Metroid Prime 4 Demo Available at Walmart

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome the Game Mess Mornings presented by Deku
<v Speaker 1>Deals with Me Jeff Grub, your host from giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot Com, thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 2>In this episode, we're.
<v Speaker 1>Gonna be talking about how you could play Metroid Prime
<v Speaker 1>for right now in even more price increases again again
<v Speaker 1>again again.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be a good one because we have Britain
<v Speaker 1>Peel on the show.
<v Speaker 2>Britton, how are you doing.
<v Speaker 3>I'm doing great. Not sure why I'm so blurry today,
<v Speaker 3>but I'm here. I'm happy.
<v Speaker 4>I think I'm excited because I think this might be
<v Speaker 4>my fourth appearance on the show. So I'm hoping that
<v Speaker 4>y'all do some sort of like fifth time jacket like
<v Speaker 4>Saturday Night Live does.
<v Speaker 2>So he was waiting for that.
<v Speaker 1>Really, No, if you punch the card the fifth time,
<v Speaker 1>you'll get a free sandwich.
<v Speaker 2>Is actually what we do.
<v Speaker 1>So it's pretty close to the getting the jacket, absolutely,
<v Speaker 1>Alec Baldwin, he was the first one.
<v Speaker 2>To get the sandwich from from Game US more.
<v Speaker 1>Actually, how are things going over there Britain? And you
<v Speaker 1>said you mentioned some storms to come and like have
<v Speaker 1>you rained? You're in Texas right, like rainstorms and all
<v Speaker 1>that I am in Texas. That's why I'm still in
<v Speaker 1>short sleeves even though it's almost Thanksgiving.
<v Speaker 3>Uh, just how we do it here?
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, it's pretty cloudy, so maybe the darkness overall
<v Speaker 4>is like my camera can't cope.
<v Speaker 3>With low lighting.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well we're glad you're hanging in there. For sure.
<v Speaker 1>You've been playing anything recently? Any any games really caught
<v Speaker 1>your eye? Caught your attention.
<v Speaker 4>I tortured myself by waiting until Hades two was not
<v Speaker 4>only out of early access but was available physically.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, real torture.
<v Speaker 4>So finally I played a little bit of one of
<v Speaker 4>the closed betas earlier on, but for the most part
<v Speaker 4>avoided spoilers, didn't play early access anything like that.
<v Speaker 3>And that game's good.
<v Speaker 4>Uh, So played a lot of that over the weekend.
<v Speaker 4>Went up against Cronos for the first time last night.
<v Speaker 4>For sure, it was the run. Everything was going my way.
<v Speaker 4>Thought I was gonna get him in one, not a problem.
<v Speaker 4>Then things happened and yeah I didn't.
<v Speaker 1>The same thing I had, the same thing happened to
<v Speaker 1>me where I'm like, man, I'm doing really good this
<v Speaker 1>run and Kronos same shit actually, And then I just
<v Speaker 1>got a little bit too cocky in like the last
<v Speaker 1>tenth and it all went bad. Yeah, so I know
<v Speaker 1>that story for sure. I need to get back to
<v Speaker 1>Hades too and spend some more time with it. I
<v Speaker 1>put it aside just because it's like, yeah, no, Hades, hell, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is great.
<v Speaker 2>I should play some other stuff though, and now I'm like, ah,
<v Speaker 2>it's Hades Tew's real good. I should go back to it. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Any plans for Thanksgiving obviously, like probably getting together with
<v Speaker 1>the family. Do you make time for games as well,
<v Speaker 1>because I love playing games around Thanksgiving.
<v Speaker 2>Not something that's easy to do these days.
<v Speaker 3>Though, Yeah, it's you know, it's funny.
<v Speaker 4>I'll plan like some Halloween gaming, I'll plan some Christmas gaming.
<v Speaker 3>I do love a good like holiday themed game.
<v Speaker 4>A little bit harder to find Thanksgiving themes games, but
<v Speaker 4>it's definitely something that I will probably make some time for.
<v Speaker 4>My sister and I will usually do shopping together on Friday.
<v Speaker 4>Even though Black Friday is not what it used to be,
<v Speaker 4>it's still just like our little family tradition that we
<v Speaker 4>the two of us do, so some of that and
<v Speaker 4>probably go home and play some names after that.
<v Speaker 2>Fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm gonna, uh, well, we'll enjoy Thanksgiving Day and
<v Speaker 1>then I'll probably make some time to catch up on
<v Speaker 1>some stuff, although like I'm trying to taught myself out
<v Speaker 1>of playing Metroid Prime three before Metroid Prime four comes out.
<v Speaker 2>But we'll see.
<v Speaker 1>Uh if I'm able to actually convince myself to play
<v Speaker 1>modern games that I need to talk about for Game
<v Speaker 1>of the Year, I expect to maybe lose that battle.
<v Speaker 2>We'll see.
<v Speaker 4>I've been playing Banjo Kazooi, so you at least speak
<v Speaker 4>more modern than me, and.
<v Speaker 2>Listening Band of Kazoo's pretty good stuff too. All right,
<v Speaker 2>let's explain ourselves.
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<v Speaker 2>If you are watching live on Twitch welcome.
<v Speaker 1>You can always listen to the show later on podcast
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<v Speaker 1>the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the morning mess with Metroid Prime for demo
<v Speaker 1>now available at Walmart and other stores.
<v Speaker 2>You can play this. I went to go play this
<v Speaker 2>this morning.
<v Speaker 1>Uh Britton. This comes from my Nintendo News. Here's the
<v Speaker 1>quick details. Nintendo is ramping up its promotion efforts for
<v Speaker 1>the long awaited metrod Prime four beyond, and certain stores
<v Speaker 1>in North America have a demo playable on the Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>Switch to Demo kiosks if you if you're a local
<v Speaker 1>store has a Nintendo Switch to Kioska, and it's very
<v Speaker 1>likely you'll you'll be able to play their play yours.
<v Speaker 2>I went in there kind of expecting, like, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>My random Walmart in Ohio who knows if they're going
<v Speaker 1>to have it updated or I really have no idea
<v Speaker 1>how that even works, Like does someone have to physically
<v Speaker 1>go in and update it or is it all just
<v Speaker 1>done over the air? Is there an Ethernet connection to
<v Speaker 1>those kiosks? I would love to know if someone actually
<v Speaker 1>understands what that process looks like. Just kind of curious
<v Speaker 1>about how it works. But whatever, they had it, and
<v Speaker 1>you know, you start up the game and it's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you have twenty minutes you could play up to like
<v Speaker 1>a first, very very early Boston Counter. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>the very beginning of the game, and it looks sharp
<v Speaker 1>in person. It looks incredibly sharp, more so than we're getting,
<v Speaker 1>like than what you get from like even like YouTube compression.
<v Speaker 2>So I was pretty impressed by.
<v Speaker 1>What I saw, and it was you know, it was
<v Speaker 1>fun to play as well.
<v Speaker 2>It was just a taste.
<v Speaker 1>Though obviously, so much of this game is going to
<v Speaker 1>be dict like the success of the game will be
<v Speaker 1>dictated by long term exploration of that world and how
<v Speaker 1>the characters come across, and I wasn't able to get
<v Speaker 1>any of that.
<v Speaker 2>But first first impressions were really good.
<v Speaker 1>Any is this something you would ever, like, oh, if
<v Speaker 1>you're at a Walmart, you might try to track this
<v Speaker 1>down or something like that.
<v Speaker 4>That makes me kind of want to go into a Walmart.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and I also feels nostalgic in a way.
<v Speaker 4>Like, oh, the only way to play this early is
<v Speaker 4>to go into a retail store, seems like it for now. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>that's interesting, And I Nintinda doesn't invite me to as
<v Speaker 4>much stuff as they used to, so this may be
<v Speaker 4>the only.
<v Speaker 3>Way I can play that's right, fund for until I
<v Speaker 3>buy my own copy.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I could see myself going into I don't know
<v Speaker 4>if my Walmart. Kind of like you, I maybe a
<v Speaker 4>little doubtful that my Walmart will be ready to go,
<v Speaker 4>but maybe I'll be pleasantly sprt it's not that far away.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe I'll make a trip.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's also available at Best Buys and Targets
<v Speaker 1>and things like that. People are saying, so, uh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they might release this as a demo on the e shop,
<v Speaker 1>right like they've I actually don't like remember in the
<v Speaker 1>case of other games getting these Kiosk demos, if those
<v Speaker 1>frequently then get released on the on the e shop
<v Speaker 1>or not, I guess I would just assume they would be,
<v Speaker 1>although Nintendo's not said anything about it, but maybe what
<v Speaker 1>do you think.
<v Speaker 4>It's It's Nintendo, so maybe we should just assume no.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's definitely there. They could be really weird
<v Speaker 1>about these kinds of things. Not really sure it was
<v Speaker 1>the switch to version. Switch one version still m I
<v Speaker 1>a in terms of people getting their hands on with it,
<v Speaker 1>I believe, But no, no reason to assume that that
<v Speaker 1>game's going to have any real issues on the Switch
<v Speaker 1>one just because it runs so well on Switch too.
<v Speaker 1>That's probably just because they have overhead from my seeing
<v Speaker 1>it for the Switch one.
<v Speaker 4>And they did such a good job with remastered of
<v Speaker 4>the first game. So yeah, I imagine if you're someone
<v Speaker 4>who is still just on a Switch one, you'll be fine.
<v Speaker 4>It would be nice if they had a demo or
<v Speaker 4>something out too, let people know for sure, like, hey,
<v Speaker 4>I'm going to try this out and see, Hey do
<v Speaker 4>I am I good with this? Or do I need
<v Speaker 4>to upgrade to a switch too because it'll look so
<v Speaker 4>much prettier. Would seem like a smart move maybe, but again,
<v Speaker 4>it's Nintendo, So maybe get in your car and got
<v Speaker 4>a Best Buy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Rhyming vectionary in Chance says the Bonanza demo did not
<v Speaker 1>I believe means did not get put on the E
<v Speaker 1>Shop and that sounds familiar.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, so I'm listen. I don't mind this.
<v Speaker 1>I'm pretty nostalgic about going to the store to play
<v Speaker 1>a video game that's not out yet. I would definitely
<v Speaker 1>do that for these kiosks at best Buy, and I
<v Speaker 1>suppose that like game spots or back then even and
<v Speaker 1>electronic boutiques to try something that I was excited about.
<v Speaker 2>That definitely was.
<v Speaker 1>Something I did multiple times when like the GameCube was
<v Speaker 1>coming and I could get on get in the store
<v Speaker 1>and try like the Rogue Squadron demo.
<v Speaker 2>I think that's right.
<v Speaker 1>But I definitely remember seeing these kiosks and like having
<v Speaker 1>a place in my heart for these weird stands that
<v Speaker 1>had all the accouterments on it to make it seem
<v Speaker 1>futuristic and like the N sixty four being in the
<v Speaker 1>bubble at Toys r US and stuff like that. So
<v Speaker 1>I was happy to have an excuse to like just
<v Speaker 1>take a quick like dtour this morning after dropping off
<v Speaker 1>the kids, to go in to Walmart and see if
<v Speaker 1>this was a thing. But clearly it's like if they
<v Speaker 1>really want people to try this out so they could
<v Speaker 1>see what's going on here, they would put on the shop.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what Nintendo's thinking is there. I guess
<v Speaker 1>maybe this is a deal with partners. It's hard to understand.
<v Speaker 1>I think your explanation earlier, it's Nintendo. They're weird about
<v Speaker 1>these things, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I mean you could also argue that we are the
<v Speaker 4>folks that are gonna get it anyway, whereas the people
<v Speaker 4>just casually strolling through a Walmart or Target are gonna
<v Speaker 4>be the ones for like, what is that that looks cool?
<v Speaker 4>I never knew they were making another metro Like, there
<v Speaker 4>are going to be people, whether we believe it or not,
<v Speaker 4>that will not know Metroid Prime for exists until they
<v Speaker 4>see it on a shelf.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because they're that tuned.
<v Speaker 4>Out of gaming news. That's still a significant portion of
<v Speaker 4>people who buy games regularly, so that d it's smart
<v Speaker 4>to have something that is there for those people.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, for those of us who.
<v Speaker 4>Know it's coming and just want to get a taste
<v Speaker 4>of it early but don't want to go to a store,
<v Speaker 4>it'd be nice if we had an option to.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, absolutely, that game is out in a matter of
<v Speaker 1>days under two weeks now, right, something like that or
<v Speaker 1>pretty close to it, maybe a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>Over two weeks. Let's see you now, Yeah, that's like
<v Speaker 2>ten days.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's wild. That is the last like big game
<v Speaker 3>on my wish list that I'm are they looking forward to?
<v Speaker 2>That is? That's bananas?
<v Speaker 1>Okay, And like you know, Thanksgiving is gonna fly by
<v Speaker 1>and then we're gonna blink and look up and it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>this game is out in a day and a half
<v Speaker 1>or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>So that was a little Seinfeld math, you know.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's like basically like a day until my Metroy
<v Speaker 1>Prime is out. Okay, Well, I am really looking forward
<v Speaker 1>to that. And you know, after Wedding my whistle play
<v Speaker 1>in that, it's like, oh, I really really do want
<v Speaker 1>this game number one most anticipated game this entire year,
<v Speaker 1>and this just proves that that was the correct position
<v Speaker 1>for that game. All right, let's get We're gonna go
<v Speaker 1>to the next story real real quick. I'm meant to
<v Speaker 1>put this in the rundown, but there was no like
<v Speaker 1>stories about it. Usually the way I put together the
<v Speaker 1>rundown everybody is I try to find someone who's written
<v Speaker 1>a story about It makes it easier for me, but
<v Speaker 1>also it's like we can mention someone's name and let
<v Speaker 1>people know, hey, these people are writing about games still.
<v Speaker 1>But Chris Bratt over at People Make Games put out
<v Speaker 1>a video this morning where he did an update on
<v Speaker 1>what is happening with rock Star firing those thirty for
<v Speaker 1>employees who they claimed were fired because they were trying
<v Speaker 1>to like coalesce a union that might already exist, they're
<v Speaker 1>trying to do even more with it, and so they
<v Speaker 1>accused Rockstar of union busting.
<v Speaker 2>That's what they alleged.
<v Speaker 1>Meanwhile, Rockstar and Take two alleged that they were fired,
<v Speaker 1>that those people were fired for gross miss conduct. Chris Bratt,
<v Speaker 1>who is kind of in that area and has connections
<v Speaker 1>to that scene, he did a great video early on
<v Speaker 1>kind of going down what he thought was happening there,
<v Speaker 1>and then he's like, oh, you know, I'll keep looking
<v Speaker 1>into this, but it might be a few months. And
<v Speaker 1>I've been like, Okay, this is the right guy to
<v Speaker 1>look into this because he knows he's a sharp guy.
<v Speaker 1>So his video today, much sooner than expected, was kind
<v Speaker 1>of a breakdown of like, okay, wait, what exactly is
<v Speaker 1>this gross miss conduct? What is this discord server that
<v Speaker 1>they were in and allegedly sharing materials that they weren't
<v Speaker 1>supposed to be sharing. What was going on actually in
<v Speaker 1>this room? And it turns out like he was able
<v Speaker 1>to like get many of the text messages, many of
<v Speaker 1>the actual communications that were happening inside the discord and
<v Speaker 1>also pieced together like you know what led people here
<v Speaker 1>in the first place. And it was almost exclusively people
<v Speaker 1>discussing their salaries, their bonuses, things that you would discuss
<v Speaker 1>if you were communicating with the other members of a union,
<v Speaker 1>so that people could get the most of get paid
<v Speaker 1>the most that they could.
<v Speaker 2>Possibly get paid for the work that they're doing.
<v Speaker 1>There were some other communications about I should stay stay
<v Speaker 1>up front. No evidence of any discussions of anything about
<v Speaker 1>the games themselves.
<v Speaker 2>There's no evidence of that.
<v Speaker 1>Rock Stars not provided that when people go looking themselves,
<v Speaker 1>they're not able to find that. What they are able
<v Speaker 1>to find is apparently there was a change inside of
<v Speaker 1>Rockstar for their slack policies where they were like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we had all these miscellaneous channels inside of our company
<v Speaker 1>slack where people were discussing games, movies, television shows, sports,
<v Speaker 1>all these other things, and Rockstar apparently locked that down
<v Speaker 1>and got rid of all those miscellaneous channels, and there's
<v Speaker 1>people speculating for reasons why.
<v Speaker 2>For example, the Games.
<v Speaker 1>Channel would often include news about game layoffs and things
<v Speaker 1>like that would be industry news and game layoffs would
<v Speaker 1>be there, and then people would respond with this like
<v Speaker 1>a sprig, a spud, a tiny little plant seedling, that's
<v Speaker 1>what it was, a seeding emoji, and the seedling emoji
<v Speaker 1>is a reference apparently to the union and like like
<v Speaker 1>an kind of solidarity that they were using. And people
<v Speaker 1>think that maybe Rockstar didn't like seeing that, so they
<v Speaker 1>close that down. And many of these people kind of
<v Speaker 1>were taking that conversation into the discord specifically to discuss
<v Speaker 1>the change to the slack policy, So that would be
<v Speaker 1>the thing that like might most like rub up the
<v Speaker 1>idea of like this was an internal communication that you
<v Speaker 1>are now discussing in a place that might have people
<v Speaker 1>who were formally at Rockstar who have not left that discord,
<v Speaker 1>and so technically you have now violated something here. That
<v Speaker 1>is what what Rockstar might try to argue, according to
<v Speaker 1>Chris Bratt again, and he went to go talk to
<v Speaker 1>the Independent Workers of Great Britain, the union that actually
<v Speaker 1>does represent them about this, and they were like, this
<v Speaker 1>is all very normal stuff, the kinds of things that
<v Speaker 1>employees not only do talk about, but are legally protected.
<v Speaker 2>To talk about with one another.
<v Speaker 1>And it's very clear to us still that this is
<v Speaker 1>union busting. We've had time for the story to like
<v Speaker 1>settle a little bit, although we don't have all the details, Britten,
<v Speaker 1>how are you feeling about it now compared to then
<v Speaker 1>and all this new information about Like, oh, it really
<v Speaker 1>does just feel like someone at Rockstar did not like
<v Speaker 1>this union and wanted to do something about it.
<v Speaker 2>Again, that's my opinion.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean, it doesn't feel less gross than it
<v Speaker 4>did before.
<v Speaker 3>But there's that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's slack in a business context can get weird.
<v Speaker 4>When slack was like kind of a new thing, I
<v Speaker 4>was in a position I wasn't even like in it
<v Speaker 4>or anything. It just happened to be that, Like I
<v Speaker 4>knew what technology was, and so at my company at
<v Speaker 4>the time, like a small group of hosts were like,
<v Speaker 4>we should get this slack thing, and I ended up
<v Speaker 4>holding all the keys to it, just everything, And that
<v Speaker 4>was kind of nice because we didn't have issues like this.
<v Speaker 4>I was able to like work directly with our newsroom
<v Speaker 4>and other folks in the company to be like, hey,
<v Speaker 4>what should this be and what should the rules be?
<v Speaker 3>How should we manage everything? And that was great.
<v Speaker 4>Moving to a different company, I did not have that
<v Speaker 4>sort of control and it was awkward moving into a
<v Speaker 4>situation where like, oh, there's suits that like, in my case,
<v Speaker 4>still pretty great overall, like they're not super controlling or anything,
<v Speaker 4>but there is some stuff here and there that you're like, well,
<v Speaker 4>why are you making this decision?
<v Speaker 3>This isn't always makes sense to me.
<v Speaker 4>There's even stuff where like, even back when I was
<v Speaker 4>controlling our slack, our lawyers had or saying like, hey,
<v Speaker 4>we need to like set all the data like deletion stuff.
<v Speaker 4>So even though like a benefit of paid slack is
<v Speaker 4>your stuff doesn't get deleted over time, like we're going
<v Speaker 4>to delete stuff over time. So there's lots of rules
<v Speaker 4>and things that once people like that get involved, things
<v Speaker 4>get messy.
<v Speaker 3>Now all that said, still.
<v Speaker 4>Super gross that you know you would be. It seems
<v Speaker 4>like trying to squash just discussions of things like salaries.
<v Speaker 4>That's a that's a bummer, a real bummer, And yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I don't feel good about it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for me, it's and this is something that people
<v Speaker 1>make games brought up in the video that like it
<v Speaker 1>seems to me and again this is my opinion, Rockstar,
<v Speaker 1>you don't have to sue me. Is that rock Star
<v Speaker 1>did or someone a Rockstar did an early calculation of like,
<v Speaker 1>here's the potential cost. Let's say we have to we
<v Speaker 1>do get sued by every single one of these employees
<v Speaker 1>and we have to settle with them. We did the
<v Speaker 1>math and this it'll cause us some headaches, but we
<v Speaker 1>do not want to be in a situation where this
<v Speaker 1>this union becomes more and more powerful something that it
<v Speaker 1>was apparently on the cusp of becoming like more of
<v Speaker 1>a thing that the Rockstar would have to deal with
<v Speaker 1>because it was passing a certain threshold because of the
<v Speaker 1>number of people that were part of the union where
<v Speaker 1>they were gonna have to deal with it directly. I
<v Speaker 1>am not familiar with the laws in the UK of
<v Speaker 1>what dictates this stuff, but that was what has been
<v Speaker 1>relayed in the reporting. And so they're like, that could
<v Speaker 1>lead to a situation where we are having discussions about
<v Speaker 1>residuals and these these these kinds of things that could
<v Speaker 1>cost us money long term paying these people in a
<v Speaker 1>way that we aren't used to in the video game
<v Speaker 1>industry and don't want to be the ones that have
<v Speaker 1>to do that first. And so they did the calculation, like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, worst case scenario, we have to pay a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of people a bunch of money to get out
<v Speaker 1>of here. It's like kind of a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>a severance. So we'll look at it that way and
<v Speaker 1>then we'll move on from this. There'll be some negative
<v Speaker 1>press out up front, but then the game will come
<v Speaker 1>out and people will forget about this. And now it's like, yeah, maybe,
<v Speaker 1>but like people are getting pretty sick of this kind
<v Speaker 1>of thing, and it is. It is a recognizable pattern
<v Speaker 1>to the point where it has been brought up in
<v Speaker 1>parliament I believe already.
<v Speaker 2>The specific case of at least one MP.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not I think that's what they're called, just saying, hey,
<v Speaker 1>look like we should be going to talk to Rockstar
<v Speaker 1>about this. We should be having conversations with them to
<v Speaker 1>see what happened here, and and maybe we should actually
<v Speaker 1>bring the force of our of you know, being able
<v Speaker 1>to punish them or think of something here. If they
<v Speaker 1>did violate some labor laws. I think there's a chance
<v Speaker 1>that they did miscalculate and that this could be a
<v Speaker 1>lot worse for them they than they thought it would be.
<v Speaker 1>Is it going to be enough to really put a
<v Speaker 1>dent into Grand Theft Auto six? No, absolutely not, And
<v Speaker 1>I think they still at the end end of the
<v Speaker 1>day they know that. But I am I really am
<v Speaker 1>rubbed a very wrong way by Rockstar being like, we
<v Speaker 1>can get away with whatever we want. We could treat
<v Speaker 1>people however we want. We're Rockstar, So let's just keep
<v Speaker 1>doing things our way and not worry about the law
<v Speaker 1>of the land, the rules, or treating people in an
<v Speaker 1>ethical way, even if they are responsible for making the
<v Speaker 1>video game that it's going to make us billions and
<v Speaker 1>billions of dollars. Do you think there's a chance they
<v Speaker 1>bid off more than they can chew at Rockstar? Or
<v Speaker 1>is this something that will pass when the game is out?
<v Speaker 4>You know, this is as folks in chatter pointing out,
<v Speaker 4>this isn't exactly the first time that Rockstar has been
<v Speaker 4>less than great as a company in terms of management.
<v Speaker 4>So I don't know that this is going to be
<v Speaker 4>the time when anything necessarily changes, But I tend to
<v Speaker 4>be an optimistic person on the long term.
<v Speaker 3>You know, the long arc.
<v Speaker 4>Of history bins towards justice, that sort of thing. Everything
<v Speaker 4>collapses eventually, So this may be whatever noise can be
<v Speaker 4>made out of this, assuming all this reporting is correct
<v Speaker 4>and everything else that you know, ROXAAR really is in
<v Speaker 4>the wrong here. It may not be anything that's changed
<v Speaker 4>things overnights, but little by little things can push in
<v Speaker 4>better directions. So that's something I can at least hope for.
<v Speaker 2>YEP.
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, at the very least, it will
<v Speaker 1>show people like Ell, you might need to band together
<v Speaker 1>just to avoid the appearance that you might be trying
<v Speaker 1>to be a part of a union and you need
<v Speaker 1>someone that can actually be in your corner and the
<v Speaker 1>IWGB is that right now and say okay, we might
<v Speaker 1>want that protection. Of course, it could also chill the
<v Speaker 1>people wanting to join, which is I think one of
<v Speaker 1>the reasons they're doing this in the first place. And
<v Speaker 1>that's that's something I get the sense that employees will
<v Speaker 1>are less patient with that these days and are a
<v Speaker 1>little bit more recognizing their power when they do work collectively,
<v Speaker 1>something that was maybe out of fashion with game developers,
<v Speaker 1>like from the nineties and two thousands, there was you know,
<v Speaker 1>kind of a young gen X libertarian sort of bent
<v Speaker 1>to a lot of those guys that has seems mostly
<v Speaker 1>to have been educated out, Like a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>coming into games now are not these garage developers that
<v Speaker 1>did things by their bootstraps or whatever. It's people who
<v Speaker 1>got formal educations and recognized the power of labor, a
<v Speaker 1>collective bargaining in labor because they learned about it, and
<v Speaker 1>that that is something that they.
<v Speaker 2>Will be able to apply going forward.
<v Speaker 1>And hopefully this will be like one of the last
<v Speaker 1>examples of these companies thinking they're going to be able
<v Speaker 1>to get away with this, and I hope that something
<v Speaker 1>does come of it in the end the very least,
<v Speaker 1>Like we're going to stay on top of this story.
<v Speaker 1>We're going to keep asking about it as well here.
<v Speaker 1>I know Chris Brat said he will as well, so
<v Speaker 1>we'll keep following that. So hopefully we get it more
<v Speaker 1>and more and this does not just fizzle out when
<v Speaker 1>the game comes out, and hopefully it's something they have
<v Speaker 1>to pay for if they did something wrong here. All right,
<v Speaker 1>there's a report that ram shortage we keep talking about
<v Speaker 1>on just about every episode that's going to cause things
<v Speaker 1>to go up in price. Could lead to another separate
<v Speaker 1>price increase for the Xbox. This comes from Alex Forbes
<v Speaker 1>Calvin at Games Industry dot Biz. Tech Giant Microsoft could
<v Speaker 1>be set to increase the price of its Xbox consoles
<v Speaker 1>once more. That's according to Moore's law is dead over
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube who kind of tapped into the scenes. Sometimes
<v Speaker 1>gets things right, sometimes gets things wrong either way. I
<v Speaker 1>think this is mostly a circumstantial case which claims that
<v Speaker 1>the Xbox Giant has warned some of its partners that
<v Speaker 1>the ongoing shortage of RAM could force it to increase
<v Speaker 1>the cost of its consoles yet again. This is due
<v Speaker 1>to RAM hardware being hoovered up buying the increasing number
<v Speaker 1>of data centers that are powering the AI boom. We've
<v Speaker 1>talked about that a bunch of times. It's not the
<v Speaker 1>exact same RAM, but it's still causing prices to go up.
<v Speaker 1>Apparently Microsoft didn't plan ahead at all. Apparently, according to
<v Speaker 1>Bor's law is dead, if you still want an Xbox
<v Speaker 1>for some reason at their current pricing, those prices could
<v Speaker 1>be going up soon or supply could just entirely dry up.
<v Speaker 1>Because multiple sources have apparently been warned by sales reps
<v Speaker 1>at Microsoft that this is going to affect the Xbox
<v Speaker 1>series consoles very very soon, sooner rather than later. And
<v Speaker 1>apparently the reason for this, Britain is that Microsoft is
<v Speaker 1>kind of buying them just in time. They're buying these
<v Speaker 1>components like right when they need them, and not like
<v Speaker 1>what Sony apparently did. And again this is all reporting, unverified,
<v Speaker 1>but apparently what Sony did is when Ram prices were
<v Speaker 1>low a few months back, they bought a bunch and
<v Speaker 1>so they are sitting on stockpile ready to carry them
<v Speaker 1>through the next year or so. Microsoft doesn't have that
<v Speaker 1>same cushion, and so apparently Microsoft might have to in
<v Speaker 1>response to this, raise the price of the Xbox something
<v Speaker 1>that's already gone up in price a couple of times,
<v Speaker 1>you know what the Xbox series is, Like what right
<v Speaker 1>now six hundred bucks or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>It could go up even further, like what you know.
<v Speaker 1>The alternative Britain is maybe they just don't make any
<v Speaker 1>Xboxes for a few months, like would we even notice that?
<v Speaker 4>That's kind of where my mind went, was, like who's
<v Speaker 4>currently buying Xboxes? Because those last price increases were rough
<v Speaker 4>and the game pass price increase was rough, Like I've
<v Speaker 4>been a game Pass subscriber for years. I don't think
<v Speaker 4>I'm going to renew when I'm at the end of
<v Speaker 4>the line here next year when I run out. It's
<v Speaker 4>it feels like Microsoft is just doing a lot to
<v Speaker 4>not sell systems, which is kind of wild. It's not
<v Speaker 4>somewhere I thought would have thought we would have been
<v Speaker 4>a few years ago. So yeah, I would think that, hey,
<v Speaker 4>at the very least, say like, oh, you know, turn
<v Speaker 4>it into mark anything. Yeah, everyone just wants Xboxes. That's
<v Speaker 4>why they're not on.
<v Speaker 3>The shelves, Like, just got to wait a little bit.
<v Speaker 3>Like this seems like a weird approach to me.
<v Speaker 4>And it's not like Microsoft as a company couldn't maybe
<v Speaker 4>bear the brunt of buying a little memory.
<v Speaker 3>You would think they have ways of making that happen
<v Speaker 3>on the balance sheet.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's just like we know that recent story right
<v Speaker 1>of apparently the pressure being put down on Xbox from
<v Speaker 1>above to make a thirty percent profit margin, which we
<v Speaker 1>as we said when we talked about that.
<v Speaker 2>Story, is astronomical.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's like twice as high as what is typically
<v Speaker 1>expected from a company that makes video games around a
<v Speaker 1>fifteen percent profit margin for most projects. You know, you
<v Speaker 1>get the occasional infinite project profit margin thing like a
<v Speaker 1>Fortnite here or there that just you know, makes up
<v Speaker 1>for everything else. But most companies are looking for a
<v Speaker 1>fifteen percent profit margin. At least thirty percent is nuts,
<v Speaker 1>and so that seems to me it's like, Oh, they
<v Speaker 1>don't have any room to eat any cost right now,
<v Speaker 1>even though of course they do. This is a self
<v Speaker 1>imposed limitation, but that limitation is in effect, and so
<v Speaker 1>it seems like they're probably gonna either have to raise
<v Speaker 1>the price or yeah, I think it's just as likely
<v Speaker 1>they just don't make any xboxes for a month or two,
<v Speaker 1>And you're right, they just kind of point to excitement
<v Speaker 1>around the brand for why you can't get some, and
<v Speaker 1>we promise we're gonna have some more soon. The problem
<v Speaker 1>is is that's not gonna be great because there's no
<v Speaker 1>sign that the price of ram is gonna come down
<v Speaker 1>anytime soon. Like as we again, as we've talked about
<v Speaker 1>this before, it's painful right now, but all indications suggest
<v Speaker 1>that it's going to continue through the next year, like
<v Speaker 1>maybe on the other side or maybe in late twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty six, things start coming back down to earth a
<v Speaker 1>little bit.
<v Speaker 2>But that is a maybe.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, at the very least we're talking about
<v Speaker 1>into late twenty twenty six for these price increases, and
<v Speaker 1>they could go up even further. And so are we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be situ where like there's just not an Xbox
<v Speaker 1>on the shelf for six months at a time. They
<v Speaker 1>can't do that, right, Well.
<v Speaker 3>Of course there'll be an Xbox on the shelf.
<v Speaker 4>It's your TV, it's your everything else that is an Xbox.
<v Speaker 4>Now just stop black branding everywhere.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>This won't be the like the PlayStation five codefs will
<v Speaker 1>get another price increase because apparently their supply is supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be like six months worth or something like that,
<v Speaker 1>maybe a little bit more. But again we could get
<v Speaker 1>on the other side of that and if they get
<v Speaker 1>a price increase, it would.
<v Speaker 2>Come later apparently, but right now.
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation and we're you know, I think we'll talk about
<v Speaker 1>it in a little bit. They're discounted so for Black Friday.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, Okay, clearly Sony feeling pretty good about
<v Speaker 1>the cost of their components and things like that.
<v Speaker 4>It does raise a lot of questions for me to
<v Speaker 4>uh not that this is the topic to get into
<v Speaker 4>right now, But like, what does next generation look like?
<v Speaker 3>Rivving all this happening?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean I think it's going to look like
<v Speaker 1>a mess, right, it's going it's going to look expensive
<v Speaker 1>and very I think boring, because they're not going to
<v Speaker 1>like put on a put in a bunch of fun
<v Speaker 1>distractions or something like that. It's going to be these
<v Speaker 1>consoles again, more powerful and extremely more expensive. Maybe not
<v Speaker 1>commiserate with like how much more powerful they are. And
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, like, what are what are people's appetites
<v Speaker 1>going to be for a what are we talking Britain
<v Speaker 1>eight hundred to one thousand dollars for this next gen
<v Speaker 1>of consoles?
<v Speaker 2>Like that's not off the table, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I think that's at the points where even more people
<v Speaker 4>than say it now will say, yeah, that Nintendo thing
<v Speaker 4>looks good enough, Yeah, just get that, and you know
<v Speaker 4>that might go go up in price too, But I
<v Speaker 4>imagine Nintendo is going to be doing what they can
<v Speaker 4>to keep it lower than let's say, eight hundred dollars
<v Speaker 4>for their first year.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>I think we're we're all kind of still like holding
<v Speaker 1>on a breath, being like that switch to is probably
<v Speaker 1>going to go up in price here at some point
<v Speaker 1>hasn't happened yet.
<v Speaker 2>It seems like.
<v Speaker 1>They're trying to hold off, but they have to buy
<v Speaker 1>the same ram as everyone else for the most part,
<v Speaker 1>so they're going.
<v Speaker 2>To be in a similar situation themselves.
<v Speaker 1>Uh okay, that's and that's on top of everything else
<v Speaker 1>that caused prices to go up then, you know, like
<v Speaker 1>tariffs and all these things that are still a question mark,
<v Speaker 1>although maybe that won't be a question mark for much longer.
<v Speaker 2>Because the Supreme Court should.
<v Speaker 1>Rule on that in I don't like I guess, I
<v Speaker 1>guess that's still months away. All Right, we're gonna take
<v Speaker 1>a break. When we come back, plenty more headlines to
<v Speaker 1>get into. If you want to skip out on these,
<v Speaker 1>we put out an AD free version of the video
<v Speaker 1>show an AD free version of the audio show. You
<v Speaker 1>can get those on giant Bomb. Go to giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot com slash join to grab your feeds for each
<v Speaker 1>of those. In the meantime, we will be right back.
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<v Speaker 1>It's Game Mes Mornings, Jeff grub Britton Peel, We're gonna
<v Speaker 1>get back into it let's do this. We kind of
<v Speaker 1>talked a little bit about some of that stuff happening
<v Speaker 1>with Ubisoft, but there's there's more. Assassin's Creed Black Flag
<v Speaker 1>remake will launch Q one twenty twenty six. This is
<v Speaker 1>a continuation from the stuff we were getting on Friday.
<v Speaker 1>Alex Hoppley, a game reactor, writes, we've heard rumors of
<v Speaker 1>Assassin's Creed five Black Flag remake for some time, and
<v Speaker 1>yet Ubisoft is still now announced the project. However, it's
<v Speaker 1>believed that we could hear about it very soon, as
<v Speaker 1>its release may not be too far away.
<v Speaker 2>According to a report from.
<v Speaker 1>Insider Gaming, the Assassin's Creed for Black Flag remake will
<v Speaker 1>launch before the thirty first of March twenty twenty six,
<v Speaker 1>and ubs for financial data. They said that apparently Insider
<v Speaker 1>Gaming her a little bit more. It's like, yeah, we
<v Speaker 1>this and Prince of Persia. These are things that could
<v Speaker 1>show up at the Game Awards, I think Prince of
<v Speaker 1>Persia specifically, and then and then these games will be
<v Speaker 1>out very early next year. A black Flag is that
<v Speaker 1>something that's that hold of place in your heart? Are
<v Speaker 1>you an Assassin's Creed guy at all? Is that something
<v Speaker 1>that you want to go back to.
<v Speaker 4>There may be days where I would argue that blackfive
<v Speaker 4>was the last great Assassin's creating. That's probably not actually true,
<v Speaker 4>but it was great.
<v Speaker 3>It was a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 2>It was.
<v Speaker 4>It was something that I was skeptical about when it
<v Speaker 4>was announced until I think I played a lot more
<v Speaker 4>of that boat stuff that was softly cooked up, and
<v Speaker 4>I was like, Okay, this is actually awesome. Also comes
<v Speaker 4>at a good time for me personally, because my son
<v Speaker 4>came home from school one day not on ago singing
<v Speaker 4>the Wellerman, of course, and I really miss just like
<v Speaker 4>sailing the high seas with a with a crew and
<v Speaker 4>singing shanties. You know what a great game for that
<v Speaker 4>is Assassin's Creed Black Flag.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, the number one shanty game for sure in my opinion.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I.
<v Speaker 2>Like that game a lot.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if I'll go back to it when
<v Speaker 1>this happens. I'm definitely going back to Sands the time.
<v Speaker 1>It's been a long time since I played that. I
<v Speaker 1>want to, like, you know.
<v Speaker 2>Send the message. I suppose that.
<v Speaker 1>Prince of Persia still matters to you be soft, and
<v Speaker 1>or that should matter to you be soft still. But
<v Speaker 1>I'm also just really ready to replay that game, and
<v Speaker 1>I hope they get it right. I hope it's better
<v Speaker 1>than the first look we got that caused them to
<v Speaker 1>delay it in the first place.
<v Speaker 2>But seems like this thing's about to really pop off.
<v Speaker 1>I would love for it to be like, show up
<v Speaker 1>the Game Awards and it's like a shadow drop.
<v Speaker 2>That would be fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>But I'll accept a date at the Game Awards and
<v Speaker 1>then we get it released early next year. Call of
<v Speaker 1>Duty Black Ops seven claimed to be behind Black Ops
<v Speaker 1>six is sales by over fifty percent. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. Recently, we touched on the
<v Speaker 1>news that Call of Duty Black Ops seven had not
<v Speaker 1>had the best of launches, posting player figures and numbers
<v Speaker 1>that were a fraction of Black Ops six, at least
<v Speaker 1>on Steam. Clearly, these figures were worthy of pointing it out,
<v Speaker 1>as they somewhat paint a picture of the sales performance
<v Speaker 1>of the game. As well as per The Game Business,
<v Speaker 1>who has covered the latest sales information from GSD, which
<v Speaker 1>I think does physical sales in UK, maybe all of Europe,
<v Speaker 1>it said it's said The Game Business said that Black
<v Speaker 1>Ops seven has fallen behind Black Ops six and opening
<v Speaker 1>week sales by over fifty percent in Europe. There you go,
<v Speaker 1>the Europe. The exact figures weren't presented, but it is
<v Speaker 1>mentioned that Battlefield six had a better opening weekend, delivering
<v Speaker 1>around sixty three percent more sales than Activision's latest title.
<v Speaker 1>Should be said that this supplies solely to sales information
<v Speaker 1>and not player figures, as Battlefield six isn't available in
<v Speaker 1>services like game Pass, where Black Black Ops seven is
<v Speaker 1>and has been since the launch. Well, the launch hasn't
<v Speaker 1>been what you would have expected from a call of
<v Speaker 1>Duty game.
<v Speaker 2>It did still top.
<v Speaker 1>The sales and revenue charts for Europe over its launch week,
<v Speaker 1>beating out an Out one one seven Packs, romana Ea,
<v Speaker 1>Sports Football Club twenty six, Battlefield six and Pokemon Legends
<v Speaker 1>ZA in the top five.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this sounds about right, Britain.
<v Speaker 1>I think the response to Black Ops seven has been cool,
<v Speaker 1>you know, has not been like people are not losing
<v Speaker 1>their lid over this game and the way that they
<v Speaker 1>did for Battlefeld six and Arc Raiders. It's like at
<v Speaker 1>this point it's like very much, oh, yet another call
<v Speaker 1>of Duty and that is reflected in the sales in
<v Speaker 1>the way. Then I don't I don't know if we've
<v Speaker 1>been able to say that before. Even when there were
<v Speaker 1>situations where it's like, oh, this is just one of
<v Speaker 1>those another Call of Duties, it would still like sell
<v Speaker 1>like a mania and that that is not the case here.
<v Speaker 1>Is this like the first real dent in the armor
<v Speaker 1>or is it just an off year and a year
<v Speaker 1>they had a lot of other substitutions you could put
<v Speaker 1>into that genre.
<v Speaker 4>I would say it feels to me like the biggest
<v Speaker 4>stt in the armor. I think we've had other years
<v Speaker 4>where yeah, Call of Duty maybe hasn't like screamed out
<v Speaker 4>of the gates, and we've been like, oh, this, you know,
<v Speaker 4>it's lower than last year. That's interesting. Maybe this is
<v Speaker 4>a sign of things to come. But it was never
<v Speaker 4>like a worrisome dropness. I'm sure worry some if you're
<v Speaker 4>a Microsoft executive or you know you really need those
<v Speaker 4>games to keep doing more and more and more.
<v Speaker 3>Aren't because capitalism.
<v Speaker 4>But I think in the grand scheme of things, we
<v Speaker 4>would sometimes say like, ah, this game isn't as good,
<v Speaker 4>so yeah it's sold like a little bit less than
<v Speaker 4>last one. Oh well, this one does feel like Oh
<v Speaker 4>nobody relatively speaking is talking about Call of Duty the
<v Speaker 4>way they were. I do think there is a bit
<v Speaker 4>of that perfect storm of other great multiplayer games being out.
<v Speaker 4>The fact that Battlefield is hitting it's kind of miraculous
<v Speaker 4>for EA because that could have gone you know, the
<v Speaker 4>other way. But yeah, I will, I guess we'll have
<v Speaker 4>to see. But also kind of there's part of my
<v Speaker 4>mind that's like, is Microsoft.
<v Speaker 3>Just cursed with the Xbox right now?
<v Speaker 2>Because like feels that way.
<v Speaker 4>If Call of Duty is also going to crumble, then
<v Speaker 4>what else do they have because Halo kind of fell
<v Speaker 4>off the pedestal a while ago.
<v Speaker 3>Uh, it's it's it's a rough time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, It's called Duty, as you pointed out, certainly had
<v Speaker 1>down years before, years where the new version did worse
<v Speaker 1>than the previous version. I think Modern Warfare three probably
<v Speaker 1>was the last time I can I think where that
<v Speaker 1>was like really noticeable. And then you know, they were
<v Speaker 1>able to pop back and it like things really took
<v Speaker 1>off again for them with several entries that people were
<v Speaker 1>very excited about. They do boots on the ground stuff
<v Speaker 1>and people are back for years and years and years,
<v Speaker 1>and that Modern Warfare one was like, oh that really
<v Speaker 1>did very well as well. It's like oh, people were
<v Speaker 1>into that. I think that they will be able to
<v Speaker 1>recapture the excitement because it's Call of Duty and it
<v Speaker 1>does have that big sort of protective bubble around it
<v Speaker 1>where it's like it's a cultural institution. But it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>this does prove that they can sort of lose the battlefield,
<v Speaker 1>like something I just didn't think was possible. So, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I imagine that this will cause everyone at Acting Vision
<v Speaker 1>and Microsoft to have a little bit of a heart
<v Speaker 1>palpitation because that whole deal is worth that much money
<v Speaker 1>if Call of Duty remains the most important game in
<v Speaker 1>the most profitable game in the world year after year,
<v Speaker 1>so they will probably go back to the drawing board
<v Speaker 1>and come up with a plan to revive that series
<v Speaker 1>in the future.
<v Speaker 2>We'll see what next year's game does. At the very least, it's.
<v Speaker 1>Like, okay, it does feel like, well, after twenty years
<v Speaker 1>of these games, more than that, really, but twenty years
<v Speaker 1>straight of these games, isn't it just natural that they
<v Speaker 1>lose some of their luster and people begin looking elsewhere.
<v Speaker 1>And I think we're probably just dealing with that to
<v Speaker 1>a certain extent. So this will be something they can
<v Speaker 1>do something about. But I don't think Call of Duty
<v Speaker 1>is now sort of this unassailable thing. Now it is
<v Speaker 1>not this fortress that cannot be invaded. There is a
<v Speaker 1>possibility where other games can come out right alongside of it,
<v Speaker 1>be very similar and do better because they just offer
<v Speaker 1>something that the player wants slightly more, and the person
<v Speaker 1>and the players are making that choice.
<v Speaker 2>It's pretty interesting to see.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, like, does this mean Microsoft has to like
<v Speaker 1>panic over there?
<v Speaker 2>I think maybe a little bit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I'm a little bummed personally because I also I
<v Speaker 4>was moving over the summer. I lived with my dad,
<v Speaker 4>and my dad and I when when I was younger,
<v Speaker 4>we'd play a lot of co op shooters, especially Raymo
<v Speaker 4>six Vegas, some Call of Duty, some Halo, and the
<v Speaker 4>idea like oh, the like split screen campaign will come back,
<v Speaker 4>like maybe this will be the Call of Duty for
<v Speaker 4>me and it'll hit on all cylinders.
<v Speaker 3>I haven't even installed it.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's just been that kind of year and that
<v Speaker 4>kind of reception to that game specifically.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and apparently that campaign is real bad. I still
<v Speaker 2>need to see it for myself. I think we'll see maybe.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, continuing on here, Steam machine price, this is a
<v Speaker 1>conversation just about every episode as well. Let's get the
<v Speaker 1>latest conversation here Valve they have just given the best
<v Speaker 1>clue yet. This is from Eddie McCoo at Game Spot.
<v Speaker 1>Valve will not say what the Steam Machine's prices just yet,
<v Speaker 1>and in this information vacuum, people are offering all kinds
<v Speaker 1>of different theories and guesses as to what the six
<v Speaker 1>inch cube like system may cost. Now, Valve has yet
<v Speaker 1>again commented on the pricing question, providing potentially the best
<v Speaker 1>clue yet. We'll also say and the company cannot or
<v Speaker 1>will not disclose pricing yet due to a lot of
<v Speaker 1>external things. Speaking to skill Up, I think this is
<v Speaker 1>on is Friends per Second podcast shouts out to Lucy James.
<v Speaker 2>A Valve software engineer.
<v Speaker 1>Pierre lou geroffis Griefus said, people can expect the price
<v Speaker 1>of the Steam Machine to be close to what it
<v Speaker 1>might cost to build a PC with basically the same
<v Speaker 1>level of performance. And while that's like that sounds about
<v Speaker 1>like what they've been saying so far, it's the first
<v Speaker 1>time they've just flat out said if you build a
<v Speaker 1>PC like this, this is how much this thing's going
<v Speaker 1>to cost. And I think that's it says a couple
<v Speaker 1>of things, right Britain, where it's like, one definitely priced
<v Speaker 1>like a PC like they've been saying.
<v Speaker 2>But also I think this is them saying.
<v Speaker 1>We are going to the price of this will be
<v Speaker 1>maybe even fluid, but dictated by the price of components.
<v Speaker 1>Going back to that conversation about RAM, right, like, if
<v Speaker 1>it costs us this much to get that RAM to
<v Speaker 1>put this into this thing, that's how much we're going
<v Speaker 1>to have to charge. I don't think they're talking about
<v Speaker 1>making a crazy profit on it. They are at least
<v Speaker 1>they at least want to break even when they sell
<v Speaker 1>these things. They are not going to subsidize this in
<v Speaker 1>any console like way. Not that the consoles are even
<v Speaker 1>all that subsidize these days either, right.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it is a bit of an interesting conversation since
<v Speaker 4>of any company like this, Valve is the one that
<v Speaker 4>maybe could pull that trigger and do the subsidy thing
<v Speaker 4>and try to treat this like a console.
<v Speaker 3>It is interesting when they.
<v Speaker 4>Say price like a PC, because as we were saying, okay,
<v Speaker 4>how much does a PC cost then, and how much
<v Speaker 4>will it cost six months from now or when, know,
<v Speaker 4>whenever these actually hit the market. At the same time,
<v Speaker 4>there's part of me it feels like that's a reasonable
<v Speaker 4>thing to offer. You know, there's still a lot of
<v Speaker 4>people who don't want to build a PC themselves. I
<v Speaker 4>think had conversations in the past about how like gen
<v Speaker 4>Z and younger aren't always as tech savvy as like
<v Speaker 4>our generation was, necessarily because so much stuff is pre built.
<v Speaker 4>So like there's I think a big audience of people
<v Speaker 4>that might be like, yeah, I'm willing to spend the money,
<v Speaker 4>I just don't want to like buy I don't know
<v Speaker 4>what motherboard to buy. It could still fit in a
<v Speaker 4>good spot there on the market. Heck, I would even
<v Speaker 4>consider getting one as someone who can build PCs, just
<v Speaker 4>kind of like, hey, it's in that like nice little
<v Speaker 4>GameCube like form factor that I was actually really impressed
<v Speaker 4>with the video of Jan and Dan going looking.
<v Speaker 3>At this stuff.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, same, I may buy some Valve hardware
<v Speaker 4>sometimes soon, So yeah, I'm hoping it's not astra noveical
<v Speaker 4>and price. But at the same time, hearing Valve say
<v Speaker 4>these sorts of things like yeah, that makes sense.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it's like I think I've been hoping for
<v Speaker 1>a price range between six hundred to eight hundred and
<v Speaker 1>It's like even then I knew that was a little
<v Speaker 1>bit of me putting a little bit of hopium on
<v Speaker 1>it basically, and so hearing this and kind of thinking
<v Speaker 1>about it and recently building a PC from one of
<v Speaker 1>my kids slowly in a small form factor a case,
<v Speaker 1>you know, all in after like months of like looking
<v Speaker 1>for deals and kind of slowly buying parts as I
<v Speaker 1>could justify spending the money I mentioned, like, I was
<v Speaker 1>like eight fifty to nine hundred and it was probably
<v Speaker 1>a little bit more than that actually, and it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this thing's going to be maybe starting at nine hundred dollars,
<v Speaker 1>could be a thousand dollars.
<v Speaker 2>Actually, if it's.
<v Speaker 1>A thousand, does that sort of like cool you off
<v Speaker 1>pretty quickly?
<v Speaker 2>Or is that like are you still interested?
<v Speaker 4>It depends on a few things, one might be. I
<v Speaker 4>was also like kind of impressed with the VR stuff
<v Speaker 4>they were showing, and like, cables.
<v Speaker 3>With VR is still a pain. That said, they were
<v Speaker 3>also like, yeah, by the way, we're not making a
<v Speaker 3>new VR game right now. I could play Alex again.
<v Speaker 4>I could play Riven in VR, which is fun, but like,
<v Speaker 4>what else would I do there other than just having
<v Speaker 4>a shiny new toy, So.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know.
<v Speaker 4>A thousand plus is definitely that threshold where I'd probably
<v Speaker 4>like I need I'm gonna need like a really good
<v Speaker 4>tax return or something something's gonna have happened where I'm
<v Speaker 4>like really gonna need to treat myself. Otherwise, it's just
<v Speaker 4>it's not the time for the economy, maybe in America
<v Speaker 4>right now, to be spending a ton of money on
<v Speaker 4>gaming hardware.
<v Speaker 2>YEP.
<v Speaker 1>I'll probably be the same way. It's like, if the
<v Speaker 1>Gabe Cube gets up to one thousand dollars, I'll wait.
<v Speaker 1>If it's eight hundred, I probably will pull the trigger.
<v Speaker 2>It's say, I know it's you know, what is that
<v Speaker 2>two hundred dollars?
<v Speaker 1>But I did just build something like this recently, and
<v Speaker 1>I have a PC that I actually played games on
<v Speaker 1>all the time and it's fantastic, And this thing would
<v Speaker 1>be this thing would be replacing another mini PC that
<v Speaker 1>I have, uh from that I use for like my
<v Speaker 1>media stuff and maybe occasionally playing the games a game
<v Speaker 1>on the TV upstairs. Uh, it's going to be like
<v Speaker 1>a fifth device. So very quickly I'll be like, I
<v Speaker 1>need to have some guidelines on what I'm spending here.
<v Speaker 4>And you know, if I'm being perctly honest with myself
<v Speaker 4>and with the audience, I would just be using it
<v Speaker 4>to play GameCube and week games on.
<v Speaker 2>So like that's for sure.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, I'm with you on that, all right, Let's keep
<v Speaker 1>going here. We believe it's feasible, says emulation studio working
<v Speaker 1>on PS three support for modern consoles. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Sammy Barker at Push Square Implicit Conversions, the studio behind
<v Speaker 1>emulating some of your favorite PS one and PS two
<v Speaker 1>games as part of PS plus Premium.
<v Speaker 2>They've done something like sixty games apparently for that is.
<v Speaker 1>Quietly working on a PS three emulator, while Boss Bill
<v Speaker 1>litz Shower litz Shower, Yeah. Litz Shower insists improving its
<v Speaker 1>support for PS two is this company's current focus. He
<v Speaker 1>reviewed in an interview with Mystic that he believes it
<v Speaker 1>will be feasible to emulate PS three games in the future,
<v Speaker 1>potentially on the PS five and certainly on the PS six.
<v Speaker 2>He said, we believe it's feasible.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think anyone expects it to run on a
<v Speaker 1>switch or a PS four, but maybe PS five and
<v Speaker 1>certainly PS six whenever that comes out. We do feel
<v Speaker 1>it's technically possible. It's just a matter of devoting the time, energy,
<v Speaker 1>and resources to it. Letz Hower explained that supporting PS
<v Speaker 1>three is a backburner project for his team and that
<v Speaker 1>it actually hasn't had many requests for the console, but
<v Speaker 1>it's something it's working on.
<v Speaker 2>Anyway.
<v Speaker 1>We're working with a third party to help us with this,
<v Speaker 1>so we have to we have a base to work off.
<v Speaker 1>It's a backburner project for us that we're investigating over time.
<v Speaker 2>To be transparent.
<v Speaker 1>PS two is more of a priority for us just
<v Speaker 1>because of the demand, But it's a fun project for
<v Speaker 1>our engineers. You know, I would imagine the part of
<v Speaker 1>the reason that demand's not there is just it's not
<v Speaker 1>on the menu, right for these third parties and even
<v Speaker 1>Sony who might want to bring PS three games to
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation plus good classics, Well there is no emulator, so
<v Speaker 1>let's focus on the PS two when we bring a project.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, I once that seal is broken, I
<v Speaker 1>think that they might get more orders for this sort
<v Speaker 1>of thing, although of course PS two has kind of
<v Speaker 1>infinite more games than the PS three When it comes
<v Speaker 1>to that sort of thing, right.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think it's it's funny that they just lay
<v Speaker 4>it out that way, because that's exactly my feeling is, like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I don't care about PS three games nearly as much.
<v Speaker 3>As the PS two.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I'm sure that was that the era where Sony
<v Speaker 4>stumbled most. It's the one the three sixty really dominated,
<v Speaker 4>at least here in the US. So there is stuff though,
<v Speaker 4>that's if the option was there, I would maybe want
<v Speaker 4>to revisit. I think the issue that is they sometimes
<v Speaker 4>run into is a lot of those best games, Like
<v Speaker 4>you think about Uncharted, Well, there's ways to play Uncharted
<v Speaker 4>on more modern consoles. I would maybe want to play
<v Speaker 4>the Final Fantasy thirteen games that was those right, like
<v Speaker 4>Lightning Returns. But Square is not going to put that
<v Speaker 4>on like PS Classics necessarily, They're probably gonna say, like, no,
<v Speaker 4>we'll just remaster that and sell that to you at
<v Speaker 4>full price. So I do struggle a little bit with like, Okay,
<v Speaker 4>what would I be playing on?
<v Speaker 2>You know, officially Layer Metal, you're solid for Heavenly Sword.
<v Speaker 1>People are saying there's your three right there. It's not
<v Speaker 1>a long list for sure.
<v Speaker 4>And Tokyo Jungle, as White Panther calls.
<v Speaker 1>Out that practic time, White Night chronicles Hayes there you go. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they would find they would find some games. And I
<v Speaker 1>want to see this mostly just mostly because I'm like, uh,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just curious to see them get the emulator running
<v Speaker 1>in the first place. It'd be interesting to have the
<v Speaker 1>official PS three emulator from Sony or whatever this partner
<v Speaker 1>that's providing it for Sony.
<v Speaker 4>That is definitely a key piece of this is the
<v Speaker 4>like interest in the technology there and just for archival purposes, like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>let's let's figure out how to do this the best
<v Speaker 4>we can, right.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, motor Storm puppeteer. Yeah, people are throwing out
<v Speaker 1>a bunch that would be fun to see.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>You know, people might be thinking I saw someone in
<v Speaker 1>chat say there are PS three games in PS plus
<v Speaker 1>Classics or you know, on that service, and it's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>those are all cloud streaming. So the difference would be
<v Speaker 1>this would be running the games natively, which I think
<v Speaker 1>people still prefer and want to see. It's nice to
<v Speaker 1>have the cloud option, but people want to run it natively,
<v Speaker 1>So we'll see.
<v Speaker 2>I heard a long.
<v Speaker 1>Time ago that that there that Sony was working on
<v Speaker 1>a PS three emulator for their current consoles, and it
<v Speaker 1>was a long time ago now though, and so I
<v Speaker 1>wonder if that was just like something they began investigating
<v Speaker 1>and it kind of led to this and it continues
<v Speaker 1>to be on the back burner.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, I very interesting.
<v Speaker 1>He's just out there saying it though, uh like kind
<v Speaker 1>of just talking publicly about this.
<v Speaker 2>It feels like the kind of thing that Sony wouldn't
<v Speaker 2>want to hear.
<v Speaker 1>But I guess it's like an independent company doing their
<v Speaker 1>thing and being like, we'll have this if anyone wants
<v Speaker 1>to use it, and then you could talk to Sony
<v Speaker 1>about it.
<v Speaker 4>So very it could be, Yeah, a very strategic play
<v Speaker 4>of like, yeah, hey, just by the way, if you
<v Speaker 4>want this, maybe get loud about it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's a that's a good point that they could
<v Speaker 1>be like getting attention on the matter. Yeah, and having
<v Speaker 1>this ready for like PS six and saying like hey,
<v Speaker 1>PS six and you know, we're going to sell a
<v Speaker 1>disc drive separately, but if you get the disk drive,
<v Speaker 1>it can play every single day you've ever had, and
<v Speaker 1>we're going to charge a little extra for it because
<v Speaker 1>it has CD, DVD and Blu Ray and Ultra Blu
<v Speaker 1>Ray support.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I could see them.
<v Speaker 4>May the dream as hard conterned is because I've still
<v Speaker 4>got all of my PS one, PS two, PS three
<v Speaker 4>discs just sitting here collecting dusts. If I could just
<v Speaker 4>play those again, that would be phenomenal.
<v Speaker 2>That would be ideal. Yep, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Ongoing micro SD shortages could have a knock on effect
<v Speaker 1>for switch to storage availability.
<v Speaker 2>This is from PJ O'Reilly at Nintendo Life.
<v Speaker 1>Storage hungry consumers in Japan have been jumping on available
<v Speaker 1>stocks of the super fast micro SD Express cards as
<v Speaker 1>an ongoing memory shortage continues across the computer industry with
<v Speaker 1>no sign of getting.
<v Speaker 2>Better in the immediate future.
<v Speaker 1>As reported by Tom's Hardware, a spiraling, spiraling issue of
<v Speaker 1>rising costs and demand that's far exceeding availability means empty
<v Speaker 1>shelves and insane prices. As a regular consumers swoop on
<v Speaker 1>anything that's left over once and you guys want to
<v Speaker 1>play play their music again. Large data centers and AI
<v Speaker 1>companies have bought up their fill first AI. Is there
<v Speaker 1>nothing you can't make worse? Essentially, like this is like
<v Speaker 1>we talked about it for RAM. It's affecting flash memory
<v Speaker 1>as well flash storage, and yeah, it's going to be
<v Speaker 1>apparently harder and harder for now to find large sized SD.
<v Speaker 2>Express cards for your switch to.
<v Speaker 1>I got a two hundred and fifty six gigabyte one
<v Speaker 1>early on. I've already filled it up. I would like
<v Speaker 1>to replace it with a larger one, but it seems
<v Speaker 1>like that might be off the table for now the
<v Speaker 1>very least. It's like this demand is going to ensure
<v Speaker 1>that prices remain higher than they might have otherwise.
<v Speaker 2>You know, this switch to.
<v Speaker 1>Ships with some storage as opposed to the switch one,
<v Speaker 1>which had like, what like thirty two gigabytes, So it's
<v Speaker 1>like it's not necessary right right away.
<v Speaker 2>But games are also getting larger.
<v Speaker 1>We just had that final Fantasy seven remake get anounced
<v Speaker 1>that's going to be around hundred gigabytes on the switch To,
<v Speaker 1>and that's going to fill up almost half of that
<v Speaker 1>device instantly, right, So this is going to be a
<v Speaker 1>problem here pretty soon for a lot of gamers.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, especially since you know, game key cards are still
<v Speaker 4>an issue.
<v Speaker 3>Storage wise, right.
<v Speaker 4>Whether you're okay buying those or not, they the fact
<v Speaker 4>matter is they need to be installed to the system.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, when you have a big game like that.
<v Speaker 3>The space goes quick. I do have as.
<v Speaker 4>Soon as the storage solution was announced, I ran out
<v Speaker 4>and bought a five twelve card, like right before they
<v Speaker 4>became harder to find, right, So I'm happy to have that,
<v Speaker 4>But when playing games like Because A zero and some
<v Speaker 4>other stuff that is just like hefty in terms of
<v Speaker 4>storage size, I filled all that up so as soon
<v Speaker 4>as I finished the story now because I deleted it
<v Speaker 4>because it's like I need all this space again. And granted, I'm,
<v Speaker 4>you know, someone who plays a lot of games. I
<v Speaker 4>like having a lot of games available. I also need
<v Speaker 4>to have both the games I want to play in
<v Speaker 4>the games my son wants to play on the same system.
<v Speaker 4>So it I'm, you know, maybe a bit more of
<v Speaker 4>an edge case to some extents, but it's also a
<v Speaker 4>reason I'm by buying stuff like Hyro Warriors on a
<v Speaker 4>physical cartridge when it's on the card, so that it
<v Speaker 4>doesn't take up my space. Because yeah, it's already more
<v Speaker 4>expensive than just the regular SD cards. I think it's
<v Speaker 4>worth it because it's faster. So like the I've been
<v Speaker 4>happy with the store solution as it is, but it
<v Speaker 4>sucks if it's going to be harder to find and
<v Speaker 4>or more expensive.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, let's keep going here.
<v Speaker 1>You'd be Soft unveils Teammates, its first playable generative AI project.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Alberto Garrido at Game Reactor. You'd be
<v Speaker 1>Soft as going through one of the most volatile periods
<v Speaker 1>in its history, after a financial crisis that almost wiped
<v Speaker 1>it off the map and a subsequent restructuring of all
<v Speaker 1>its assets into several subsidiaries. Thanks to the agreement signed
<v Speaker 1>with Chinese giants Tencent, it has now announced its next
<v Speaker 1>steps by exploring the future of gaming, a future in
<v Speaker 1>which the company is exploring development through generative AI. In fact,
<v Speaker 1>that this isn't Ubisof's first project to make use of
<v Speaker 1>the technology. Last year presented a prototype called Neo NPC,
<v Speaker 1>which featured cognitive language skills designed to create characters, but
<v Speaker 1>their environment remained static. From Neo NPC, they took the
<v Speaker 1>model and have expanded it into a first person shooter
<v Speaker 1>experience in a playable state. Teammates, as it is now called,
<v Speaker 1>is a first person shooter with new advanced AI features
<v Speaker 1>that allow them to respond dynamically to voice commands in
<v Speaker 1>real time, adapting their behavior to each situation and displaying
<v Speaker 1>distinct personalities and doing so. Or in other words, a
<v Speaker 1>game in which you can actually command an entire team
<v Speaker 1>under your command. I you know, it sounds like there's
<v Speaker 1>more to it than that, Like they're using AI to
<v Speaker 1>like build the characters and all that stuff. My guest
<v Speaker 1>here is like this is going to feel interesting for
<v Speaker 1>about thirty seconds and then like there will be that
<v Speaker 1>like AI delay between you ask ask AI to do
<v Speaker 1>something and then it finally responds, And that's gonna happen
<v Speaker 1>with all the characters. And it's like, it's only interesting
<v Speaker 1>to command these things using your voice if there are
<v Speaker 1>interesting things being designed in the world for you to
<v Speaker 1>go up against. And I doubt very much that they're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be able to produce that, especially if they're using
<v Speaker 1>AI to generate. You know, at the missions in quest
<v Speaker 1>in this game, do you think you'd be stuffs onto
<v Speaker 1>anything here?
<v Speaker 3>Short answer is no.
<v Speaker 4>I think the response in the chat like because speaks
<v Speaker 4>for itself of just a cascade of no, no f this.
<v Speaker 3>So I think I'm curious how it's gonna go.
<v Speaker 4>I wish it wasn't happening, but I'm curious to see
<v Speaker 4>what the response is gonna be.
<v Speaker 3>Also, because like it, Ubisoft wasn't always the worst.
<v Speaker 4>They're not always there's a time where they made good
<v Speaker 4>games that were authored by real people and like told
<v Speaker 4>good stories at least relatively speaking to what was around
<v Speaker 4>at the time.
<v Speaker 3>So, uh, yeah, this is an interesting move.
<v Speaker 4>Let's say, I don't think it's the right one, but
<v Speaker 4>I guess we'll see what happens.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, you know, I remember before this current
<v Speaker 1>crop of AI popped up, talking to like the Google
<v Speaker 1>Speaker thing, the Home Assistant thing, and she'd being like,
<v Speaker 1>it would be nice if I could just in natural language, say, hey,
<v Speaker 1>can you build me this tool that will keep track
<v Speaker 1>of anytime I mentioned this thing and then you know,
<v Speaker 1>set a timer automatically when I mentioned that thing to
<v Speaker 1>remind me about that thing later. And it's like, I
<v Speaker 1>wish I could just explain myself in natural language and
<v Speaker 1>basically have and program a computer natural language. I thought
<v Speaker 1>that'd be pretty exciting. And it's like this having a
<v Speaker 1>conversation with NPCs and having like then having them behave
<v Speaker 1>and kind of recognize your tone of voice as something
<v Speaker 1>they're saying. I'm interested in what that could look like.
<v Speaker 1>My suspicion is everything else, and really just how they
<v Speaker 1>would even implement implement that in.
<v Speaker 2>The first place.
<v Speaker 1>If any of that involves them just sort of saying, hey,
<v Speaker 1>make me a robody looking character so I could put
<v Speaker 1>it in a video game, it's gonna feel like slop.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna feel like every other game because it's gonna
<v Speaker 1>be derivative of every other game, and the sort of
<v Speaker 1>sense of wonder that you need to like get a
<v Speaker 1>game to break through just simply won't be there, and
<v Speaker 1>it won't be and none of this will be worth it.
<v Speaker 1>I you know, we'll see this does not seem to
<v Speaker 1>be like an actual commercial product they're building, They're still
<v Speaker 1>testing these things out. I would rather them just take
<v Speaker 1>all this money and continue investing in people like Clint
<v Speaker 1>Hawking and other people who have made interesting games and
<v Speaker 1>let them just go make something instead of all these
<v Speaker 1>other things where it's like, let's just have a couple
<v Speaker 1>of games and then see if AI is going to
<v Speaker 1>make us.
<v Speaker 2>A billion bucks in the future. It's probably not. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I've I've been lucky professionally so far that the
<v Speaker 4>AI engineers I've worked with because I do the like
<v Speaker 4>product stuff now more than I write that have been
<v Speaker 4>good about saying like, hey, we're only going to use
<v Speaker 4>AI on the stuff that's it's actually good at, which
<v Speaker 4>is not like writing or you know, telling stories or arts.
<v Speaker 4>It's you know, like research to some extent, and not
<v Speaker 4>even like doing research. It's like you know, just collecting
<v Speaker 4>data and you know, organizing it that sort of thing.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It's like it's an advanced search engine, and and it
<v Speaker 1>makes mistakes like any search engine.
<v Speaker 2>So you have to keep that in mind.
<v Speaker 1>You like you have to like get good at using AI,
<v Speaker 1>like you got good at using Google. And it's like
<v Speaker 1>very little difference, and it's like anything beyond that seems
<v Speaker 1>still like a pipe dream.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's a fancy parlor tricks. A lot of people
<v Speaker 3>have said, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's finish up with these last couple of stories.
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation five Pro price slash by more than one hundred
<v Speaker 1>pounds in Black Friday deal. This is from Andy Robinson
<v Speaker 1>at VGC, who is in the UK, so he notes
<v Speaker 1>down one hundred pounds, but it's also down one hundred
<v Speaker 1>dollars in the US, so are a lot of other
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation of products. PSVR two is one hundred dollars off
<v Speaker 1>at PlayStation Direct. PlayStation Portal is twenty dollars off their
<v Speaker 1>headsets earbuds, controllers, everything's discounted, So yeah, they are cutting prices. Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>they raise prices a couple of times previously, so it
<v Speaker 1>gives them a little bit of headroom now to work
<v Speaker 1>with so they can have Black Friday discounts. Kind of
<v Speaker 1>gets the I think the PlayStation five just standard is
<v Speaker 1>five hundred and fifty dollars normally and now so that
<v Speaker 1>now it gets.
<v Speaker 2>Down to four fifties.
<v Speaker 1>So if you compare it to its launch price, it's
<v Speaker 1>down like fifty bucks really, and honestly that might be
<v Speaker 1>the digital version.
<v Speaker 2>I can't and keep track anymore.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, at the very least, like they feel like
<v Speaker 1>they are making enough money on their consoles that they
<v Speaker 1>can afford to do this, and PlayStation five the price,
<v Speaker 1>the sales have been down year over year because it's
<v Speaker 1>in the back half of its life.
<v Speaker 2>That's natural.
<v Speaker 1>But I think a lot of people probably will jump
<v Speaker 1>on right now with the expectation that Grand Theft Auto
<v Speaker 1>six is gonna launch next year, so this is probably
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a strong holiday for the PlayStation.
<v Speaker 2>What do you think?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think you know, it is, like I was
<v Speaker 4>saying earlier on the call, Black Friday is not what
<v Speaker 4>it used to be, so like some of these discounts
<v Speaker 4>might be looking at like, yeah, okay, I guess it's
<v Speaker 4>like what it was before. But I think there's still
<v Speaker 4>probably a lot of people that have been wanting to
<v Speaker 4>jump in that they'll see this at the right time.
<v Speaker 4>I know a guy that just like a month or
<v Speaker 4>so ago bought a portal. I don't think he's personally
<v Speaker 4>gonna sweat twenty bucks too much, but there is still
<v Speaker 4>a market for, you know, people wanting to buy this
<v Speaker 4>stuff out there so you can get a little cheaper.
<v Speaker 3>Great, go ahead and do it.
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, with GT six and stuff coming out, it's
<v Speaker 4>probably the right time for a lot of people.
<v Speaker 1>And then finally RESTful trails to Udo kir who was
<v Speaker 1>an actor, kind of character actor appeared in a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of stuff, was in the Frankenstein movie. I'm trying to
<v Speaker 1>remember who made the Frankenstein movie that he was in,
<v Speaker 1>but either way, he was working with Hideo Kojima on
<v Speaker 1>an upcoming game OD. I'm at a loss for words,
<v Speaker 1>writes Kojuma. It all happened far too suddenly. Because of
<v Speaker 1>the strike, we weren't able to shoot OD for a
<v Speaker 1>long time, and we were forced to reschedule to next year.
<v Speaker 1>Even during that time, Udo and I exchanged emails frequently.
<v Speaker 1>We stayed in close contact. When we met in Milan
<v Speaker 1>at the end of September, he told me how much
<v Speaker 1>he was looking forward to the shoot starting up again
<v Speaker 1>next year. He was full of energy then too, making
<v Speaker 1>me laugh with his usual udoisms. I still can't believe
<v Speaker 1>this Udo wasn't just an actor. He was truly an
<v Speaker 1>icon of his time. We've lost a great icon. There
<v Speaker 1>will never be another like him. Udo, Rest in peace.
<v Speaker 1>I will never forget you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's uh, that's a real bummer.
<v Speaker 1>I just I have a soft spot for character actors
<v Speaker 1>in general, and Udo's definitely want that. Just like every
<v Speaker 1>time I saw him on screen, it's like, oh, this
<v Speaker 1>guy's magnetic h so yes again, rest in peace.
<v Speaker 3>He was one of those actors who you may not
<v Speaker 3>have known his name, but if you saw him, you'd
<v Speaker 3>be like, oh that guy exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Yes.
<v Speaker 3>And I think like a lot of gamers were known
<v Speaker 3>for as Yuri red alert yep. So uh yeah, bit,
<v Speaker 3>big loss.
<v Speaker 4>It's a it's a bummer that you know, sometimes when
<v Speaker 4>to actor passed away, you can at least say like
<v Speaker 4>oh well, but he had he filmed this last thing
<v Speaker 4>or whatever, and it sounds like Ode was not in
<v Speaker 4>that state, so that's kind of a bummer.
<v Speaker 2>It's a shame. Yeah, uh, yep, it was Andy Warhol's
<v Speaker 2>Frankenstein and Dracula movies. Thank you for sure. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Uh, let's go ahead and begin wrapping up the show.
<v Speaker 1>There's no poll question from last week. We're not going
<v Speaker 1>to do a new new pole question because tomorrow's game
<v Speaker 1>is the Giant BombCast, and then we're off for the
<v Speaker 1>rest of the week for Thanksgiving, so we'll just come
<v Speaker 1>back and start fresh next Monday or yea next Monday,
<v Speaker 1>and start getting too the rest of the year. At
<v Speaker 1>that point in the meantime, then why don't we have
<v Speaker 1>Britain Peele tell people where you can find them on
<v Speaker 1>the internet, what you have going on and all that
<v Speaker 1>good stuff.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you can mostly find me on Blue Sky, where
<v Speaker 4>it's just Britain Peel dot Com is my handle over there.
<v Speaker 4>I'm on other places too. I posted to Facebook today
<v Speaker 4>to say I was gonna be on the show, so
<v Speaker 4>technically i'm there and I leave TikTok comments, but I
<v Speaker 4>never post there and I say all social media stuff
<v Speaker 4>because I don't do a lot of writing these days.
<v Speaker 4>I might write a little book blurb for WBEZ in
<v Speaker 4>the next little bit here, but my job now is
<v Speaker 4>behind the scenes. I work at WBEZ and Chicago Sun Times,
<v Speaker 4>which is nonprofit public media.
<v Speaker 3>It's news without a paywall.
<v Speaker 4>So if anyone, especially in Chicago, wants good news that
<v Speaker 4>isn't owned by a billionaire, that's where you can find us.
<v Speaker 2>Wbz's it is fantastic. That's great work. All right, let's
<v Speaker 2>see here.
<v Speaker 1>I guess we should say what's happening on Giant Bomb
<v Speaker 1>this week. Like I said, it's a short week, but
<v Speaker 1>we are gonna try to do some more stuff today.
<v Speaker 1>We're definitely going to the Bobcast tomorrow. I think we're
<v Speaker 1>also going to try to get him one more Blake
<v Speaker 1>Club episode before we go and break. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>think that'll happen tomorrow. But the schedule will come out today.
<v Speaker 1>You'll get all the details then soon and then again Wednesday, Thursday,
<v Speaker 1>and Friday, we're off for American Thanksgiving. Thanks to everybody
<v Speaker 1>who's been with us, and thank you for understanding while
<v Speaker 1>we take some time off. Okay, I think I think
<v Speaker 1>it means we're pretty good here Britain. Thank you so
<v Speaker 1>much for hanging out with me today and talking about
<v Speaker 1>video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 4>It is always a highlight for me to appear on
<v Speaker 4>this program. Love it every time I'm will come on.
<v Speaker 4>So thank you for having me.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, and yes, someone ask about dispatch. Yeah I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna The plan was to do that tomorrow before a
<v Speaker 1>bombcasts because apparently apparently it's a little bit longer. I
<v Speaker 1>didn't want to do it today and have a chance
<v Speaker 1>of it rubbing up against a game this morning. So
<v Speaker 1>we do that tomorrow morning before the bomb cast everybody,
<v Speaker 1>probably nine am Eastern time. That'll be the last episode
<v Speaker 1>of the season. So you tune in if you want
<v Speaker 1>to see how I make my choices. I can tell
<v Speaker 1>you what I make poor choices in that game. That's
<v Speaker 1>just what I do, all right. Thank you everybody for
<v Speaker 1>watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of
<v Speaker 1>yourself and goodbye.