Switch 2 Preorders Start Tonight in America

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Breaking News with me Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
<v Speaker 1>tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
<v Speaker 1>two new massive RPGs and switch To pre orders starting
<v Speaker 1>up tonight. It's gonna be a good one because we
<v Speaker 1>have Jake Randall on the episode. Jake, how are you doing?
<v Speaker 2>Hey, I'm doing great.
<v Speaker 1>How are you doing, Jeff, I'm doing excellence. Yeah, kind
<v Speaker 1>of stood up stay stayed up late to catch the
<v Speaker 1>new episodes of and Or and they were very good,
<v Speaker 1>so I was very happy with that.
<v Speaker 2>He staying up late again tonight.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna be staying up late again tonight. Yes, we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be trying to get those pre orders for the
<v Speaker 1>switch To, and I'm gonna be relying on you. We'll
<v Speaker 1>definitely talk about that here in a second, but I
<v Speaker 1>know you've been doing a lot of prep on that.
<v Speaker 1>I guess how are you feeling about this lead up
<v Speaker 1>to us here in this country finally getting the chance
<v Speaker 1>to uh a pre order a switch To.
<v Speaker 3>Well, we were just talking about this on the pre
<v Speaker 3>show a little bit, but we're getting a lot of
<v Speaker 3>mixed messages because there's certain parts of the world where
<v Speaker 3>it seems like the stock has been great, pre orders
<v Speaker 3>aren't too challenging, definitely not PS five level. And then
<v Speaker 3>there's news, you know, like what came out today about
<v Speaker 3>how much demand there is for the sign ups in
<v Speaker 3>Japan and Nintendo. It's pretty bizarre for Nintendo to actually
<v Speaker 3>make a statement saying they can't meet the demand. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>so it's it goes both ways. But to be honest,
<v Speaker 3>I think this is definitely going to be easier than
<v Speaker 3>the PS five Series X launch seems that way because
<v Speaker 3>it's Nintendo and it's a new product. It is probably
<v Speaker 3>going to sell out here. But I think if you're
<v Speaker 3>on top of it, I think if you get on
<v Speaker 3>preorders right away, you should be okay. And I do
<v Speaker 3>think there'll be multiple pre orders before launch date. So
<v Speaker 3>if you don't necessarily get it to don't freak out.
<v Speaker 3>This is, you know, the big hype. Everyone's going to
<v Speaker 3>be going for it. Just don't freak out. It'll be
<v Speaker 3>okay everyone. You know, if you preorder it now or
<v Speaker 3>pre order it in a few weeks, we'll all get
<v Speaker 3>it the same day.
<v Speaker 1>And for those that don't know that this is Jake's
<v Speaker 1>specially speciality, like this is where your butty or bread
<v Speaker 1>right where you help people figure this stuff out. Show
<v Speaker 1>people the notes you were showing me a little bit
<v Speaker 1>ago you got. He's got pages of notes about understanding
<v Speaker 1>the best way to get these preorders.
<v Speaker 3>Making a pre ordered guide video on YouTube to answer
<v Speaker 3>everyone's questions. So I wrote down every question I've gotten,
<v Speaker 3>my YouTube comments and on Twitter, I put them all
<v Speaker 3>in there, and I put a little guide for each
<v Speaker 3>retailer too. But I take it really seriously because as
<v Speaker 3>soon as I accept, Okay, I'm going to help people
<v Speaker 3>try to pre order this thing, then all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 3>I have a responsibility. I don't feel responsible to do it,
<v Speaker 3>you know, just every time, But as soon as I
<v Speaker 3>say yes, I'll help you, I feel pressure to give
<v Speaker 3>people accurate information and to help as much as I can.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know what, let's actually let's get into it.
<v Speaker 1>So let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I,
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Grebb, will help piece your gaming life back together.
<v Speaker 1>That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
<v Speaker 1>own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
<v Speaker 1>input of a bona fide expert who will make me
<v Speaker 1>look smart. If you were watching live on twitch welcome.
<v Speaker 1>You can always listen to the show later on podcast
<v Speaker 1>feeds by searching for game breaking news, or find the
<v Speaker 1>RSS feed on giant bomb dot com. You can also
<v Speaker 1>catch the show later on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot to get into, so let's start
<v Speaker 1>the show with those switch to preorders begin tonight. So
<v Speaker 1>if you if you're Eastern time, it's midnight. If you're
<v Speaker 1>on the West coast, it will actually be nine pm.
<v Speaker 1>It's all gonna line up that way. I can't help
<v Speaker 1>you right now with Minecraft Kit. I'll help you in
<v Speaker 1>a little bit, okay. And then so with the pre
<v Speaker 1>orders tonight, it is going to be all major retailers,
<v Speaker 1>but not like the Nintendo store, right that's going to
<v Speaker 1>be later. So do you have like a preference, Jake,
<v Speaker 1>for where people should try to focus their energy or
<v Speaker 1>is it kind of like a like a shotgun approach
<v Speaker 1>just kind.
<v Speaker 2>Of go Yeah, that was one of the biggest questions
<v Speaker 2>I had.
<v Speaker 3>So the only exception is game Stop is not going
<v Speaker 3>live at midnight. Their online orders will be tomorrow morning
<v Speaker 3>at eleven am Eastern eight am Pacific. And then when
<v Speaker 3>their store is open, which is typically noon whenever your
<v Speaker 3>local store opens. They have a separate allotment to pre
<v Speaker 3>order in person in the store. But yeah, they're the
<v Speaker 3>only one that their online pre orders are not going
<v Speaker 3>live at midnight. So it's kind of nice because game
<v Speaker 3>Stop is automatically your backup plan, right if you don't
<v Speaker 3>get one at Target, Best buyer, Walmart, or the three
<v Speaker 3>that will go at midnight, then at least you have
<v Speaker 3>one other to try, in addition to possibly the my
<v Speaker 3>Nintendo store. But Amazon's not doing them.
<v Speaker 1>And they broke up again. Yeah, Nintendo and Amazon broke
<v Speaker 1>up again. They're on again, off again all the time exactly.
<v Speaker 3>So Amazon's doing it in the rest of the world,
<v Speaker 3>just not the United States. So between Target, Walmart, and
<v Speaker 3>best Buy, they all have pros and cons. Best Buy
<v Speaker 3>and Walmart use a qu system which helps against the box.
<v Speaker 3>Target does not, so they might go faster. But between
<v Speaker 3>Walmart and best Buy, I would go with Walmart because
<v Speaker 3>they're you know, obviously, the size of Walmart as a
<v Speaker 3>company is much bigger than best Buy, and their servers
<v Speaker 3>and their website handles these kind of things a lot better,
<v Speaker 3>and most people are going to probably go for best
<v Speaker 3>Buy because they're doing that midnight launch. So if you
<v Speaker 3>go for Best Buy, I would go for one of
<v Speaker 3>their bundles. The more expensive the bundle, the easier will
<v Speaker 3>be to get because scalpers only want the Mario Kart
<v Speaker 3>bundle and in the base.
<v Speaker 1>Car the bundle would eat into their profit margins of
<v Speaker 1>them trying to scalp it.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, yeah, exactly. So they have some crazy bundles. Some
<v Speaker 3>of them are up to seven hundred dollars. I don't
<v Speaker 3>think you need to go that crazy, but those ones
<v Speaker 3>will last the longest. And then but I would I
<v Speaker 3>would go with Walmart because they guarantee delivery by nine
<v Speaker 3>am on launch day and they used to be pretty bad,
<v Speaker 3>but so they have a bad reputation, which is also
<v Speaker 3>why people might not choose them first, right, but for them,
<v Speaker 3>definitely try for all three. But I would keep in
<v Speaker 3>mind that Walmart's probably going to be people's best chance.
<v Speaker 3>The Best Buy app is terrible, So if you're going
<v Speaker 3>for all three and you're also trying to do it
<v Speaker 3>on your phone, don't go for Best Buy on your phone.
<v Speaker 3>I would say, okay for either Target or Walmart, but
<v Speaker 3>that's that's kind of where I'd rank them.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So as people are making these decisions, is there
<v Speaker 1>like a best practices for like splitting up like multiple devices.
<v Speaker 1>Should they have like like the Target app and like
<v Speaker 1>all their stuff preloaded on their phone? Like? Is that
<v Speaker 1>just basics at this point? Make sure you have your
<v Speaker 1>account on Walmart and Target and best Buy and all
<v Speaker 1>the payment info already and they're ready to go. Should
<v Speaker 1>people be doing that right now? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Obviously you want to do your prep work.
<v Speaker 3>You want to make sure you have accounts for all
<v Speaker 3>these places ready to go. You want to make sure
<v Speaker 3>you have your shipping info and your payment info. And
<v Speaker 3>a tip that works really well is during like restocks
<v Speaker 3>or pre orders. Obviously, these retailers are servers are getting throttled.
<v Speaker 3>So if you use PayPal or Apple Pay or red
<v Speaker 3>Card or Google Pay instead of a credit or debit card,
<v Speaker 3>it increases your chances exponentially because it processes your payment
<v Speaker 3>on those company servers instead of the retailers servers.
<v Speaker 1>Oh interesting, So I would do.
<v Speaker 3>That, And also I would recommend if you can only
<v Speaker 3>go for one on your phone of the three, I
<v Speaker 3>would recommend Walmart because if you have Walmart up on
<v Speaker 3>your computer and also on your phone in their que system,
<v Speaker 3>it'll give you a separate place in line on each
<v Speaker 3>of them. Oh okay, it's kind of like getting two chances.
<v Speaker 3>And then while you're waiting in the queue on Walmart
<v Speaker 3>and best Buy on your computer and also waiting in
<v Speaker 3>the queue and Walmart, then you can focus on the
<v Speaker 3>target website in terms of refreshing, since that's the only
<v Speaker 3>one of these that doesn't have a que system.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, interesting, Okay, So if you if you
<v Speaker 1>were trying to get a switch to tonight, you had,
<v Speaker 1>you know, just enough money to get get one, Like
<v Speaker 1>what is your like your go to Like what is
<v Speaker 1>the one thing that you recommend everybody do and like
<v Speaker 1>the best path forward? Like what would you say to
<v Speaker 1>that person in that situation.
<v Speaker 3>So honestly shameless self plug here, but I think it
<v Speaker 3>is really helpful, not just because of me, but I
<v Speaker 3>will be live streaming the pre orders, and the actual
<v Speaker 3>benefit to the live stream is it will let us
<v Speaker 3>adjust on the fly. So if certain websites aren't working
<v Speaker 3>on your end, if you're not on the stream, you
<v Speaker 3>just have no idea.
<v Speaker 2>What's going on.
<v Speaker 3>You don't know, you don't realize. Oh this website's the
<v Speaker 3>servers are just down, so I shouldn't be focusing on
<v Speaker 3>this right now. But in the live stream I can
<v Speaker 3>tell you that. And I have a lot of experts
<v Speaker 3>that are smarter than me in a lot of ways
<v Speaker 3>in my chat that can also tell us that. So
<v Speaker 3>as a community, it's not really even my thing. It's
<v Speaker 3>the community working together. And in the past we've gotten
<v Speaker 3>employees to give us backdoor links and stuff like that
<v Speaker 3>in the chat, so it can at least instead of
<v Speaker 3>you panicking, and it can at least paint you a
<v Speaker 3>picture of Okay, is everyone having this problem?
<v Speaker 2>Have the website sold out? Should I give up yet?
<v Speaker 3>So if you can only do it for one place,
<v Speaker 3>I would be prepared for all three. Obviously, wherever you
<v Speaker 3>get in your order is good, but using the live
<v Speaker 3>stream can really help to figure out what.
<v Speaker 2>You should be focusing on in the moment.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, okay, very good. I'm gonna be watching tonight for sure.
<v Speaker 1>I'll be hanging out in chat looking for all the
<v Speaker 1>tips we can get. And I think the thing that
<v Speaker 1>you open with with the don't panic, don't if you
<v Speaker 1>don't get it right away, just there's gonna be other
<v Speaker 1>opportunities even before this thing comes out, Right, there's gonna
<v Speaker 1>be another probably like drop from retailers. Like, so people
<v Speaker 1>shouldn't have that immediate feeling of fomo like maybe they
<v Speaker 1>might have felt with the PS five, which was a
<v Speaker 1>really extreme situation.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, there's gonna be canceled orders, orders that get
<v Speaker 3>declined because of payment methods, and the retailers wait till
<v Speaker 3>a significant amount of those to pile up, and then
<v Speaker 3>they will also get allocated more stock that they're not
<v Speaker 3>counting for, and then they'll drop them all together in
<v Speaker 3>random segments. And so when those drops happen, they're potentially
<v Speaker 3>easier because there's not this one week build up of
<v Speaker 3>everyone knowing that they're going to happen. And the other
<v Speaker 3>thing is, at the end of the day, Mario Kart
<v Speaker 3>is going to be a launch title. But even if
<v Speaker 3>you don't get it at launch, but the next big
<v Speaker 3>game doesn't come out till July, like Donkey Kong, it's
<v Speaker 3>not like you're missing out on too much.
<v Speaker 2>At the end of the day.
<v Speaker 3>If you don't get it right at launch day, you're
<v Speaker 3>just gonna have more stuff to play when you do
<v Speaker 3>get it, which will be probably an even better experience, yep.
<v Speaker 1>And then as far as getting these switch twos into
<v Speaker 1>the country, there is beginning talks of the country backing
<v Speaker 1>off on some of the tariffs, even on China. So
<v Speaker 1>you know, this initial batch that they rushed into the country,
<v Speaker 1>maybe after this stuff settles down a little bit, which
<v Speaker 1>who knows if they actually will. You know, Trump's gone
<v Speaker 1>back on his word a number of times now, but
<v Speaker 1>if he does, then they might rush another batch into
<v Speaker 1>the country like immediately because they want to. They won't
<v Speaker 1>necessarily believe it will last either, So I think there's
<v Speaker 1>some maybe good news on the horizon here for these
<v Speaker 1>consumer electronics products. All right, Jake, excellent, that's very helpful.
<v Speaker 1>Any any other things that you want to mention before
<v Speaker 1>we move on from this, like anything else that's like
<v Speaker 1>rattle around in your head. You're like, oh, man, I
<v Speaker 1>wish more people knew about.
<v Speaker 3>This, honestly, not off the top, but you know, after
<v Speaker 3>the podcast, you know you have plenty of time. I
<v Speaker 3>would in the description of my life treatment also just
<v Speaker 3>on my channel, the most recent video is that guide
<v Speaker 3>that will cover everything we kind of just talked about,
<v Speaker 3>plus a lot more too, So I would just recommend
<v Speaker 3>just going over that put it on the background. It's
<v Speaker 3>like twenty minutes. You saw my notes. It was very
<v Speaker 3>hard to condense. But that's my last thing.
<v Speaker 1>Excellent, Thank you so much. What was the like, where
<v Speaker 1>should people find the YouTube channel? Should they just go
<v Speaker 1>sert of Google, Jake Randall on YouTube.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, Jake Randall on YouTube or Twitter x it'll I'll.
<v Speaker 1>Come right up well. Speaking on this topic, and Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>is already apologizing for not having enough switch tos. This
<v Speaker 1>comes from Ethan Gatcha at Kotaku. Switch to pre orders
<v Speaker 1>don't begin in the United States until late tonight around midnight,
<v Speaker 1>but they've already been underway in other parts of the world,
<v Speaker 1>and even Nintendo has been shocked by the level of
<v Speaker 1>demand so far. The company said that with over two
<v Speaker 1>point two million fans seeking to pre order a switch
<v Speaker 1>to directly from my Nintendo in Japan alone, the demand
<v Speaker 1>already far exceeds its ability to fulfill shipments to that country.
<v Speaker 1>At launch, we received an extremely large number of applications,
<v Speaker 1>approximately two point two million people in Japan alone, Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>president Shuntaro for Okawa posted directly on Twitter today. However,
<v Speaker 1>this number far exceeds our expectations and far exceeds the
<v Speaker 1>number of switch to consoles that can be delivered from
<v Speaker 1>the Mind Nintendo store on June fifth. Therefore, unfortunately, we
<v Speaker 1>expect that a significant number of customers will not be
<v Speaker 1>selected when the winners are announced tomorrow April twenty April
<v Speaker 1>twenty fourth. So they're doing a lottery in Japan. They
<v Speaker 1>don't do that in a lot of territories. I think,
<v Speaker 1>you know a lot of I think they think a
<v Speaker 1>lot of other territories don't like the idea of a lottery,
<v Speaker 1>And maybe maybe they're right about that. Japan is more
<v Speaker 1>accustomed to that sort of thing. Two point two million
<v Speaker 1>trying to get in there, obviously a lot of that.
<v Speaker 1>Jake is going to be like, if you are, you're
<v Speaker 1>going to be spreading out your chances. A lot of
<v Speaker 1>people are going to try to go to the retailers.
<v Speaker 1>They're going to try to go to you know, online stores,
<v Speaker 1>and then if this is an opportunity, they're going to
<v Speaker 1>go do that as well. But two point two million
<v Speaker 1>right there at launch for the Mi Nintendo option, that
<v Speaker 1>is a pretty big demand for launch. Like if they
<v Speaker 1>sold two point two million switch tos just in Japan,
<v Speaker 1>in the first month. That would be really really good. So, uh,
<v Speaker 1>it does sound like you're right where we talked about earlier.
<v Speaker 1>The mixed messaging on the availability of this thing is
<v Speaker 1>kind of a little confusing, but I think you know
<v Speaker 1>the bottom line, right is this thing is going to
<v Speaker 1>sell out at some point here pretty quickly after it
<v Speaker 1>goes up for sale, right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>The other thing that's a little tricky here is well,
<v Speaker 3>it's been fairly easy in par the world to pre
<v Speaker 3>order once this comes out, once the game start coming out,
<v Speaker 3>you can actually expect it to get harder to get
<v Speaker 3>the longer it's out, because even the Switch one has
<v Speaker 3>historically sold out every holiday season. There's been other factors
<v Speaker 3>into that, there's been chip shortages and things like that,
<v Speaker 3>but even like five six years into its life cycle,
<v Speaker 3>to Switch one sells out for the holidays. So factor
<v Speaker 3>in like the demand for this, the fact that the
<v Speaker 3>one hundred and fifty million Switch one user base doesn't
<v Speaker 3>have it yet and will be a lot of those
<v Speaker 3>players will be wanting one, and I expect it to
<v Speaker 3>be probably hard for pre orders then possibly like a
<v Speaker 3>little after lunch a couple a couple of months into
<v Speaker 3>it to get a little easier, but then like comes
<v Speaker 3>September in October, it might be harder than preorder time.
<v Speaker 3>The other thing is they have the most amount of
<v Speaker 3>stock during pre orders. They've been building up stock for
<v Speaker 3>months and months. Now it's going to come down to
<v Speaker 3>how many they can produce each month, so they'll never
<v Speaker 3>be able to stockpile units again. So that's gonna make
<v Speaker 3>it harder to get as well. So your best chance
<v Speaker 3>is probably like the pre order phase then maybe a
<v Speaker 3>couple months in, but then it's gonna get really hard
<v Speaker 3>to get. And then first quarter next year it might
<v Speaker 3>start to get easier.
<v Speaker 1>Yet right the slack might come back, like they won't
<v Speaker 1>begin stockpiling again, but the demand will sort of calm
<v Speaker 1>down a little bit. So okay, yeah, and I think
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo recognizes that to a certain extent, which is why
<v Speaker 1>they're out there kind of explaining this. But uh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we will have to kind of see. But I'm i'm
<v Speaker 1>i'm imagine it's gonna go a lot like what you said,
<v Speaker 1>where it's you know, people who really want to run
<v Speaker 1>right right now, if they kind of put their head down,
<v Speaker 1>they'll have a good chance of snatching one. And then
<v Speaker 1>if you do. Wait, that period closer to the holiday
<v Speaker 1>is going to be more difficult. All right, Let's get
<v Speaker 1>on to some of the other news. C Obscure Expedition
<v Speaker 1>thirty three is a Game of the Year contender. I
<v Speaker 1>wrote down here just based on its early reviews. And
<v Speaker 1>it's not like this is a handful of reviews. There
<v Speaker 1>were more than eighty on Open Critic, where it has
<v Speaker 1>a ninety two ed Nightingale at Eurogamer gave it four stars,
<v Speaker 1>said that the French take on a GRPG is out
<v Speaker 1>has outstanding artwork and glorious combat that bring Claire Obscure
<v Speaker 1>Expedition thirty three's bold, painterly world to life. Richard Wakeling
<v Speaker 1>at GameSpot gave it a nine out of ten said
<v Speaker 1>Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three is a phenomenal RPG or
<v Speaker 1>RPE as we call it around here, telling a heartbreaking
<v Speaker 1>tale well incorporating thrilling action into its tactical turn based combat.
<v Speaker 1>Dom Pepiot at VG twenty four to seven gave it
<v Speaker 1>five stars and said they say art is all about
<v Speaker 1>eliciting an emotional reaction. If you could do that, all
<v Speaker 1>the effort expended in creating it was worth it. I
<v Speaker 1>think Claire Obscure does that with Uplum. If you have
<v Speaker 1>ever loved role playing games ever, you owe it to
<v Speaker 1>yourself to play this. It has the to touch you
<v Speaker 1>on your heart, all that good stuff. Yeah, Lexi and
<v Speaker 1>Chats gave it a ninety eight out of one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>Everyone I've been talking to Jake who's been playing this
<v Speaker 1>has really been liking it. I have it. I haven't
<v Speaker 1>had much time to play it myself, but I will be.
<v Speaker 1>I played it in the there was an early preview
<v Speaker 1>phase where I played quite a bit of it, and
<v Speaker 1>I just think it's got the juice. It has got
<v Speaker 1>the stuff that people come to these games for, and
<v Speaker 1>then it doesn't try to do too much outside of that,
<v Speaker 1>and I think that's pretty wise. It focuses on delivering
<v Speaker 1>like a really well done acting and storytelling and then
<v Speaker 1>a really good combat system. So I think this one's
<v Speaker 1>really going to catch on with a lot of people.
<v Speaker 1>Is this one that's been on your radar, Jake?
<v Speaker 3>It? I mean it hasn't just because I've my backlog's
<v Speaker 3>been a little crazy. But I'm a huge RPG guy
<v Speaker 3>and I'm actually really interested because I'm addicted to turn
<v Speaker 3>based comment tactical RPGs srpgs. But one thing that when
<v Speaker 3>there's so many things to play in these games take
<v Speaker 3>a lot of time. One thing that kind of steers
<v Speaker 3>me away is if the story isn't compelling, if that
<v Speaker 3>part doesn't pull me in, it's you know, it makes
<v Speaker 3>it really hard for me to put all my time
<v Speaker 3>into that.
<v Speaker 2>But this game sounds like it has that.
<v Speaker 3>It's so definitely after hearing that, now it's it's kind
<v Speaker 3>of jumping up on my list.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's I think it's exactly that that this is.
<v Speaker 1>You know that that's not always something that that captures me,
<v Speaker 1>but in this case, what I have played of it
<v Speaker 1>and have seen of it, it did like the story
<v Speaker 1>was something that won me over, and it's like, well,
<v Speaker 1>I don't necessarily need that personally, so when it does,
<v Speaker 1>it's always like this nice bonus. And then when that happens,
<v Speaker 1>I can usually tell it's like, if it's getting me
<v Speaker 1>in that way, the people that like you that do
<v Speaker 1>come to these games for that kind of of strong
<v Speaker 1>compelling storytelling storytelling are really going to have something to
<v Speaker 1>fall in love with here. So that's kind of been
<v Speaker 1>what everyone's saying and then on top of that that,
<v Speaker 1>really I just find it a super engaging combat system
<v Speaker 1>where all the characters have a little bit something different
<v Speaker 1>going on, and they all have their own sort of
<v Speaker 1>gameplay loop of how one action that you do feeds
<v Speaker 1>into the next action, and then that feeds into the
<v Speaker 1>next action that's even bigger and more impressive, and then
<v Speaker 1>it sort of flips over and starts all over again,
<v Speaker 1>and you just feel like you're always working towards something.
<v Speaker 1>It just it really understands the genre, really understands its
<v Speaker 1>own mechanics in a way that I have found very impressive.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, yes, I think this game is can pop off.
<v Speaker 2>But I'm currently playing Astrobot.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, fair enough, Hey, that's a good game too, finish.
<v Speaker 3>Definitely gonna platinum it. I'm like, I'm like halfway through,
<v Speaker 3>but yeah, now I've got another one.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, Hey added to the list for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I do think this game is going to find a
<v Speaker 1>massive audience. It's it's going to be a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people's new main thing that they're going to be thinking
<v Speaker 1>about for the rest of the year, and it is
<v Speaker 1>one of the reasons why I am like people keep playing. Hey,
<v Speaker 1>Oblivion launched this week. And obviously there are a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people who play all kinds of games, concluding both
<v Speaker 1>in Oblivion and RPG like this, But I think this
<v Speaker 1>one's gonna find its own audience, very separate from from
<v Speaker 1>that noise.
<v Speaker 2>It's going to be a stacked year.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, already is kind of like there's been a lot
<v Speaker 1>of good.
<v Speaker 3>Game our world, Donkey Kong, Pokemon Legends, this game, GTA six,
<v Speaker 3>Ghosts of Yotai. It's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, hey, And speaking to Ghost Yota. Ghost of Yota
<v Speaker 1>release date set for October second, I know I can't never.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's Yota, but I can't remember for sure.
<v Speaker 1>From Darren Bonteuse at game Spot, ghosty Ota has an
<v Speaker 1>official release date locked in as the upcoming open world
<v Speaker 1>samurai game will be released for PlayStation five on October second.
<v Speaker 1>Developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the game is a sequel
<v Speaker 1>to the critically acclaimed Ghost of Sushima. This got announced
<v Speaker 1>that blog post Sucker Punch revealed more about Ghost Yota's plot,
<v Speaker 1>which revolves around the protagonists Atsu hunting down the Yota Six,
<v Speaker 1>a gang about laws who murdered her family. It's just
<v Speaker 1>like they're completely just ripping off that assess it's Creed
<v Speaker 1>Shadows game. Yeah, this is a little bit surprising, Jake,
<v Speaker 1>because what we've been hearing is people are not going
<v Speaker 1>with the release dates. They're not nailing these things down
<v Speaker 1>because Grand Theft Auto six is still hanging on the horizon.
<v Speaker 1>But they're going with early October, which to me says
<v Speaker 1>they know Grand Theft Auto six isn't coming out before then, right?
<v Speaker 1>Is that what it says to you?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean that's that's what's what people are saying.
<v Speaker 3>That's that's what going around. And yeah, it kind of
<v Speaker 3>definitely makes you feel that way. And for a game
<v Speaker 3>the size and the scope of GTA six, it often
<v Speaker 3>happens that whenever they announce a year and not the
<v Speaker 3>date it comes out at the very end.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Yeah, I mean I think that the earliest that
<v Speaker 1>Grand Theft Auto six could come out this year is
<v Speaker 1>late October. I think that is.
<v Speaker 3>Probably what's possible it gets delayed into twenty twenty six,
<v Speaker 3>oh for sure. Sure.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, we have our Fantasy Critic League, and I
<v Speaker 1>think Mike picked Grand Theft Auto six and then I
<v Speaker 1>counterpicked it just on the hope that it does get delayed.
<v Speaker 1>And that, you know, the hope, but really I hope
<v Speaker 1>it comes out this year because I want to play it.
<v Speaker 1>But that was I'm like, there's a good chance that
<v Speaker 1>thing does get delayed, and yeah, yeah, but at the
<v Speaker 1>very least it's it's not early October, it would be
<v Speaker 1>late October and then through the rest of the year
<v Speaker 1>if it comes out this year, which there's still a
<v Speaker 1>really strong chance it does, but you know, we're getting
<v Speaker 1>close to that time. You know, we're going to be
<v Speaker 1>planning for Summer Game Fest kind of NonStop for the
<v Speaker 1>next month. Like people need to know their dates, and
<v Speaker 1>if your game is Grand Theft Auto six and it
<v Speaker 1>really is coming out this year, you probably do have
<v Speaker 1>to start being like, no, we do have a real
<v Speaker 1>date for that now that we are going to stick
<v Speaker 1>to and tell our partners and like people like PlayStations
<v Speaker 1>so they know what's going on, they could feel better.
<v Speaker 1>You know, at the end of the day, the game
<v Speaker 1>being done will dictate all of that, and they'll have
<v Speaker 1>to do that first. But if the game is getting
<v Speaker 1>to a point where it's ready now is about the
<v Speaker 1>time where I would expect them to have a pretty
<v Speaker 1>good idea when that thing is actually coming out, So
<v Speaker 1>do you think we hear about that here in the
<v Speaker 1>next couple of weeks next month. Do you think they
<v Speaker 1>hold off until they like the last minute to tell
<v Speaker 1>us the actual release date, Because once they announced it,
<v Speaker 1>everyone's gonna know, because it's going to be everywhere, it'll
<v Speaker 1>be impossible to ignore. So they kind of have the
<v Speaker 1>leeway of announcing it whenever they want, right.
<v Speaker 3>I think similarly to companies not wanting to reveal games
<v Speaker 3>or release games around GTA six because it'll kind of
<v Speaker 3>take over all the attention and they'll lose, you know,
<v Speaker 3>whatever they're doing in the chaos. I think rock Star
<v Speaker 3>probably wants to wait till after like switch to stuff,
<v Speaker 3>wait till wait, till after some of these other games
<v Speaker 3>have come out. I think they would also like to
<v Speaker 3>like kind of have center stage, to have that big
<v Speaker 3>release date. And obviously the big thing that's been a
<v Speaker 3>problem with them is they don't want it. They don't
<v Speaker 3>want to get leaked. They want to have control of
<v Speaker 3>when that gets announced, so they might even just not
<v Speaker 3>be picking a date internally yet because of that.
<v Speaker 2>It's such a big deal.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that you're right that it's like that
<v Speaker 1>they are going to take all of the leeway that
<v Speaker 1>they're possibly given. If you are a big game and
<v Speaker 1>your game sort of sells itself, you do have that slack,
<v Speaker 1>so you might as well use it because it's honestly,
<v Speaker 1>it saves you money. It saves you money on marketing,
<v Speaker 1>saves you money from having to like try to crunch
<v Speaker 1>people to get something done in a way that isn't
<v Speaker 1>that it actually isn't ready for. And so it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>let's just kind of go with the flow here, see
<v Speaker 1>how things are going. We all know when we want
<v Speaker 1>this thing to come out, but let's not say anything
<v Speaker 1>publicly because we don't want to have to like correct
<v Speaker 1>the record, which also does just cost money in terms
<v Speaker 1>of marketing. So yeah, I think this is just a
<v Speaker 1>lot of it's just driven by simple business decisions at
<v Speaker 1>this point. And I think at the same time, they
<v Speaker 1>are probably out there having conversations with partners like Sony
<v Speaker 1>being like, yeah, no, don't worry, it won't be out
<v Speaker 1>before the middle of October. So if you wanted to
<v Speaker 1>release Ghost of Yota on October second of this year,
<v Speaker 1>excuse me of this year, go for it. You're going
<v Speaker 1>to be just fine. You'll have a couple of weeks
<v Speaker 1>to yourself and yeah, that's probably right.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I had a question for you, just your opinion
<v Speaker 3>when it comes to do you think that Rockstar is
<v Speaker 3>watching how people are reacting to the price of Mario
<v Speaker 3>Kart and do you think they know what they want
<v Speaker 3>to charge for it yet or do you think they're
<v Speaker 3>kind of taking advantage of being.
<v Speaker 2>Able to see how people are.
<v Speaker 3>Reacting to this and kind of they might have something
<v Speaker 3>they're looking at but they're open to they don't have
<v Speaker 3>a set price yet.
<v Speaker 2>Is I guess this is what I mean?
<v Speaker 1>No, I think that's right. Is you know it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>always work this way with software, but if people like
<v Speaker 1>look back to when we were wondering, hey, what it's
<v Speaker 1>the price of the PS five and the Xbox Series
<v Speaker 1>X going to be, and everyone's like, well, they know,
<v Speaker 1>they're just not telling us. It's like, no, they don't
<v Speaker 1>know they have a range. They're waiting for the other
<v Speaker 1>person to make a move, so they're like, so they
<v Speaker 1>don't look out of step. And then they both played
<v Speaker 1>chicken and then they kind of both like at the
<v Speaker 1>last minute decided on five hundred because they're like, the
<v Speaker 1>other one's not going to go to six hundred. If
<v Speaker 1>the other one went to six hundred, maybe we go
<v Speaker 1>to six hundred. So they decide the price. That's the
<v Speaker 1>last thing that they decide on. For hardware and software,
<v Speaker 1>you kind of are a little bit more pinned down
<v Speaker 1>because people have an expectation of what things should cost.
<v Speaker 1>Now we've seen normally it's pretty set right, but things
<v Speaker 1>have become a little bit unchained from that, and the
<v Speaker 1>anchor of the price has been lifted a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>And I do think that now Mario Kart frees them
<v Speaker 1>up to be like a little bit have a little
<v Speaker 1>bit more flexibility. But also the reaction does make it
<v Speaker 1>so it's like, well, you got to keep in mind
<v Speaker 1>people will be angry, but they have a chance now
<v Speaker 1>to see how Mario Kart eight actually performs. Like people
<v Speaker 1>are saying one thing, what do they actually do when
<v Speaker 1>the rubber meets the road, and they actually actually have
<v Speaker 1>to decide if that game is worth eighty dollars and
<v Speaker 1>it's grand theft out of six so it will have
<v Speaker 1>even more demand actually than a Mario Kart. So I
<v Speaker 1>think they're they're going to decide at the last minute
<v Speaker 1>that they I don't think there's any way the game
<v Speaker 1>is under eighty dollars at this point.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I was gonna say this kind of gives them
<v Speaker 3>the green light to at least go eighty. But if
<v Speaker 3>they are then the next ones to raise over the
<v Speaker 3>eighty price point, they could see some of this backlash.
<v Speaker 2>So this this.
<v Speaker 3>Might cap them at eighty and then a lot of
<v Speaker 3>DLC and you know, online micro transactions and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>They probably want to have that route.
<v Speaker 3>So I think people that are saying one hundred, I
<v Speaker 3>think just because of like what that what that price
<v Speaker 3>point would mean, and.
<v Speaker 1>Just just the.
<v Speaker 2>Just like the look of it would just be so shocking.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think it'll be one hundred, but I think
<v Speaker 3>at I agree with you, and it possibly like a
<v Speaker 3>little more, but I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's they are. I'm sure they are worried a
<v Speaker 1>little bit about a backlash, but the backlash I think
<v Speaker 1>they would view it as well, that's temporary and people
<v Speaker 1>will get used to whatever price we set. And in
<v Speaker 1>five years do we want to look back and be like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad we didn't have a backlash for three months?
<v Speaker 1>Or am I glad that we got an extra ten
<v Speaker 1>to twenty dollars for every copy we sold for the
<v Speaker 1>last five years. I know which way that they.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, I know which way that they really how
<v Speaker 1>they really feel about that. But they the realities, they
<v Speaker 1>do have to take price pressure into consideration, because every
<v Speaker 1>dollar you increase it does mean fewer people will buy it.
<v Speaker 1>But do you think your thing has so much demand
<v Speaker 1>that won't matter. I think they probably feel that way
<v Speaker 1>about Grand Theft Auto six. The reality here is they
<v Speaker 1>almost certainly just get creative with the price, right, eighty
<v Speaker 1>dollars for a base version, one hundred dollars for something
<v Speaker 1>that has all the stuff that you really want if
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna play GT Online two or whatever. That looks
<v Speaker 1>like something. We still have no idea how they're going
<v Speaker 1>to present that early access.
<v Speaker 3>The TS six version. Then we're gonna have the PS
<v Speaker 3>six pro versus.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, yes, and then the play at a week
<v Speaker 1>early for one hundred and twenty dollars. That sort of thing.
<v Speaker 1>They'll sell a lot of copies of that. That'll be
<v Speaker 1>the bulk of their sales honestly, in the first year
<v Speaker 1>if they could. And so I don't think that they
<v Speaker 1>will avoid that either, so they'll find a lot of
<v Speaker 1>ways to get that average price up well above eighty,
<v Speaker 1>but the minimum is going to be eighty. All right,
<v Speaker 1>let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're
<v Speaker 1>going to talk about Matt piscatella drop in the latest
<v Speaker 1>SIRCANA report for US game sales, and a lot more
<v Speaker 1>right after this. All right, back into it on Game
<v Speaker 1>Breaking News. Jeff Grubb Here, it's Jake Randal. We're going
<v Speaker 1>to talk about March twenty twenty five SIRCANA report. Here.
<v Speaker 1>It is from Matt Piscatella. March twenty twenty five projected
<v Speaker 1>US consumer spending on video game hardware, content and accessories
<v Speaker 1>declined six percent when compared to last year. And that's
<v Speaker 1>to four point seven or yeah, to four point seven
<v Speaker 1>billion dollars total assassage. Creed Shadows debuted as the best
<v Speaker 1>selling game of March, ranking second year to date so
<v Speaker 1>far US video game market. March spinning trend. This is
<v Speaker 1>them kind of just tracking how things have gone. March
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five, content spending fell four percent versus a
<v Speaker 1>year ago to four point two billion dollars. The only
<v Speaker 1>growth segments were non mobile subscription which was up eleven percent,
<v Speaker 1>and console digital premium downloads, which were up twelve percent.
<v Speaker 1>Mobile content finished six percent behind March twenty twenty four,
<v Speaker 1>so even mobile spending was down. They do have a
<v Speaker 1>chart where it shows like how marches have gone for
<v Speaker 1>like the last let's say, like, yeah, let's like six years,
<v Speaker 1>seven years, and overall it's very flat, like it's just
<v Speaker 1>not growing. There was a spike in March of twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty one, big surprise, and then since then it's back
<v Speaker 1>in line with March twenty twenty and it's basically been
<v Speaker 1>the same ever since. So there's like four straight years
<v Speaker 1>of not a lot of growth in the US total
<v Speaker 1>video game spending market that includes mobile. So I think
<v Speaker 1>a lot of times if we talk about this and
<v Speaker 1>it's like, well, the console space is pretty even, but
<v Speaker 1>on the mobile side things are growing. So they're like
<v Speaker 1>for people that make games, they're looking over there and
<v Speaker 1>it's like, well, even when you count that in there,
<v Speaker 1>the overall spending on video games is pretty flat for
<v Speaker 1>four years in a row. As mentioned, Assassin's Creed Shadows
<v Speaker 1>was the best selling game of the month. It's the
<v Speaker 1>second best selling game of the year so far, MLB
<v Speaker 1>The Show the new version was number two. WWE two
<v Speaker 1>K twenty five joined the chart at number four, and
<v Speaker 1>number five was Split Fiction. Pretty good showing for that game.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see here rest of the chart. Yeah, okay, some
<v Speaker 1>notes from Matt about some of these games. Assassin's Creed
<v Speaker 1>Shadows was the best selling title in March, instantly becoming
<v Speaker 1>the number two best selling game of the twenty twenty
<v Speaker 1>five year to date. Assassin's Creed Shadows finished the month
<v Speaker 1>ranked first in full game dollar sales on Xbox platforms
<v Speaker 1>and second on both PlayStation and Steam. MLB The Show
<v Speaker 1>twenty five ranked as the second best selling game of
<v Speaker 1>March and led all titles in full game dollar sales
<v Speaker 1>on PlayStation platforms. Tracked launch month dollar sales of MLB
<v Speaker 1>The Show twenty five, or twenty three percent higher than
<v Speaker 1>those of MLB The Show twenty four during its March
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty four debut period. I think that game is
<v Speaker 1>no longer on game Pass, and that might be what
<v Speaker 1>happened there, Okay, Jake. Basically, it's like some new games
<v Speaker 1>came out, they performed pretty well. It's still like the
<v Speaker 1>sales for software down year over year, regardless of that.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that we are in a place where
<v Speaker 1>Switch two comes out and kind of cures a lot
<v Speaker 1>of what ails the gaming industry right now? Or is
<v Speaker 1>there more to it than that.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's kind of a little more complicated than that.
<v Speaker 3>I think that the backlash with the prices doesn't really help.
<v Speaker 3>So in a way, the switch too is kind of
<v Speaker 3>hurting it as much as it's helping it. Nintendo always
<v Speaker 3>produces quality software there. Their games are very polished, very fun,
<v Speaker 3>but I think there's a lot going on right now.
<v Speaker 3>When those numbers kind of peaked, it was around COVID
<v Speaker 3>and there was also new consoles coming out, so that
<v Speaker 3>was part of it. So that's why I switched to
<v Speaker 3>could definitely renew some interest, but we can't really.
<v Speaker 2>Recreate that situation, you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 3>So it was never gonna always be like that, but
<v Speaker 3>the world's populations always getting up. That's why there's always
<v Speaker 3>records being broken for most selling games. I'm sure Mario
<v Speaker 3>Kart World will will break records, especially being available in
<v Speaker 3>a bundle with the console.
<v Speaker 2>But there's just it's so easy.
<v Speaker 3>There's so many like handhelds like the Steam Deck and
<v Speaker 3>things like that. Where it's so easy to emulate past
<v Speaker 3>libraries and it's just becoming more and more accessible for
<v Speaker 3>the average consumer to easily do that. And there's so
<v Speaker 3>many games out there that you could be a hardcore
<v Speaker 3>gamer and play video games every day and never really
<v Speaker 3>have to spend any money or you know, at least
<v Speaker 3>be able to wait for heavily discounted sales, especially when
<v Speaker 3>you know it's going to come from companies like Ubisoft.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's I think it's like all of those factors
<v Speaker 1>are are so huge of the reasons that like console
<v Speaker 1>gaming specifically isn't growing, Like those barriers of the price
<v Speaker 1>were always an issue, and the industry seems to have
<v Speaker 1>no real interest in solving it. Those solutions they did
<v Speaker 1>come up with. Cloud gaming is just not something that
<v Speaker 1>has clicked for a lot of people. You know, I've
<v Speaker 1>talked about a story on Monday's show Jake about the
<v Speaker 1>renting PS five being very popular in Japan. It's like
<v Speaker 1>something that yeah, and that's like okay, yes, so clearly
<v Speaker 1>there is a demand there of people who want to
<v Speaker 1>play these consoles, do not want to spend five hundred
<v Speaker 1>dollars or more on them to make that possible. So
<v Speaker 1>they're looking for an alternative method, but the cloud option
<v Speaker 1>is not something that they're really considering. They'll just instead
<v Speaker 1>rent a consoles. Okay, So there's still this gap that
<v Speaker 1>needs to be bridged, and in the meantime, prices keep
<v Speaker 1>going up, and so the traditional method of hey, buy console,
<v Speaker 1>buy some games, that is not It's not more appealing,
<v Speaker 1>it's less appealing and feels like, well, if I'm someone
<v Speaker 1>who was looking over there in that direction and I'm
<v Speaker 1>already playing something free on my phone, I'm just going
<v Speaker 1>to keep playing the free thing on my phone. So
<v Speaker 1>it's definitely the industry kind of putting itself in this
<v Speaker 1>position in a lot of ways. But also the stuff
<v Speaker 1>does get more expensive than they have reasons that they
<v Speaker 1>need to grow, and so them trying to get more
<v Speaker 1>money from the same people. I understand that, but boy,
<v Speaker 1>I don't think this is a long term sustainable strategy.
<v Speaker 1>But that's not the way these companies think. So I
<v Speaker 1>think Switch too will come along and we'll answer a
<v Speaker 1>lot of this because obviously where the switch was a
<v Speaker 1>big part of booing the entire least video game sales
<v Speaker 1>in the United States and around the world, and it's
<v Speaker 1>at the end of its life, so a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the declines we see year over year are attributable to that.
<v Speaker 1>So the switch to coming back on the rise will
<v Speaker 1>be fantastic, But in the meantime PS five and Xbox
<v Speaker 1>Series X are both like experiencing major declines of their own.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, we have a note here from Matt much. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>March video game hardware spending fell twenty five percent when
<v Speaker 1>compared to a year ago, to two hundred and eighty
<v Speaker 1>six million dollars. This is the lowest March hardware spending
<v Speaker 1>total since twenty nineteen. PlayStation five hardware dollar sales fell
<v Speaker 1>twenty six percent in March versus a year ago. However,
<v Speaker 1>this platform once again led the market in both dollars
<v Speaker 1>and unit sales, so it's down massive digit percentages and
<v Speaker 1>still is out selling.
<v Speaker 3>A similar decline in like PS four sales right before
<v Speaker 3>the PS five came out.
<v Speaker 1>Two.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, when there's a new console, people are going to
<v Speaker 3>be saving for that. That's that's probably a minor factor
<v Speaker 3>at least.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, so that that We had Matt on the show
<v Speaker 1>a couple months ago now at this point and he
<v Speaker 1>mentioned it is like, yes, this is the time where
<v Speaker 1>these consoles do see a natural decline. The bell curve
<v Speaker 1>of sales were over the hump there. But he did
<v Speaker 1>note that these declines, like twenty six percent, is much
<v Speaker 1>greater than what he was expecting. He thought it would
<v Speaker 1>be a more gradual decline and this seems to be
<v Speaker 1>pretty precipitous. So I think there's just again multiple factors there.
<v Speaker 1>Of the system is expensive and in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 1>in a lot of places has gotten more expensive, like
<v Speaker 1>the PS five and the people who are sitting out,
<v Speaker 1>we're sitting out, sitting out specifically to save money. And
<v Speaker 1>we know that they they had some discounts on PS
<v Speaker 1>five a couple of holidays and row where I was like,
<v Speaker 1>actually can get this for like three hundred and fifty dollars,
<v Speaker 1>and even that was too much for quite a few people.
<v Speaker 1>You know, they're PS five sold really well.
<v Speaker 3>I feel like the entertainment industry as a whole, like
<v Speaker 3>even movies and shows. I feel like everything's kind of
<v Speaker 3>just people like they're not going to see movies in
<v Speaker 3>the theater. I feel like everything's on the decline right now.
<v Speaker 1>Everyone just is saving a little bit extra money, and
<v Speaker 1>the expensive costs of everything I think is a huge
<v Speaker 1>factor there, so switch to will only solve so much
<v Speaker 1>of that, right, because it itself is very expensive. All right,
<v Speaker 1>let's see anything else from this. He also notes that
<v Speaker 1>people are buying a lot of accessories though, so although
<v Speaker 1>year to date spending is down sixteen percent actually and
<v Speaker 1>it was down eleven percent in March. But if you're
<v Speaker 1>selling accessory, make it black apparently, because black accessories were
<v Speaker 1>the top selling across all categories there, So there you go,
<v Speaker 1>all right. Persona four remakes speculation picks up as website
<v Speaker 1>gets updated again. This is from Mike Straw at Insider
<v Speaker 1>Gaming talk surrounding a potential reveal of a Persona four
<v Speaker 1>remake is continuing to pick up steam online. Late last month,
<v Speaker 1>Key nine fans discovered that a website with the domain
<v Speaker 1>P four r dot Jp had been registered. It was
<v Speaker 1>quickly pointed out that just three months before it was
<v Speaker 1>revealed a domain for our the domain of P three
<v Speaker 1>r e dot JP was also registered for Persona three
<v Speaker 1>remake that launched in February twenty twenty four. So people
<v Speaker 1>are drawing drawing a direct correlation here, Jake of this
<v Speaker 1>happened before, so maybe we'll get this game very soon,
<v Speaker 1>and at the very least. People are also noting that
<v Speaker 1>this website is getting updated frequently. It was just updated
<v Speaker 1>a couple days ago apparently. So does feel like we
<v Speaker 1>are gonna find out about this pretty soon? Of course,
<v Speaker 1>this is no guarantee of that. The website could be
<v Speaker 1>just a placeholder this is this is yeah, no guarantee,
<v Speaker 1>but Persona four remake has been rumored and speculated on
<v Speaker 1>seems pretty likely. Do you think this is something we
<v Speaker 1>hear about pretty soon? Oh? I for sure.
<v Speaker 3>I mean as soon as you know they did Persona
<v Speaker 3>three remake, It's like, Okay, Persona four remake is gonna
<v Speaker 3>come at some point. It's an even more popular game,
<v Speaker 3>you know, whether you like three or four better Persona
<v Speaker 3>series ever since three, like three, four, five has just exploded,
<v Speaker 3>And as soon as as soon as they remained three,
<v Speaker 3>you knew four was gonna come. And I think with
<v Speaker 3>this website coming out, it absolutely points to they're gonna
<v Speaker 3>share it soon.
<v Speaker 2>Or at least it's it's probably ready to be.
<v Speaker 3>Shared and they're trying to pick the exact perfect time.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe we'll see it at Summer games Fest. That would
<v Speaker 3>make sense, But honestly, I'm I'm more interested when we're
<v Speaker 3>gonna get Final Fantasy nine and Persona six.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Uh, Persona six is probably something that they are
<v Speaker 1>gonna say for quite a bit longer whenever I talk
<v Speaker 1>to my friends or a huge Persona fans, so like, yeah, no,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's happening, but I'm not expecting to hear about
<v Speaker 1>it anytime soon. Final Fantasy nine, though, that's one they
<v Speaker 1>keep like teasing in every way except for just saying
<v Speaker 1>that they're doing it, So what is going on there?
<v Speaker 1>Maybe maybe that's another one that could be at Summer
<v Speaker 1>Game Fest, although I think I've said that about every
<v Speaker 1>like major show for months now. Yeah, that is one
<v Speaker 1>of the last few games that was in that Nvidia
<v Speaker 1>leak that has not come out, so I continue to that.
<v Speaker 3>And it's so funny because that was one of the
<v Speaker 3>most hyped games from that leak, and it's just it's
<v Speaker 3>almost like we're getting teased every time another game comes
<v Speaker 3>out and that one is an announced hit.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you know, Square Enix now has started up
<v Speaker 1>a Final Fantasy nine like anniversary thing. It's what it's
<v Speaker 1>it's twenty fifth thirtieth anniversary something like that. Yeah, twenty
<v Speaker 1>fifth anniversary, and they keep talking about, Hey, and there
<v Speaker 1>will be other projects as well, so here's a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of merch you can buy. And I said, well, what
<v Speaker 1>are the projects? Can you just tell us what's going
<v Speaker 1>on there? And they keep just not saying it.
<v Speaker 3>It's not to diminish from Persona four because I'm extremely
<v Speaker 3>excited for that. That's an amazing game, and I also
<v Speaker 3>want to I mean, Atlas has just been killing it
<v Speaker 3>the last few years. Metaphor Refantasio is basically Persona. It's
<v Speaker 3>like a Persona game in a different setting, right, I
<v Speaker 3>mean everything about it feels Persona, but it's really refreshing.
<v Speaker 3>So that's the fantastic game too, so I really can't complain.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And as people are plating out in chat, if
<v Speaker 1>you are desperate for a Persona Exhibition thirty three is
<v Speaker 1>very much inspired by Persona games, So there you go,
<v Speaker 1>get in on that action.
<v Speaker 2>Now I'm even more sold.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, a Persona with adults, It's what they're saying
<v Speaker 1>in chat, all right. Oblivion Shadow dropped yesterday, and who
<v Speaker 1>could have predicted that was going to happen. It peaked
<v Speaker 1>at one hundred and eighty two thousand concurrent players on Steam, though,
<v Speaker 1>which you know, current players for a single player game.
<v Speaker 1>I get it. I always just used as an indicator
<v Speaker 1>of how a game is performing in terms of sales.
<v Speaker 1>That is a massive number and a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>are playing this game and buying this game. And that's
<v Speaker 1>just on Steam, where you know, the game is also
<v Speaker 1>available on game Pass on PC and Xbox, so I
<v Speaker 1>think the thing must be doing very well. I am
<v Speaker 1>very excited about this game still. I'm going to be
<v Speaker 1>checking it out. It was gonna play a sim yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>ran out of time and I couldn't. But it seems
<v Speaker 1>like they've done They've done a good job, and it's
<v Speaker 1>one of these games that like came out of nowhere
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, I wonder what the controversy is going
<v Speaker 1>to be Jake, where I'm like, oh, I'm sure there's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be something wrong with it, and people are going
<v Speaker 1>to be they're gonna hate it, something about it, and
<v Speaker 1>that'll be come the entire conversation. That does not seem
<v Speaker 1>to be happening. So I think people are pretty happy
<v Speaker 1>with this.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think people are just it's yeah, it's a
<v Speaker 3>pretty drama free release so far, which is great to see.
<v Speaker 3>It's funny because the original Oblivion was one of the
<v Speaker 3>first things to have a lot of drama about the
<v Speaker 3>price of having to pay to get the horse horse.
<v Speaker 2>Like mind blowing.
<v Speaker 3>Now it's started, and I think there's like a version
<v Speaker 3>you can get that comes with that, which.
<v Speaker 1>Is, yeah, the dual Exhibition. It's sixty dollars. Yep. There's
<v Speaker 1>a fifty dollars version and a sixty dollars version that
<v Speaker 1>comes with the horse armor. So still doing it to this.
<v Speaker 2>Day, okay, yeah, but no one cares at this point because.
<v Speaker 1>Really, wow, but we're so used to it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 3>I noticed that there's no announcements for coming to switch
<v Speaker 3>too yet, but I think it would be really cool.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if they would do this, but they
<v Speaker 3>did it with Skyrim where they put the Master Sword
<v Speaker 3>and Link Shield in the game, and I think that
<v Speaker 3>would be pretty cool if they did that for the
<v Speaker 3>switch to version.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, yep. And as Snackda points out, the one thing
<v Speaker 1>of drama that is happening around it is there is
<v Speaker 1>the Microsoft boycott by BDS, and that, you know, it
<v Speaker 1>does seem to be hitting the game a little bit,
<v Speaker 1>but that BDS boycott is still like picking up Steam
<v Speaker 1>I think, I think, and a lot of people are
<v Speaker 1>trying to figure out where they fall on it. All right,
<v Speaker 1>excuse me, let's see here instead of shutting down mod
<v Speaker 1>remaking Oblivion in Skyrim. Yeah, the mod's remaking Oblivion in Skyrim,
<v Speaker 1>but does it gave the team Oblivion remass keys. So essentially,
<v Speaker 1>there's the sky Oblivion mod that a bunch of creators
<v Speaker 1>are working on to remake Oblivion in Skyrim. They've been
<v Speaker 1>working on it for years and they now, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Bethesda has their own version of that idea. You know,
<v Speaker 1>they're not remaking it in Skyrim. Then remade the visuals
<v Speaker 1>in Unreal Engine five, and you could imagine like a
<v Speaker 1>couple like Nintendo being like, shut that down, we don't
<v Speaker 1>want competition from the community. Well that's not what Pothessa
<v Speaker 1>is doing. They are. Instead, they gave keys for their
<v Speaker 1>version of Oblivion remastered to that entire team, and the
<v Speaker 1>sky Skyblivion team was like, just like, thank you. We
<v Speaker 1>think that this game coming out is actually going to
<v Speaker 1>help us as well. So everyone's kind of getting along
<v Speaker 1>over there, And I gotta say I appreciate this aspect
<v Speaker 1>of things of you don't have to squash every sort
<v Speaker 1>of fan show of devotion when it when it just
<v Speaker 1>takes just because it takes the form of a video
<v Speaker 1>game like that, people want to make their fan art
<v Speaker 1>and they want to make their fan games, Let them
<v Speaker 1>do it, and it really is not going to hurt
<v Speaker 1>any thing in the end. It clearly has not hurt Oblivion, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that's so cool.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, the people that are making these mods are
<v Speaker 3>the biggest fans of your names, so I think it's
<v Speaker 3>it's amazing to do that for them and show that appreciation.
<v Speaker 3>Probably made their year. You know, it's frustrating the way
<v Speaker 3>Nintendo goes about it. They're kind of like how Disney
<v Speaker 3>is with their intellectual properties. Yes, I get it, it
<v Speaker 3>makes sense from a business perspective, but it doesn't always
<v Speaker 3>make sense, you know what I mean. Like it's some
<v Speaker 3>sometimes when you see all the love, it's good. And
<v Speaker 3>you know, Nintendo has, especially like the Pokemon Company has.
<v Speaker 3>It's been speculated that they've used fan created Pokemon to
<v Speaker 3>inspire their designs. It's hard to say because most Pokemon
<v Speaker 3>are based on real animals, but there are some very
<v Speaker 3>compelling cases where you can look at some fan made
<v Speaker 3>Pokemon versus what Nintendo did, and there's so many similarities
<v Speaker 3>that kind of makes sense. And I don't know, imagine
<v Speaker 3>if Nintendo open up a contest, you know, to create
<v Speaker 3>your own Pokemon and it will be added to the game.
<v Speaker 3>That would be so much publicity right there, like the
<v Speaker 3>next game, whatever performance issues that have, that would totally
<v Speaker 3>kind of take over, you know what people are talking about.
<v Speaker 3>I wish Nintendo would do stuff like this more so,
<v Speaker 3>shout out to them for doing that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it's definitely I always point out it's like
<v Speaker 1>the difference between Lucasfilm for a long time and CBS
<v Speaker 1>Paramount with the Star Trek, where Lucasfilm was actually pretty
<v Speaker 1>litigious and stopping people from making a lot of Star
<v Speaker 1>Wars fan films, and Star Trek was just like, go
<v Speaker 1>to town, do whatever you want, make all this stuff,
<v Speaker 1>make your own entire fan shows and stream them online.
<v Speaker 1>And we love to see this stuff. And it's like,
<v Speaker 1>clearly one of those is better than the other and
<v Speaker 1>helps grow and foster's a community of creative people who
<v Speaker 1>want to be a part and like eventually a lot
<v Speaker 1>of those people are going to end up making the
<v Speaker 1>real ones because they will have built up so much
<v Speaker 1>talent and skills, and they'll go work in those fields
<v Speaker 1>professionally and then maybe one day actually make a real
<v Speaker 1>Star Wars for you. So yeah, I'm if I'm one
<v Speaker 1>of these game companies, I am definitely finding every way
<v Speaker 1>I can to support the mod creators. Now, Oblivion Remastered
<v Speaker 1>doesn't support mods out of the gate. I think they're
<v Speaker 1>mostly just saying, don't install the mods that already exist
<v Speaker 1>for Oblivion into this game because it'll probably break it is.
<v Speaker 1>What is how I read that. I bet the community
<v Speaker 1>will figure I bet the community we'll figure out that,
<v Speaker 1>figure that out really soon. And at that point, I think,
<v Speaker 1>but that it will just stand back and be all right,
<v Speaker 1>go to town. We're not going to get in your way,
<v Speaker 1>all right. Last thing here, Activision confirms tonyaks pro Skater
<v Speaker 1>three plus four will have a career mode, but fans
<v Speaker 1>are still confused. This is from Joshua Robertson at The Gamer,
<v Speaker 1>and I too, am still confused about this.
<v Speaker 2>I'm curious to hear this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's see we can figure this one out. Tonyawk's
<v Speaker 1>Pro Skater three plus fours reveal earlier this year was
<v Speaker 1>a big surprise to many, and there was a lot
<v Speaker 1>of excitement over potentially revisiting some of the classic Many
<v Speaker 1>Hawk games with we all grew up with. Unfortunately, a
<v Speaker 1>lot of the excitement was then ruined by the reveal
<v Speaker 1>that the games wouldn't include pro Skater Force free roam
<v Speaker 1>career mode. Instead, the game will have a new streamlined
<v Speaker 1>career mode in which players have two minutes to complete challenges.
<v Speaker 1>It was a major blow to many fans, though Activisions.
<v Speaker 1>Activision seems to now be doing the best to make
<v Speaker 1>sure the entire situation is as confusing as possible, as
<v Speaker 1>it appears to have rubbished its own comments and confirmed
<v Speaker 1>career mode after all. So there is a tweet that
<v Speaker 1>they posted where they said, who said there's no career mode?
<v Speaker 1>And then they show small snippets of gameplay of Tonyak
<v Speaker 1>pro Skater for missions, and it looks like it's suggesting
<v Speaker 1>that the original career mode is in there as people
<v Speaker 1>want it to be, although they didn't just come out
<v Speaker 1>there and explicitly state that. And the one thing that
<v Speaker 1>is making people think, giving people hope is there is
<v Speaker 1>like a two second segment of this video that has
<v Speaker 1>a timer counting up and so that seems to suggest like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>for the mission that you're doing for this tony Oks
<v Speaker 1>pro Skater for objective, you're gonna get a timer counting
<v Speaker 1>up because there's no two minute timer counting you down.
<v Speaker 1>It's just tracking how how long it takes you to
<v Speaker 1>do that.
<v Speaker 3>So you can like time, is that counter out? Because
<v Speaker 3>could it be counting up to two minutes?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so it's at forty two seconds. Yeah, Jan's getting here.
<v Speaker 1>For everybody on the video version, there's some Tonyak's pro
<v Speaker 1>Skater content creators who are like looking very closely at this,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, I think I might have one from
<v Speaker 1>someone here. Okay, now I didn't bring that up, but
<v Speaker 1>essentially what he said was I can't tell from looking
<v Speaker 1>at this this He's like, it's either this is like
<v Speaker 1>a version of a speed run mode where people can
<v Speaker 1>like take those missions and go do a speed run
<v Speaker 1>version of it, or this is the full career mode
<v Speaker 1>and there was for some reason they just confused the
<v Speaker 1>messaging out of the gate, or they've made some changes
<v Speaker 1>and they've restored that. And it's like I think he
<v Speaker 1>was saying he leaned towards this being a speed run
<v Speaker 1>mode and that's kind of where I'm at as well.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to get my hopes up and you
<v Speaker 1>would get other people.
<v Speaker 3>They just completely reinstated the career mode, and they went
<v Speaker 3>out of their way to you know, make a statement
<v Speaker 3>about it that they would be.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, exactly, that's the best way to put it, Jake.
<v Speaker 1>I think is like if they were doing it, they
<v Speaker 1>would say that they're doing exactly that without any sort
<v Speaker 1>of confusion around the matter. This this feels like trying
<v Speaker 1>to muddy the messaging and be like, no, there's a
<v Speaker 1>career mode and you're gonna be fine with whatever we
<v Speaker 1>put in here, Come on, relax and yeah, well I.
<v Speaker 2>Tend to agree.
<v Speaker 3>It seems like it's one of those situations where we
<v Speaker 3>got to wait for it to come out to confirm exactly.
<v Speaker 2>And I think they're going to not do review copies
<v Speaker 2>like early Early.
<v Speaker 1>No, because I think that they are of the opinion
<v Speaker 1>and I'm of this opinion Jake, that once people get
<v Speaker 1>their hands on this, this concern the concerns people have
<v Speaker 1>about this not being the Tony OOKX pros skater for
<v Speaker 1>that they want, we'll mostly go away because it's like,
<v Speaker 1>once you're playing it, I bet it's gonna be like,
<v Speaker 1>oh right, it is different. But I see how they
<v Speaker 1>what they mean by streamlined and how this is actually
<v Speaker 1>still a very fun game and probably going to be
<v Speaker 1>better in a lot of ways. I think it's going
<v Speaker 1>to be an improvement in a lot of ways, even
<v Speaker 1>if it's not exactly what people are saying they want now.
<v Speaker 1>Once they get their hands on it, I think a
<v Speaker 1>lot of people change their mind, I hope.
<v Speaker 2>So I hope that's the case.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's definitely me hoping in that as well. But
<v Speaker 1>I do think that's probably how this will go down.
<v Speaker 3>So that does kind of make sense if they're confident
<v Speaker 3>in the products and they think it is actually more
<v Speaker 3>fun this way, but people just can't experience that yet.
<v Speaker 3>You do have to have it come out, So I
<v Speaker 3>hope that's the case for sure.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, we'll see. It's the game's out July eleventh, so
<v Speaker 1>not that far away at all. We got Donkey Kong
<v Speaker 1>Bonanza and then that a couple days later. All right,
<v Speaker 1>that does it for the headlines. We have poll questions
<v Speaker 1>we need to get to. Let me go ahead and
<v Speaker 1>bring it up here. This one is from Monday. Let
<v Speaker 1>me scroll down here all right, have you ever rented
<v Speaker 1>a console? Yes? Or no? I actually did rent a
<v Speaker 1>police station one well once forever ago, thirty years ago, jesus.
<v Speaker 1>Thirty four percent of people said that they have actually
<v Speaker 1>rented a console before sixty six percent said no these days,
<v Speaker 1>or at least for like the last ten to fifteen years,
<v Speaker 1>it's like, where would you even go to do that?
<v Speaker 1>And maybe like a rent to center and then they're consoles.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think game Flavor did consoles. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, yeah, like we were to our smer
<v Speaker 1>I guess, yeah, rent a center and that they'll charge
<v Speaker 1>you like so much that.
<v Speaker 2>It's clear that that it's known to it it's.
<v Speaker 1>A bad deal. So yeah, but maybe some people are
<v Speaker 1>talking about that when they're saying yes. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I think this is something that might come back a
<v Speaker 1>little bit, but it's not going to be a major
<v Speaker 1>part of the industry, at least not in the United States.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't really see it working in our market.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah for sure. Okay, that does it for that poll question.
<v Speaker 1>We have a new poll question we'll get to here
<v Speaker 1>in a second before where we do that though, Jake
<v Speaker 1>Randal one more time. Tell people where they can find
<v Speaker 1>you on the internet, what you have going on, what
<v Speaker 1>you want them to watch, all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 3>You can find me if you just search Jake Randall
<v Speaker 3>on YouTube or Jake Randall switched to. You can do
<v Speaker 3>it on YouTube on Twitter x and if you're trying
<v Speaker 3>to pre order, switch to or maybe you're gonna wait
<v Speaker 3>a little bit either way to be fully prepared for
<v Speaker 3>how the retailers work. I have guides on my channel.
<v Speaker 3>The most recent video on my channel is a master
<v Speaker 3>guide that has it took me a really long time.
<v Speaker 2>We showed the notes at the beginning of the stream
<v Speaker 2>for that.
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna throw those out after, but uh, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 3>be live streaming tonight as well, So all of that
<v Speaker 3>stuff is on my channel. So the best part about
<v Speaker 3>the live stream isn't even me. It's the fact that
<v Speaker 3>we have, like you know, thousands of people there that
<v Speaker 3>collectively can let us know what websites are working, what
<v Speaker 3>websites aren't. To keep you in the loops, you're not
<v Speaker 3>just kind of guessing on your own right and kind
<v Speaker 3>of panicking.
<v Speaker 2>So hopefully this is a smooth process.
<v Speaker 3>But I do expect even if even if the stock
<v Speaker 3>is sufficient, the websites are going to probably crash and
<v Speaker 3>servers are going to go down right at midnight. So
<v Speaker 3>just hang in there, and like I said, if if
<v Speaker 3>you're panicking, come to the live stream and I can,
<v Speaker 3>I can assure you and keep you in the loop
<v Speaker 3>of what's going on.
<v Speaker 1>All right, I'm looking forward to it. I will definitely
<v Speaker 1>be watching, We'll be streaming as well, but I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to have you on. I might just be pointing everybody
<v Speaker 1>in your direction if they're really having a hard time
<v Speaker 1>keeping you, keeping you, keeping everybody apprized of what's going on.
<v Speaker 1>Looking forward to actually, yes, yeah, I'm looking forward to
<v Speaker 1>it actually because it's like, man, I been wanting to
<v Speaker 1>be able to pre order this and having that delay
<v Speaker 1>happen was a real tough thing. So I want to
<v Speaker 1>get my hands on this system ready for all of
<v Speaker 1>this tonight.
<v Speaker 2>I really took the window of my sales as well, but.
<v Speaker 1>I exact, yes, we're back, exactly, We're back, everybody. All right,
<v Speaker 1>new poll question right here, are you going to play
<v Speaker 1>Oblivion Clear, Obscure Expedition thirty three or both? Your options
<v Speaker 1>are Oblivion Expedition thirty three both or neither. That pull
<v Speaker 1>question is up on YouTube dot com slash at giant
<v Speaker 1>Bomb under the community tab right now, so you can
<v Speaker 1>vote on that. We'll get the results. We'll talk about
<v Speaker 1>it on Game Breaking News tomorrow here on the Power
<v Speaker 1>Block with Giant Bomb and GameSpot. In the meantime though,
<v Speaker 1>on the website and on the Power Block and a
<v Speaker 1>little bit, I think we're going to be playing some marathon.
<v Speaker 1>Then after that there is I think a clear obscure
<v Speaker 1>expedition thirty three streams, So new games are happening for
<v Speaker 1>the rest of the day today and then we'll be
<v Speaker 1>back tomorrow with that Game Breaking News episode, Voicemail, dom Truck,
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of other fun stuff in the anytime. Jake Randall,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for hanging out with me today
<v Speaker 1>and talk about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure.
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Yep, anytime, and thank you all for watching. You
<v Speaker 1>are the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have
<v Speaker 1>a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.