Warner Bros. Keeps Nemesis Gaming Patent Despite Studio Closure

<v Speaker 1>Don't be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy.
<v Speaker 2>Let's do this for February twenty six, twenty twenty five.
<v Speaker 2>For the next hour or so, let me help you
<v Speaker 2>sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
<v Speaker 2>Live with me Jeff grub Today, what is next for
<v Speaker 2>Warner Brothers after its closure of a storied game studio,
<v Speaker 2>and should we expect more Silent Hill remakes? But first,
<v Speaker 2>please join me and welcoming today's co host to Game
<v Speaker 2>Mess Mornings. It's Jason Finelli. Everybody, Jason, how are you doing.
<v Speaker 3>I am doing pretty good. My voice is finally back
<v Speaker 3>from the beginning of the month. I just want to
<v Speaker 3>point at this hat real quick, get it out of
<v Speaker 3>my system.
<v Speaker 1>Dy.
<v Speaker 3>Things are good. Things are things are working.
<v Speaker 2>We've moved on the NFL. Combiness is getting ready. We
<v Speaker 2>don't have to talk about your team anymore.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, we do. They want to ban my tush push.
<v Speaker 1>They that would be bad. That's such a good football play.
<v Speaker 3>It is such a good football play. And it is
<v Speaker 3>a football play.
<v Speaker 1>You know who it is?
<v Speaker 3>This we can we can kind of come together on.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it's the Packers.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the Packers are the ones that are winding and
<v Speaker 3>they get they whind so much.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're they want to they want to say stuff
<v Speaker 2>like were the nfcs like New England Patriots or whatever,
<v Speaker 2>And it's like the New England Patriots, for as bad
<v Speaker 2>as they were, actually didn't wind as much as you do.
<v Speaker 2>So no, you are the NFC's Green Bay Packers, a
<v Speaker 2>bunch of whitey sacks of poo poo poo. Yeah, hey, Jason,
<v Speaker 2>I am I have been continue to be very happy
<v Speaker 2>for you and your Eagles. That team by the end
<v Speaker 2>was looking like a super Bowl team, and boy they
<v Speaker 2>played like it in the Super Bowl.
<v Speaker 1>So that's gotta gotta be real nice.
<v Speaker 3>And I read an article from a local blog here
<v Speaker 3>that I think summed it up perfectly in twenty eighteen,
<v Speaker 3>when Nick Foles led us to the title against the Patriots.
<v Speaker 3>That was for the longtime fans. That was the one
<v Speaker 3>for the people who have been suffering with the fan
<v Speaker 3>base their entire life. This one was for the children.
<v Speaker 3>This one was Yeah, this one was the one where
<v Speaker 3>I got to drive down my my main thoroughfare in
<v Speaker 3>my suburban neighborhood with the windows down blasting Bluey's Dance Mode,
<v Speaker 3>because that's what the kids picked. Of course I five
<v Speaker 3>and people out of the window. It was for them
<v Speaker 3>and now it's there. They just they talk about it
<v Speaker 3>a lot. That was how how much fun it was
<v Speaker 3>and how they they hope they win the Super Bowl
<v Speaker 3>every year. And I said, yo, pump the brakes kid,
<v Speaker 3>You'll learn real quick about works. But but yeah, it was,
<v Speaker 3>it was. It was real neat. I'm very uh, still
<v Speaker 3>kind of wrapping my head around the fact that it happened,
<v Speaker 3>even though my bank account for NFL shop dot com says.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it's definitely, definitely, yes, absolutely you were. You were
<v Speaker 2>in Chicago recently did that magic the gathering thing?
<v Speaker 3>Uh, ch Chicago's cold.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's all weird.
<v Speaker 3>But but yeah, I'd only been there one time before fourteen.
<v Speaker 3>I went for to visit family who was working out there.
<v Speaker 3>I love that city, man, I was there. It was
<v Speaker 3>me Joe Bradford, editor in chief of MMORPG fantastic Dude,
<v Speaker 3>and mister John Carson Nasty Boy with them. Yes, that's
<v Speaker 3>that's one of the boys. Yeah, we were. We were
<v Speaker 3>playing games and uh and checking out some some some
<v Speaker 3>new cards that the Final Fantasy set definitely has people
<v Speaker 3>going nuts. Got a great interview regarding that coming out
<v Speaker 3>soon on game Spot. Just waiting for a couple of
<v Speaker 3>things to happen. I spoke to lead game designer and
<v Speaker 3>then one of the vps for the collaboration effort that
<v Speaker 3>they have there, Very very good stuff there. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I played some played some magic, had some fun. Just
<v Speaker 3>got it. Was it overnight, got there Saturday morning, and
<v Speaker 3>flew back Sunday night. Uh. I love those things if
<v Speaker 3>you're if you're ever tangentially interested. Uh, Magic cons They
<v Speaker 3>they're doing a good job, and they're getting better. I
<v Speaker 3>feel like they're they're they're starting to get their feet
<v Speaker 3>under them. As far as organization is concerned, especially from
<v Speaker 3>a media perspective, I thought this one, uh compared to
<v Speaker 3>Vegas and Vegas was pretty well organized, was even more.
<v Speaker 1>So excellent, fantastic. Yeah, I got a.
<v Speaker 2>Quick trip I'm gonna do this week, and I'm jaunting
<v Speaker 2>down to Columbus to go see the outdoor Red Wings game.
<v Speaker 2>I like those like I'm just gonna go, I'm just
<v Speaker 2>gonna go do something real quick in another city and
<v Speaker 2>then come back basically the same day or the next day.
<v Speaker 1>I like those kinds of trips. It's fine.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like I got to do something fun and then
<v Speaker 2>I'm back home where my stuff is.
<v Speaker 3>That's right. Yeah, Like once in a while there'll be
<v Speaker 3>something in New York. I can just drive it for
<v Speaker 3>the day two hours. Yeah, sure, the thing and then
<v Speaker 3>come back. It's awesome. What I prefer them to do
<v Speaker 3>do these things in Philly, Yes, but I'll take it.
<v Speaker 2>I'll take absolutely all right, let's explain what we do
<v Speaker 2>here most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece your
<v Speaker 2>gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe
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<v Speaker 1>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 2>let's start the Morning Mess with Warner Brothers cancels Wonder
<v Speaker 2>Woman game and shuts down Shadow of Mordor Studio.
<v Speaker 1>Jason. We talked about this on the BombCast.
<v Speaker 2>Yesterday a little bit, but there's there's a little bit
<v Speaker 2>more info here. We might as well go over what happened.
<v Speaker 2>This is, like I said, than goatcha. Kotaku Monolith Productions
<v Speaker 2>revealed it was making a Wonder Woman game back In
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty one, now publisher Warner Brothers Games has announced
<v Speaker 2>that the project has been canned and the studio best
<v Speaker 2>known for Middle Earth Shadow of War is being shut
<v Speaker 2>down as well as part of larger cuts. The shakeup
<v Speaker 2>comes after twenty twenty fourth Suicide Squad bombed and platform
<v Speaker 2>fighter multiverses failed to make a comeback. The news, first
<v Speaker 2>reported by Bloomberg, was confirmed by Warner Brothers Games in
<v Speaker 2>a statement provided to Kataku over email.
<v Speaker 1>We've had to.
<v Speaker 2>Make some very difficult decisions to structure our development studios,
<v Speaker 2>says the statement, and investments around building the best games
<v Speaker 2>possible with our key franchises. That includes Harry Potter, Mortal
<v Speaker 2>Kombat DC, and Game of Thrones. After careful consideration, Player
<v Speaker 2>First Games and Warner Brothers Games San Diego.
<v Speaker 1>Which was a new studio Newish. This is a.
<v Speaker 2>Strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these
<v Speaker 2>teams or the talent that consists within them.
<v Speaker 1>But parentheses still go to hell all the people that.
<v Speaker 2>Work there, all right, Yeah, So let's kind of do
<v Speaker 2>the initial like feed or reaction here of Warner Brothers
<v Speaker 2>closing these studios. I got to say, Jason, the writing
<v Speaker 2>had been on the wall four years now for this
<v Speaker 2>stuff because Warner Brothers shopped these studios around multiple times
<v Speaker 2>to sell them off to external parties, and they were
<v Speaker 2>never able to make that happen. And it's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>they clearly don't want to own these studios, but no
<v Speaker 2>one wants to buy them without getting the IP, which
<v Speaker 2>continues to be that was with a hang up for
<v Speaker 2>all those deals, was, Hey, that you want to sell
<v Speaker 2>me a studio that's working on Batman stuff and all
<v Speaker 2>this other stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Can we have Batman too?
<v Speaker 3>Well?
<v Speaker 1>No, of course not.
<v Speaker 2>So when they weren't able to sell them, it's like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>so as soon as they kind of find a moment
<v Speaker 2>where they're at their lowest, they're probably just going to
<v Speaker 2>shut these things down. And here we are. And the
<v Speaker 2>fact that we were able to see this coming for
<v Speaker 2>years and they weren't able to manage themselves.
<v Speaker 1>Out of it speaks to the deep.
<v Speaker 2>Mismanagement in this company and in this industry at large,
<v Speaker 2>and at boy. It just continues to suck that it
<v Speaker 2>can happen to a studio like Monowith Productions, a company
<v Speaker 2>that's had so many interesting and awesome games over thirty
<v Speaker 2>years and you know, David Zaslov and then the people
<v Speaker 2>below him that were running w B Games who reportedly
<v Speaker 2>did a very poor job according to everyone who's ever
<v Speaker 2>talked about it.
<v Speaker 1>It stinks.
<v Speaker 3>It stinks. Yeah, there's really no other way. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>that's call up Jay Sherman from the nineties, the critic
<v Speaker 3>show it. It stinks. I don't mean I'm trying to
<v Speaker 3>add some levity for sure, in all honesty, I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>With the new gamespotch im bomb thing with the profanity.
<v Speaker 2>Rule is well, we're going to try not to say
<v Speaker 2>the F word as much, but I will continue to fail.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, screw David zazz Lab there you go, and screw
<v Speaker 3>hadad V underneath him. The only thing you need to
<v Speaker 3>see that really explains the impact of this is to
<v Speaker 3>find people who worked there on social media. Blue Sky
<v Speaker 3>specifically is where I was seeing them and just seeing
<v Speaker 3>how as stated they were that the world is not
<v Speaker 3>going to see this Wonder Woman game. Multiple people saying
<v Speaker 3>we were working on something special, this was going to
<v Speaker 3>be great. We were so excited to show it to you.
<v Speaker 3>And because this idiot and his little cronies underneath him
<v Speaker 3>don't know a video game from their ass from a
<v Speaker 3>hole in the ground. Now here we are with dozens
<v Speaker 3>of people, probably hundreds of people out of a job.
<v Speaker 3>It's funny. Last time I was on this show, we
<v Speaker 3>talked about the mismanagement of multiverses, right, because that it
<v Speaker 3>was right when they announced that they were going to
<v Speaker 3>be shutting that down in May. So that is now
<v Speaker 3>probably a pretty good test case as to the whole
<v Speaker 3>of WB games. Honestly, at this rate, the only thing
<v Speaker 3>I would be confident with them doing is licensing their IP.
<v Speaker 3>I have no confidence in internal Warler Brothers games anymore,
<v Speaker 3>and I hope that somebody can come in and purchase
<v Speaker 3>some of these other studios with the IP and get
<v Speaker 3>them out of there. Nether Realm is first in my
<v Speaker 3>head because I'm a fighting game guy.
<v Speaker 2>Nether Realm will would be able to like be the
<v Speaker 2>one that could pull that off, right, because you can
<v Speaker 2>see Warner Brothers being like, well, okay, video game first franchise,
<v Speaker 2>we will sell that IP along with Nether Realm. And
<v Speaker 2>whether that's Nether Realm by buying themselves out or getting
<v Speaker 2>sold to another corporation, that seems possible, although it also
<v Speaker 2>feels like.
<v Speaker 1>If that could have happened. It probably would have happened.
<v Speaker 3>But would have happened already. But it doesn't. It doesn't know.
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't help that their last two games are compared
<v Speaker 3>to like Mortal Kombat X and twenty fifteen is when
<v Speaker 3>it should have happened right after that. It's sort of
<v Speaker 3>like Mortal komb At eleven was fine.
<v Speaker 1>It made a lot of money, and Mortal Kombat eleven
<v Speaker 1>made a ton of money.
<v Speaker 3>Sure, sure, sure, if I'm from a quality perspective, sure
<v Speaker 3>right now, but.
<v Speaker 2>That the next game, Mortal Kombat one, paid for that quality,
<v Speaker 2>Like that's the one that was like also a kind
<v Speaker 2>of mid in the opinion of a lot of fighting
<v Speaker 2>game fans, and then also didn't make the money that
<v Speaker 2>Mortal Kombat eleven.
<v Speaker 3>And they're already saying that it's done after this next DLC.
<v Speaker 3>I think T one thousand, Robert Patrick is it? If
<v Speaker 3>that's the case, now, I'm on another realm watched to
<v Speaker 3>make sure that they're okay, because what are they working on?
<v Speaker 3>We don't know?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, so we got that story. I think
<v Speaker 2>this We also talked about this during the BombCast. I
<v Speaker 2>think if not, it was a game of mornings earlier
<v Speaker 2>this week that the the DCU people, James Gunn and
<v Speaker 2>Peter Saffron that were like, hey, we had good conversations
<v Speaker 2>with rock Steady and Nether Realm.
<v Speaker 1>And then immediately right right immediately right after that.
<v Speaker 2>Is when they announced and then also, don't worry or
<v Speaker 2>worry these other studios are getting shut down.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, okay, you could see.
<v Speaker 2>That right and in this moment they're like, well, we're
<v Speaker 2>gonna give rock Steady another chance. We're gonna give another Realm,
<v Speaker 2>you know, not another chance for you know, those games.
<v Speaker 1>They didn't perform as well and they weren't as good, but.
<v Speaker 2>The Nether Realm's stole. The Nether Rooms not at risk
<v Speaker 2>of closing down in this moment. But you get the
<v Speaker 2>sense of like they could be working their way toward
<v Speaker 2>that if they if the line keeps going down. But
<v Speaker 2>in the meantime, seems like they might be working on
<v Speaker 2>some dc stuff, an Injustice success or something that might
<v Speaker 2>be like those games, but maybe ties in a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more to the current slate of films, because that
<v Speaker 2>seems something that they keep saying that they're interested in.
<v Speaker 2>We'll see if they're able to pull that off. That's
<v Speaker 2>a high degree of difficulty getting movies and games to
<v Speaker 2>work together.
<v Speaker 3>These days, right, Yes, I would say it's nigh impossible
<v Speaker 3>most of the time. The license games that are the
<v Speaker 3>best are the ones that are standalone. Indiana Jones comes
<v Speaker 3>to mind. I don't know. I mean, I would hate
<v Speaker 3>to see if they were to go back to Mortal
<v Speaker 3>Kombat it be related to the movies. I kind of
<v Speaker 3>like that they're their own thing, definitely. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Sure.
<v Speaker 3>And then if well, here's the thing though, if James
<v Speaker 3>Gunn can get nether realm involved on the ground floor
<v Speaker 3>of what he's trying to build, and then they build
<v Speaker 3>a video game sort of tangentially based on that, maybe
<v Speaker 3>its own story where he has input or or something
<v Speaker 3>like that that I might be able to get behind.
<v Speaker 1>I agree, that sounds good.
<v Speaker 3>Sounds okay with me. Whether it's Injustice or whether it's
<v Speaker 3>called something else. That it's just a fighting game with
<v Speaker 3>DC characters, what have you. But nothing I could dream
<v Speaker 3>up in my head removes the dread of the Zaslav effect. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>the Hadad effect, and that will always be there for
<v Speaker 3>as long as these companies work for Warner Brothers Games,
<v Speaker 3>And it's a Monolith Man. People talk about the legacy
<v Speaker 3>of Monoliths, and they are not wrong. Thirty years and
<v Speaker 3>a full portfolio of classic fan loved games. Unfortunately, with
<v Speaker 3>these two dipshits, it never mattered. There. These are the
<v Speaker 3>guys who are still calling video games Nintendo oh yes.
<v Speaker 2>Saying oh yeah, I mean they don't even understand movies
<v Speaker 2>their primary business. Well, of course, there's no chance that
<v Speaker 2>they're going to understand no gaming. And you know the evidence,
<v Speaker 2>the proof of that is in the putting of the
<v Speaker 2>things that they say, their actions.
<v Speaker 3>For sure.
<v Speaker 2>This is the company that made Harry Potter Hogwarts Legacy,
<v Speaker 2>and Hogwarts Legacy did very well, continues to be one
<v Speaker 2>of the best selling games every month, at least in
<v Speaker 2>the United States, but I think globally and their reaction
<v Speaker 2>to that is publicly at least two investors, well we're
<v Speaker 2>gonna do the next Harry Potter game might be a
<v Speaker 2>live service game.
<v Speaker 1>What are you talking about? And then.
<v Speaker 2>There was a leaked email that was sent internally following
<v Speaker 2>these closures from a Discovery head of Global Streaming and Games, JB.
<v Speaker 1>Peret.
<v Speaker 2>Polygnon published parts of the letter. He said that the
<v Speaker 2>teams need to or the team needs to regain our
<v Speaker 2>credibility and swagger at producing great games, and blame blamed.
<v Speaker 2>Then he blamed current financial difficulties on the product market
<v Speaker 2>fit and quality of too many of our new releases
<v Speaker 2>of really missing the mark we need to and we'll
<v Speaker 2>do better for our fans first and foremost, and also
<v Speaker 2>because we're gaining that credibility is critical to us securing
<v Speaker 2>even more investment in game in the years to come.
<v Speaker 2>Getting our swagger back happens one quality game release at
<v Speaker 2>a time, and our financial credibility gets rebuilt, one fiscal
<v Speaker 2>quarter at a time, delivering what we said would we would.
<v Speaker 1>Deliver and no big negative surprises.
<v Speaker 2>He also described a strategy going forward as fewer games,
<v Speaker 2>but bigger and I got it. I mean to me,
<v Speaker 2>that's what got you into this mess, right is yes?
<v Speaker 1>I mean I.
<v Speaker 2>Suppose like that in their mind, like well, like that
<v Speaker 2>Quidditch game really ruined us, that you know that was
<v Speaker 2>too small and didn't matter, And it's like, ohh is
<v Speaker 2>that really what we're saying here? To me, it seems
<v Speaker 2>like having rock Steady build a game for a very
<v Speaker 2>long time that no one cared about.
<v Speaker 1>That seemed to be the issue big and few.
<v Speaker 2>So you're going back to your point of having very
<v Speaker 2>little faith in Warner Brothers to be able to guide
<v Speaker 2>these studios out of whatever situation that they're in.
<v Speaker 1>I'm right there with you. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, this guy used swagger in his email more
<v Speaker 3>than once. That's all I need to say right here,
<v Speaker 3>kind of like, come on, man, you're not you're not
<v Speaker 3>play in sports. You're not talking about trying to get
<v Speaker 3>your sports team back in the thing. Jesus Christ. I
<v Speaker 3>just it's so disheartening, and I mean it's it's a
<v Speaker 3>it's just to late a symptom of a larger issue. Right.
<v Speaker 3>This is basically the kind of story we've been talking
<v Speaker 3>about for two years now, just in different places. It
<v Speaker 3>just so happens to be one that we saw coming
<v Speaker 3>a mile away, and we're just waiting for that second
<v Speaker 3>shoe to drop it. God that I will now, I
<v Speaker 3>would like, I can't wait. I hope maybe it's me
<v Speaker 3>one day that I'll write the story. It won't be,
<v Speaker 3>but hopefully some day it will be. I would love
<v Speaker 3>to write a wonder Woman story to get that story,
<v Speaker 3>to get to get that. I mean, I'm sure they're
<v Speaker 3>ndaight at the wazoo. But when people stop caring and
<v Speaker 3>they want to tell that story, I would love to
<v Speaker 3>hear what went on in that studio for two years
<v Speaker 3>and the absolute bullshit that they had to put up
<v Speaker 3>with just to have their game canned. It's it's it's infuriating, yep.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely infuriating. YEP.
<v Speaker 2>I mean it just goes back to them wanting to
<v Speaker 2>make a Wonder Woman game kind of probably across the board,
<v Speaker 2>but the udo and the publisher, but the publisher's reasoning
<v Speaker 2>and being like that movie was a hit, and then
<v Speaker 2>the second movie stinks, and now now Wonder Woman feels
<v Speaker 2>like it's very in a very similar position to where
<v Speaker 2>Suicide Squad was after that first movie when they were
<v Speaker 2>working on that game, and it's like no one cared
<v Speaker 2>about this or the franchise has a taint to it
<v Speaker 2>because of the most widely popular available media being something
<v Speaker 2>that people are kind of feeling bad about, and it's like, God,
<v Speaker 2>you kind of this is why you kind of can't
<v Speaker 2>tie these games to something that's going on with the movies,
<v Speaker 2>because the people's movies taste change every three, five, six,
<v Speaker 2>seven years, and that's how long it takes to make
<v Speaker 2>a game. So you are going to continually find yourself
<v Speaker 2>in this situation that you keep going down that road,
<v Speaker 2>and it's like you would have been better off kind
<v Speaker 2>of choosing a different DC character and re establishing it
<v Speaker 2>in gaming, separate from anything that's happening with the movies.
<v Speaker 2>And I think, honestly a lot of us were saying
<v Speaker 2>that at the time, both definitely for Suicide Squad, maybe
<v Speaker 2>less so for a Wonder Woman, uh, but definitely for
<v Speaker 2>Suicide Squad.
<v Speaker 1>So mis management across the board. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>And they're and the managers mostly still there. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 2>I'm not expecting any anything different.
<v Speaker 3>Get you. The people who dismiss they stay their jobs
<v Speaker 3>on their over the hell and the we're grinding everyingle
<v Speaker 3>day to make these things happen are now out on
<v Speaker 3>the street. And it's just it's just like I infuriating
<v Speaker 3>because I want to say, O're trying to keep it clean.
<v Speaker 2>Uh, Chase, you're breaking up a little bit. I don't
<v Speaker 2>know if it's Internet issues or something like that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>just a little bit of glitching.
<v Speaker 1>Uh better. I think it might be coming back a
<v Speaker 1>little bit.
<v Speaker 3>I was shaking. That might have something to do with it.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if it's maybe my wire is a
<v Speaker 3>little okay, uh no, yeah, it.
<v Speaker 1>Does seem like it's coming back.
<v Speaker 3>I think I think I want to keep my hands
<v Speaker 3>above the desk for the rest of the know.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's, it's it's still coming in and out, still
<v Speaker 2>coming in in and out.
<v Speaker 3>Really, Yeah, that's weird.
<v Speaker 2>Let's give it. We'll give it. We'll give it a second.
<v Speaker 2>All in, use the next story and we'll see how
<v Speaker 2>it goes. All right, Yeah, definitely do a handcheck.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>Warner Brothers keeps Nemesis gaming patents despite studio closure, so
<v Speaker 2>god damn it.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Scott Barrett at Dual Shockers.
<v Speaker 2>Warner Brothers may have closed some of its more prominent studios,
<v Speaker 2>but it will retain a patent created in a game
<v Speaker 2>made by one of its now former subsidiaries, the subsidiary
<v Speaker 2>that it closed. The gaming world was shocked when it
<v Speaker 2>revealed that Warner Brothers had canceled the Wonder Woman game
<v Speaker 2>that was first announced back in twenty twenty one and
<v Speaker 2>never had a proper gameplay trailer. Wonder Woman has been
<v Speaker 2>in development for years, and there's a lot of speculation
<v Speaker 2>as to why it would be shut down.
<v Speaker 1>Now.
<v Speaker 2>On top of Wonder Woman's cancelation, Wonder Brothers also announced
<v Speaker 2>that it had closed three of its studios, w B,
<v Speaker 2>San Diego, Player First Games and Monol the Productions, the
<v Speaker 2>last of which was working on Wonder Woman. While WB
<v Speaker 2>may have destroyed Monolith Productions, it still is going to
<v Speaker 2>keep one of the patents made by the company as
<v Speaker 2>Emrond khn of venturebut co confirmed excuse me, Wonder Brothers
<v Speaker 2>will the patent of the Nemesis system from the Lord
<v Speaker 2>of the Rings games produced by Monolith for at least
<v Speaker 2>another decade. The Nemesis system was created for Middle Earth
<v Speaker 2>Shadow of Mordor and used again in its sequel, Shadow
<v Speaker 2>of War. Essentially, the Nemas system allowed players to have
<v Speaker 2>rival characters in the game that would get stronger as
<v Speaker 2>they get defeated. As they defeated the protagonists remaining throughout
<v Speaker 2>the story, Basically they would come back and they would
<v Speaker 2>have their own personalities, and you would then be charged
<v Speaker 2>with going out and hunting them, and then if you
<v Speaker 2>killed them, they might come back later and have like
<v Speaker 2>a wound or something then have like an axe to
<v Speaker 2>grind against you.
<v Speaker 1>It was a very cool thing and Warner Brothers patented it.
<v Speaker 2>They had a patent for this idea of this concept,
<v Speaker 2>and that's one of the reasons we haven't seen it
<v Speaker 2>in other games. I bet there are other reasons where
<v Speaker 2>it's like, you know, it may be difficult to replicate,
<v Speaker 2>but the big reason being the patent and patents last
<v Speaker 2>for twenty years. The Shadow of Mordor game came out
<v Speaker 2>ten years ago, so there's another ten years where Warner
<v Speaker 2>Brothers will sit on this.
<v Speaker 1>And really the expectation here, I think Jason.
<v Speaker 2>Is they we'll just sit on it because it's a
<v Speaker 2>patent and the executives don't know what to do with it.
<v Speaker 2>They wouldn't even know how to leverage it to maybe
<v Speaker 2>get some value out of it by like working with
<v Speaker 2>other publishers and be like, hey, we will lease this
<v Speaker 2>to you or so it's relatively cheap so it makes
<v Speaker 2>sense for you. No, they're just gonna sit on it,
<v Speaker 2>and now they don't have a studio with the expertise
<v Speaker 2>to take advantage of it. This is just such a
<v Speaker 2>black eye for the way this video game industry works.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yes, it is how we feeling, right, I think
<v Speaker 3>we're I think we're doing good. Okay, cool, just goes
<v Speaker 3>back to what we were saying previously. And this is
<v Speaker 3>actually even worse because like it's one thing to have
<v Speaker 3>your IP because it's inside Warner Brothers, it's Batman, it's
<v Speaker 3>all that stuff. This is a potentially game industry changing
<v Speaker 3>system that was started by a company that just happened
<v Speaker 3>to be in your purview and then you locked it
<v Speaker 3>up and you know, let anybody use it. It's basically
<v Speaker 3>taking your ball and going home. I would love to
<v Speaker 3>see variations on this, right, but you can't because anything
<v Speaker 3>that resembles it is gonna is gonna influence this patent.
<v Speaker 3>So could they sell the patent? Could they?
<v Speaker 1>They could?
<v Speaker 3>Could they do something like that?
<v Speaker 2>I I mean, but I think we know that what
<v Speaker 2>they're going to do. And it's nothing because like that,
<v Speaker 2>like we know corporations work.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you have something, and can you.
<v Speaker 2>Unless you have like feel full ownership of it, you're
<v Speaker 2>you don't even really know like how to like approach
<v Speaker 2>doing something with this thing. And so everyone just kind
<v Speaker 2>of does nothing and sits around and like, let's it
<v Speaker 2>sit like sit over there in the filing cabinet. That's
<v Speaker 2>what's gonna happen here. And and it's very frustrating. As
<v Speaker 2>you point out, we would love to see variations on it.
<v Speaker 2>We would love to see the industry riff on this idea.
<v Speaker 2>And that's not like some novel concept. That is video
<v Speaker 2>game software development from the very beginning. I always harp
<v Speaker 2>on this that from the beginning, we made video If
<v Speaker 2>someone made a video game at you know, Stanford or
<v Speaker 2>whatever the hell, it was Space War and a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of nerds went there and couldn't stop playing it, and
<v Speaker 2>then they're like, I'm gonna take this and I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to copy it basically beat for beat and make my
<v Speaker 2>own version of this and put it in the arcade,
<v Speaker 2>and someone else did the exacts. The first two games
<v Speaker 2>after Space War were Space War Clones, and then the
<v Speaker 2>next game after that kind of basically Pong, and then
<v Speaker 2>there were fifty Pong clones.
<v Speaker 1>And that is the story of the industry.
<v Speaker 2>People like you know, pac Man, pac Man clones, Space Invaders,
<v Speaker 2>Space Invader's Clones, just.
<v Speaker 1>Keep going down the line Doom. There are Doom likes.
<v Speaker 2>And the industry was vibrant because of this, because it
<v Speaker 2>did actually breed competition and a new idea is coming
<v Speaker 2>out of the same basic formula. And it has always worked.
<v Speaker 2>It has always been good. There are definitely times when
<v Speaker 2>people have put out a game and like some mobile
<v Speaker 2>developer will copy it exactly, and that is one of
<v Speaker 2>the issues with this, but you know, we.
<v Speaker 1>Will still have that.
<v Speaker 2>That still happens, and in the meantime, Warner Brothers gets
<v Speaker 2>the patent. This idea, patents and software development continue to
<v Speaker 2>be just mostly a terrible thing. And you know it's
<v Speaker 2>why I will continue whenever someone like works in open
<v Speaker 2>source development, like you are saying thank you so much,
<v Speaker 2>like we need more of that, and that continues to
<v Speaker 2>be like a closely held belief by many people who
<v Speaker 2>do work in software that these things should be shared
<v Speaker 2>with one another. And so when a corporation comes in
<v Speaker 2>be like it was like we own that. They didn't
<v Speaker 2>even they didn't even create it. The people that created
<v Speaker 2>this don't work there anymore. It's very, very frustrating to me, Jason.
<v Speaker 3>It is iteration sometimes breeds innovation, and all those examples
<v Speaker 3>you just said are perfect. I would also add that
<v Speaker 3>Mario obviously Supermeer Brothers then brought in all the platformers
<v Speaker 3>like sock At the Hedgehog and the true pinnacle of
<v Speaker 3>our industry bubbsy, So I couldn't say that was a
<v Speaker 3>straight face.
<v Speaker 2>The pinnacle didn't happen until Blues Brothers two thousand.
<v Speaker 3>Please, that's right, that's right. Go watch Blake Club. Good. Great,
<v Speaker 3>that was a great pitch. But no, it's all it's
<v Speaker 3>just the same. We keep going back to this, to this,
<v Speaker 3>to the same basic argument that the people who make
<v Speaker 3>the decisions don't know how to make the decisions that
<v Speaker 3>they're responsible of making. And then something stupid like this happens,
<v Speaker 3>where again, this beautiful technology is just sitting there with
<v Speaker 3>you know, gathering digital dust in a patent and the
<v Speaker 3>and the patent paper work is in a drawer somewhere.
<v Speaker 3>They're gonna probably forget about it. Watch at this rate,
<v Speaker 3>zas Lave will finally get kicked out at some point,
<v Speaker 3>they'll forget about it. At twenty thirty four, it'll just
<v Speaker 3>go away and that'll be that. It's it's it's annoying
<v Speaker 3>and it's frustrating and it sucks. And I hope that somebody,
<v Speaker 3>somebody can make them a deal where they can be like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, we want to use this. I don't know
<v Speaker 3>who it would be. I don't know where they would
<v Speaker 3>come from, or how much money it would take. Probably
<v Speaker 3>more than it's actually worth, of course.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think what I would like to see is
<v Speaker 2>an indie studio just go make a game with the
<v Speaker 2>Nemesis system in it, and see they probably would even.
<v Speaker 1>Sue you, because like that, they would have to like
<v Speaker 1>enforce it.
<v Speaker 2>They would have to be like, because there's no like
<v Speaker 2>patent cop out there patrolling the streets being like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>so hey, I know who someone owns that patent.
<v Speaker 1>It would be on one brothers to have to enforce
<v Speaker 1>it themselves.
<v Speaker 2>And maybe they would be too lazy, too stupid, too distracted,
<v Speaker 2>too incompetent to enforce it.
<v Speaker 1>That would actually be my guess is how this would
<v Speaker 1>go down.
<v Speaker 3>Now, I wonder if, like Nemesis system, the whole point
<v Speaker 3>is the more you encounter someone, the stronger they get
<v Speaker 3>and the more difficult they get. Could they try and
<v Speaker 3>spin this as like relationships in games, the more you
<v Speaker 3>talk to someone, your stronger your relationship gets. Is that
<v Speaker 3>a Nemesis system, Like, I hate to put that out
<v Speaker 3>in the universe.
<v Speaker 2>No, I don't think so, because I think like you
<v Speaker 2>have to be a very specific thing of an enemy,
<v Speaker 2>like the way these patents are written, it's they're pretty,
<v Speaker 2>they're usually very narrow. That doesn't stop companies that have
<v Speaker 2>patents from being patent trolls and being like, hey, this
<v Speaker 2>is a violation, We're going.
<v Speaker 1>To sue you, or you know, you could just settle.
<v Speaker 2>And Warner Brothers absolutely could end up being a patent
<v Speaker 2>troll that way, for sure. I just I guess would
<v Speaker 2>be they just looking at that company, they wouldn't even
<v Speaker 2>have the sort.
<v Speaker 3>Of the.
<v Speaker 1>Wherewithal to figure that out.
<v Speaker 2>But you know, maybe that's maybe that's optimistic thinking that
<v Speaker 2>they're too stupid to know what they have. All right,
<v Speaker 2>let's uh, let's keep moving here. More than forty percent
<v Speaker 2>of all USPS five and Xbox playtime last month was
<v Speaker 2>spent on ten live service games. It's this story again, basically,
<v Speaker 2>we've had this for a while that hey, there's a
<v Speaker 2>handful of games that continue to just be these black
<v Speaker 2>hole games that swallow up a ton of the industry.
<v Speaker 2>Do you do you think that this is gonna like
<v Speaker 2>this number forty of playtime It kind of has hovered
<v Speaker 2>around there.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that that continues to grow?
<v Speaker 2>Do you think it shrinks or do you think it
<v Speaker 2>kind of maintains at that level going forward. Do you
<v Speaker 2>think that there's gonna be more people and as they
<v Speaker 2>come into gaming, they're like, I'm just gonna go play
<v Speaker 2>Fortnite in Roadblocks and Call of Duty?
<v Speaker 3>I could. I mean, my first inclination is, yes, I
<v Speaker 3>think it's going to grow, maybe not significantly, but at
<v Speaker 3>least a little bit, maybe get to fifty percent, because
<v Speaker 3>how many of these people that are contributing to this
<v Speaker 3>would never play video games anyway, and they're the only
<v Speaker 3>games they play, whether it's because they're playing with their
<v Speaker 3>friends or they've heard of called due to their whole life,
<v Speaker 3>or Roadblocks is kid friendly or Minecraft actually is kid
<v Speaker 3>friendly and they're just kind of filtered there because that's
<v Speaker 3>all the parents know too, right, going back to the
<v Speaker 3>people who still call it Nintendo, They've heard of Minecraft
<v Speaker 3>because it's everywhere. They've heard of Fortnite because it's everywhere,
<v Speaker 3>so that's what they send their kids towards. I've had
<v Speaker 3>many conversations with people who are like, what do you
<v Speaker 3>think about Roadblocks? And that's a whole different story. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>just I think this number is always going to be
<v Speaker 3>somewhere in the forty to fifty range. Percent range, just
<v Speaker 3>because they're so popular and they're free, which helps so
<v Speaker 3>the parents don't have to put any financial responsibility into it.
<v Speaker 3>It's not like the barrier of buying a console. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I don't see this going away anytime soon unless something
<v Speaker 3>happens to the games them elves where they go away,
<v Speaker 3>But that's never going to happen because with this playtime
<v Speaker 3>comes a lot of money. They're very lucrative games. I
<v Speaker 3>think the five one of the stats here, it pertains
<v Speaker 3>the twenty twenty three, but it means it names great
<v Speaker 3>examples of these games. Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto five, which
<v Speaker 3>will stonent be six, but I don't think that's going
<v Speaker 3>to do anything to playtime. League of Legends, Minecraft and
<v Speaker 3>Roadblocks huge games never going anywhere. Now would sports games
<v Speaker 3>fit into this as well? Like is FIFA because of
<v Speaker 3>or FC excuse me because of Ultimate Team? Is that
<v Speaker 3>live service or is it not? It just has a
<v Speaker 3>live service element, so that kind of plays into it too.
<v Speaker 3>Sports will always be popular. Some people will only play
<v Speaker 3>sports games because they love the sports they come from,
<v Speaker 3>so I don't think it's ever going away. But I
<v Speaker 3>also don't think that I think the the main challenge
<v Speaker 3>here is for the industry is getting these people who
<v Speaker 3>are only playing these live services games to make the
<v Speaker 3>jump right to be like that's why I think they
<v Speaker 3>focus so much on IP collaborations at the moment, like
<v Speaker 3>teenage routing Ninja Turtles being in Call of Duty is absurd.
<v Speaker 3>But if some kid who you know falls to peer
<v Speaker 3>pressure a lot, sees the Ninja Turtles in Call of Duty,
<v Speaker 3>they might think, whoa, what makes the Call of Duty
<v Speaker 3>so cool? And if it's I'm sorry, the Ninja Turtles
<v Speaker 3>seems so cool, and if his friends go there too,
<v Speaker 3>he's going to figure out. And then they had Ninja
<v Speaker 3>Turtle fans, and that that is why I think this
<v Speaker 3>keeps happening. Yes, but that's to go back to the
<v Speaker 3>playtime thing. No, I don't think this is ever going
<v Speaker 3>away just because these games will always be popular as
<v Speaker 3>long as they continue to make money.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think what happens here is that you mentioned
<v Speaker 2>trying to get people to jump over, and it's like,
<v Speaker 2>I maybe they have to find different kinds of players
<v Speaker 2>that like actually want to jump around from games, and
<v Speaker 2>those people will exist separate from the people who only
<v Speaker 2>are in these live service games, but in that case,
<v Speaker 2>I think even someone that comes into gaming for single player,
<v Speaker 2>narrative driven RPGs and stuff probably finds themselves at least
<v Speaker 2>a portion of them also jumping into Fortnite with their friends.
<v Speaker 2>The friend want to play video games, so it's like
<v Speaker 2>everything will benefit from that, except for maybe like live
<v Speaker 2>service will always.
<v Speaker 1>Be a benefit for more people coming in.
<v Speaker 2>That's why it will continue to grow and continue to
<v Speaker 2>be like this, at least this size in the industry.
<v Speaker 2>I think the dynamism of, hey, are people buying a
<v Speaker 2>lot of different kinds of games, That will have to
<v Speaker 2>come from attracting the kinds.
<v Speaker 1>Of people who are into that idea in the first place.
<v Speaker 2>And the people who came into gaming for free to
<v Speaker 2>play live service games to play with their friends.
<v Speaker 1>We're probably never going to be that kind of person.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, and you know the other side of that
<v Speaker 2>is okay, Well, then do these companies are they interested
<v Speaker 2>in the demand from the people that want to play
<v Speaker 2>a lot of different kinds of games, or do they
<v Speaker 2>continue to hear the siren song of we maybe we
<v Speaker 2>could be the eleventh game.
<v Speaker 1>On this list, the eleventh black Hole game. I think
<v Speaker 1>they continue to hear that, and.
<v Speaker 2>That yes, is a problem for expecting to get a
<v Speaker 2>lot of variety from big companies, Warner Brothers themselves saying
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna make fewer games, fewer and bigger.
<v Speaker 1>So that doesn't sound great to me.
<v Speaker 3>No, it does. It's a fallacy to think because people
<v Speaker 3>own there's only so many gamers. There's a lot of them,
<v Speaker 3>but there's only so many gamers and so much attention
<v Speaker 3>span to go around, and eventually you're going to have
<v Speaker 3>people who are loyal to these ten live service games.
<v Speaker 3>I would consider myself most loyal to Fortnite. It's the
<v Speaker 3>one I play the most. It just is. My kids
<v Speaker 3>would say Minecraft. They play a lot of Minecraft together.
<v Speaker 3>They each go into each other's worlds on their switches.
<v Speaker 3>They're just in their own little isolated spots, so they
<v Speaker 3>would say Minecraft. I have friends who love League of Legends,
<v Speaker 3>including one lurking on this call. I have people who
<v Speaker 3>play GTA online all the time. I have people who
<v Speaker 3>I try to tell not to play Roadblocks, but that's
<v Speaker 3>another story. They just that's what they play, and that's
<v Speaker 3>the one they're going to be dedicated to. Are they
<v Speaker 3>going to have the bandwidth to try number eleven? I
<v Speaker 3>think no. I think there's a yard full of IP
<v Speaker 3>that would.
<v Speaker 2>Say no, yep, And like, you know, what does happen
<v Speaker 2>is the games keep getting bigger. Roadblocks has been around
<v Speaker 2>since two thousand and six. Yeah, they just they just
<v Speaker 2>add more stuff to that, and people just continue to
<v Speaker 2>glom onto that, and then if they stop playing that,
<v Speaker 2>they graduate to one of these other live service games.
<v Speaker 1>We have stories of Grand Theft Auto.
<v Speaker 2>Uh, you know the rock Star planning to have huge
<v Speaker 2>user generated content plans.
<v Speaker 1>For GTA six online.
<v Speaker 2>It's like, yeah, you want to be the adult Roadblocks,
<v Speaker 2>and that will certainly be a likely scenario for what
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna end up seeing from that game.
<v Speaker 3>God, could you imagine? Yep?
<v Speaker 2>I mean yeah, they already have a lot of creator
<v Speaker 2>levels in that game that like to make make that
<v Speaker 2>a focus and make that central to it.
<v Speaker 3>And that's I can imagine. It's not even getting into
<v Speaker 3>the private roleplay servers that have become ubiquitous with that game.
<v Speaker 2>And they acquired the role playing server company and so
<v Speaker 2>they're going to have that built into the game as well.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna be a very weird time once GTAs six.
<v Speaker 2>So just to figure out what that game even is
<v Speaker 2>to a lot of people.
<v Speaker 1>Sure, all right, let's take a quick break.
<v Speaker 2>We will come right back after this with plenty of
<v Speaker 2>more headlines, including Mecha Break doing very very well.
<v Speaker 1>It came popped off. We'll talk about that right after this.
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's get right back into it. Mecha Break
<v Speaker 2>beta hit three hundred thousand concurrent players and broke servers.
<v Speaker 2>This is in Blair Marnell at game Spot. Late last
<v Speaker 2>week and Amazing Seasun Games launched the latest beta test
<v Speaker 2>for Mecca Break, a new cooperative shooter game that's basically
<v Speaker 2>Armored Corps by way of Titan Fall. I did download
<v Speaker 2>this because I noticed that I'm like, boy, that sounds cool.
<v Speaker 2>If the initial wave of three hundred thousand concurrent players
<v Speaker 2>is indy indication, Mecha Break could be well on its
<v Speaker 2>way toward being a hit. However, all those players led
<v Speaker 2>to some of Mecca Breaks servers going down and a
<v Speaker 2>message on Mecha Breaks a fi social media channels. Amazing
<v Speaker 2>Seasun Games apologize to players for the server problems and
<v Speaker 2>promise to send out three batches of Ultimate Maintenance Box. Basically,
<v Speaker 2>they're just sending you a freebies in the game.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what any of those words mean. I
<v Speaker 1>mostly want to talk about this because it's.
<v Speaker 2>Like, man, God, these games are still popping out out
<v Speaker 2>of nowhere for me where it's like, yeah, sure, I
<v Speaker 2>had heard about Mecca Break.
<v Speaker 1>We saw trailers for it.
<v Speaker 2>I think it was maybe it was in the Kileies
<v Speaker 2>something like that, and I'm like, oh, that that looks
<v Speaker 2>pretty cool.
<v Speaker 1>I'll check that out.
<v Speaker 3>I was not.
<v Speaker 2>I did not know that this was a game that
<v Speaker 2>was primed to have three hundred thousand concurrent players on Steam,
<v Speaker 2>which people that may maybe don't know that's a massive number.
<v Speaker 2>That's more than any just about any other game you
<v Speaker 2>can think of gets, let alone in a beta.
<v Speaker 1>That's so yeah, this is this is nuts.
<v Speaker 2>I think the story I take away here is games
<v Speaker 2>can still do this, and then whether or not they
<v Speaker 2>can maintain it is a whole other story. But the
<v Speaker 2>fact that this is still there are people thirsty for
<v Speaker 2>something new, speaks to yeah, more games might be able
<v Speaker 2>to join that cadre, at least temporarily, of the ten
<v Speaker 2>games we just talked about in the last story, right, all.
<v Speaker 3>Right, But also too, this is an idea that maybe
<v Speaker 3>in practice is not that much different from the live
<v Speaker 3>services games. But it's Big Mechs, Armored Corps and Titanfall.
<v Speaker 3>It has its own it feels different, so people are
<v Speaker 3>going to flock to it. And yes, you are correct,
<v Speaker 3>they basically, if I go back to my email history correctly,
<v Speaker 3>I believe they basically saved all of their trailers and
<v Speaker 3>big news for Keeley related events games Com. They were
<v Speaker 3>at the last two Game Awards. I believe they were
<v Speaker 3>at twenty three and twenty twenty four, which is also
<v Speaker 3>pretty intelligent for a new studio with a brand new
<v Speaker 3>game like that, because that's where all the eyes go, right.
<v Speaker 3>Forty million viewers or whatever it was for the last
<v Speaker 3>two Game Awards, not combined each, that's a lot of
<v Speaker 3>people seeing these trailers and they see Big Mechs blast
<v Speaker 3>it all around and all this, and they go, okay,
<v Speaker 3>I'll give it a shot, and all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 3>here we are three hundred thousand current players breaking the servers.
<v Speaker 3>Can they maintain that we will see? That remains to
<v Speaker 3>be seen. But the fact that that's even possible should
<v Speaker 3>be a nice little beacon or a blueprint of how
<v Speaker 3>to make this happen instead of what we were speaking
<v Speaker 3>about before. I think it's really cool, and I think
<v Speaker 3>they They've also done a very good job of getting
<v Speaker 3>their word out to press like us. I've seen a
<v Speaker 3>lot of emails talking about Mecca Break from these dudes,
<v Speaker 3>which then leads to us, you know, previewing it or
<v Speaker 3>what have you, And then that is another avenue to
<v Speaker 3>get some word of mouth out. It's word of mouth,
<v Speaker 3>like I just said, in practice, I feel like that people.
<v Speaker 3>I think people now really devalue word of mouth or
<v Speaker 3>don't put as much emphasis on it as they used to.
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes the only thing a game needs to get huge
<v Speaker 3>is friends telling friends, Hey, this is this is pretty cool.
<v Speaker 3>Granted a lot of that is probably helped by Hey,
<v Speaker 3>I watched this YouTuber play it. If I'm being honest,
<v Speaker 3>but still YouTuber plays it, the kid watches it, tells
<v Speaker 3>their friends all of a sudden, they're all in, right,
<v Speaker 3>So I mean, I like it. I think it's I
<v Speaker 3>think it's good for them. I hope it continues and
<v Speaker 3>it breaks. I kind of hope it breaks more servers
<v Speaker 3>just so they could be like, hey, we're trying, but
<v Speaker 3>you guys keep making us very popular. We can only
<v Speaker 3>go we can only be so popular. Guys, give us,
<v Speaker 3>give us a minute. But hey, good for them. I
<v Speaker 3>like seeing new ips break out like this, and I
<v Speaker 3>hope it lasts for a good amount of time, especially
<v Speaker 3>considering the ten Goliaths we just spoke about.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm gonna see
<v Speaker 2>it for myself. It looks pretty interesting. Yeah, yeah, we'll
<v Speaker 2>kind of take it from there.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's keep going here.
<v Speaker 2>Three years later, the steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming.
<v Speaker 2>This is from Sean Hollister at The Verge. Today is
<v Speaker 2>the third anniversary of valves Steam Deck, the handheld gaming
<v Speaker 2>PC that all but created the market for handheld gaming PCs.
<v Speaker 2>We all know there was stuff before that, but come on, everybody,
<v Speaker 2>it was a.
<v Speaker 1>Mess to start.
<v Speaker 2>But three years later, the Verge has data showing how
<v Speaker 2>it has dominated the nascent market. While Valve told us
<v Speaker 2>in November twenty two, twenty three that had sold multiple
<v Speaker 2>millions of the AMD powered handheld, we've never had a
<v Speaker 2>good glimpse at how big it is or how Windows
<v Speaker 2>competitors stack up.
<v Speaker 1>Until now.
<v Speaker 2>It seems the steam Deck so far has been bigger
<v Speaker 2>than all of its competitors. Competitors Combined Market research firm
<v Speaker 2>IDC uses supply chains to estimate just how many handheld
<v Speaker 2>gaming systems have shipped around the world and creates spending
<v Speaker 2>forecasts based on that data when asked. When they asked
<v Speaker 2>IDC Market research analyst Lewis, a Ward shout out to
<v Speaker 2>Lewis' friend of mine if he'd be willing to isolate Steam,
<v Speaker 2>ossens and Windows gaming handhelds from that data.
<v Speaker 1>He said yes.
<v Speaker 2>So here are the estimates combined shipment of the Steam
<v Speaker 2>Deck and the Windows based Asus rog Ally, Lenovo, Legion
<v Speaker 2>Go and MSI Claw from twenty twenty two through twenty
<v Speaker 2>twenty four, and an estimating an estimate for twenty twenty five. Basically,
<v Speaker 2>they have the numbers break down to there have been
<v Speaker 2>probably around four ish million of these things sold and actually,
<v Speaker 2>excuse me, six million of these shipped over three years,
<v Speaker 2>and about sixty six percent ish of those are Steam Decks.
<v Speaker 2>You know, those are general figures, but that's how it
<v Speaker 2>break down. The Verge has more specific numbers, and of
<v Speaker 2>course that comes from IDC's estimates and data. That is
<v Speaker 2>that sounds about right to me, and I think the
<v Speaker 2>good news there is that Steam Deck based on the
<v Speaker 2>name and people just like being like, oh, I see
<v Speaker 2>this thing when I open up Steam, so this is
<v Speaker 2>the default thing. People are shopping around and picking the
<v Speaker 2>one that's right for them, and a lot of these
<v Speaker 2>other ones are selling pretty well, even if the steam
<v Speaker 2>Deck is kind of barreling over everything. In total, it's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>it's not like eighty five percent, which you know it easily.
<v Speaker 1>Could have been.
<v Speaker 2>It's like no, no, people want that Roger ally and
<v Speaker 2>it's doing just as well. I think overall, what these
<v Speaker 2>numbers say, though, Jason, is this is a very healthy,
<v Speaker 2>fast growing market, especially when you think about the way
<v Speaker 2>other like you know, laptop PCs might sell. These things
<v Speaker 2>are selling better than most of those.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And I think that as it goes back to convenience, right,
<v Speaker 3>if there's something about lugging a heavy gaming laptop with
<v Speaker 3>a giant brick everywhere you go, or you just have
<v Speaker 3>this handheld. Sure, battery life is an issue, but that's
<v Speaker 3>an issue on laptops too. That doesn't really matter, and
<v Speaker 3>it's much easier to plug this in than it is
<v Speaker 3>to plug in the big brick. I'm not surprised too,
<v Speaker 3>that the steam Deck is the leader of this. As
<v Speaker 3>you said, it was the first one kind of to
<v Speaker 3>create this new market. It's sort of started everything back
<v Speaker 3>in twenty twenty two. But also too the main ones
<v Speaker 3>as you listed here, Asis, Lenovo, and MSI. Even people
<v Speaker 3>who are loyal to those three brands for their PCs,
<v Speaker 3>Steams Universal steams on all three, and they're all playing
<v Speaker 3>their games on Steam. So they hear portable PC, they're
<v Speaker 3>going to go to Steam first. Granted, the Steam Deck
<v Speaker 3>thanks to its Linux background or whatever it is. On
<v Speaker 3>the actual thing, it's not as universal like Legion Go
<v Speaker 3>is a Windows eleven PC. I happen to hold like this,
<v Speaker 3>so that makes it a little more makes the barrier
<v Speaker 3>of entry a little lower for me personally. But I'm
<v Speaker 3>a PC idiot. I will be the first one to
<v Speaker 3>tell you that. But but I think that, as you said,
<v Speaker 3>the fact that it's only sixty six percent kind of
<v Speaker 3>goes to the quality and possibility of the idea in general.
<v Speaker 3>Do they have Nintendo to thank for that with the
<v Speaker 3>switch kind of setting portable big handheld gaming with the
<v Speaker 3>Switch back at twenty seventeen. That's an argument for another time,
<v Speaker 3>but I think that Steam kind of seeing that and
<v Speaker 3>being like, hmm, can we do this with Steam and
<v Speaker 3>a PC? And then boom, here we go. I think
<v Speaker 3>it was smart. I think it was it was they
<v Speaker 3>were the right ones to do it. I don't think
<v Speaker 3>a PC company like Asis or Lenovo would have been
<v Speaker 3>as successful if the steamback weren't first. I think the
<v Speaker 3>steam deck had to be first to make this nascent
<v Speaker 3>market what it is.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we saw a lot of you know, Chinese companies
<v Speaker 2>that excuse me, were in this space even before Valve,
<v Speaker 2>and that's how it worked. It was a very very
<v Speaker 2>tiny category. I would look over and be like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I want one of those things. That'd be a neat
<v Speaker 2>way to do that. They're not super powerful, but I'll
<v Speaker 2>be able to play some games on there. And they
<v Speaker 2>were weird and cumbersome and very very expensive.
<v Speaker 1>They were usually.
<v Speaker 2>Starting around eleven hundred dollars. Really the one you wanted
<v Speaker 2>was like thirteen hundred dollars. Like so, I can never
<v Speaker 2>justify it. And then you know, Steam came in with
<v Speaker 2>a subsidized Steam Deck and really set a standard for
<v Speaker 2>the market. And I think it's easy to forget this was.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's three years old. It's been three years
<v Speaker 2>and they have already kind of established what is clearly
<v Speaker 2>a new pillar for selling a hardware to people, video
<v Speaker 2>game hardware two people. I also think that you know,
<v Speaker 2>this is the first go around. Still, really I think
<v Speaker 2>when they do have a steam Deck two that will
<v Speaker 2>be primed, I think to pop off much faster, much quicker.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the numbers that Lewis Ward provided here was like,
<v Speaker 2>in the first year, they sold about one point six
<v Speaker 2>million of these things. This is for the combined sales
<v Speaker 2>of the steam Deck, Roger Ally, Lenoo, Legion Go and
<v Speaker 2>MSI Claw.
<v Speaker 1>Obviously those weren't a lot in twenty twenty.
<v Speaker 2>Two, but for the category, the one point six million
<v Speaker 2>in the first year, two point five six million in
<v Speaker 2>the next, than down to one point four or five, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>four or five the year after that, and then the
<v Speaker 2>estimate for twenty twenty five is it will jump back
<v Speaker 2>up to one.
<v Speaker 1>Point nine million.
<v Speaker 2>These are not not Switch numbers. These are not you know,
<v Speaker 2>these are not even Xbox numbers. Let's be clear, Xbox
<v Speaker 2>selling much faster than this. But this is a brand
<v Speaker 2>new category. It is having a little bit ups and downs,
<v Speaker 2>but it's kind of bouncing back up, and so I
<v Speaker 2>think it is going to be a permanent fixture here.
<v Speaker 2>And like I said, steam Deck two comes. I think
<v Speaker 2>it really sells much faster than this.
<v Speaker 1>What do you think kind.
<v Speaker 3>Of reflects you know, how people view gaming in general.
<v Speaker 3>You have your console, your players for your Xbox, your PlayStation,
<v Speaker 3>and that whole group. PC gaming has always been there, yep, right,
<v Speaker 3>They've always been people who are loyal to just playing
<v Speaker 3>on PC. Now they just have a new way to
<v Speaker 3>do that. So while you're saying they're not Xbox numbers,
<v Speaker 3>the not Switch numbers, they are numbers comparable to the
<v Speaker 3>loyal PC game game fan base who want a handheld
<v Speaker 3>gaming experience as close to granted, it's not you know,
<v Speaker 3>keyboard and mouse. You're not gonna be able to do
<v Speaker 3>that on a handheld unless you Jerry Rickett and there's
<v Speaker 3>hdmiports or what have you. But being able to take
<v Speaker 3>the progress that you've made in a Balder's Gate on
<v Speaker 3>Steam or something like that and just putting it in
<v Speaker 3>your hands, that's very intriguing for people who can't lug
<v Speaker 3>their PC across the country when they're traveling, so they
<v Speaker 3>bring the Steam Deck and said, it makes perfect sense
<v Speaker 3>to me that even though, like you said, they're not
<v Speaker 3>selling Gangbusters like the biggest names in console gaming. It
<v Speaker 3>is a very healthy number simply because the PC gamers
<v Speaker 3>want the option.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, absolutely, all right, let's move along here.
<v Speaker 2>After Silent Hell two remakes success, Konami and blueber are
<v Speaker 2>teaming up again. This is from Michael mcwerder at Polygon.
<v Speaker 2>Konami is once again in trusting Blueber Team, the developer
<v Speaker 2>of twenty twenty fours outstanding remake of Silent Hill two,
<v Speaker 2>with its intellectual property for a new game. The publisher
<v Speaker 2>and developer announced a second collaboration on Tuesday, but did
<v Speaker 2>not disclose which game or ip blueber Team would be developing.
<v Speaker 2>Viaboration with Konamia has been incredibly fruitful, and the success
<v Speaker 2>of Silent Hill too speaks for itself.
<v Speaker 1>Bluebird Team CEO Peter Torror.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Peter Bebin Babino, I'm gonna say, Peter Babino has
<v Speaker 2>said in a news release. By sharing knowledge and experience,
<v Speaker 2>we have been able to create high quality production together.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, we can't reveal too many details at this time,
<v Speaker 2>but we are confident that fans will be just as
<v Speaker 2>excited about our collaboration as we are. We can't wait
<v Speaker 2>to share something truly special with players when the time
<v Speaker 2>is right, they're probably making another sound Hill, right.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, mus be like what I'm looking at there at
<v Speaker 3>the Konami list right here? What other Well, if we're
<v Speaker 3>talking about horror horror, Jason, what would a Bluebird team
<v Speaker 3>Castlevania look like?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean I think that they will probably have
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more free rang to maybe do some
<v Speaker 2>stuff going down the line. But yeah, it's like, God,
<v Speaker 2>you probably like try to get some of those other
<v Speaker 2>sound Hills out of the way first, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>see if they can replicate the success because you know one,
<v Speaker 2>you know that sound Hill two. I think it's got
<v Speaker 2>to be the best selling silent Hill game of all time.
<v Speaker 2>It has to be c Yeah, and yeah, right if not,
<v Speaker 2>if it's not, if it's close to, it's doing very
<v Speaker 2>very well. So this worked, This worked, and you probably
<v Speaker 2>if it's something works, you're probably gonna go do it again.
<v Speaker 2>But I think what they're saying here is these these
<v Speaker 2>two entities really trust each other and we'll probably continue
<v Speaker 2>this really like have this relationship develop even more going
<v Speaker 2>down the line. You know they probably do they go
<v Speaker 2>to Soundhill three. I don't know the sound Hill one
<v Speaker 2>need a remake in the fans opinion.
<v Speaker 1>I have no idea.
<v Speaker 3>I could see one, I could see three. I could
<v Speaker 3>see an original based on that they get they use
<v Speaker 3>the Silent Hill to remake to kind of get their
<v Speaker 3>feel within the franchise, and then try some original story
<v Speaker 3>after that. I think that makes logical sense.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Chet saying one or three is reliant on one,
<v Speaker 2>So that makes sense.
<v Speaker 3>You have to do one first in order to do three.
<v Speaker 3>That makes sense. Yeah, I mean Silent hillm does make
<v Speaker 3>the most sense. It was I I mean I might
<v Speaker 3>be speaking for myself here, but I had very little
<v Speaker 3>expectations for that and it absolutely blew everyone that ever
<v Speaker 3>played it away. Now granted, I'm not the most storied
<v Speaker 3>horror gamer. You know again, I don't trust my family history,
<v Speaker 3>but I just I could not believe how much people
<v Speaker 3>glombed onto that remake as a quality. And maybe that's
<v Speaker 3>just the mistrust of Konami not so much Blueber Team,
<v Speaker 3>but it was definitely both going into Yeah, but this
<v Speaker 3>perfect storm might create even more good stuff, So yeah,
<v Speaker 3>go back to one, then do three or do something original.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe find a way to I guess you couldn't combine
<v Speaker 3>one in three. I have to see how one plays
<v Speaker 3>into that I'm not familiar with, and I.
<v Speaker 2>Think they would like do it separate and make maximize
<v Speaker 2>the return on that cont you know. I think someone
<v Speaker 2>in chat suggested they could like reuse the assets that
<v Speaker 2>they make for one in three.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, they could bubble them together.
<v Speaker 2>But I think what the idea would be, like, let's
<v Speaker 2>make one and then let's make three, and we'll be
<v Speaker 2>able to save a lot of money and the process
<v Speaker 2>of making three because we just we just did one
<v Speaker 2>and then we can make you kind of double our money.
<v Speaker 3>Sort of situation. I could seeing that round. You could
<v Speaker 3>sell it as a trilogy. Yeah, and all that stuff too. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that does make but yeah, so one being next, the
<v Speaker 3>more that chat Hammer's at home, it does make sense.
<v Speaker 3>Good job, chat.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, good work.
<v Speaker 2>Third co host, uh Ninja five to zero is out now.
<v Speaker 1>This game is costs a lot.
<v Speaker 2>Of money if you try to buy it like a
<v Speaker 2>shoot copy for your Game Boy Advance, but it's it's yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but you can get it for much cheaper than that
<v Speaker 2>now and it's for every console and PC. Basically it's yeah,
<v Speaker 2>twenty five dollars and Ninja five oh is a really
<v Speaker 2>really solid game. This is I think this is Konami
<v Speaker 2>as well. I think, yeah, Konami made this game. I think, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>this is Konami, and uh hey, I'm really glad they
<v Speaker 2>did this. I never thought they would. I like Ninja five,
<v Speaker 2>oh a whole bunch. It's worth playing. It's kind of
<v Speaker 2>a side scrolling action ninja game, and it's it's totally
<v Speaker 2>It's got a really good look, just like most game
<v Speaker 2>Boy Advanced games do. So I highly recommend it out now.
<v Speaker 2>But Gonami got their ship together, huh yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Like they're all of a sudden, they're following the the
<v Speaker 3>Capcom blueprint that we've talked about many times before. Could
<v Speaker 3>you remakes to kind of build up your coffers a
<v Speaker 3>little bit Metal Gear and Silent Hill, you bring back
<v Speaker 3>old franchises. There's what there will be three twenty twenty
<v Speaker 3>five Ninja guiding games between two four and Rage Bound.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, Like that's wait, that is that Konomia? Is that Namco?
<v Speaker 1>Is it coy techeech Co? Text? Yes, technow yes, you
<v Speaker 1>know like not he made the same mistake on a show.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah it's everybody ye uh uh but no yeah you
<v Speaker 3>you you you go god.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but that's embarrassing then that the same Mike's the
<v Speaker 2>same thing. He was so embarrassed by it, and I
<v Speaker 2>gotta say, I think that makes it even more embas
<v Speaker 2>it's such a I think it's such a normal thing
<v Speaker 2>to conflate, like I get it, like I would have
<v Speaker 2>thought the same thing previously.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure.
<v Speaker 2>But hey, I think that you're right to say that
<v Speaker 2>Konami is falling that template. And you know, having a
<v Speaker 2>variety of different ideas that they are attacking remakes new
<v Speaker 2>games based on franchise, on classic franchises was like Silent
<v Speaker 2>Hell f or whatever it was, and then bringing back
<v Speaker 2>classic games just as they are or in packages or
<v Speaker 2>in collections, and that's you know, Ninja five zero good
<v Speaker 2>example of that as well.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, it's the one good cop game. It's more
<v Speaker 1>Ninja than Cop, everybody, So don't worry about it. It's
<v Speaker 1>all good, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Last couple of stories. Sonic Rumble is now coming a
<v Speaker 2>little later than expected. This is from Ben Lyons at
<v Speaker 2>Game Reactor. If you have been keeping an eye out
<v Speaker 2>for Sonic Rumble and have been counting down the days
<v Speaker 2>until the until the winter comes to a close and
<v Speaker 2>the game is supposed to debut, we have a little
<v Speaker 2>bad news for you. The game that was originally expected
<v Speaker 2>to launch in winter has been delayed and now you
<v Speaker 2>will be now it will be coming sometime in spring.
<v Speaker 2>There is no new exact release date, but just a
<v Speaker 2>general release timeline.
<v Speaker 1>This is that, Uh, you know, what's the being game
<v Speaker 1>where everyone runs around of Fall Guys Fall Guys?
<v Speaker 2>I think it's the Sonic Fall Guys, which always seemed
<v Speaker 2>like a pretty good idea.
<v Speaker 1>That's a pretty interesting thing.
<v Speaker 3>I would like to say, yeah, if if what's thirty
<v Speaker 3>two people? I think I'm seeing it as I just
<v Speaker 3>looked it up running in one course and whoever gets
<v Speaker 3>there for that makes a lot of sense. Ye, it's
<v Speaker 3>basically just the the race parts of Fall Guys in Sonic,
<v Speaker 3>which is also always known for its speed. It makes
<v Speaker 3>it makes a lot of sense. I forgot it existed,
<v Speaker 3>to be completely honest with you, until we were saying
<v Speaker 3>it was. It was on the line up today. So
<v Speaker 3>no no offense to the Sonic fans out there, Please
<v Speaker 3>don't kill me like the Ninja Guidance fans are at
<v Speaker 3>the moment. But but yeah, this is this is cool.
<v Speaker 3>I'll definitely show it to the to the kids when
<v Speaker 3>it comes out because they like Fall Guys and they
<v Speaker 3>like Sonic, So yep, Sonic Fall Guys seems like a
<v Speaker 3>good marriage. Sucks that it's not coming out when they
<v Speaker 3>want it to, but you know, if it can still
<v Speaker 3>come out this year and make some waves, let's see,
<v Speaker 3>it's yep.
<v Speaker 1>I guess this is great.
<v Speaker 2>I kind of wish they would just do another Sonic
<v Speaker 2>Party game a Sonic Party instead, but maybe they'll do both.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe they'll get around to the other one eventually.
<v Speaker 1>All right, last story here. This popped off right before
<v Speaker 1>we went live.
<v Speaker 2>Dragon Age The Veil Guard headlines marches PlayStation Plus Essential Games.
<v Speaker 2>Sony Interactive Entertainment has revealed March twenty twenty five's PlayStation
<v Speaker 2>Plus Essential games. These are, excuse me, the games that
<v Speaker 2>you get for just having PlayStation Plus at any tier.
<v Speaker 2>You add them to your library and then you have
<v Speaker 2>them as long as you have PlayStation Plus. March's PlayStation
<v Speaker 2>Plus Essential games are Dragon Age The Veil Guard, the
<v Speaker 2>PS five for PS five, Sonic Colors Ultimate and Teenage
<v Speaker 2>Mutant Ninja Turtles the Cowabunga Collection.
<v Speaker 1>They'll be available two subscribers.
<v Speaker 2>To claim starting March fourth, and then that will last
<v Speaker 2>until March thirty. First, it's pretty soon for Dragon Age Veilguard.
<v Speaker 3>Huh yeah, it's uh, it's it's weird, but everything about
<v Speaker 3>that game has been weird since it came out, right,
<v Speaker 3>there's been you know, it's it's a great Dragon Age,
<v Speaker 3>but it's not as good as they wanted it to be.
<v Speaker 3>It's not going to get any follow ups. It's just
<v Speaker 3>been a very weird post launch cycle for this game.
<v Speaker 3>This will inspire me to give it a shot. I
<v Speaker 3>mean it didn't fit into my uh I didn't even
<v Speaker 3>try it. Yeah, you're right, right, Yeah, it didn't even
<v Speaker 3>it didn't fit into my holiday plans just because I
<v Speaker 3>kind of fell off Dragon Age, so I didn't think
<v Speaker 3>it was for me. I want to pick it up.
<v Speaker 3>I want to give it a shot based on what
<v Speaker 3>people were saying. I loved what I saw back at
<v Speaker 3>Summer Games Fest back in June. But yeah, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>this will this will it is. But it is soon,
<v Speaker 3>as you said it is, it's surprisingly soon, Like I
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, it's it's it's it's a weird, little
<v Speaker 3>like there's a red flag going off of my head,
<v Speaker 3>but I can't quite pinpoint why. Maybe it's because of
<v Speaker 3>the Warner Brothers story, and I'm like, oh crap, thee
<v Speaker 3>goo to do the same thing. But if BioWare is
<v Speaker 3>working on mass effects, so they should be okay.
<v Speaker 2>I mean they've already they've already done the thing that
<v Speaker 2>they did the BioWare, Right, they cut staff at BioWare
<v Speaker 2>and that's a lot of people over to other teams. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there were layoffs as part of that. So yeah, mass
<v Speaker 2>Effect is going to be its own thing. That that
<v Speaker 2>will they'll they'll probably see mass Effect through. They will
<v Speaker 2>make that game, yes, But in the meantime, they boy,
<v Speaker 2>they are This feels like wiping your hands of the
<v Speaker 2>Veil Guard. Are just like absolutely like, we don't even
<v Speaker 2>want to look at that thing. Sony cut us a
<v Speaker 2>check and then we're not. We're moving on, and they
<v Speaker 2>are moving on from Dragon Age. They're not going to
<v Speaker 2>make another dragon Age, at least not unless it's being
<v Speaker 2>changes drastically.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, right, yeah, you said wipe for your hands of
<v Speaker 3>the Veilguard, and I agree, But also as you also
<v Speaker 3>alluded Dragon Age as a whole, like this is the
<v Speaker 3>last thing. Yes, if maybe they'll put it on game
<v Speaker 3>Pass at some point too, right, that's it. Like the
<v Speaker 3>as far as they're concerned, dragon Age is a defunct,
<v Speaker 3>dormant franchise back where it was before the Vailguard even
<v Speaker 3>came out. And that'll be that for a while, which
<v Speaker 3>is said and a shame, but I guess that's just
<v Speaker 3>another beacon in this entire industry.
<v Speaker 2>In it yep, it's uh, yeah, it'll be an EA play,
<v Speaker 2>which is part of game Pass.
<v Speaker 1>It's not right the yeah play.
<v Speaker 2>There's a higher tier where you get day one games,
<v Speaker 2>but that's not part of game Pass. So yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>not on there yet. But hey, they're right. It's to
<v Speaker 2>PlayStation Plus before they put it in EA play. And
<v Speaker 2>again that's because they probably could maximize the return because
<v Speaker 2>Sony probably did probably they probably paid a pretty good
<v Speaker 2>amount for dragon Age so soon, you know, although not
<v Speaker 2>too much or al Sony just would not have done it.
<v Speaker 1>So there, All.
<v Speaker 2>Right, that is gonna do it for the headlines.
<v Speaker 1>Uh GM, let's bring up the poll.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna do it myself over here so I could
<v Speaker 2>see what I did, what I even said?
<v Speaker 1>All right?
<v Speaker 2>Loading, Now, all right, when do you expect switch to
<v Speaker 2>to launch? This is an updated poll as we get
<v Speaker 2>continue to get rumors and speculation. Just kind of see
<v Speaker 2>how people are feeling at the moment, and I gotta
<v Speaker 2>say it seems like the skeptics and the pessimists are
<v Speaker 2>are winning.
<v Speaker 1>Right now.
<v Speaker 2>Two percent think it's coming in April. I think that's
<v Speaker 2>completely fair, that that would be kind of crazy. Thirteen
<v Speaker 2>Only thirteen percent think it'll come by May. So you know,
<v Speaker 2>the Nintendo Direct is happening in April. Second, you know,
<v Speaker 2>by the end of May, it would be basically two months,
<v Speaker 2>but only.
<v Speaker 1>Thirteen percent think it will make that.
<v Speaker 2>Forty percent are leaning toward June, and that's that's the bucket.
<v Speaker 2>So I guess when you add it all up, the
<v Speaker 2>majority of people think it's coming before summer really gets underway,
<v Speaker 2>then forty five percent believe it'll be ju or July
<v Speaker 2>or later, so the second half of the year.
<v Speaker 1>So second half of the year is only forty five percent.
<v Speaker 1>First half of the year.
<v Speaker 2>You know, that three month period after the April direct
<v Speaker 2>is fifty five percent, with most people leaning towards June.
<v Speaker 2>Right now, I'm I think I'm with that crowd. Still
<v Speaker 2>May June is is where I'm at. I still think
<v Speaker 2>May is even a possibility.
<v Speaker 3>I read the theory of the good Dude Brian Shay,
<v Speaker 3>formerly of Game Informer, and I think I'm with the podcast. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I think I'm with him. That June twentieth seems like
<v Speaker 3>a good sweet spot because you get the schools just
<v Speaker 3>letting out, summertimes, just starting. The gamer kids are going
<v Speaker 3>to have switched to to play all summer, so you
<v Speaker 3>get the initial sales, and then at holiday time you
<v Speaker 3>have time to restock and then hit that second sale again.
<v Speaker 3>So I don't think it's July or later May could
<v Speaker 3>be a possibility to get right at the end of school,
<v Speaker 3>But that June twentieth day. Ever since he said it,
<v Speaker 3>it's just been kind of ringing in my head, So
<v Speaker 3>I think that makes a lot of sense. I voted
<v Speaker 3>June in this.
<v Speaker 2>I used the thinking machine I have here and went
<v Speaker 2>to a website that allows you to search information, and
<v Speaker 2>I said in sixty four release date Japan that came
<v Speaker 2>out June twenty third, nineteen ninety six.
<v Speaker 3>So interesting.
<v Speaker 2>So they they have released hardware around that time before,
<v Speaker 2>and that was the initial reveal release of the N
<v Speaker 2>sixty four. And now they do all releases as globally
<v Speaker 2>as they can. There's always some lag, but they will
<v Speaker 2>release it in North America and Japan at the same time. Now,
<v Speaker 2>so this this feels like, yeah, this feels pretty good.
<v Speaker 1>And that's the whole theory. Shay. I heard there was
<v Speaker 1>a former.
<v Speaker 2>Nintendo employee that who hit his name and it was
<v Speaker 2>just called Sean on the Kitt and Chrystal podcast basically
<v Speaker 2>said that same exact strategy of yeah, you have the
<v Speaker 2>initial wave of like we're gonna have twenty million switch
<v Speaker 2>tos in the first quarter ready to go with Mario Kart,
<v Speaker 2>and then we're gonna tell everybody that there's gonna be
<v Speaker 2>a big game come in that fault. We'll have a
<v Speaker 2>restock of hardware by that fault, and Christmas will be
<v Speaker 2>like a second launch at that point for people that
<v Speaker 2>did not rush to get out the early adopter stuff.
<v Speaker 1>That boy, that makes a lot of sense. And part
<v Speaker 1>of that for sure.
<v Speaker 2>One for me is Copium where I'm I am just like, boy,
<v Speaker 2>I want this thing.
<v Speaker 1>Earlier rather than like, yeah, but it all does.
<v Speaker 2>Line up, and I don't I don't think we're in
<v Speaker 2>a world now where they announce that all the details
<v Speaker 2>in April and then the release date is deeper in
<v Speaker 2>the year, It is probably going to be two three
<v Speaker 2>months at most, and three months kind of puts them
<v Speaker 2>in July, and I don't think this thing comes out
<v Speaker 2>in July.
<v Speaker 3>Well, if you go back to Switch one, that big
<v Speaker 3>live stream was January and he came out.
<v Speaker 2>March third, exactly, and not much and that like the
<v Speaker 2>sort of theory behind like quick turnarounds for marketing campaigns
<v Speaker 2>has not changed since then, And if anything, it's shrunk
<v Speaker 2>even more, where it's like, now you're cannounced something two
<v Speaker 2>weeks ahead of time.
<v Speaker 1>Now they're not going to do that, But Nintendo.
<v Speaker 2>Does always kind of echo what Apple does, and Apple
<v Speaker 2>will announce a phone and then sell it to you
<v Speaker 2>two weeks later.
<v Speaker 1>So I think it'll shrink.
<v Speaker 2>It'll be a month and a half, two months before
<v Speaker 2>we really get this thing, and then, you know, two
<v Speaker 2>and a half months, maybe a little bit more than that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, let's see the Sega Saturn shadow drop.
<v Speaker 1>Do it?
<v Speaker 3>Oh man?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, make retailers really mad. They don't matter anymore. Actually, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you could just piss off retailers now I doesn't.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, all right, let's see here, we have a new
<v Speaker 1>poll question.
<v Speaker 2>We'll get to that here in a second before we
<v Speaker 2>do that though, Jason Finale, why don't you tell people
<v Speaker 2>where they can find you on the internet what you
<v Speaker 2>have going on all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, you can find me at big Man Finale at
<v Speaker 3>besky dot Social as you can see on the screen
<v Speaker 3>right there. Got some coverage coming out from the aforementioned
<v Speaker 3>Magic Con in Chicago, a great interview with the Final
<v Speaker 3>Fantasy team. As I mentioned, other sort of like odds
<v Speaker 3>and ends. It's a great article from Joe Bradford, the
<v Speaker 3>editor in chief, talking about the new Commander brackets. If
<v Speaker 3>you play Commander, they have a new system of classifying
<v Speaker 3>how powerful your deck is. And that was just like
<v Speaker 3>the first event that was in practice and how that
<v Speaker 3>went out. I also just reviewed while waiting, as I mentioned,
<v Speaker 3>I think we don't know if it's pre show or
<v Speaker 3>on here, but just in case four but why though
<v Speaker 3>an independent website run by Kate Sanchez, great great person,
<v Speaker 3>great website reviewed that there. Shout out to all them
<v Speaker 3>doing some guide work on Pirate Yakazev reign doing something
<v Speaker 3>doing that to busy keep him busy as you want
<v Speaker 3>one if I could do one real quick, A quick
<v Speaker 3>shouted I mentioned this in the last show, but recently,
<v Speaker 3>I went to my local cards store to place some
<v Speaker 3>magic and a fella comes up to me. His name's Mario.
<v Speaker 3>He taps me on the shoulder and says, look, I
<v Speaker 3>don't we've never met. You don't know me, but I
<v Speaker 3>watched you on Jeff Grubbs Show and I went wow, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I said you that's He's like, yeah, I just recognize you.
<v Speaker 3>And then next time I saw him, he had a
<v Speaker 3>giant bombhaddle.
<v Speaker 1>Ah, so fantastic shout out to Hey, Hi Mario.
<v Speaker 3>Hi Mario, shout out and and a very appropriate name too,
<v Speaker 3>which is awesome. Mario watches cave Nessvorty Kid for But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>so I meant I meant to say that last time.
<v Speaker 3>I forgot, so I want to make sure I said
<v Speaker 3>it now. But yes, that's where you can find me
<v Speaker 3>and all the stuff that I do. If you do
<v Speaker 3>happen to follow me on social media. I hope you
<v Speaker 3>like pro wrestling, cute dogs and kids, magic the gathering,
<v Speaker 3>and video games, because that's what you get and she gets.
<v Speaker 1>And I think you might have some people in your
<v Speaker 1>foreigner for all that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Here watching today, people who I want to thank for watching,
<v Speaker 2>Thank you all for watching the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 2>Jason Fonelli, thank you for hanging out with me talking
<v Speaker 2>about video games. I really appreciate it. One of my
<v Speaker 2>favorite things to do anytime. Man, we have a plenty
<v Speaker 2>more happening here on the website. Janet Joe, why do
<v Speaker 2>you come on here and talk with me real quick?
<v Speaker 2>How should we do these handoffs?