Game Mess Mornings 06/29/22

You'll be lucky. Bit it's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for the next hour or so. Let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Games Mornings Live with me Jeff Grub Today, there was a Nintendo Direct yesterday that you just couldn't possibly sleep through, and Blizzard is making deals. But first join me and welcoming today's co host for Games Mornings. It's Lucy James from Giant Bomb. Everybody, Hi, good morning. Are you doing I'm doing? I love Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, I love that we have like the two different PlayStation things here. I have like the mug that is keeping me sustained with the hot coffee, and then you've got the chicken number on Jim Ryan number one. I didn't. I didn't know it flashed. Yeah, I found the battery. Well, I like, I couldn't find the plug for it. There's a plug, but also I don't want to plug it in. So I realized I could take batteries. And I was at the store yesterday and I'm like, oh, hey, or the day before, I'm like, hey, way, batteries. I needed that for something, and I remembered it was the sign, so I'm like, okay, let's make that happen. So, yeah, if I didn't turn it off yesterday and it's still going, so that's pretty good. So I'll just remember to turn it off today after the show. Yeah, but yeah, what have you been up to? You're feeling pretty good about this week? Did you watch the Nintendo Direct yesterday and all that? So I didn't because it was on we were recording. I was off Monday. I was in a lake house recreating the quarry. I didn't actually realize there was a mine in the town that we were staying in. Was the Luckily no one died. When you're in that situation, do you just were you just staying in the cabin or whatever, or were you guys wandering in the woods in the dark. No. No, Well, we had like a little sort of balcony thing with a grill, and so that was the most we wanted. But also it was so hot that januiney we walked. We walked to the lake and we were there for a couple hours and we were like, oh god, we need to get food. And we were also miserable walking maybe no point two miles back up the hill because it was so hot and so like closely. It's like, so that was I'm afraid the most wondering that we did. But I'm yeah, so because I was off on Monday, scheduling for stuff got pushed, so we had to record Jeff jeff Bizarre Jeff Jef's Bizarre Adventure yesterday morning, so I missed the direct. However, all of my good friends are like personas on Switch. Yes, we got that. We did it, Joe. All my homies love that personas on Switch. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm like, I just moved, so I'm like still like trying to figure out what the weather's gonna be like here. It was always hot in Denver in the summer, but here, I'm like, we're right on the lake. We're getting a little bit off the lake, but like basically the lake is like right there, and so it gets pretty cool sometimes. Although then I think when it's hot, it's also very very humid, so that's been a problem too. But that's that's just the life I've chosen here, and I'm okay, though, I'm just gonna stay in my cool basement and just be cool. That's that's the choice I've made, all right. Before we get into the mess. Let's explain ourselves. Each weekday, I, Jeff grab will help peace your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news, the catchup where we discuss the biggest topics consuming the lives of gamers everywhere, and maybe even bring some of our own original reporting For all these topics. I'll get the input, input of a bona fide expert who will help me. Looks very smart. If you are watching live on twitch welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. I believe we are getting all that stuff sorted. Yesterday or a Monday was a bit of a mess with some of those feeds and it wasn't updating properly. We're working on it. Should be fixed in working here pretty soon. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. If you are watching on there, please give us that thumbs up. It helps people find the content. Okay, we do have a lot to get into, so let's start the Morning Mess with Blizzard acquiring spell Break Studio. Proletariat is the name of the studio to bolster World Warcraft This comes from Dean Takas at games Beat. He writes, Blizzard Entertainment has acquired spell Break Maker Proletariat to beef up the staff on its massively multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft. Under the deal, Boston based Proletariat will become part of Blizzard, and it's team of one hundred people will begin working on World of Warcraft, including the Dragonflight expansion coming later this year. Spell Break, a battle royale game where wizards and wizards catch spells or cast spells at each other, will be sunsetted. That's something the company announced actually yesterday in the lead up to this move. We are putting players at the forefront of everything we do, and we are working hard to both meet and exceed their expectations, said Mikey Barra, president of Blizzard Entertainment, in a statement. A big part of carrying for our teams is making sure we have the resources to produce experiences our communities will love, while giving our teams space to explore even more creative opportunities within their projects. Proletariat is a perfect fit for supporting blizzards mission and bringing high quality content to our players more often. Lucy blizz is it's reached like it's weird midlife crisis stage. I think a little bit where you know, it was the young hot Shot studio for so long and everything it touched was gold, and now it's like it's a little bit it's having like an identity crisis where it doesn't know how to maintain that. It hasn't been able to maintain talent, some talent it had to get rid of because when they were the young hot Shot developer, they people who behaved inappropriately and in many cases illegally, and so they've had to sort of become part of this corporation under activision and work in a more corporate mindset, and it feels like they've had they've really struggled to do that transition. But recently I think there's a good like one two punch here where there was war Warcraft three remastered whatever it was, which is this terrible thing that they tried to do inside a Blizzard in it and no one was happy with it. All the fans hated it. And then they brought in Vicarious visions to help the Diablo to remastered and people seem to really like that at and now that seems like Blizzard has just said, Hey, we need to bring in people who are talented from outside, come in and become part of Blizzard. That is a strategy that works. And now here we are with them acquiring proletariat. Do you think this is them just recognizing they need it's easier to just go out and find someone they know can make games to come work on the stuff that they need to get done. Oh god, yeah, it's It's also it's such a weird one because I always think if like Blizzard as being this huge, huge place with so many teams that they could spend the time to make that remasters or whatever it is, like you know, I mean helping out on Warcraft, but also buying a whole isn't isn't the new Warcraft the new expansions out this year? Right? Yes, dragon Flight come in later this year. This team is going to immediately start working on that content. Wow. Okay, that that feels quick, like you could really even get your it's June, it's July. It's basically July. Now that's fast. Yeah, that is very fast. And but I mean, I guess you know, I mean you mentioned that like Blizzard was always the hot and now it feels like they're living this capital capitalist, capitalist life, this corporate life, and yeah, why do it yourself when you can pay someone to do it for you. This is what this kind of reeks of. I know that, like the internal teams of Blizzard will be busy. I mean there has been Blizzard games have been few and far between over the past few years, especially like new properties, like new big, big releases, and so with Diappo four around the corner, with the impending launch of a Vatch two with more World of Warcraft, this is a move that makes sense. But Jesus Christ, is it shitty? And if you were like a dev on spell Break or if you're a fan of spell Break, learning that that game is going to shut down and then finding out the next day that this is why, Yeah, I wonder if so the situation was possibly more like the writing was on the wall to them. Yeah, yeah, maybe the writing was on the wall for spell Break, and so they know their player numbers and stuff like that, and they know why there's probably situation. It's like, hey, it would be nice if we could all get that payday, get bought out, and then also move on and keep working together like that would almost be the ideal or you know, maybe we can get you know, big venture capitalists and effusion of cash and go work on our next game after we proved what we can do with spell Break, and take another crack at it. But there's a lot of risk associated with that. Here. They basically they get the pay day and they get to go work on World Warcraft and then if they want a couple of years, we'll get to keep all that money they got from being bought. I don't know if Proletariat is a massive studio and m understand. I think I'm pretty sure it's a relatively small company, so I think a lot there's probably yeah, there's like a lot of ownership spread throughout the team there, I think. So they get to keep that payday and then they if they want, they can leave Blizzard in a couple of years, take that money, go start their own studios again and have another crack at it. So it's like, you know, hopefully it's not something where they had the rug pulled out from underneath them and suddenly like one day they think they're making spar spell Break and then next day they find out, no, you aren't making that game anymore. I'm so sorry and here's your new address where you work. Now that would be yeah, that would have been kind of stunning, but uh, let's see, this is from Dan. The move is the biggest acquisition that Blizzard has made at least for the past decade to expand its studios. In this case, the mission is to beef up the staffing for World of Warcraft, specifically so that it can hit high quality and timing goals for expansions. Terms of this transaction and transaction were not disclosed. Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Blizzard, also folded by various visions, a longtime Activision studio into Blizzard to work on the Diablo franchise in January twenty twenty one. But Blizzard hasn't been particularly particularly acquisitive, as one of the few we can remember was the acquisition of Swinging Ape in two thousand and five. Rather, Blizzard itself got tossed around quite a bit in its early days before landing with Activision Blizzard back in two thousand and eight. Proletariat has been working with Blizzard since May, so there's already been some partnerships there where they've already been working together. So it sounds like the team probably would have known what was happening here, But I think like this, eventually you get acquired for so long, you've become part of this corporate structure, you getting infused into Activision in a way where it's impossible to like tell where Activision ends and Blizzard begins, and then at some point you become the company that begins acquiring people again. It just feels like that is the arc that they were on here. Would you are a big Overwatch fan? Is this something like where you're like, hey, if they need to keep Overwatch going, if they need to bring in talent, should they be acquiring teams? Is that something that you've even considered as someone who plays a lot of that game. So I haven't thought about it within the context of Overwatch, because the Overwatched team itself has tripled in size, so they've staffed I believe a lot of it internally for those So we went to Blizzard a few weeks ago and compared to the team that worked on Overwatch one, Yeah, I think the over three hundred people or something. Don't quote me on that. I do have it. I have the transcript somewhere or to the interview that we did with Aaron Keller, but they staffed up internally massively for Overwatch too. Where those devs came from within, either if they hired externally or whether they came from another team within Blizzard, I'm not sure. But the thing is as well. I mean, if you want to get into like the kind of outsourcing part of video games and so, I you know, outsourcing is a huge part of how games get made. Like if you look at the credits for games, you know, they'll be kind of all of the people you would assume at like the head studio, but there'll be multiple, multiple studios in other countries, usually where labor is cheaper as well to do various things. I'm going to shout out People People Make Games amazing video on the kind of outsourcing life and how it can be in a very negative thing as well. So if you check out People Make Games, they did a great video about this. But now I don't I don't know. I don't see it necessarily within the context of the Overwatched team. My question for you about this is like, what does this mean for the Xbox acquisition? Yeah? I think that, Yeah, And I think it's because Activision, Blizzard, everyone over there needs to keep operating under to the assumption that they are going to have to do business as usual and if that Xbox deal false, like they cannot be operating right now, like our problems don't matter because certain soon they're going to become Microsoft's problems. Until that day happens, they are still they still owe the shareholders their best opportunity to get a return on their investment. And so that means finding a way for to make more money next year than than this past year. And that's why I think we're seeing so many things move up from from Blizzards specifically. I mean, we we are getting overwatched two multiplayer very soon. Uh, they're putting out a Diablo four open baita this year to launch that game. Next year, people are gonna be playing Diablo Floor. We had Diablo Flour in public this year. That's like a that's way way faster than we were thinking when that game got delayed out of like this year. And then h and then more Warcraft. It's it's Dragonflight expansion also coming this year. Like they're not they're trying to get the stuff up. They're trying to make sure that they're that their comparisons to the previous year look better than they originally said they were going to. And all of these things are I don't think many of it. I don't think many of these games would be working in this exact way. Once Microsoft takes over. They'd be like, take more time, stop, get more people, do what you need to do, and we could delay these games and that's gonna be okay. So to all of this just sounds like, hey, in a world where the Microsoft deal doesn't happen, we need to make sure we're in a situation where we could be putting out a lot of content frequently. And that seems that's almost explicitly what they said this is about. It's about making sure they could put out a lot of expansions still with World Warcraft and maximizing the end of life of that game, which you know, I say into life, it's gonna last another ten years, gonna outlive us all. Yes, it's gonna outlive us all. Yeah. Absolutely, But it's like, still the diminishing returns on this investment. It'll still be worth it, but they need to just kind of maximize it without spending years trying to hire people up. I think the Overwatch two example, you gave made it made sense because they've been working on Overwatch two for years now, so of course they've been able to slowly build up the three hundred. When they're with World Warcraft, they're like looking around, I'm like, hey, what can we do right now to quickly be able to bolster our ability to put out content. Well, it's high let's bring out let's buy a studio and make sense. And I mean as well, like in terms of like maximizing end of life of Watch two, moving from you know, boxed product and then everything else is free except for loop boxes, etc. To Battle Pass definitely means that hopefully, like the longevity of that game will be will be much longer. We're not going to have a drought of content like it's been over a year since we got the last hero within over Watch one. Like if you look at so John and now Janka Coyne both coming with over Watch two. And then the promise for over Watch two is that there will be a new hero every two seasons. The season is going to be nine weeks as well as that there's going to be different skins, mythic skins, there's going to be a shop, there's going to be the PV is going to get rolled into it somehow next year. I'm optimistic, but that's just because maybe I've been staffed for so long that at least I know I have a year's worth of content to look forward to with that game. And yeah, maybe they know that's the way they need to be doing things, and so that's what like a lot of the busins decsions are being based on that right now and not relying on Microsoft. And as Matt on the Silent and Chat points out, there could be up to a year between now and when this deal with Microsoft finally closes. It probably won't take quite that long, but it could, so they need to operate business as usual until then. All Right, this just got shared as well from Chat. Thank you, I've missed this from the news. This happened eleven hours ago, so overnight Doom RPG port reverse engineering was successful. And so this is from Eric one nine four on the doomworld dot com website. As we promised, the Doom RPG port for PC is finally here created using SDL two and brew version Doom RPG dot mod original file reverse engineering. This is this is this is my first port made for PC. And I hope this works for you too. Special thanks to on our Carvere Cavre and as thanks to him, we got the original brew game files. You need to get the original files to be converted into a friendly format for the port. You can get them from archive dot org. You can search Doom RPG brew on Soft on the software menu. So hey, DOOMRPG is now playable on PC. They reported it very cool. Yes, it's really neat that someone was able to get this done. It's something I've never played DOOMRPG. So I'm gonna ima. Yes, yeah, yes, tell him about the fat wads. Yes, we'll get those fat wads everybody for your dooms. Okay, let's let's move ahead. Here to Xbox head defense Bethesda in the wake of crunch allegations. This is from Zzjang from Kotaku. At an all hands meeting on Thursday, Xbox addressed the growing employee concerns about labor conditions Epitheza Game Studios and its parent company, ZeniMax. Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, said he was confident that the studio was not crunching and that it was unfair to attribute crunch culture to only Bethesda and a QA Booty. Booty was asked to address the Kotaku report from earlier this month, which documented troubling working conditions Epitheza and ZeniMax during the development of Fallout seventy six. He said that Xbox took crunch reports about its studios seriously, but added the challenge with a lot of these articles is that they look back, where it's sometimes pretty far back in time. While Kataku's report mentioned that crunch occurred on older production such as Skyrim, it mainly addressed the crunch that took place in twenty eighteen on Fallout seventy six. Crunch culture is if you go back ten okay, and this is another one, Mapooty. Crunch culture is if you go back ten years ago. It's a little unfair to put that on one studio. It was just part of the industry. I don't say that to justify it. I'm just saying that it was part of the culture of the industry. I literally slept under my desk early in my career, and we looked at that like a badge of honor. Booty said that working conditions detailed in the report were in the past. I know from talking to Bethes the leadership that we do not have a situation where people are crunching and we've got this bullying atmosphere. I'm confident about that. He then acknowledged that crunch could still take place without his knowledge and said that employees needed to trust xboxes internal processes. He said that xboxes human resources department would be willing to listen to employee concerns and that all studios had support groups for individual disciplines. There's avenues for them to report that anonymously back to us that got that goes through HR. Boody said, we have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances. Of course, this Tako story points out HR it's not really an independent resource. But what else is map boo? Are you gonna say so? The original story here, Lucy was that, uh that during fall Out seventy six, it was a pretty rough development and people were crunching on it and a lot of people left that game. It was kind of a mess. It was especially bad for QA. But that you know that game, the development of that was like four years ago now three three or four years ago, and this was before yeah, yes, yes, uh, and it's like, uh, they've had a lot of chance to change under Microsoft, whether or not they have is gonna take more reporting, more people coming forward to talk. But this is this is Microsoft continuing to talk to talk about crunch and and we just don't know if they were walking that walk. How do you feel about booty sort of reaction here, But like, hey, this happen a long time ago. We're doing what we can now, I mean, realistically, in his position, what's he going to say? But at the same time, it's like Crunch was don't don't put it on me, Like Crunch, this was just how it was. Guys, don't worry about it. But it's like, what do you, I mean, actively, what are you doing other than saying that people can go to HR. Why aren't you saying, you know, I don't know, get the four day work week or go for an Xbox I don't know. It's a bit of a it's a bit of a non a non answer really. I mean that article that the Kataki wrote, the report about four out seventy six was really hard reading, and like if you read any report on crunch within the industry, it is hard going and it's difficult to imagine. Yes, we all have days where we kind of put a lot of ourselves into work. But then you know, what if you get to a place where you feel like you can't leave, what if you feel like, you know, the whole success of your project depends on how much you and your team push yourself. And then like if you're talking about being in a managerial position asking people to do that while still maintaining a shred of empathy for people who are just trying to live their lives and you know, get stuff done. So it's support groups, hr internal process. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a very corporate answer, Like if he really, I mean, this is a production issue. This is a ensuring your pipelines and your timelines are correctly estimated for how long you're going to need for things like it's it's working within a team. And also there's no mention here of COVID, which has royally fucked everything, especially in terms of game development, Like people can playing all there's new games whatever, it's like you have to change everything. Everyone's been working in studios, but pretty much all the major games are made within studios where people are in the same room using all the same tools that they need eat using on the same network, and it's like, no, everyone's going home. So there's no mention of how that's going to be impacting the like it's very cold. It's a very randy way of saying cool Brada, Yeah, no, And and I agree the solutions he gave that that like, oh, if we're going to focus on what we're doing to stop this, it's it is talk to hr and that never feels quite an I'm going to do. It's a production, right, I kind of want more specifics beyond that, like, oh, we have a process for you to report the problem. Well, okay, then then what happens on the other side of that getting reported? What what can Microsoft actively do? And I'm sure, I'm sure there are things that exist, like like Microsoft seems to have taking this stuff pretty seriously from what I understand, and they do do something, but according to Boody's answer here, it's very hard to specify what that's something is. And you know, this is not to sand to a lot of people. Hear this stuff and they think about it, Oh, well, I mean I work overtime at my job. Uh. No one's saying that they can't work over time. And no one's saying that you shouldn't like sprint to complete a project. That's something we've all done. I mean, I think about working in e threes, where that's like, you know, it's a week long, two week long sprint of like trying to get as much done and as little time as possible, taking a way too much work. And I like it. I liked it during that, but that's you know, it is a it is a beginning and an end that is very visible. It all happens within one month. Extended long term crunches. That was a systemic problem in video games from from the beginning, and it got very bad as corporations like EA got very big in the early two thousands, and it was just expected that you would work eighty to one hundred hours a week for years on end. And that's the thing that's like, okay, anytime the industry starts getting back to that, and and that's when it really needs to be examined again. And it sounds like fallout. Somebody six was bumping up against that, if not fully embracing a lot of that culture. And it's like it's worth examining every time it happens, and it's saying you know, well I do that at my job. Is not a defense like that just means your job and needs to be examined too. It's it's kind of like the It kind of reminds me. It's like this sort of boom my argument of like, well, I had to pay student loans, right, so you have to pay student loans, Whereas it's like, no, I had to pay student loans, and I want to work for my the fisure generations to not have to be crippled by that kind of amount of debt. And it's like I slept at my desk, you sleeping yours. Yep. It's it's exactly. It's kind of just and it's like things change and things have gotten very worse for a lot of people, and so you were thinking about the good old days of sleeping at your job, Well, it's people are probably not getting paid equivalent to what you were getting paid at the time when you were doing that, just based on the way that wages have not kept up with productivity and things like that. All right, let's let's move ahead to Sony reveals new line of gaming headsets and monitors for PS five and PC. This is set by Stephen Petite at game Spot. I believe right, Sony recent Yeah, Like I didn't put the name there, and usually that means it's game Spot. Sony recently announced a dedicated pushed to expand the PlayStation brand to PC and a new line of gaming products shows that the emphasis on PC gaming won't be limited to games. Meet Sony end Zone, a brand new It sounds like a football term. Meet New meets Sony end Zone, a new brand of products that is debuting with gaming headsets and gaming monitors for both PC and PlayStation five. While largely focused at PC gamers, the end Zone brand was also developed with PS five users in mind, as it takes advantage of some of the consoles audio and visual features. End Zone is a Sony brand, not a PlayStation brand, and it represents the first Sony Electronics made series of gaming focused products in a long time. So there's some headsets here, and there's some monitors here, and I go over some of the details, I'm just going to like it feels like a Sony brand, not a PlayStation brand, right, because it just feels like to me, it sounds like a cheap video game cool. It sounds like a video game magazine made by Corporation in nineteen ninety five. Is what it sounds like. Like I can see the a meeting where they were coming up with the name. It's like when you're gaming, where you gotta be, man, you gotta be in the game. We can't call it Sony end Game. We'll call it Sony end Zone. It's like when you're in the zone, it's gonna help you get in the zone even faster. Bra Yeah. Broken. Also like I wonder like and it sounds like when you get in the goal in the in football football. It sounds like end zone and we know it. Like that's like where you need to be as well to score points, uh and worry about it. But it sounds like it sounds like a magazine they would hand you at the counter when you bought something at Circuit City in nineteen ninety seven. Like that's what it sounds like. Okay. The end Zone Gaming headsets. Sony's end Zone Gaming headsets come in three models, H three for ninety nine dollars, the H seven for two hundred and twenty nine dollars, and the H nine for two hundred and ninety nine dollars. They have a white and black design that make them match the PS five, which is a nice which is nice for those who picked them up for console gaming. The end Zone H nine rivals other high end wireless headsets in terms of performance and comfort. It features no noise canceling tech, as well as two point four Gigga Hurts wireless and Bluetooth connections. The H nine ear cups features Sony soft fit leatherette, which is borrowed from the Audio Giants Flagship WH one thousand X headphones. Let's see, the H seven doesn't support digital noise canceling and uses a fabric material on the air cups rather than the soft fit leatherette. And then the H three version is kind of like a much cheaper version of all these things and kind of scales it back. But you know, two hundred twenty nine dollars to firsts two hundred and niney nine dollars, you'd probably just pay the extra seven dollars at that point, right, and get all the noise canceling tech. I may, if you're gonna spend that much of my own and anyhow, right, every time you set soft fit that in my head, I just went softly soft fits leatherette. Yes, yeah, no, I mean an extra seventy bucks for the noise canceling. I would pay that. I actually already do have a I have the Sony the PS five headset right and I got it with my review unit. Because I got the I was I was part of that whole process, and so they sent me that and I was like, this is a good headset, Like I really like it. It's very light. I have a long neck and a small head, so I need I can't put too much weight up here, you know, it gets uncomfortable. However, I have a big neck and a big head, so just well represent everyone here, well heads are account for. But that that headset makes me look like a fucking idiot. I yeah, no, because my head is so small. And so I'm like, if I could get I don't know this, this looks good. This looks like a like a kind of normal headset. I don't know. I would I be in the mood to buy another one, Like, yeah, I've used, I've used, I've used regular headsets, and like the Sony Spatial Audio stuff is really good. I'm over headsets. I think I'm gonna like, probably for the most part, I'll pick them up because I need him for you know, discord and talking to friends obviously when when I'm playing games, But when it comes to spinning hundreds of dollars on audio equipment, it's going to go towards actual surround sound speakers or at least a very good soundbar with a good subwoofer. H so you get that at least that good two point one up front, But I mean surround sound those those like surround sound systems in a box or whatever, like the Visio soundbar that comes with the subwoofer that plugs into two surround bars. It's a good one. It's really it's really surprisingly, really great for like how easy it is the set up, And I'm like, Okay, after experiencing that, I'm just gonna that's where my investment's gonna go. I think it's a huge upgrade to get like a surround sound system. I suppose you know this. These incorporating all of the special Sony features probably makes them a little maybe a little bit better of an experience, but it's just not where I'm spending my money these days. In addition to the headsets, end Zone gaming monitors also got announced by Sony. Sony's jump into the gaming monitor business is starting with two models. The M nine is a twenty seven inch four K monitor for nine hundred dollars, while the M three is a twenty seven inch ten ADP monitor. Though they have small similar designs with a tripod stand, swim bezzels, and a sleek PlayStation esque appearance thanks to a white and white and black pant or a white back panel, they have some notable differences. Let's see The M nins four K display boast full ray local dimming, which optimizes lighting and enhances contrast. The aim here is to create a brighter, more vibrant picture that allows you to clearly distinguish objects and other players in dark corners of the map. For me, I like this, but like full ray local dimming, so like, you know, the LEDs behind the thing turn off on certain parts of the screen, so it can get really dark. I like that. But this is Sony. They have really good O LED tech. I kind of wish if you're gonna put out a nine hundred dollar monitor it would just be oh led right, yeah, jesus, nine twenty seven inches. Yeah, it's kind of I mean it's pretty spindy. I mean, listen to a lot also have you have you seen the picture of it. I thought they prompt a PlayStation five underneath it to be like this is how big is No, that's just the stand you said, let's stand I'm not looking at that, okay, and maybe I can bring it out. Uh, let's see it. The M nine also only has HDR six hundred when it gets the six hundred nits of peak brightness. That's all I mean. Sony also is really good at at like HDR on many of its televisions. Like there's a Sony TV over here I have, and it has like seventeen hundred nits at peak brightness. It gets very very bright, and that's like one of the best features of it. Yeah, it's not like monitors are different. You sit closer to them, maybe you don't want them to be that bright. But I still think HDR one thousand oh LED A lot of these things would be really nice to have that you know that said these. Let's see the the M nine four K it does have one hundred forty four hurts refresh rate. That's nice to have. It supports you know, HDMI two point one, so you're gonna with variable refresh rate. It's gonna support all the things. So you're gonna plug in a PS five, it's gonna be able to do all the things that PS five can handle. So that's that. That at least is very nice. That is nice, But I'm still probably not going to pay that. Yeah. Yeah, like me, neither I got you know, I've got the stuff I need. I'm fine. Yeah, like I'll just wait until the old best buy sale and see what. Yeah, last year's last year's model. I'm going to pick up as I have done for years. Give Insignia. Give me that Insignia Model TV please. I I wish like I you know, I can hear my dad sort of crying from the UK, not crying, but like he really cares about audio. He really cares about like the TV and everything, and I'm just like, like my games in it's fine, I can see everything. Like his his midlife crisis was a full audio set up in his life, like the full, the full thing. Whereas I'm using a pair of ten dollar headphones. These are what I used for gaming. If I'm playing with my friends where the right ear but doesn't even work. Oh no, never mind, I'm gonna be mad on your dad's behalf. How dare you, Lucy, I'm going to get of me on w audio cheese you know where no one's asking it out, and get some fancy like experimental speaker that like uses like a lamb's skin to like shake and create noise like no just you know, you know, use your decense because you have the video, use that and then just put all the chat stuff on your headphones. There you go, all right, Sonny, I'm just gonna look so and thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, for for me and Dad, I appreciate that. I did get a pair of There was one year where I was going back and forth between the UK and the US a lot, so I bought a pair of bows and noise canceling head with and I maintained that's one of the best things I've ever bought for flying. But I don't use them in my everyday life. I genuinely only use them on flights, so I need I need a good option. I see what you mean about the like the PS five being under the un let me transition over here for everybody. Uh yeah, that that looks I mean it looks a lot like the PS five and like the design aesthetic, but that looks very much like if you were like to glance at it looks like the side of a PS five digital edition. Almost. U Yeah, that is weird. Okay, very cool, Let's get back here, okay. Ww E two K twenty two. The latest DLC includes Mister t Ronda, Rowsy, Doink and the British Bulldogs by Chris Scullion at VGC. The fourth DLC pack for w w E two K twenty two is available today. The Clowne and Round pack is named after Doink the Clown, the popular wrestler who let wrestler who competed in the then WWF between nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety five. The full list of superstars included in the new DLC is as follows Doink the Clown, Mister t Ronda, Rowsey, the British Bulldog, Rick Boogs and Dower Drop Do Drop, Do Drop? Yes, there you go. I don't know do Drop Really. I'm just excited about this because I like Donk the Clown. I think doing the clown is a very fun wrestler. I remember when I've never seen doing the clown. Yeah. Also, like if I was, if I was drunk, call high and you could tell me anything. You could tell me any name of a wrestler, and I would believe it. Well, that's the problem is though, It's like that's very hard because you come up with any name and it probably is a wrestler somewhere. All right, lere, here we go, let's transition. Dan says evil Doink was better. Yeah, there was some multiple Doinks. That's right. Multiple people wrestled as Doink the clan and one of them. I'd like Doink because of the games where they basically would just like capture the appearance of the like in the nineties and it was like the Mortal Kombat technology, and then they would make wrestling games based on that. And I'm like, Doink just looks so silly in this game. And uh well I like him a lot. That middle Doink. Wait, wait, who's the Doink holding the other Doink? Go down? All right, there's the there's Doink and then that looks like a mini Doink, a little Doink next to him. Listen, baby face brunn ww so maybe he ran at a baby face dk. Oh it's dank. Okay, thank you chat, thank you Doink and dank. That makes too much sense. I don't know why. We were just screaming. His name is Dan. I don't know why how we could have possibly guessed anything else? All right, Skull and Bones release date and pre order bonuses have seemingly leaked. This is by Tom Ivan a VGC. It's claimed the Long Day Pirate Game will be unveiled next week. We've talked about out that previously. A release date and pre ordered incentives for Ubsauce Pirate game Scull and Bones have also seemingly leaked. Now this is uh. The bonus is listed include missions, a digital soundtrack, and an art book, and these were reported reportedly revealed after the Xbox Store listing went live. For some of these updates, oh man I practiced this name before. Aggiornamenti, Lumia Aggiornamenti. That's the whole, that's the whole. First name. Aggiornamenti, who was regularly who regularly reports on listings that are added to the Xbox and Windows Store before they're made public, has also claimed that the long delayed game will finally be released on November eight, twenty twenty two. The league seemingly corroborate claims that ubself will finally re reveal the online pirate game next week, and then of course that came from Tom Henderson. So Aggiornamenti and Tom are working together here to help us figure out Scull and Bones. Lucy. Any excitement for Scaling Bones, I'm not. I don't let me. I really wonder about what that game is even going to be at this point, I feel like, see if they've sort of came out and really stole our lunch there. I remember doing the when the media all the media stuff for this game E three twenty eighteen, I want to say, I think it was twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, and I remember interviewing them and everyone was like super stoked about it, and then it just went so quiet. There was a shake up in management. The guy I interviewed ended up getting the old boot right, and it's like, I don't I don't know what that game is anymore. I don't remember what the hell was, what the hell's beyond going to Evil two at this point at these I'm amazed that we're kidding this resurgence of Scaling Bones. I feel like with everything, with all the leagues and stuff, Yeah, it's probably gonna be this year. Yes, that would make a lot of sense. I know they said it was going to be before end a fiscal year with Starfield out of the wave. Maybe they're just like, Oh, now's our time, boys, now scaling Bones, time to dominate the industry. We were worried about Starfield before, but now it's scolling Bones day to rue the sun or whatever. Yeah, I'm this is it could come out. I'm probably not gonna care too much about it. I don't think you'd be self cares that much about it. That's making it very difficult for me to get any excitement going. I suppose a re reveal could change my mind, but I'm depending on how exciting, how exciting everything is. But also at the same time, it's like this, this is a little segue in my head, but like, do you ever if you have a pre order something, do you ever look at the digital soundtrack in our book? No? No, hey don't. Why is the digital Because the digital soundtrack is always on my PlayStation. I'm like, oh, gross, I'm gonna access that. Can you like it? It's not downloading automatically, right, It's it's just something you could stream because that's how it works on Steam, where I'm like every once a while, I'm like, oh, I've I've I've actually ended up with a bunch of soundtracks on Steam and then I just opened up the Steam media Player, and as the Steam media Player, I think, so, yeah, single my library on the music. I'm not gonna do it now, but yeah, it's basically it's basically just a winnamp for a new for New Age. So yeah, but actually when I'm probably gonna outlive us, all that will too. Yes, people, people are going back to winn app. I think we should all go back to winn app and whip the lama's ass. And that's my opinion. All right, let's see the weird one. Let's get to the catch up here. There was a Nintendo Direct Mini Partner showcase yesterday. Giant Bob talked over it. Some people did, some people were sleepy. You could watch that. We also went over the news on the BombCast hereesterday where we talked about everything that was in it. But I figured we could go over some of the headlines here to catch up people who weren't watching and didn't listen to the BombCast yesterday. Uh, Nintendo is the Switch is finally getting Persona five Royal along with Persona four golden and Persona three reportable. That's pretty exciting stuff, Lucy, see it come in et cetera. No that, I mean, you know they waited too long. I already pre ordered the Steam Deck. Now I'm kidding I I'm playing another Steam deck. So yeah, honestly, I'm probably gonna on a Steam Deck. I'm already stoked. Like Persona four is one of my favorite games, a little time, Persona five, especially the Royal version as well, just an obviously fantastic game being on play that on the go. I'm just I'm happy for switch onners because they are some of the best apgs ever made. Mike Mike, Mike Manadi and Chat is laughing because he's like, Jeff is gonna play Persona Sure? Like, yeah, install it? I mean I got a Steam Deck. I'm just gonna install it. We'll see what happens. Since have I ever open it or not? Let's see? Uh oh okay. There was a bunch of games that are available now, or at least games and demos. Here's everything you can play right now from Nintendo's direct many by Phil Hornshaw at game Spot, Monster Hunter Rise, Sunbreak demo that is out now I think that also has like the thing where if you you start it, you can take that save with you if you already own the Bass game. I wonder how that works exactly. Little Noah's Sign of Paradise. That's a side scrolling action game that launched shadow dropped yesterday. That's available. I don't believe that it's the story of Noah from the Bible, but maybe it is live alive that demos out and that definitely has the safe carrying over to the final game. I downloaded that. I haven't started that, but I that is a JRPG I am interested in. Uh, the HD two D stuff really gets me. It's that one that you're going to check out, Lucy no But I saw Passion Night of my GM like doing a big old tweet threat about it when they announced it a few months ago. So it's piqued my interest. But honestly, like I feel, I feel, I'm terrible. My switch has not been turned on for a number of months. Yeah, I know I'm a bad game, but it's mostly because I've been trying to finish eldam Ring. But I know I'm interested. I need to I need to dip back into and see what stuff I've missed. I've been really wanting to play Three Houses again. I don't want to play, I don't want to play whatever. There you go. But I'm just like, oh, I want to find just do a different paths Sweet Clawed again, or you're just gonna do the same Are you gonna do the same house again? I mean, as someone who plays, who replays Mass Effect and does Garis every time the same thing, I'm a creature of habit. But no, I do want to do the Eagles Roop? So am I do that? Let's see here? And then Portal Cabanion Collection, which people said was a pretty good uh part of those games on the is now available on the Switch, as well other other things that happen at this direct. Dragon Quest Treasures is coming this December. Returned to Monkey Island is headed to Ninto Switch first on consoles. Near Automata comes to Nintendo Switch this fall with all content and new costumes. I hope you get to play with with a two B in a Mario costume. I think that'd be very cool. Please, like I need, I need them to dig deep and just get the most ridiculous Nintendo tie they possibly can actually I'm trying to think of what that would be. Would it be what it was, Daisy Kong, Daisy Kongs, Hockey Kong Country or whatever. A Yoshi suit, Yes, Yoshi suit. Absolutely. Uh, that's like those Halloween costumes. Slutty Aide Lincoln Slutty Yoshi costume for two B Yes, Uh, Mario plus Rabbid, Spark of Sparks of Hope. It's got its release date that's coming in October. I believe that is right as soon as we're done here, there's gonna be a thing right at noon where you're still going to talk more about that game. I don't know, maybe maybe a crash in ear and I'll have it play in the background as we're trying to finish the show. Uh. Let's thee MegaMan Battle Network Legacy collection announced for PC and console. That's coming to the Switch. I think if you get the digital digital versions, it comes in the Part one and Part two. I think there's also gonna be a physical version. And then new Switch game Harvest Stella evokes animal crossing and starting valley. This is from Square Enix. There are a lot of farming games, Lucy, did you have a favorite farming game? Series that you're super into, or have you checked out anything from this Harvest Stella or did that not register with you? Didn't. I didn't take a look at that one. I mean, the name doesn't stand out, so I don't blame you. But it's like it's like the one big Square Innis game that was at this thing from at the Nintendo Direct. Well, so I do. I love the concept of a farming game. I've put many an hour into stage you, similar with Animal Crossing, but it's not a thing that can hold my attention the whole time. However, Bear and Breakfast is out this month next night. There you go technically farming. Similar vibes though life like management. It's like a management sim right, Let's say managing a farm, you're managing a Bed and Breakfast like. Again, there's also like a massive sale on the SIMS at the moment, and I do have like the little the pack, the College Living and the Season's packs where you can grow stuff. So maybe I'll just go back to the SIMS. Yeah. I feel like I got all those, like all the expansion packs for the SIMS on Steam and as like a means like I want to get it back into the Sims someday and I'm just gonna throw myself in so looking forward to it. Uh, Animal Crossing like Disney dream Light Valley plants a September release day. These are all good headlines and they all come from the game spot. Uh. Disney Dreamlight Valley obviously sounds a lot like Started Valley, but there's more going on. It is very similar to Animal Crossing as well. There's like it's like Life Sims stuff. Oh, I don't know. It looks fun, especially for anyone who's like a Disney adult. You know that the yeah mean work. It's that people used to describe people like Mike Manati Disney adults. But I think you'll still like it. Still looks like a lot of fun alright, then, Zelda. Breath of the Wild's Dubious Food is now a Switch player icons by Jordan Dvore at Destructoid. I saw this and I mostly put it out there as a reminder for me to like, as soon as we're don here to get my switch out, so I can go to the Nintendo Switch Online store and use my Platinum points to get some new player icons, and I will be getting the Breath of the Wild Dubious food icon and setting that as what I look like on switch from now, because I'm the human version of Breath of the Wild's dubious Food, Lucy, and I want everyone to know it, and everyone everyone's gonna be fea me. I am the Breath of the Wild gubious food. I just have my my, my me, just kind of lounging like that. That's very good too. That's my favorite. That's my favorite casual. Let's see human transition over to assets again. Games with Gold from Xbox Live Gold. We're an now this month for July. Not a lot of bangers here, not a lot of super things that are super enticing, but it's a let's see what are they here? They're see if I brought it roamed down here. Okay, they are Thrillville Off the Rails. That's the Xbox three sixty one. Torchlight is the other Xbox three sixty one Torchlight is probably the best game here. Then there is The Beasts of Maraville Island. Maravilla Island. This looks interesting, but I just haven't heard anything about it before. And then the last one is Relicta Relicta and so let's see Beast of Maraville is available July first through the thirty first, Relicta is July sixteenth through the August fifteenth, Thrillville is July first, and then Torchlight is coming. Uh, let's see July sixteenth as well, are you good? And then finally I saw this game here that I thought I would off because it just looks so chill, and it's coming to America and Canada and North America. It's called kran Kran shin Chan my Summer Vacation, and it just looks like such summer chill vibes. And I'm so glad it's getting English translations. This is the Japanese trailer. Yeah, I mean, make it bigger here for everybody. Oh that's way too big. I don't know. I think it just looks. I think it looks very good. It looks very exactly my jam. Yeah there we go. Now we got everybody, so yeah, everyone look into that. It's coming to PS four and Nintitto Switch later this year in August. I'm really looking forward to it. So check it out. Set. It looks very sweet and cute, and he just like it's fishing, and then he just sized real big while take in a bath. That's that's fun. That's that's the life I want. Yeah, here he goes. All right, So let's get to the question that I gave everybody earlier this week. Have you tried gaming on the Netflix App? And let's see when I get that. We talked a little bit about this because I actually asked this question twice because I never actually posted the tweet, Lucy, have I asked you this one? Have you used the Netflix I app to play like Point B or anything? Go, I haven't. I haven't tried Joint kiss Back. Yes, I haven't. I haven't not tried any of Netflix's gaming offerings. But they just got into the breach, right, because that's right, that's why we brought this up. So they're getting into the Breach Advanced Edition, and that's the kind of thing where I'm like, now, I'm like, I actually am interested in that. And then I remember Point P was on there, and that's the I wanted to like check in on that, So I'm like, Okay, that's that's cool. So I actually did load up Point B and use that, and let's see. Okay, so do you play or do you plan to play games on the Netflix Mobile app? Only around ten percent said yes, ninety percent said no, So there you go with the most people. I think this is kind of thing where the audience here is very specifically h not going to be thinking about Netflix is a way to get into games. But I think even like one out of ten people being like I might do that, Like it's a slow process, right, They need to slowly build up to having a lot of things to like win people over. It worked with me with Into the Breach and that's not even out yet, so I checked out point B. I think like if they keep adding games along those lines, that they could slowly win over people. At least that's the strategy they seem to be employing. So when Into the Breach goes on, there, are you going to open up the Netflix app and actually try and advanced edition? I think so. I mean, the main thing that I have with Netflix is that it has a real discovery issue, both in terms of its uh well former editorial division like Netflix just but in terms of like the absolute just so much content that Netflix has and like not everything is treated the same, Like so much stuff launches on Netflix and you miss a lot of it unless it's got like a massive amount of promotion like something like the Umbrella Academy. And so my concern about gaming for Netflix is I don't understand whether sits within the Netflix ecosystem. I don't understand how they're going to promote it and even get the attention on it that it kind of needs and deserves to grow as a business. So that's that's kind of my thing. I was. That's the thing, Like, I've had a Netflix subscription for over ten years. I've had a Netflix subscription since House of Cards came out. Right, if you ask me where to find the games on Netflix, right, So it's only on the mobile phone app, and then there is like a tab that you click, and then when you click on that tab, it takes you just to a list of games and it looks a lot like the Netflix interface, and you can say, Okay, I want to try this, and as long as you're signed into a Netflix account that's active, it takes you basically. For me on Android, it took me to a link inside the Google Play Store where then I could download that game as an app, and then now I open it up, and when I open up the game, it's just like any other app, but it opens up with the Netflix splash screen and my Netflix account like image is yeah, it should just work. I think I think it works on iPhone as well, so have a look. Yep. So yeah, I don't know. It's it is going to take a long time for the strategy to work. But I think that they're on the right path at least, and they're not trying to like make it all happen in one day or one year where they're like, oh, we're gonna just go from zero to Stadia being like the fourth console everybody. That seems like taking a much more deliberate strategy, and that's probably the way of doing it. Uh wait, did you say there's a tab? I have to I had to. I had to. I have to scroll to. Yeah, and that's where the games are, so it doesn't it's new and hot weird as fast laughs, which is basically a TikTok. But for Netflix click right, that is Uh That's the thing where I'm like, they don't know what to do. They're like, oh, we got to compete with TikTok. I'm like, oh, Netflix, you're in trouble if that's what you think you need to be doing. Games is not a tab like I would never pay a subscription for TikTok, even though yeah, I'm probably I'm watching more TikTok than Netflix these days, but like, that's not what I want to pay a subscription forever. So Netflix, if that's what you think, that is the solution here, I'm so sorry, honey. Uh, all right? What grade would you give the Nintendo Direct Mini? So this is for tomorrow, everybody. I'll put up the pole here in a second and we'll go ABC and then D or lower. I thought that was a pretty good Direct Mini, especially because they set expectations correctly. But yeah, we'll talk about that tomorrow. Everybody, you want to give your grade? What grade would you give it? A? B? Yeah? That sounds right, that sounds right. Here's a be all right, everybody, We're gonna get out here real soon. But first up, what is happening on Giant Bomb, Lucy, we got anything going up? I think you mentioned a few things you guys were recording, right, Yeah, so Jeff Jaspar Adventure is going up today. I'm so sorry in advance because I look up some I looked up some rule thirty four on but I mean, at least it's an audio podcast. It's fine, had to happen eventually though. Yeah, I did not share the links, but you know, it's all about episodes five and six. I believe of one punch Bine season one, there is gonna be a little clip going out. I didn't know you were a devian. You did, you did. There's a good reason for why we did it. But anyway, so let's go up today. There should be Arcade pit. I believe Albumer is what's the was the graphic? Jeff's the graphic? Yea, there was so much. We move the uh Neon White Invitational, I believe to the next week, I think, so look out for that. There are fun things happening there. To get it for next week, I'm gonna go to Giant Bomb and then I think we have it right here here. Here's here's for Wednesday, everybody, I'm gon transition over there. Uh So yeah, Game Mess Mornings finishing right now. Uh Jeff, Jeff's Bizarre Adventure one punch Man zero three and then our kid bit and then album Er uh and then yeah, we'll hope a bunch of stuff going up for the rest of the week as well. Keep your eyes open. We'll be back tomorrow with Game mess mornings, and lots of quick looks are happening. I think we're gonna do a cumphead quick look here today, so keep an eye on for that. So yeah, all right, well let's get out of here, Lucy, you want to tell the people about anything else you're working on before I throw to to the exit here, I'm working on I'm working on a bunch of stuff over on games board two. I'm streaming the Quarry, Twitch dot tv, slash Least James games and all of a giant one yep, And with that we are going to get out of here. Thank you so much, Lucy, I really appreciate it. Thank you for being the best audience and game and everybody. The show's only ever as good as the audience, because man, it's honestly true. It just sounds like something I wrote in the script here and I'm gonna say every time, but I really mean it. And until the next morning, best have a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye. Ye