thing
just doesn't have a vision and it's it seems like something that may you know,
kind of implode on itself, and like things are that rough over there
for the game. Yeah, and you know, they brought they started the
initiative in twenty eighteen, and then they brought in Crystal Dynamics to help them
with development of it, and it just seems like none of that has really
coalesced into something that will definitely be a great game. Now. I'm always
like with these kinds of stories, when I've heard this in the past,
and I haven't talked about it, it's mostly because it's like, yeah,
I mean, I hear this about a lot of games. A lot of
games struggle in development and then some come out, some come out good,
and some come out bad. And this could still happen with Perfect Dark.
It absolutely could be the kind of thing where, yeah, it feels rough
this entire time, but that was just the chaotic creative process, and then,
like a lot of games in the last six months, it really comes
together and they get it out and they're really proud of it. That's possible,
but it's just not the sentiment that I'm hearing from the game at the
moment. People on it are kind of shaky about it. That's one that
people like. It has to hit. They spend a lot of time,
It was an early money a lot of money. It was like an early
promise game for the Xbox series X. If they can't like figure out a
game like that, what are they doing over there? It just just feels
like symptomatic of the entire problem with the Xbox experiment, right Yeah. I
mean, but also the further and further we get away from the announcement of
it, the more people are excited about it, and the part of it
has to hit, especially with Xbox, kind of we're in that phase now
where they sewed a long time ago, they invested a lot a lot of
money, and now we're supposed to be reaping the rewards of that, and
like this year alone, we've actually got releases coming from Xbox Perfect doct The
longer it goes on, the more money it spends. Like yep, Xbox
has so much course correction to do now in terms of its reputation, in
terms of its light. Can't afford for this one to be just a middle
of the road game. It has to really hit. They need franchises,
yep. And oh yeah, and this was like an example of them like
going back into their history. You know, it's it's rare history, but
whatever they've acquired rare and it's been they did put up. They put out
a Perfect arg zero, so it technically is their history as well. And
finding a way to like bring one of those back or forward and capitalize on
it something that Microsoft has been really bad out bad at outside of Halo and
Gears of War and a couple of other things. You know, there's a
lot of original Xbox franchises that's like, man, where's that stuff? Where's
Crimson Skies stuff like that, and you know they still aren't making those necessarily.
But Perfect Doark was like, Okay, this is one where figure that
out and then maybe you can learn some lessons there and apply that to some
other franchises going forward, and then in the meantime you have another big pillar
to stand next to Halo and Gears four and all this stuff. Again,
they might still get there, but development's messy. And when you are working
on something for years and then you look around and the company you're working for
is laying people off and closing down studios, the morales got to also take
ahead at a certain point. So I wonder if they were able to keep
those senior developers working on that game and train up a new crop of developers
and then also take advantage of whatever Crystal Dynamics is at this point moment.
Who knows. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break. When we
get back, a lot more news, including a surprise announcement from Nintendo.
We'll get to that after this. All right, we are back, and
let's do it with Nintendo World Championships any S Edition is a retro speed run
game coming to Switch in July. This is from Chris Scully and a VGC.
Nintendo is officially announced Nintendo World Championships and Edition initially spotted last week when
it was rated by the ESRB. Nintendo World Championships any S Edition is an
entirely new game based on the contest of the same name. The Switch Game
will be released on July eighteenth. It will cost thirty dollars. I'm gonna
turn on my kids tablet for it's this button right here, Ketto. I
can just hit these thing right there. There you go, There you go
the game. The Switch Game will released on July eighteenth, and it will
feature one hundred and fifty speed running challenges divided across the following thirteen games Balloon
Fights, What Yeah, Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong, Site Bike, Ice,
Climber kid Ickris Kirby's Adventure, Metroid Super Mario Brothers Won two, three,
The Lost Levels, and then the Legend of Zelda and Zelda to the
Adventure of Link. If this sounds familiar, it's pretty close to what they
did with a NES remix. They just sort of shifted the emphasis from being
like, hey remember these games to hey, can you complete this challenge in
this game the fastest, And they showed a bunch of snippets and stuff from
the gameplay, the gameplay itself, and it was like, Okay, hey
can you get the first mushroom and Super Mario Brothers one Dash one as quickly
as possible and that's like five seconds. So it's these really fast snippets.
And then apparently it's going to be like have a global leaderboard and friends leaderboard
and you know, with the one hundred and fifty challenges in total, I'm
like, I'm pretty excited about this. This is kind of exactly what I
was looking for. So it's not the full games, it's just challenges within.
It's it sounds like it's going to be just the challenges within those games.
You know, all these games are like on as virtual console thing that
they have on NSO, but it's like now they're going to present them in
like a series of like you know, little boxes exactly like any s remix.
Yeah. Yeah, So like on PlayStation how they have the quick Resiume
not quick Resime that's Xbox, but they have the thing where it's, hey,
if you purse the PlayStation home, jump back in and do this challenge
right just from the menu exactly. It picks up from that challenge. Yes,
and you know, I have the video here. I'll see if I
can get up for everybody to take a look at. But yes, it's
the kind of thing where they are curating these tiny little challenges. Some of
them might be longer than others, but there were ones that were as short
as a couple of seconds, and it's like, okay, that's that's interesting.
So I'm going to try to perfect this movement from running from the beginning
of the game hitting the box, you know, hitting the question mark with
my head as quickly as possible, and then running around to the top to
grab the mushroom. And it's like, if I can get every movement of
that perfect in a couple of seconds, something that would be very easy to
repeat because it's like not a huge time commitment. It's like, okay,
I can have the number one score on my friend's leader board or you know,
like something like that. It's like, you know, that's enough time
that I can maybe perfect it. So I could be tied for first in
the world with everyone else that was able to perfect that. So I really
like that idea. I just hope that the sort of pacing is really well
done, because it's you know, I'm going from one five second challenge to
maybe the next one. How much downtime is there is? It kind of
like uh does again in its own way. But yeah, it needs to
have that immediate restart, you know, I'll it. No, it's really
cool that Nintendo's kind of going in on a retro speed run game. Yes,
that's a really cool thing that they're doing. I mean speed running is
I mean GDQ. Every single time it is on, it is my second
monitor viewing. Sometimes I'll be on the couch and it'll be my TV viewing
if I'm feeling fancy. I am so excited that they are kind of,
i don't know, making it more accessible to a bunch of people to hopefully
get their foot in the door, to make more people interested in speed running.
Nintendo has such a rich catalog for speed running, and I think this
is awesome. Hey, maybe from Software will release one. Hey can you
imagine? I mean, look, I want everyone to be doing like here's
the speed run collection of our games. After Astro's Playroom for the PS five
when that launch and I didn't beat the game and instead just played like the
eight speed run challenges over and over again, I'm like, this is such
a good idea. Take a game that feels good to play already has cool
levels, and just cut out a small section of those levels and make turn
that into the speed Run Challenge and have a good global leaderboard and friends leaderboard
and your set, and it doesn't have to be some massive thing. It
just kind of needs to be like this small little presentation, and these older
games are perfect for it. I think the Nintendo World Championships sort of rapping
is also really good because you know, that's there's a lot of history there
and people know that that, oh, that's the really expensive cartridge and all
that stuff, and they've done a couple of these in the last you know,
ten years. They did win in twenty seventeen and a couple before that
as well, and it's yeah, it's like, this is a good idea,
and I just hope that if it really works in execution. I like
the anys Remix games. I didn't love them, and I hope that they
sort of I hope for one that they do make that pacing a little bit
better and make make it easier to get into the games. But honestly,
just the speed Run sort of idea behind it, that alone is kind of
enough for me to be like, Okay, i think I'm gonna like this
better no matter what, because that's kind of what I wanted from any s
remix give me a reason to go back and challenge my friends, and that's
what this whole game is about. So yes, it comes up for me
so fun. You know what games of fun to watch? Speed run?
Speed runs off? What's that? Fucking allcane games? Yeah? Yeah,
I wanna. I want to watch some speed runs of Prey and I was.
I was thinking about going back and playing Pray Moon Crash now, but
then that might be impressed as well. I'm trying to do. I mean,
elden Ring DLC is coming out end of was it into June? So
I figure if I stop my elden Ring replay now hopefully finished it in time.
Mm hmmm. I want to replay hell Blade before if we if we
got it comes out, if we got some finished Indica yesterday? Oh really,
how'd you find that? How was Indica? I loved Indika? Okay,
I still don't really understand what it is. Does that matter? I
should just go play it. It's an I mean, it's a nun with
the Devil on her shoulder, and it's a non simulating rusher, non simulator.
I don't want to say too much about it. I loved it.
It made me. Okay. First of all, they're like, read the
content warnings on it, for sure, they're on the Steam page. Read
the content warnings. It's it's something. It's not unlike it's it's I don't
think I've played anything quite like it before. I loved it. All right,
then I am going to check it out. I do have it on
my Steam deck. Is that a good place to play it? I played
it on PC. I didn't play it on my Steam deck. It hitched
a little bit, but it has been patched since then. But it was
like mine and mine and minor, but I loved it. It's great.
Yeah, all right, to the World Championships any s edition that's July eighteenth
or thirty dollars. They're also having a physical version of the game that will
be like it's going to come with a bunch of goodies and stuff like that.
Like they have a replica version of the gold cartridge of the nes World
Championships. I looked pretty handsome. I might consider that, all right.
Up next, Nintendo's Switch era profits are now more than all other Nintendo eras
combined. This is from my Nintendo News. The Nintendo Switch has been very
successful. In fact, it has been such a success that it is still
breaking records and reaching milestones. The Nintendo Switch is now getting rather close to
reaching the lifetime sales of of Sony's PlayStation two. Nintendo has made a lot
of money during the Switch era, but it may surprise you just how much
they've earned Earlier Today, during Nintendo's financial results briefing, they share the latest
data on the company's profits, including how much they earned from the previous fiscal
year. Thanks to the last fiscal year, they have now reached a point
where Nintendo is now profited more during the Switch area era than any other Nintendo
console era combined. You could see that in a tweet that I'll try to
bring up as well. But yeah, this is astonishing. It kind of
really hits home that Nintendo was it made the right choice by sort of turning
away from direct competition with Sony and Microsoft, and we're like, we're kind
of we're gonna do our own thing. It's still gonna be video games.
We're gonna do our own thing. And the Switch just popped off in such
a way that it really blew everything else away. You could see these big
green lines on the right when you add all those together are more than everything
else from nineteen eighty to twenty sixteen, So the entire era of Nintendo combined
before the Switch versus the Switch era. The Switch made more. It is
massively successful, and it's a lot of that is just I think people like
buying video games for their switch is what happened there. But also I think
they just figured out a lot of other things like how to keep development costs
down and sell a lot of video games. Does this surprise you at all?
Because this still kind of blew me away a little bit. I think
in terms of the sheer amount of profit, that's definitely surprising. But I
mean, especially when you consider things like the WE. But I I mean,
good for Nintendo? Are they the only quote unquote safe video game?
I mean, Harriet, I mean, who knows that? You know?
It's Nintendo. They'll find a way to beef it here eventually, but in
the meantime, they're making enough money now that they can afford to beef it
a couple more times. But like you're right though, the WE is the
roalpe point of comparison. So Hey, the Switch has sold one hundred and
forty one one hundred and forty two million consoles and that's a lot. And
it's like it's like almost as much as the DS and the PlayStation two.
But I was like thinking, like, well, you know, that's great,
but look at like during the WE ere they had the WE and the
and the DS, and those two were massively huge. That was like,
that's like two hundred and fifty consoles sold between those two and one generation.
And it's like, okay, so really things have kind of shrunk. But
then you look at the profits and it's like, yeah, the overall revenue
is kind of like, you know, it's even or up a little bit,
but the profits are way up. And so yeah, Nintendo has found
a way to just sort of harness the energy of its gaming fandom and turn
it into something that is very successful. And I it's probably not replicable by
these other video game companies, right. It's not like Microsoft could just wake
up one day and be like, we're going to be more like Nintendo,
although they probably should still try, right, they're these you know, I
think Sony and MICROSOFTO both sort of like concede the family gaming space to Nintendo,
and so well, the reason Nintendo is so successful is they get every
new crop of children out there. It's like, Hey, a new generation
of kids are playing Pokemon and now they're going to be lifelong Nintendo fans,
and they get them while they're young, and that's clearly paying off. I
don't know, do you think Microsoft and Sony could learn anything for Nintendo or
it's like, no, only Nintendo can do that. So I was laughing
because he made like the child catcher. Yeah, well, I mean they're
out there, little young Yeah, they got the piccolo, they're the little
whistle that they're doing. They're like and they're getting the children following them.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. No, I mean Nintendo is
in such a unique position. I think part of it is also where it's
just like it's kind of like, I don't know, it feels like when
you are when you're older, you say, oh, mom, can I
go play Xbox? When you're a kid, it's mom, can I play
Nintendo? Like it's just this brand that has become synonymous with children, and
not in a bad way in any way. Nintendo games are still fun and
playable for every age, but it's just like the way that their games are
designed in that it's easy to get to grips with difficult to master. They
have that curve they think with joy and fun and like that's the crux of
all of their games, right, and that is obviously way more appealing to
younger kids. It's also way more appealing to parents than not exactly gonna buy.
I mean, god, you know, oh heym my five year old
is having an interest in gaming. I'm gonna get them, call a Judy
now, I'm gonna get them the bright, colorful thing that I know that
they can play. The trust to the one that's like always been there like
and has that name recognition. It's a safe place by parents. Yeah yeah.
And Nintendo being you know, so protective of their brand, like yeah,
sometimes you take the place out of it because you're like, oh,
Nintendo, lighten up a little bit. But now, really, what they've
done is they are very carefully cultivated and protected their brand for so long,
and then on top of that released incredible, incredible games. They have and
I don't mean the word I don't using the word gimmick in a negative way
here, but they've put gimmicks in there. They've put you know, things
like ring Fit, things like God Helped Me, Labbo interesting things that kids
want to play, parents can play with their kids. It's they're very,
very smart, and yeah they this is this is them talking about reaping.
This is the impact of all of the all the sewing they did. Yes,
they've done quite a bit of sewing. Yes, yeah, And I
think that they when they were at the weakest with the WIU and I mean
you can see that on the chart as well. Kind of this era where
it was post wei and they were struggling there and they lost some money for
like the first time ever a couple of those years, they made some decisions
like, Okay, how how are we going to respond to this? And
it wasn't like let's abandon our core identity. It was we've been maybe a
little bit too protective. So now let's go back to Hollywood and license our
stuff out again. Let's be let's have a lot more merch, let's finally
look at doing that thing with Universal, let's do it with theme Park.
And like that's how they responded, like, let's take the power of our
characters and exploit that more and expand on it more. And then the time
we worked out they had the right console and people were still very feeling very
warm about those characters, and so when those new games came out, they
popped off, and of course we saw what happened with the switch, Switch's
ability to sell a ton more games. Zelda's never sold better. The Mario
games really, you rarely have ever sold better. Animal Crossing has never sold
better. So a lot of it's good timing, but a lot of it
is like continuing to believe in their formula overall, and it paid off,
and I think Nintendo seems to have it pretty well figured out again. I
think they'll hit a speed bump in the future, but Nintendo has a good
idea about what to do. It feels like, you know, PC gaming
with early access and all these games that have come out of nowhere and becoming
new billion dollar franchises all the time on there, that space is pretty well
figured out. Mobile has its ups and downs in its stagnation, but it
still makes a lot of money. And it's like this console space where it's
like, yeah, that makes a lot of money. Yeah, it does.
But they're looking for growth and they're not getting it, and so they're
panicking and it feels like that's going to cost some of that stuff to come
crashing down in a way that's going to be very ugly, all right.
A couple of EA stories. The next Battlefield game will be a tremendous live
service title. This from Jonas Mackia Game Reactor. A clear trend in recent
years is the is that major publishers are increasingly reluctant to invest in high profile
single player games. They believe that these are too risky to invest in and
are therefore diverting resource to live service titles, which ironically have had far more
notable commercial flops in recent years. This has led to the concept of live
service becoming something of a derogatory term among gamers who would like to have a
complete game yet again. But seems IT seems TO see no problem with this,
and during yesterday's quarter of the report, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said this,
said this to investors regarding the next Battlefield I've just spent a whole bunch
of time with a collective Battlefield team playing what they're building, and it is
going to be another tremendous live services. The fact that with the story asked,
say does that bother you? Honestly, I don't see any other option
for Battlefield wasn't Ridgeline supposed to be making. Was that supposed to be a
single player game? I think I was supposed to be a single player game,
and then we saw what happened, Yeah in Battlefield I think so,
yes, And I think we saw what happened with Battlefield twenty forty two.
Is that the one that we just can't remember, the most recent one and
that came out as a seventy dollars game that was, hey, no,
this is a complete package, and yeah, we have some more stuff down
the line, but feel free to come in, and we got all this
stuff ready to go. And it's like, man, people, you know,
in a world after twenty seventeen, after pubg and then Fortnite and Apex
Legends that you put out and all these different things, how do you really
think people were going to respond to having to pay seventy dollars for an online
shooter again? And it's like yes. So I think leaning towards live service
and ideally towards free to play is what Battlefield has to do. I don't
think that's going to be like the Magic bullet though. That's not going to
solve all their problems. They have a lot of other hurdles to get over,
but I don't know. Do they have any other options? Do you
think of next Battlefield could be a seventy dollars game again? Hmmm, No,
well it could be a seventy dollars game with my transactions in for sure.
I mean, they could still try that, but it's like, I
don't know. I mean, it feels like they were to do that,
it wouldn't do very well. I'm not completely I'm not as ofa with the
first person shooter market right now. What is the what's the cachet behind the
Battlefield name right now? I mean it's not at its high point right now.
It's definitely school was yeah, three or four? Yeah, definitely.
I think people a lot of people are really like one when that came out
later it's about Battlefield one World War One, and then since then it's been
sort of diminishing returns each time. And I think that you know, a
lot of that is people flipped over to these free to play ones and like
all these kids are playing Fortnite and they don't they have no affinity for Battlefield.
So I say, Battlefield to me felt very slow. Whenever I did
play, it felt very very slow and it just I know, there is
obviously the big audience for that, but I mean, I yeah, I
can see kids going to Fortnite something a little more choppy and quickie, right,
and it's like, you know, if you really want that plotting,
deliberate game, there's like more accurate simulations out there like Arma and stuff at
this point. So yeah, Battlefield was always for a very long time there
it's like, hey, it's called of Duty and then Battlefield, and now
it doesn't feel like that at all. And I mean that that doesn't mean
they can't reclaim it, but it's I think it's an uphill battle and I
think a bigger part of that is they are still doing this traditional model when
really the only game, the only game in that space that can still do
that, is called Duty. And at the same time, Call of Duty
does have a free to play version in war Zone, and Battlefield doesn't really
seem to have that. So yeah, more for Andrew Wilson, he says
that there's a real hunger among developers to use AI to speed up development.
This is from Chris going at VGC. He basically just has reiterated some of
the points that he's made before and when he was talking to investors. The
example he gave, which he has given before, is hey, it used
to take six months to build a stadium for EA FIFA FC twenty twenty four,
and now this for this game, it took us six weeks. He's
like, I think it'll get faster. And the reason it's faster is because
the AI tools, And he says, we've always used AI for our games,
back when it was just like AI for characters and single player games.
But this is a new tool and we're going to use it. Yeah.
Do you think that these companies are going to be able to like thread this
needle of using these things as tools without like getting people mad about, hey,
these games are looking worse or playing worse because of AI, because so
far no one's really noticed with with EA FC, And it's like that's probably
because building a stadium that's probably the right use case. I don't know what
do you think? Wait? Hang on, what was the question in terms
of how they're messaging you see, Yeah, because like there's such a backlash
towards AI, do you think that like that that them being like, hey,
we're using it to make the stadiums faster, so we have put more
stadiums in the game. Seems like that's like the right use case and that
they're going to be able to get away with that. But do you think
that there's a chance of them overstepping those bounds and putting out games that maybe
do demonstrably feel or look worse and that kind of ruining the whole AI party
for them. I don't think they'll. I mean, even if something comes
out and it's clearly been made with AI and not necessarily had that human touch,
I think, you know, it's always going to be lingering. We
have to wait and see. Really, at the end of the day,
how long how much people really care about it. We care that potentially job's
being taken away from developers from real human beings. But does the broader populace
care, Does the average game I care? Remains to be seen. I
think they'll only care if it really impacts their gameplay and what they are playing.
Yep. And yeah, Red Corby and chats as they will overstep as
much a they're allowed to get away with, And I think that's probably unfortunately
the well go, It's always the case. Yeah, And you know,
there's been tools similar to this for a very long time. Obviously, you
see speed Tree at the beginning of just about every game, and that's the
tree. Yeah, speed Tree games. My favorite piece of middleware is speed
Tree. Of course, we're all speech tree freaks, umbra whatever. Yeah,
it's shit. Yeah yeah. But developers wanting to use these tools,
of course they do. Of course, you want tools that make your job
easier and faster and more efficient so you could do more stuff for your game.
That that will continue to happen. And I'm like I've said it before,
I continue to be mostly fine with that because of stuff like speed Tree.
I'm like, I've seen how it worked in the past, and all
it does in games is force a situation where the games get bigger and so
they need even more people to make the games so they can actually fill all
that stuff out and that'll continue to happen. Hell Divers too community manager has
been laid off or fired due to comments made over forced PSN linka. This
is from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. Helldivers two blew up last weekend,
and for good reason, as it was revealed selling that players in over
one hundred regions would no longer get access to the game following it forced PSN
link for PC users. This decision has since been reversed, but at the
time it caused a huge pr disaster. The disaster was even supported by some
members of Arrowhead, specifically community manager Spits urged players to make their thoughts known
on the game's review page. Many at Arrowheads shared the frustrations of the player
base, but as it seemed their hands were to the only thing Spitz could
do was tell players where to go to vent their anger. Spitz has seemingly
been fired due to this action, though, as shared on discord via games
Radar, Spitz explained that they are no longer working at Arrowhead and that the
decision to leave was not voluntary. Generally, it's not a good idea to
tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you're a community manager, they
wrote. I appreciate all the support, and I appreciate even more that everyone
can play the game again without restrictions. I knew I was taking a risk
with what I said about refunding and changing reviews. I stand by it.
It was my job to represent the community. That's what I did. Helldiver's
two players won the war, but they seem to have lost their friend in
Spitz along the way. Yeah, I get the reaction from a company and
be like, you can't put us in that situation. But it's like,
I mean, they were just being real and that's the kind of person you
want in that job. And you've sort of cleaned up the mess, you
reverse the decision, but you still got a pound of flesh by firing someone
that you think is maybe slightly responsible for making things worse. And I never
knew Spits said any of this stuff. This didn't matter. I didn't this
stuff would have happened anyhow. So why is this person getting fired for speaking
the minds of the community and just staying it publicly. It feels like the
kind of thing where maybe you get a slap on the wrist or you talk
about, hey, how this could be caused problems for the company, But
getting fired for it seems like a vast overstep. I don't know, this
frustrates me. How do you feel about it? I mean, yeah,
this is Yeah, that's the thing. Community managers are in such a tough,
tough position because people are not people are going to be shouting at them,
right, and you know they are doing their job. There representing the
community and trying to do right by them, But there has to be that
element of business acumen and common sense in terms of telling people to go get
refunds and review bomb the game because we saw how that went down. I
mean, it's it was. It's a shit situational around. I can't believe
it even happened. I can't believe someone at PlayStation thought it was fine and
that hell Dive is one of the biggest games that they've had, especially especially
after already releasing it in one hundred and seventy seven countries that it would no
longer be able to work in because of this. What it's crazy, that's
a crazy thing. Like when I first heard this story, and I said
this on the last show, but it's like when I first heard the story,
it's like, Ah, signing the PSN, what's the big deal?
And I had no idea. It was one hundred and seventy seven countries that
didn't have PSN, so they couldn't even do that. That's nuts. Of
course, if you're a developer who's been operating under this the pretenses of like
this is how it's going to work for months and then you hear from Sony
that you have to change that, and you're you've also spent all this time
building up an incredible sort of rapport with your community. At a certain point,
what do you expect the person who has this deep connection to the community
telling the community to do what do what you need to do. My hand's
done. I can't do anything. But if this makes you upset, well
then you must not like the game anymore. You should go give it a
bad review. I mean, yeah, it's I could see how someone sitting
in a boardroom at Sony would be like, that's what are you doing?
How dare you do this to us? And it's like, yeah, but
if you're actually in the trenches with the people playing our game, you wouldn't
feel that way at all. Yeah, frustrating. Finally, Hades two has
already smashed the peak concurrent player count of the first game. This is from
Alex hopleyet Game Reactor. Even in early access, Haities two is still proving
to be one of the most anticipated games of twenty twenty four. The Logreich
Look, the Rogue like sequel from Super Giant Games, is packed with more
content than the original game, even if there's still work to be done,
and players have flocked to it in mass Hades two has reached a peak concurrent
player count of one hundred three thousand, five hundred and sixty seven according to
Steam Database, which eclipses the previous record set by its predecessor of thirty six
thousand, forty three peak players. It's a huge jump, but it just
goes to show how beloved the original game was. For the hype of its
sequel, so many people saying, Oh, I'm not gonna go into early
access, I'm gonna wait for one point. Oh I'm gonna wait. I'm
like, I've downloaded it. I haven't stopped playing it yet. To those
people, I salute you if you can keep doing that. Wow. But
yeah, this is huge for a game that they just essentially shadow dropped,
Yeah on a Monday, Yeah Monday, shadow dropped on a Monday without without
really saying that that was gonna happen, And here we are and it just
popped off immediately, and yeah, like, like this story says more more
content in it already than in the original game. I know that Chris Person's
played forty five to fifty hours at this point. Nicky Grayson played thirty five
hours well, thirty hours. They said they left it on for a little
bit. I think Mitch Saltzman over at IGN like he's already got a review
up. I think he's fifty plus hours in at this point. Yep,
And it's uh, it's you don't have to wait, play it, play
it. Although you know I'm not your mom, I can't tell you what
to do. All right, that does it for the new stories. So
I'm gonna get to the poll. QUI rush in. Let's get to that
right now. Actually, may get that set up while I do that,
Lucy, what do you got going on? Where could people find you on
the internet? Do I have going on? I'm in the middle of doing
lots of little lots of shoots in LA office, so I keep doing.
I'm going to LA like once a week the next month or so, planning
things for summer game. First I in terms of content wise, I've got
hopefully the new Jeff Jeff's next week. Why not move to l A.
That's you God, you know why I don't drive. But also all my
friends are here. I don't like. I like being in San Francisco,
going there once a week for a couple of months a year for a little
bit. Yeah, you go to San Francisco every day. I do hang
on that that means I that means I have to step outside. Okay,
so you forgot you're in the the your own little kingdom, your own little
fiefdom inside the PLA. That doesn't count as us up of course, not
exactly. No, this is Lucy Land. And yeah, we'll have spot
on on Friday, probably going to be talking about Xbox. Thank you to
check to OUs keep for reminding me of the show that we do every week.
It's mean Tam. Yeah, probably gonna be talking about Xbox unless something
bigger comes out. But I hope that we have a quiet rest week,
to be honest. Although GTA six we didn't talk about this, but they've
been up dating the GTA six website. Screenshots are coming up. They've done
it. They've scrubbed their Instagram. There's only a few pages, the few
posts left. Ye is going to start popping off here a big time.
Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't show up at Summer game Fest, but probably
around that time, right Yeah. No, I mean all of a get
for Jeff if he gets rock Rockstard. Don't need to share exact the limelight
with anyone, So I wonder if it will be within the next week or
so that it'd be neat all. Right, Pole, question, are you
interested in Rumble, which is the mobile fall Fall Guy's clone. Eight percent
said yes, ninety two percent said no. I'm interested in it. I'd
like I keep saying I'm more interested in this than a lot of other stuff
they could do with Sonic, but maybe not. I'm probably not gonna play
it just because it's on phone. So if they ever released it on console
or PC, maybe I'll check back in at that point. But yeah,
only eight percent agree with me. Ninety two percent say no, and I
get it. Yes, it's no use indeed, Grizzy trying new Pole question,
how many games have you purchased for the Nintendo Switch. I'm gonna give
you a range of options. The first one is zero, then one through
five, you know, one to five games, and then six to ten
games, eleven to twenty games or twenty one or more. I'm at twenty
one or more personally, That's where I'm at, but a lot of games
for that thing. I just want to see what kind of like response we
get from this audience. Obviously, so that poll question will be up on
YouTube dot com slash at John Giant Bomb. Under the community tab you can
vote on there. We'll get the results and discuss it on Game This Morning's
on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of Giant Bomb, a few other things happening
this week today, I am I'm gonna play a little bit of Fallut in
New Vegas, and then I'm gonna play that Katana you know, just a
nice one two punch there. Yees. Oh there there's new footage of Sonic
game that just went up a minute ago. Oh really, all right,
well, let's take over here? Does it? Is it gonna convince everybody
that I'm right and always happen? Uh? Okay, actually I think it's
the first scene of this. Let me I'll get it up there for everybody.
Okay, there we go. Mute that. Okay, Yeah, it's
got Sonic and what it honestly looks like a bunch of a mebo of Sega
characters. I suppose there is a Sonic a memo. But yeah, something
about the way they move looks even more like fall guys than I was expecting.
Okay, so it's kind of like a low five, you know,
three D batter roy Al platformer that we were expecting. Oh, okay,
there's why is there so much slow down? Is this is this the video?
Why that has to be the video? Right? Well? I hope
so, man, okay, is it actually the video? Is it?
Was it the game? I think I have to assume it's the video,
because otherwise I'm gonna lose my mind. I Peo were saying, that's raw
frames. Okay, I don't know. We'll watch it again. If it
happens in the same spot, we'll know that's only forty five seconds. But
overall, I think it looks kind of fun as long as it runs.
Okay again, though probably not something I would play for very frequently on my
phone. No, yeah, oh, they just put a bit of slow
down in Okay. No, I mean that explosion made it look like it
was chugging. Okay, yeah, decent running around though. Well, hey,
I will try it at at least. I just don't know if I'll
play it much after that. Sonic Grumble available this winter, why though you
announcing it? Now? All right, whatever Sega you're doing, you're doing
your own thing. You're on your own all right. We put it.
We talked about the poll question, what's happening Decatana Blake Club later today.
We'll have a voicemail dump truck tomorrow. UH probably play something during the day.
I think Hell Divers two is the planned UPF will have something fun and
then BCR look out for that for the rest of the week. Thanks for
listening everybody. Lucy James, thank you so much for spinning today talking with
me about video games. I really appreciate it. Of course, thank you
for having me. Thank you all for watching and listening to You're the best
audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one, take care
of yourself. Goodbye and Deca Groba