A BUNCH of Xbox Updates

You don't be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this
for February sixteenth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live
with me Jeff Grubb today that Nintendo Direct is probably still happening in the middle
of February, and it's apparently already time to start talking about next gen consoles.
But first please join me and welcoming today's co host the Game Mess Mornings.
It's Jason Fanelli. Everybody. Jason, how are you doing. I'm
great. Since the last time we've spoken, I've gone through the largest generational
change in history, just like Xboxville. Not really, I'm not really that
interesting now. Things are good. Just still trying to digest the potential something
burger that that was yesterday. You've got people saying it was nothing, got
people saying it was something. It's somewhere in between. Yeah, and we'll
certainly just based on the rundown you set me dissect a lot of it.
Yeah. I mean, I have a certain opinion that I think if I'm
allowed to say, it's going to get me in trouble. Oh, that's
what I like to hear. We'll say about that make some waves. Yeah,
all that was definitely I think it was a confirmation for whatever you wanted
to hear. A lot of people wanted to hear something they had it in
their heads they're mad or they weren't mad, or they want to say Xbox
is dead or not dead. And I think people could roar shark test that
in any way that they wanted to. And yeah, there's definitely a lot
of that going around. All right, let's see. You know, I'm
supposed to I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to start moving this up
for reasons. So let's do this first and then we can have some more
bands. Let's explain what we do here most weekdays. I Jeff grubbelp piece
You're gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of
our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of
a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you were watching
live on twitch welcome, you can always listen to the show later on podcasts
by searching for Game This Morning's or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com.
You can also catch the show later with chapters in timestamps on YouTube.
Hello YouTube, Hello, there we go. So, yes, what I'll
probably do is I'm figuring this out live in front of everybody. But that's
the kind of show this is. I'll probably move that up a little bit
and I'll be like, Hey, the aforementioned expert is Jason Faneli, Jason's
joining me today, blah blah blah, and then we'll be like and then
I can go, hey, Jason, looking good today. How are you
feeling about that? Wrestling? I think wrestling's pretty interesting right now. I
am so excited that one of the most interesting lead ups to WrestleMania in recent
history is going to culminate right here in Philadelphia. I cannot The closer we
get, the more excited I get. Mania is going to be nuts.
Only going to Night two right now, still trying to sneak my way into
Night one somehow. But man, man, the Rock is a heel.
Is something I didn't know I wanted until I had it. That's going to
be so good tonight he comes back on TV. He's going to cut a
promo, a heel promo for the first time, and gee, he tried
to be heel when he was fighting seeing it, but nobody was having that.
So we're talking like twenty one years maybe then since he's been an actual
bona fide heel, yo, let's go. It's gonna be a good time,
all right. You know what, we do have a lot to get
into, so let's start the morning mess with that Nintendo Direct is probably happening
next week. It's still a partner showcase, you know. I'll start by
saying what I've always heard is, and I've always said repeatedly, is I
heard it's happening by the middle of February. It might have been like around
the middle of February. I think when the other rumors started coming out and
saying this week. I was definitely like, yeah, maybe that. I
don't know, but maybe, and I definitely bought into them as well.
And then it sounds like it probably was supposed to happen this week because I
did hear that it got delayed because of the Xbox thing or you know what.
I heard that they had that conversation. What they actually ended up deciding,
I'm not privy to that. I don't know, but earlier this week
they definitely had a conversation about moving it because of the Xbox thing, and
the only way they could have moved it is if it was going to happen
yesterday. Now it does seem like it's happening next week. Pyoro is out
on Twitter teasing it. I did notice that Pioro, who's a really reliable
leaker for Nintendo stuff, has, as far as I could tell, never
really got anything wrong when they do decide to speak on something. He was
like liking the tweet where I explained, Hey, that this thing was delayed,
things like that. So and now has confirmed separately that there's going to
be a Partner Showcase next week. Partner Showcase. Are you excited about that?
Or do you think that implies that more big things are coming from Nintendo
relatively soon, that they're saving for that instead of like trying to force a
direct to happen right now. It's exactly where my thought process is. You
don't put a Partner Showcase in your normal February Nintendo direct slot unless you're going
to follow it up with something a little bit bigger, which tells me that
maybe March or April, and this is just prognosticating. Don't blame me for
when this doesn't happen only only Jeff Grubb has the ability to take away antendo
directs gus only blame me only. But I could see like a March or
April if they're going to reveal the next cont as seems to be the way
they're going, if that would be its own like separate thing as it was
when the Switch first came out. They first trailer was October, then the
January blowout, and then it came out in March. If my timeline,
that sounds about right. So I would expect something like that now and a
partner showcase is a good way to appease the masses for lack of a better
term, who are expecting the annual February Nintendo direct to happen? Also too?
What could Nintendo possibly have first party that they wouldn't now be saving four
switch to anyway? Right? So if that if that, well that I
mean, if that's a Switch to launch title, Yeah, it probably is.
Yeah, sorry, I'm just yes, I just want it. I
just wanted it right now. Me too, Me me too? That was
what eighteen they first announced that. Yeah, I mean we we are like
last like last week or the week before that was the five year anniversary of
them rebooting the development. Jees, yeah, bitches messed up. Sean doesn't
want me to give in and doesn't want what doesn't want me to stop a
leaving about Metroid Prime four coming primarily to the switch. I'm just I'm losing
hope because it's hard not to like read things the way that you're laying it
down, where it's like, we get this partner showcase, because what games
wouldn't Nintendo have to put in a direct right now for the Switch one?
They would of course be saving so much for a switch to that we all
primarily believe is coming out later this year. I know there's some rumors out
there about it's not co mental twenty twenty five. I guess who the fuck
knows. We'll see, but for now, it's like, we assume it's
coming probably later this holiday, and if that's the case, well they're probably
going to start rolling things up into the marketing scheme for that, and a
direct in February to kind of distract from that when you're about to start having
out those conversations would be in fact a distraction. So yeah, it's hard
for me not to lose faith that Metroid Prime four is going to show pop
up between now and when they our full blast, full bore going into switch
To, which could begin at any moment. Now it feels like yes.
And now that's not to say that games that are launching on switch to would
be exclusive to switch To. Metroid Prime four could pull a Twilight Princess.
Do I think that's going to happen? No? But is it possible just
to keep your hopes up? Yeah, sure, I'll I'll patch your head
for that, no problem. H But and like this partner showcase does have,
like if you if we're gonna look back on the history of this a
couple of years from now, does have the sort of impact that a normal
Nintendo Direct would because this is the one supposedly where Xbox is going to announce
first party games for Nintendo. Yeah, I mean that historically will be a
water could be at least a watershed moment in there in both companies histories,
and just to it started with you know, Banjo and Smash and or they
they tested the waters a little bit and now we're coming to this and then
who knows, maybe Metroid Prime five will be a co op with master Chief.
That sky's the limit, people, and I think, I think putting
a partner showcase with this sort of announcement in it is a good it's a
it's a good whistle wetter, which is a weird thing to say, but
it's a good term, good term, good whistle wetter. So I'm hoping,
I'm hoping that we're right about this and we'll see some switch to action
March April, especially if they're leading up to a Fall twenty twenty four release.
I would hate to see that wait for the June Nintendo Direct, but
like something they would do too, gon'na be tough for them to wait till
June for a couple of reasons. I mean, the big, big,
big thing is GDC is in March, and they're gonna they're gonna be at
GDC and they're gonna be talking to developers, and developers are gonna be talking
to each other, and the ones that almost certainly do have Nintendo Switch to
development kits right now we'll begin talking about. I mean, it does have
this. Now's that I mean, do you guys have one? Well,
I mean if you don't, let me let me tell you a little bit
about it. That shit's going to start leaking a lot in March, So
if you're Nintendo, that it's not like that would be some crazy thing to
begin the marketing in March, even if it is like just an initial trailer
and initial like here's what it is, here's a spec sheet, and the
spec sheet's like pretty vague, but it lines up with the leaks that would
be coming out at GDC anyhow. It lines up for those reasons in a
lot of ways, and then you're right, you're like this, this,
this the partner showcase could still be pretty interesting. I mean, I've heard
from a couple people now there's at least one Microsoft game in there, and
I think we all can kind of put two and two together based on what
we just saw from them yesterday. And we'll get into the Xbox those here
pretty soon. But you know, it's it's probably it's probably Pentiment, maybe
High Fi Rush, And it's like, okay, well, yeah, that's
that is pretty exciting that that that's happening. And there's plenty of game still
to play on the Switch if you haven't caught up on everything, and then
next month things really kick off. Next month or maybe April, we'll see.
Maybe they don't want to Overshadow Princess Peach Showtime, which in this house
is the biggest game release in a decade if you ask my younger children.
March March third would be an interesting day to put out the first official because
it's the seven year anniversary of the first Switch. The only problem is the
Sunday. Is that something you do on a Sunday? Yeah? Probably not.
Yeah, so they don't like doing that. It's there now, and
I don't blame them. So maybe that week, maybe Monday, maybe that
week four, I mean they'll do they'll do something around that time, so
yeah, maybe, or maybe they do something and then it happens a little
bit later when in the month when they actually decided to do some of the
Switch and it's completely unrelated. Oh, it's all possible. We'll see at
the very least, you know, Nintendo Directions Partner showcase next week. We'll
see if there's anything interesting in there. Could be some you know, beyond
the things that we have had leak. Sounds like it could be just a
pretty decent showcase and we'll be playing some games out of there relatively soon,
so that's nice. It would be nice if it was if like Pentiment,
it was like the Shadow Drop if like that day, we claimed that that'd
be great, and then you know sparathought for the holiday folks. Let's see
listen, they don't deserve rights. What are you talking about? Xbox confirms
it's bringing four games to rival platforms. Let's get into it. There's a
lot of headlines from this, a lot to talk about, and it's like
you alluded to earlier, maybe in some ways kind of something of a nothing
burger and maybe a something burger. Let's start here with Andy Robinson at VGC.
Microsoft is confirmed that four unnamed Xbox exclusives will be released on other platforms
such as PlayStation five or Nintendo Switch. According to the Verge sources corroberated by
VGC, those four games will be Pentiment, Hi Fi, Rush, Sea
of Thieves, and Grounded. The news was announced as part of a new
podcast designed to give an update on plans for the Xbox business going forward,
in which Gave Me Boss. Phil Spencer claimed that the decision had been made
to ensure quote the long term health of Xbox. In the podcast, Spencer
said that Starfield and Indiana Jones, titles previously reported to be in consideration for
PlayStation five would not be going to a multi platform. In a separate interview
with The Verge, the executive said he wouldn't rule out the possibility for these
titles to arrive on PS five in the future. I don't think we should
as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform, he
said in a quote. He also claimed the four unnamed releases did not represent
a change to our fundamental exclusivity strategy, and there was no promise beyond those
titles coming to rival platforms. To ensure long term success for both Xbox in
the industry as a whole, we must continue to evolve Xbox set. In
a statement today, we announce that we will expand the communities we reach.
We are currently in the process of bringing four Xbox games to other platforms.
These are titles which have been available to Xbox players for at least a year,
including hidden gyms that deserve to be experienced more widely, and live service
games whose communities will benefit from welcoming even more players. Let's start here.
Yeah, Okay, this feels like a step forward, as that is a
further manifestation of the strategy that Xbox was already pursuing in many ways. Is
that accurate in your estimation? Yeah, this is just I guess I was
saying in the last story. This is just a continuation of things that they
had already been slowly throwing things that throwing darts at the board to see what
sticks and what does it learning the different the ecosystems at least of the switch
PlayStation. Racking my brain to see if there was any Microsoft publications there.
I can't think of any off the top of my head that have already happened,
like Ori on the Switch and Minecraft, Steve and Banjo and Smash Brothers.
So maybe they started with the Smitch Switch and then moved on to PlayStation.
But yes, this is just the next step in that plan. Is
it the death of the brand as the social media is told us it was
leading up to this. No, but it makes sense, like live service
games being on more platforms just makes sense. I understand the logic in all
of this, two smaller games over a year old, just to expose them
to a new audience. I understand the logic with these four games, and
if these serve as the stepping stone to other things later on, so be
it. Do I think we're going to see things like Gears of War Halo
on PlayStation. No, not at the moment. But if that were to
happen, would I be completely, you know, falling on the floor shocked
by it. No, because they're laying the groundwork right here, so I'm
not. I mean, honestly, more players, as they've said, is
a good thing. More players playing your games is a good thing. The
only real controversy will be the ones who have, you know, dug their
flags in the sand for their respective consoles and are fighting a non existent console
war. All right, now, I'm gonna get in trouble. I got
to back off. Yeah, I mean, I have no problem with this,
but but then again, I'm also a guy who owns all the consoles
by work I have to, so it doesn't really affect me all that much.
But all four of these games, I believe I have already downloaded on
Xbox to begin with, so it's not well, I know, understand,
it doesn't affect me personally. For the person who can only afford one console
and went PlayStation, they can try High Fire Rush. Now that's pretty cool.
If they like pirates, they're gonna love Sea Thieves and a small little
thing rare being back on Switch. If c A Thieves goes there, that's
just nice. That's nice. It's neat. Yeah, get some more of
those games on nso for real. Yeah, I mean, I think that
you're right to talk about like laying the groundwork. I mean, he said,
hey, these are the four games, these are the only four games
were promising, and beyond that Starfield in Indiana Jones, we're saying right now
that those aren't going multiplatform. And then he was very quick quick to say,
and we will never rule out anything. He also said something along the
lines of not everything is coming, but everything is on the table basically,
So it's like both things are true. Everything's on the table, but not
every single game will be coming. So it's like the strategy is still the
same in that not like all these things are or are going to start out
as exclusives in one way or the other, and then it's changing at the
same time while remaining the same in that they are maybe more widely considering more
of them for other platforms once they get to the extent of what they can
accomplish on Xbox MPC, which is how they describe the state of all four
of these games is like they've kind of reached their potential on Xbox and PC,
and we can all kind of glance over at stuff like Hi Fi Rush
and Pentiment and assume that's almost certainly the case. And for the live service
games, it's probably like, yeah, I mean, having more players in
there is only going to be a benefit. And then at the same time,
I think that we can expect that this is probably going to mostly work
out pretty well and not have much of a backlash once it actually starts happening,
and they will probably decide to start doing this more frequently in the future,
and I of course I think that's just fine. They you know,
there's a lot of ins and outs in terms of them trying to insist on
the maintaining value of the Xbox console as a platform onto itself. They do
talk about that in some ways. One of the things they say is that
game pass is still a big thing. It will continue to be only available
on Xbox platform, so that doesn't mean PC, but it's only going to
be available on consoles on Xbox because mostly it seems like a Nintendo in PlayStation
won't let it on there. But if you want to find a separating factor
between those other consoles and the Xbox. A reason to get an Xbox,
they point to game pass. Yeah. So the statement also appears to dismiss
concerns that players at Xbox libraries will be shut down in the future, saying
the company's commitment to game preservation is unwavering, and that's their way of putting
that Xbox players should have confidence in building your digital library and the Xbox ecosystem.
A statement says we will continue to reward that with the most robust player
friendly experiences, including backward compatibility, cross play, cross safe progression, convenient
cloud gaming, and more. And this seems to be like one of the
big reasons that they had this podcast and these explanations where it's like, hey,
they can say the four games are coming to these other platforms and we're
like, oh, yeah, okay, we get it. That's a press
release. The follow up concern from a lot of people is, well,
we are worried about the slippery slope. Eventually people don't want buy an Xbox
anymore, so you stop making Xboxes, and that means there's no longer much
of a reason for you to have an Xbox ecosystem where you sell us games,
and then what happens to all these games that we purchased, And they're
like, right now today, we've envisioned it as we are going to keep
selling you games, and we're going to keep selling you other people's games,
and that's not going away in any way as far as we're concerned. Do
you think that they were able to get that across if you combine the blog,
the podcast, and the YouTube airing of said podcast, Yes, but
I feel like each of them sort of missed things that the other one added
untext for, and if you weren't looking for, if you weren't trying to
get the entire picture, you might have missed something. Because, like I
said, there was a lot of people in reaction to this that were saying
that this was really nothing. They were just kind of putting a smoke screen
up or whatever. So there may I don't think they've reached everyone, but
I think they've convinced enough people that they're not going away and it's not the
death of the brand. It was always wild to me that the people were
saying were worried about their digital libraries being taken away by the company who If
you go back the years of e three press conferences. One of the most
famous ones is them announcing backwards compatibility. They clearly care about preservation to an
extent. They were not taking your library away, whether it just translated to
PC if the consoles were going away. Remember that rumor they weren't making consoles
anymore. What a weird week. This was just a weird average week.
It was, I mean, and it's like a little bit frustrating because you're
like, okay, you know, hey, they were considering Gears of War
for this, and it's like, yeah, they were having a conversation,
and I'm like trying to report that, and it's like that very quickly because
of social media and you know, things going through the telephone from one person
to the next to the next, that does turn into stuff like they're not
making consoles anymore and all this stuff, and it's like, no, that's
the rumor. It's like those There was never actually a leak saying Xbox was
done making consoles, or even that they were putting Gears of War on PlayStation.
But I was like, no, they just had a conversation. And
it's like so we come out and they're like they look in this thing.
They never said that they didn't consider They didn't say they didn't consider any Anyana
Jones. They just said it's not happening. They didn't say there was no
conversation, because there was. There was a conversation about all these things there.
The reality is these companies probably always talk about this all the time.
The conversations that I'm referencing are more serious than that, like where it's like
these companies always like are looking at there's always someone at a company doing math
about this stuff. It's like, no, this was like phil kind of
having conversations with people about like what could this look like? Now. I
think the reaction informed what we got in this podcast, I think to a
certain extent. But I think that does not mean that they find ways to
continue to make bigger and bigger steps going forward. One of the you know,
rumors to come out of this now that things have shake shooken loose,
is that, you know, Gears of War I mentioned before, but also
Doom and Flight Simulator Simulator are also being considered for other platforms. It's like,
yeah, all those kind of a certain point makes Gears of Wars maybe
the biggest one because it's like that's such an Xbox thing. But it's like
it's been years and if they put like the xpot or the Gears of War
original trilogy out as a collection on PS five at like the year before they're
going to pout year six, it's like that just makes a ton of sense
at a certain point. Yeah, and the other two Doom, which has
been on PlayStation already, and Flight Simulator, which has universal appeal. Right
again, they all make perfect sense. It sounds this whole situation sounds to
me like Phil and whoever negotiates the contracts with the third party publishers left a
meeting where they were getting console console exclusivity on Xbox for six months or a
year. They looked at each other and they said, why don't we start
doing that? You released something, and then a year later we start talking
about maybe bringing it to Switch at PS five, and then this is where
we've come from that. Yeah, it sounds like the same thing. It's
just they don't they don't have to say their console exclusive in the beginning because
everyone assumes it their first party games. It's the same sort of mindset for
me. So seeing again, Gears of War is the one that sticks out
to me the most because it's been Xbox exclusive day one hasn't changed. Uh
So seeing that on PlayStation would be wild. It would be but doom and
Microsoft flights him and even the four that are, you know, heavily rumored
to be coming, not as eyebrow raising, not quite as eyebrow. And
it's also an acknowledgement that we are in a different world than we had been
with consoles for our entire lives. And this is something that you know,
if you go listen to that podcast, Sarah Bond brings this up. I
think Phil Spencer and Matt Booty bring it up and so many way, but
Sarah Bond explicitly said, like four years from the beginning of consoles up until
recently, it was the big thing, the big boy in the room was
the console. And then all the games came out and served the console.
It's like it's about selling the console. And then about tennis years ago that
started to flip and now they're like, we're looking at numbers and we look
at roadblocks, and roadblocks is significantly bigger than the console business in many ways,
and it's like at a certain point it flipped and now the consoles serve
these MegaGames that are the platforms onto themselves, Fortnite in Call of Duty and
Roadblocks and the like, and it's like we for us to keep pretending that
these games are serving the console is at a certain point, it's a dereliction
of understanding our business and it would be negligent. We can't keep behaving that
way because it's not true anymore, and so we need to recognize what we
need to do to kind of maybe begin making games that are like, oh,
and that means not just focusing on keeping games on the Xbox that is,
it will be self defeating at a certain point. It's like, oh,
yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah, it would be
a fallacy to think that a game like Fortnite is not is inferior to the
x that is the platform now not. Yes, yeah, that is the
plan and that and they're releasing their own games for it, and like Lego
Fortnite, Lego Fortnite should have been its own separate console release ten fifteen years
ago. Yeah, isn't Lego World's a thing? Didn't they try this and
that didn't work, So then they went into Fortnite and now it's the second
most popular thing on the platform, if not the most popular thing. I
haven't looked at a user numbers recently active use numbers, but like, that's
where this is going. You're going to have your consoles, and you're gonna
have your smaller games, and then you're going to have these major platforms that
people are going to flock to simply because of universal access mobile console PC.
Uh, you know, pretty soon we'll be playing in AR on Apple Vision
pros. Who knows, but I just see I think this this all made
a lot of logical sense. How much of it was screened to make sure
it made logical sense. I'm sure it was heavily edited. I'm sure those
questions were not random. Much as I love Tina Ameni at Xbox, it's
always done a great always done a great job, I don't think those questions
were random. I think it was definitely a bit of damage control. After
the rumors came flying and the course influencers started laying down their swords and crying
over their Xboxes and causing all of this, that's what's going to get me
in trouble. So yeah, I mean it's it. Is it the one
console inevitability that people were afraid of for decades. No, But is it
them realizing that we can't stay in our own little box anymore. We have
to go out and explore the rest of the world. Open the vault.
Let's say, I yeah, and that makes sense. I don't see why
you wouldn't support that. A ton more headlines out of this conversation, including
this next one. Microsoft promises the largest technical leap you will have ever seen
for its next hardware generation. This is from Jonas Macky at gamer Actor.
During Thursday night's special episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, there was plenty of
news about the future strategy for Xbox. This included debunking of the rumors that
Microsoft was about to ban in the concept of exclusive games, an announcement of
a summer event in June, the confirmation of Activision Blister games in game Pass
and starting in March. That's starting in March, and game Pass having over
thirty four million subscribers. However, there was also another highlight, namely talk
of the future hardware. Anyone who was worried that Microsoft was about to leave
Xbox as a console can now put their fears aside. Not only was it
confirmed that there will be new Xbox hardware announced this year, and people are
assuming that's either an update to the Xbox Series X or maybe a handheld,
but also the next generation was confirmed to be on the way, and it
seems that Microsoft is going to go all out. Xbox President Sarah Bond said
that we can look forward to the biggest generation jump we have ever seen,
which may indicate Microsoft now wants to release the console that can compete with respectable
PCs. Jason, I'll say I was talking to Mike Minaughty about this last
night, and he pointed out a possibility of what this might mean that when
Microsoft launches the next gen their console, the third top tier console might be
quite a bit more expensive than what PS five puts out, and that could
be the differentiating factor, and that it is significantly more powerful than what anyone
else has and the price will reflect that because at a certain point, why
go head to head with the PlayStation and try to have an alternative when you
could just like separate yourself in other ways. And I thought, I think
that makes kind of a lot of sense at this point. What do you
think. I think they tested it in this current cycle, having the X
and the S. They conditioned us to have two separate consoles, one slightly
less powerful than the other but still capable of running all the different things.
And then in this next hardware generation do the same thing, but move everything
up. Instead of having one being two fifty and one five hundred, you
have the one five hundred and then one seven eight the price of building your
own, you know, moderately successful PC. Yeah, that makes a lot
of sense to me that Mike Banandi knows what he's talking about. Uh now,
how will that be responded to? I don't know. I think you'll
have your your your people who buy every piece of new tech because it's shiny
and nice, and I am definitely one of those people. But I also
think you'll have people who may feel priced out and that just you know,
takes them to PlayStation even more because their top console is less expensive the next
boxes top console. And then maybe they're just not worried about that anymore.
I have. I imagined that was a concern coming into this generation, but
maybe next generation they're just like, look, balls of the wall, we
don't we gotta we gotta try this, we gotta do something. How big
that generalation generational leap will be remains to be seen. Well, they said
the biggest one ever. Why don't you believe them? Chason, the one
more and now it was the biggest one ever. It just keeps getting biggest
one ever. We'll see. And I think now if they call it,
if they call the top one a console PC hybrid or something like that,
like they make up a new word to say that, it's you know,
PC capable or PC powerful sture. I don't know what that word will be,
but I just I don't know. I'm not I'm not enthused about talking
about brand new consoles. I mean, that's obviously the other side of it
here. Yeah, right, Like, well, okay, they've obviously I
don't think they were going to come out and talk about it in these terms,
went with the original plan for this conversation where they were going to come
out and talk about their news, their their evolving strategy or whatever. But
you know, they did talk about it because I think they wanted to reassure
people that they're in the hardware game for the for the long haul. So
that's why we're talking about it. But it is a little bit frustrating just
from a standpoint of this generation has had has had its UH stops and starts,
and it feels like we are just getting started in a lot of ways,
even though we are about to enter you know, your We're like year
four right now, it's gonna be year five later. It's like, okay,
yeah, that's that really is like the second half of the life cycle,
as Sony said in its earnings report about the PlayStation five, and yet
it's also like, hmmm, uh, we would kind of like to feel
like we got a little bit of the fruit off that tree after letting it
grow for a few years, and it doesn't feel like we got there.
I think a big part about that is on the Xbox side of things,
where it's, hey, you have talked about a lot of games that you
have promised, and most of those still have not come out, even though
we are past Starfield avowed Perfect Dark Fable, those like three maybe that being
the big ones, but there's a lot of other ones as well. There's
that, uh god, the Avalanche game. I can never remember the name
of contraband there's a Ultra band. The whole list of games that they have
announced years ago have barely given us updates on and feel like they're still pretty
far away. And like hel Ba two is only going to start coming out
this year, so it's like okay, kind of like release some of these
games make us feel good about the investment we made before we have to start
talking about the next one. But at the same time, this thing is
years away, so they will have time to like smooth over that conversations.
Conversation I think. But I don't blame anyone today for being very annoyed that
we're talking about next gen hardware, right yeah, I mean that, especially
with the stock issues that they have when they first came out, particularly on
the PS five side, but even on the Xbox side. I remember people,
you know, the rush to get the Best Buy or Walmart dot Com
to buy these consoles. I remember that very vividly. I was able to
pre order an Xbox I was not able to pre order a PlayStation five,
like I was like three or three months late on the PS five train or
something like that didn't get until February. I remember that frustration, and I
don't look forward to doing it again because I don't want to see eBay listings
of people who have thirty five consoles and selling them for double the price.
Not looking forward to that that they're going to do this, they better start
making them now, stocking, backfilling, and stocking so that everybody who wants
one on day one can get one. That's the part I'm like, I
really don't want to deal with this shit again. I want to just play
what I have. The game's not coming out, is true, but I
feel like for me personally, there's enough third party stuff going on that I'm
fine to an extent with them. You know, I will. I want
to see these games. Hell Blay two is one of my most anticipated of
the year, obviously, but you know, if they come out in the
next year or two, Like Sony said, they're not coming out with any
first party this whole fiscal year from known franchises is what they meant, thank
you. So if if Xbox sees that as a green light and maybe they
have the ability to backfill the year, cool, all right, You've started
releasing these games. To your point, though they're not out yet, people
might be frustrated. I completely understand that, but I feel like third parties
have been doing their job, at least last year, doing their job in
keeping the ship afloat. Yeah, I think what we're doing right now,
it's like we're getting a game every year, at least one game, maybe
two games that feel like, ooh, this feels like a game that is
taking advantage of the possibilities of what new hardware could do, and not just
in terms of visuals, but in terms of enabling simulations. I think balder
Skate three obviously last year was a huge thing there, and this is all
the games the Tiers of the Kingdom being pretty huge on that as well.
But it's like that's you know, run on a frigging switch. But I
think that saysn't that actually is not the point. I think the point is
like, we want games to feel like they are enabling and empowering new experiences.
That's what's actually going to make it feel like different than the PS four
generation, because right now a lot of the games we're looking around and playing
still feel like these are the games that we're playing on PS four, but
now maybe they run at sixty francs per second instead, and so you know,
it takes longer and longer to make games than ever before. So it
feels like, yeah, those might still be coming, Those those real genre
defining and industry changing games are probably still coming for the most part, but
there's there's a lot of reasons to assume maybe it's not because those investments are
so massive and the risks are so unknown that a lot of those companies are
probably shying away from that and doing what they know works, And so we
might just be stuck in this rut when it comes to these big Triple A
games for quite some time, and going forward, the generations are going to
feel more mushed together and in all like sort of messy of like, yeah,
this is basically still PS four, even once we get the PS six.
So yeah, again, I don't blame people like getting frustrated talking about
new hardware. At the same time, Hey, if the Microsoft also puts
out a handheld Xbox along with all this other stuff, I'll be very excited.
I like new hardware, and I think a handheld from a company like
that that is essentially a Steam Deck or a rog ally, I'm more than
welcome that. Yeah, for sure, I absolutely agree. I have been
converted. This Legion Go that I reviewed for MMORPG dot com is a beautiful
thing. So if they want to take a shot at a portable PC like
that, I'm all for it. All right, we have more Xbox headlines
there's also we're going to take a quick detour over to what respawn is working
on. But we're gonna get all of that, all of that after this
quick break. Okay, we are back and like I said, let's take
it. What the hell did you sneak it in there? I was all
right. Over at Insider Gaming, there's a headline respond is developing a first
person Star Wars Mandalorian game. This is from Tom Henderson Uh Insider Game and
sources have revealed that Respund Entertainment is developing a first person Star Wars Mandalorian game
that is in its early stages of development. According to sources, the game
we'll see players take control of Mandalorian bounty hunter unclear who set during the time
when the Galactic Empire is dominating across the galaxy. It's your job as a
bounty hunter to capture bounties dead or alive for cash rewards. As first reported
by Venture Beats Jeff Grubb, Huh. At that time, the game was
being led by respawnd creative director Mohammad Olavi, who left the studio to pursue
his next adventure. According to Grub, who didn't just closed it was a
star Wars game at the time, but has recently. The game will be
focused on mobility and style as guiding principles. The game's high mobility has been
made possible storytelling wise thanks to Mandalorian's jet pack. Again shout outs to Mike
Manaty, who likes any character with a jetpack, which allows the players to
perform horizontal dashing, vertical jumping, boost sliding somewhat similar to sliding down hills
in Apex Legends, and more. Sources describe the game as very fast paced,
and as such will reward players who play in this style. For example,
the player's health will mainly regenerate based on successive kills, as to be
expected. Playing as a Mandalorian boundy hunter gives players a wide variety of weapons
and gadgets, including a wrist rocket, grappling hook, advisor for tagging enemies
and bounties, and more. It's understand that the game will not be an
open world and have linear levels taking place on a variety of different planets in
the Star Wars universe. While it's unclear when the game will release, it's
said we're still a year or two away at the very least. It's currently
unclear if the game will have a multiplayer experience or not. I was going
to check in on that. Been kind of poking around on this since Tom
started talking about this yesterday on Twitter. I'm like, oh, yeah,
that thing. Let's let's see what's going on there. And I'm like,
I haven't asked to all my sources yet, but we'll see. What what
do you think of a Mandalorian Star Wars game by Respawn Entertainment. Let me
start here, Jason and say that titan Fall three was once a real thing.
Well, and some of the stuff I heard about it was so exciting,
Like they basically what happened was the people who made titan Fall played Hades
and they're like, what if all of our powers worked similar similar to that?
So it's like you had a dash, but then you could upgrade it
so that dash like reflected enemies bullets, And then what if you could up
to upgrade it again so that reflected it back at them, So you were
rewarded for running right at the enemy and it felt like really good. I'm
like, well, okay, yeah, tell me more. Like I'm scratching
my arm, like, holy shit, that sounds fucking awesome. That game
was canceled. It sounds to me like some of those ideas, if not
all of them, but some of those ideas could easily translate over to this
game and this this is one. Like from the beginning, they were like
stylized mobility, just cool action. And then yeah, it was like when
when Response started talking about like their other Star Wars project that they're making with
that partner, the strategy game. So hey, we're working at with that
partner. We're gonna help them make a Star Wars strategy game. At that
time, it was confirmed to me that this other first person shooter was a
Star Wars game. I did not know what was Mandalorian game until very recently,
So that's I think that's pretty exciting. I hope that it is.
I just kind of hope it is just balls to the wall action and is
the spiritual successor to titan Fall. What do you think of this, Jason
Fanelli, Titan Falls gameplay in a Mandalorian setting, Sign me the hell up.
That sounds awesome. Now. I hope they come out with this soon.
The report said it's about a year or two away, because yeah,
I don't know that it will completely satisfy the people who were just looking for
a flat titan Fall three. But if they can deliver that sort of Apex
legend style or even Titan Fall two style, first person fast action with those
rogue light elements like hades that you just mentioned, oh it'll it'll fly fly
off show. I'm curious though the report says it doesn't say who the Mandalorian
will be. Now thinking about the Star Wars Lord, do they create a
new one? Do they maybe try to flesh out the backstory of someone who
already exists? Do they give you a choice between two male and female?
It's at that part is what I find is what is where my brain goes
first ye as to how they can how they can elaborate on the story.
It doesn't sound like it's going to be the Mandalorian, like like a game
version of the Disney Plus show. Right, he would be somebody else.
I guess you wouldn't necessarily be too young. Well, what does the Mandalorian
show take place? That is like fifteen years after Return of the Jedi?
Right, I can't remember exactly. I believe it's between original trilogy and new
trilogy. Right, So depending on how long it is, it's like that
is that character possibly old enough to have been doing Bountie hunters? Uh uh?
In one when the Galactic Empire is at its power, which is when
this game takes place, so original trilogy time or before, maybe I I
bet they do some new character. I bet that gives them a little bit
more leeway. Or maybe maybe they use one of the Mandalorian characters, the
other Man, other Mandalorians in the Mandalorian Right, there's a lot in that
show, right, Yeah, the one, the one played by Mercedes Ornada,
Sasha Banks. That would be interesting have them voice it. That would
be bring some star power to the game. That could be an interesting uh
idea too. I I just need them to tell us now we know this
it's out. Just reveal it tomorrow. Please Monday, you can wait till
the Tuesday. We're all present day. Yeah, give us give us a
second Tuesday, let's go. Yeah, very cool stuff. It's very cool.
The when when I was hearing about that Titan Fall three stuff, one
of the things that the developers were kind of frustrated by is they would watch
people play and then they would see that a lot of times, especially when
stuff started getting like intense, gamers would default to play in it like Call
of Duty, and they would just be like, I'm just running in the
room and I'm firing my gun and then I'm running to the next person.
I'm firing my gun, and they're just like, do they not know that
they can wall run? Do they not know they can double jump? Do
they not know they can get in that ass and take these guys out in
such cool cool ways? And it's like players kind of know, but they
didn't feel like necessarily hooked into having to do that, So a lot of
people would abandoned. I had a great time, Like I was always on
the wall, running back and forth, but even I was like, there's
different things like oh yeah, I could do I could be doing this cool
thing. I just forgot about that. I think what it sounds like they
are they have here is we have all this cool stuff and we are going
like the HP replenishing by successive kills sounds like they're like, we have played
we played Doom and Doom Maternal, and we played Hades, and we are
looking for gameplay mechanics that will keep people moving forward and doing all the cool
stuff they have in that game. And I'm very excited to play the you
know, Respawn first person shooter that is informed by learning all those lessons.
So I think they had all, like all the best action in titan Fall
two just then get giving players a reason to have to use that stuff and
really saying to every player like, no, we know that you're happier when
your boots are on the ground, but let's prove to you that actually you're
gonna feel even cooler once you're doing all this cool aerial stuff. I think
that that is a I think RESPOND can do that, and I think they
could do it, and again it's going to be very very good. So
yeah, and being an EA, being an EA Studio, they also have
access I would think to sister studios assets and ideas. Maybe there's some mirrors
Edge in here too. I'm getting some mirrors Edge vibes from the running,
yes see, and look like that. That'll be awesome. Yes, again,
I think it's gonna be informed by all these things. So yeah,
shout outs to Tom for that story. All right, let's get back to
some of the Xbox headlines. Xbox Game Pass now has thirty four million fully
paid subscribers. This from Chris Scullion at VGC. They dropped this when they
were talking about some of the things that will be coming to game Pass pretty
soon. They said thirty four million paid subscribers. That does include the Xbox
Game Past Core members who were previously Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Jason, I
read this number in two ways. One, it's like, man, you
look at that like some of the movies, subscriptions and services, and they
have like one hundred million, two hundred million. So this is a far
cry from that, a far cry from where I think they want game Pass
to eventually get to. And yet we know that the game the Xbox Series
X and S are at about twenty five to twenty seven million consoles sold,
so this is significantly more than all of the Xbox Series x's and s's in
the world, and in that frame, it's actually a pretty good number.
So it's like, I could see the negative, I could see the positive
here. I think the reality is it's at thirty four million, and it's
probably not growing super fast for them, which is why they are looking to
all these other ways to increase their revenue. What does that sound like to
you? Yeah, they I think they have started to see enough of a
slowdown and subscriber base that they now feel they have to try the multi platform
thing that we try. We spoke about above, because people will only buy
new consoles so fast, and those are the people that you're really going to
be selling new subscriptions to all of the I would imagine that the vast majority
of Xbox owners, I don't want to say all, but the vast majority
of Xbox owners have this. That's what it seems like subscription because it just
makes sense. You're getting the online included, you're getting the games that are
added to the service all the time that you can download for no extra charge.
I think that this number should be viewed as a success because does this
also include PC? Yes, and includes Yes, includes everything else. So
that's a pretty good if you're taking out. If you just do the math,
you said like twenty five million, twenty five to twenty seven, and
you make that seven to nine million on PC, that's a pretty decent number,
I would say of people who are subscribed that use PC, because PC
are going up against Steam, you're going up against egs, you're going up
against other things that you might not I mean, sure, you're getting free
games, but Steam gives you free games too. Every once in a while
it's I think this is ultimately a good thing. People may hear thirty four
million and immediately think it's low because of they think subscriptions and they go to
the apps that you just mentioned, your Netflix as your Disney Bluses, stuff
like that. But in the context of what this is and how unique it
is to the video game market, I don't think they have anything to worry
about at all. Yeah, and I don't think that this is this number
includes that many Xbox Live Core members because Gold, Like, who is subscribing
to Gold when it's like, well, for a few bucks more, I
just get game Pass as well. Why wouldn't I just do that? Because
Gold was like ten bucks and it's well, for fifteen you get Gold and
x Xbox game Pass. I think of many people and if you for many
years there, if you give us a dollar, well transfer all your gold
into Xbox game for however many years you already have gold. So a lot
of people took advantage of that deal a long time ago. I think.
In an interview, Phil Spencer even said that the Xbox Live Gold like was
transferring into Xbox Live Core. It's just not a very significant part of that
number, and either way, the money's all green. At the end of
the day. Microsoft's looking at this as here's the people giving us money on
a monthly basis for whatever reason, whether it's to get access to Game Pass
or to Xbox Live Gold, that doesn't matter so much as the money they're
giving us is green and it spends. That's that's what they're trying to talk
about here. Now. Yeah, I think I'm with you. This is
that. It's it's like, when I first saw the number, I'm like,
that seems pretty locaus. I think I remember back in the day they
had like something like forty five million Xbox Live Gold subscribers, but maybe that
number was inflated by like man, that could be that number could be back
from when they had like Xbox Like Silver or something. So it's I think
I was remembering that and being like, Okay, this number is like down,
but they are these the services now cost more than there isn't like a
lot of people would get Xbox Like Gold annually on sale for like thirty bucks,
and it's like no, now everyone's paying like fifteen dollars, ten to
fifteen dollars per month for all this stuff. So they're probably making a lot
more money from these thirty five million than they were making before thirty four million.
Excuse me, but yeah, I think that you said it. Everyone
who seems to get an Xbox, like based on this number, seems like
they just get game Pass as a matter of habit. And at a certain
point, why are you getting an Xbox if you're not going to get game
Pass? And so them looking around being like, hey, can we sell
more Xboxes to increase the sales of game Pass? They were trying that.
I think they're looking around like that's not necessarily the path to getting from thirty
four million up to one hundred million. We're going to have to actually take
game Pass to every screen. And that was a big thing that they talked
about in their their their statements and internally the memos. They're like, Xbox
is going to be on every screen. Game Pass is going to be on
every screen. That's what we're going for, and that's the real solution if
they're able to make that work. There's a lot of challenges involved with that
though, of course, for sure, And as far as is like selling
the new consoles, like you said, I really the only opportunity that I
could think of off the top of my head was back around Christmas time,
I had some parents of kids who were playing games that knew nothing about it.
I would recommend them an Xbox based on game Pass just because that that
I think is the only real AVU for growth is like the new parents who
have no idea what's going on with kids who are gamers, that this is
an easy and cheap way to get in the games they want, and that
has a cap, like a very hard cap because some parents just don't even
understand how to turn the console on, let it learne the subscription stuff and
stuff like that. So I'm definitely with you. I'm with you that that
they should there's nothing that they should be really worried about in this regard.
Yeah, I mean worried beyond the fact that it does seem like it's stagnating
at the very least in terms of because you can only sell it to so
many people who have Xboxes and that's a tough road to hoe. But beyond
that, it's like, yeah, if you want to get to that next
tier, regardless of the ups and downs of how game Pass is doing in
the moment, which is it's definitely gonna have ups and down. It's based
on people getting excited for Starfield versus like, well, now I'm gonna wait
for the next thing, so I'm going to cancel. I bet those fluctuations
do a number in the millions where it's like people are going to take a
break for a while and then they'll come back when the next big game is
here. That being in that zone, that's just not what they are concerned
about, like, oh, we're up three million or down three million,
whatever. They are worried about getting to fifty then one hundred million, and
that's just not going to happen with it when they're just focused on the console.
So they do talk about a PC game Pass and Cloud is growing double
digit percentages, it's like, well, yeah, though, I'm sure those
are relatively small portions overall, so growing that should be easier, and that
is reflected in that double percentage growth, double digit percentage growth. Activision Blizzard
games are coming to game Pass starting with Diabolo for This is from Eric Van
Allen at Destructoid. After finally securing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is
now bringing the companies games under the game Pass umbrella. Activision blizter titles will
be heading to the Xbox Game Pass. Xbox President Sarah Bahn announced the news
in an official Xbox podcast. Hey remember last year when the like we were
talking about the album four and the developers were like, that's not coming to
game pass, And now that's the first active Activision Blister game coming to game
Pass. I thought that was pretty funny, but not too surprising either.
It makes a lot of sense for that service, right, It's a safe
bet if it's gonna be the first one from Activision Blizzard, it is the
safest bet multiplayer game. Bunch of people can download it for no extra charge,
and I keep want to say free. It's not free. You're paying
for the subscription and then you know, join in and build their characters.
It makes it makes the most sense. If they had started with Coal of
Duty, the internet would have burned. If they had started with, you
know, something smaller like StarCraft two on PC game Pass, people wouldn't have
cared. So you got to find something right in the middle. And I
like StarCraft two. Don't don't make me think that I'm disparaging StarCraft two,
which doesn't have the relevance it used to. Uh, but the album form
makes perfect sense. It's still relatively new, not even a year old yet
has a healthy player base. This will add more players to it. It's
the safest bet for the first one. Yep. Absolutely. I do wonder
like how quickly all these other game start popping in there, and like they
said, every every first party game is going to be in game pass,
and now World of Warcraft is a first party game, is that going to
be in game pass? I really want to see what that ends up looking
like if they because it's a certain point, was combining those subscriptions, that's
actually how you get to fifty million, probably pretty quickly eventually, yes,
or much closer to fifty million. I guess Wow does not have twenty or
fifteen million subscribers these days, but they would add a couple couple of million
to their potentially when they're at high tide. Microsoft says Windows is the weak
point of the Asus Rog and Lenovo Legion Go. This is from Jonas Machia
Game Reactor, who like who said this, was it Phil Spitzer or Jeff
Grubb. One of the weak points in the experiences of a Rog or the
Lenovo Legion Go is Windows? Answer both of us because he's right, and
I'm right, it sucks ass. He admits this. Phil Spitzer emits Windows
sucks ass. How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI
on a smaller eight or seven inch screen, that's a real design point that
our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even
better. To me, this reads as we're going to have an update to
Windows that is going to make Windows make sense on these platforms some at some
point, relatively soon, probably by the end of this year. I think
we get to that hardware we were talking about, that hardware update that's happed
around the holidays. I think they probably do have some updated hardware for the
Xbox Console, I bet as part of that. And they're like, and
here is a new version of Windows built for handheld PCs that actually makes sense
for when you don't have a mouse and a keyboard and the touchscreen is small
so that it can actually function in a way. That is because like right
now, Jason, like, I use my rog ally and I'll be like,
I like this, and then I'll try to log into Epic and the
keyboard will cover up the password key the power field, so I like try
to and like I'm like trying to get in there, and the fucking tab
won't tab me into there, and I have to like close the whole thing
down and sort of like fake it and make the screens that make the windows
smaller so I can move it up in the corner and get to the password.
It's like that stuff is infuriating. Passwords shouldn't suck that bad. Yeah,
the same thing with the Lenovo. It is uh that, Oh god,
that sucks. I'm like, oh god, I gotta type something here.
Here comes the keyboard and it's a by screen. Yes, And then
I try to move it around. It doesn't move, and I have you
know, the term fat fingering. Something was created because of me. I'll
type, I'll go for one letter and hit three, and then my password
will be triple the length that it should be. Oh god, you're giving
me PTSD here. But yeah, so I as soon as I saw this
headline, I'm like, this is what Jeff warned me about when I first
got the Lenovo. I kept saying I was. I was talking about the
sleep function, like coming back on and the Candian black, and you were
like, I know what that's called. It's cold with yeah, but yeah,
so I'm glad that he recognizes that. Don't be surprised though if this
heart if this software update comes day and date with the potential handheld, yeah,
I mean listen, if we have to wait that long, whatever,
But I hope that they because it's it's to their benefit that this software is
on all these devices, right. They they looked over what steam Os was
doing and be like, hey, some of those handhelds might end up using
steam Os instead. Now most haven't, some are, though, some are
starting to be like, we're gonna use steam as instead of Windows. They
don't want that. That's Lenux that completely bypasses Windows. They want to avoid
that at all costs. And the way to do that is to make it
makes sense on all these devices and to put it out as an update to
the software that it's just going to work and doesn't wait for the Microsoft hardware,
which they might do only because it might take them that long to actually
get Windows to fucking work on these things, all right, And then see
the final Xbox hot headline Real Quick Summer Showcase announced. They will show off
more from Helba to Avowed and a bunch of other games, not some big
reveal. But it's nice to hear the be like, yeah, we are
to have something in our June showcase at around the time the E three showcases
previously happened, so we have we all have a reason to get together in
Los Angeles again and probably for at least one big showcase and probably a handful.
That's good news. I'm glad to hear that. I'm excited by these
shows, how about you. Yeah. I think last year when they kind
of bookended Summer Games Fest with it. Summer Games Fest was Thursday, and
then the playdays were Friday Saturday, and then this was Sun or was it
Monday because Final Fantasy was Sunday. I don't know. I think Sunday or
Monday. It was in there. That makes sense, Like put it all
on one week, make it as E three as E three adjacent could be.
It seems to be something that the entire industry, players and companies alike
have started to expect June being a sort of very big announcement time. So
I get it. I do appreciate them telling me now so I cannot so
I could stay for it and not leave on Saturday night and just completely miss
it, like I did last year. It would be nice to actually go
to the Xbox thing this year, assuming it's after Summer Games Fest again.
But you know, this is very very cool, and I think that they
could also start maybe to update us on not just what they're talking about here,
but treat it like their old X Foxy three presentation, have some third
party stuff, have some of the other games that we spoke about that we
haven't heard about yet, Contraband, Fable and the like, and really start
to build that excitement up again. I personally love showcases like this. I'm
one of the people who mourns E three a lot. It's just very very
cool to be in those rooms and see those things. And I'm hoping that
between this and what IGN's doing and maybe we'll get some sort of semblance of
that back. Yeah, it's I'm looking forward to it. I did mention
like, oh, they'll talk about hellway too, and avowt I think they
meant that they will talk about that leading up to those games coming out.
They're basically saying we're gonna keep talk about all our stuff in many places,
including our June showcase, but not exclusively so, which is why they brought
up help way too Uh, all right, let's just hit these last two
pretty quickly. Band Dynamco reveals it recently canceled five games. This is on
the heels Jason of Embracers Sailing that had canceled around twenty nine to thirty games.
These both these stories come from the last week. That's about about thirty
five games from just two publishers that have been canceled that we know about in
the last well, they canceled over the last several months, but we learned
about it in the last week. That is very ominous to me. That
is what people are talking about when they say they are worried about people being
able to find jobs in this industry. If a huge number of swaths of
games are being canceled midway through development, that what does that mean for like
the kinds of games that are getting green lighted. Almost certainly not many of
those actually are getting the green light at the moment, So scary stuff.
I think this is a tale of two stories. The band Dynamico cancelation of
five games is interesting. I wonder what part of band Dynamico that is where
these anime games where they're you know, maybe they have two or three games
coming out from the same franchise as a couple of dragon Ball games, and
they thought, well, maybe we could update this one instead or something like
that. Uh. Embracer though, canceling that many games in six months just
is just another underlining of how over their heads they were. They had no
idea what they were getting into all this stuff, and they are just reaping
what they are sewing. And this is just the next example on the pile.
I really they I think history will paint them eventually as one of the
biggest detractors from this industry in in ever net negative will be measured in human
lives by what they've done jobs hopefully yes, well yes, the livelihoods,
I should say, yes, livelihoods there It is cool. Uh yeah,
they're they're they're the The The level of incompetence and overconfidence that is now being
revealed is just absolutely mind boggling. That press conference or that thing that he
that the one CEO had to do right after the deal fell through should be
shown in every gaming marketing, gaming business one oh one, just say this
is what happens if you think you know more than what this industry can do,
and don't be this, don't be it's just unbelievable. Meanwhile, over
at Namcoe Bendy, Oh, I'm gonna say the name different every time I
was this morning, I was like just kind of singing to myself because I
keep saying Namco Bandai and everyone else because that's not the name, even though
it was the name quite some time. They yell at me and then so
I was just like, Namkai Banda is what I was saying that all morning,
and then I think I accidentally said it here when I was talking about
the show. Tech and eight has sold two million copies after about three weeks.
So, hey, very good game, selling very well. Big shocker.
I think that one of the things that happened. And we're not we're
not gonna have time to talk about the DICE Awards too much, but Spider
Man, Big Runner and a Balder Skate three obviously Game of the Year winner.
When the team came out to talk about ball Skate three, they're like,
hey, this industry looks pretty fucked right now, and hey, if
you make fun games, those will sell better. And it's just like,
yeah, you look at Tech and eight. It's a really fun game and
it's selling great, So I take it. Yeah, if if you go
to the game spot news article and the Dice Awards, if if you want
to see that speech, I happen to write that, and the speech is
right there linked in the first tweets, two tweets. Great speech. You
should go check that out. I'll see it real fast. You see Christians
yelling me they literally changed in ten years ago. Ten years ago is nothing
when you've been along as I as long as I have Christian post Malone is
curating WW two K twenty four is a soundtrack, and we'll be a DLC
character. Jordan Midler on Twitter said, talk about post launch content and I
want to I want to hit them, but I can't because it's a really
good Yes, that's fantastic, that's good stuff. He's going to have his
opponents running in circles. Uh, this is this is fun whatever, let's
go. Yeah, he's like producing this soundtrack. He's got a couple of
tracks on there himself, and there's some pretty good Uh there's Culture Wall and
Grimes. It's like eclectic the way I would expect post malones a mixed CDs
to be eclectic. But yeah, him being a DLC character, I was
not expecting that that's really fun. No, I mean they're just building on
Bad Bunny. Last year they were the same thing. The only difference was
Bad Bunny has actually been in a restaurant, ya, so he can.
He's a worker, brother, he is great. So is this possibly a
hint the post He's gonna jump in there too and slap Grayson Waller around.
Uh that that remains to be seen. But this is cool. Admittedly,
of the artists on this list, I have only heard of three, possibly
four of them before I read it. But that's just me being an old
dad. So I'm excited to hear them as I peruse the menus and then
eventually replace them with the theme songs of the wrestlers, because that's how I
work. But hey, cool, You mean you've not heard of the band
Pigs Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs Pigs. If not,
I mean either is that seven pigs, so many pigs? Jason, and
the song's name is big rig They got something for the letters ig Oh boy
oh Man. Music Huh that's weird. Music. Music is weird. That's
my opinion on the matter. All Right, I got a pull question I'm
gonna get too in a second. While I get that set up, Jason,
make sure you tell people where they can find you. People love you,
make sure they can follow you somewhere. Tell them about it. They
follow me at big Man Finelle on Twitter and Instagram for random perusings about wrestling,
video games, things that I'm working on. Every once in a while
you'll get a picture of my lovely children and uh yeah, we have fun
there writing news for game Spot, still reviews at MMORPG, recently reviewed tech
and eight and Grand Blue Fantasy Relink, which somebody in the chat yesterday while
you were doing this with Jan was giving me crap for my Relink reviews.
So if you want to go make fun of me, go ahead over there.
Have a couple of things in the pipeline. If you are playing like
a Dragon Infinite Wealth and you want to explore all of the sub stories,
all fifty two of them. Your boy wrote the guides at IGN so you
can go check those out. And then a couple and also I started a
little side thing. I'm into tabletop card games, magic, Pokemon, little
kind of stuff like that. Started a little project called TCG. John John
being Philly slang for basically anything like this. John was fun today, Oh
incredible on YouTube and TikTok, mostly opening packs. I'm gonna start doing deck
text for Magic and stuff like that. So if you like tcg's and you
want something else to look at, that's where you can do that. Also,
I wanted to talk about this one real quick. From Software acquired the
Elder Ring trademark from Bandai Namco. We'll talk about that on Tuesday on the
BombCast. Everybody excuse me, I'm interested in what that might mean because they
wouldn't They didn't acquire the copyright, but the trademark might still have a lot
to happen there. We'll talk about that. Definitely, give Jason follow get
all the gens from him. He's got the Johns for you, those Johns.
Get the Johns. All right, let's see here. Poll question,
let's bring it up here. Are you picking up Mario Versus Donkey Kong?
Thirteen percent say yes, eighty seven percent say no. Does feel like one
of those games that many people are going to feel just fine skipping over the
reviews were like, Hey, this is pretty okay and I am pretty excited
to play it, but I'm not going to have time this week and I
don't think we'll see all right, a new poll question that we'll get to
on Wednesday because we are off for President's Day on Monday, so we'll see
you all on the game this mornings on Wednesday. The BombCast will be on
Tuesday. New pole question. Are you going to try at least one of
High five Rush Pentiment Grounded or see of Thieves on PS five Slash Slash Switch
Yes, no? Or I already played those games on Xbox Slash PC.
That poll is up now on YouTube dot com slash at Giant Bomb under the
community tab you can find it there. Be sure to follow us on YouTube
for whenever we post polls in the future. Beyond that, what do we
have happening on games? Games, games Beat almost called Giant Bomb, Games
Beat on Giant Bomb. Today we are gonna do UPF It does say here
moved UPF? Up do we do? And then Jen said, do we
do this for this week? I don't know, Jan you told me.
I think we listen, we will have a UPF and I think we're starting
it a little bit earlier, maybe going a little bit longer or something like
that. But look out for that today and then we'll have BombCast Revengeance as
well. We're gonna do just some fun stuff and maybe talking about a handful
of games. It should be a good episode, all right, Jason,
thank you so much for spending today talking with me about video games. Man,
I really appreciate it. Always happy to do it. Jeff, whenever
you need be I'm here. I will definitely take advantage of that in the
future. Thank you all for listening. You're the best audience in gaming.
Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.