Star Wars Battlefront II Has a Huge Sales Jump

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, welcome the Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff
<v Speaker 1>Grab your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you
<v Speaker 1>for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be
<v Speaker 1>talking about people showing up for that Elden Ring game
<v Speaker 1>and why ording makes steam worth it. It's going to
<v Speaker 1>be a good one because we have Sean Turbo Sean
<v Speaker 1>McDowell on the show. Sean, how are you doing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm good, Jeff, I'm back.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, to have you back on the show. Uh No,
<v Speaker 1>not much. I'm uh I'm glad to have you back,
<v Speaker 1>specifically because I have a taco bell related question. And
<v Speaker 1>despite Dan's reputation, I know you're the real expert.
<v Speaker 2>Did they fan?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I'm glad we're got We're getting that out there
<v Speaker 1>for people to know. Uh, the potato things, the side potatoes,
<v Speaker 1>what are those things called? Do they still have those.
<v Speaker 2>Loaded potatoes?
<v Speaker 1>Loaded potato? Yeah, yeah kinda. Do they still.
<v Speaker 2>Know? Yeah, because they never really, they never get rid
<v Speaker 2>of potatoes on the menu because they're so cheap to like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, manufacture or produce anything like that. So there's
<v Speaker 2>there's always some kind of potatoes on me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I just remember like that was
<v Speaker 1>my go to side at Taco bell for a couple
<v Speaker 1>of years there and then I haven't had it in
<v Speaker 1>a very very long time. So I'm like, it's not
<v Speaker 1>something they ever talked about, right. They're always talking about,
<v Speaker 1>you know that that they got the five dollars box
<v Speaker 1>with the chill loupas and stuff. No one's ever talking
<v Speaker 1>about the potatoes, all right.
<v Speaker 2>I mean also, the potatoes are overpriced. It's like three
<v Speaker 2>dollars for one of those things.
<v Speaker 1>Nowadays it's awful cheesy fiesta potatoes.
<v Speaker 2>That sounds right, That's right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Do you can tell like I never get those?
<v Speaker 1>No? Yeah, who does? I think most people don't so,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, I'm.
<v Speaker 2>Still lamenting the fact that, yeah, chicken nuggets are gone
<v Speaker 2>from at least my Taco bells.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Really good, unfairly maligned those those chicken nuggets in
<v Speaker 1>my opinion, I like.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know who, I don't know who's doing the
<v Speaker 2>maligning out there, but y'all just got a bad batch.
<v Speaker 2>Those are some good nuggets and I hope they bring
<v Speaker 2>them back because damn they're tasty.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. What what you've been up to? Have you've been
<v Speaker 1>playing anything? Anything? You want to talk about that you've
<v Speaker 1>been dying to like shout at the giant bomb audience.
<v Speaker 2>Eh, I've been floating between some stuff, you know, which
<v Speaker 2>to not a ton to play on it. Really, I've been,
<v Speaker 2>you know, kind of just going back to some old
<v Speaker 2>stuff while I'm not playing Mario Kart, you know, revisiting
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon now that doesn't run like absolute garbage being disappointed
<v Speaker 2>by Persona five X because that game is.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's you do enjoy some of the Mijoyo games, right,
<v Speaker 1>I do? Does it compare unfavorably to those?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I was telling Mike the other night when we
<v Speaker 2>were doing a show that the problem with it is
<v Speaker 2>is that it has like an Uncanny Valley relationship with
<v Speaker 2>Persona five. Oh weird, where they're trying to just like
<v Speaker 2>retell the story of Persona five but with new characters.
<v Speaker 2>But because they're simplifying things for mobile and adding the
<v Speaker 2>gotcha monetization, everything's just a little bit worse. So I'm
<v Speaker 2>in the situation of, well, why wouldn't I just play
<v Speaker 2>Persona five? Yeah, which, by the way, by the way,
<v Speaker 2>we we downgradeed everyone's mentioning in the chat the subway slammer.
<v Speaker 2>That's the that's the main villain of at least the
<v Speaker 2>early part of the game. A dude who slams into
<v Speaker 2>people on the subway.
<v Speaker 1>Need to take that dude, that's the focus.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Well, you go from a dude who's like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>sexually harassing this gym teacher who's like abusing people, and
<v Speaker 2>it's like a really emotional story to like really get
<v Speaker 2>you in there and try to like say, yeah, we
<v Speaker 2>need to take down to bad people in this world.
<v Speaker 2>Do Subway Slammer.
<v Speaker 1>Not to be confused with Paul Slammer. These are two
<v Speaker 1>different people everywhere, very different. All Right, let's explain ourselves.
<v Speaker 1>Giant bomb dot com slash join go there, join help
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<v Speaker 1>be doing more stuff along those lines in the future.
<v Speaker 1>As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff Grubb,
<v Speaker 1>will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes
<v Speaker 1>breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
<v Speaker 1>For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
<v Speaker 1>Bona fide expert who will make me look smart? If
<v Speaker 1>you were watching live on Twitch welcome. You can always
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<v Speaker 1>for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS feed on
<v Speaker 1>giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show
<v Speaker 1>later on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have a
<v Speaker 1>lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess
<v Speaker 1>with May twenty twenty five Circana Games Market Report. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Matt Piscatella. It was once known as the
<v Speaker 1>MPD Report. This is just game sales from the United
<v Speaker 1>States for the month of May, and we're getting at
<v Speaker 1>early July. I think there was a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>a delay here in the reporting. May twenty twenty five
<v Speaker 1>projected US total spending on video game hardware, content, and
<v Speaker 1>accessories grew one percent when compared to a year ago.
<v Speaker 1>The four point one billion dollars year to date spending
<v Speaker 1>finished the month six percent behind twenty twenty fourth Space
<v Speaker 1>at twenty one point eight billion dollars, So the year
<v Speaker 1>is still down overall, even if May was able to
<v Speaker 1>kind of get even with whatever happened in twenty twenty
<v Speaker 1>four for spending tracking, May video game content spending increased
<v Speaker 1>two percent when compared to a year ago to three
<v Speaker 1>point seven billion. The growth was led by a twenty
<v Speaker 1>nine percent gain in non mobile subscription spending when compared
<v Speaker 1>to May twenty twenty four. May twenty twenty five Top
<v Speaker 1>twenty best selling games includes at number one, Elden Ring
<v Speaker 1>Night Rain, number two was Doomed the Dark Ages, and
<v Speaker 1>then we get into Forts or Horizon five and the
<v Speaker 1>older scrolls. Wait, is this the Yeah? This is it
<v Speaker 1>for everything? Yeah, the older Scrolls four, Oblivion Remastered, Call
<v Speaker 1>of Duty, Black Ops six MLB, The Show twenty five nine,
<v Speaker 1>Craft Grand Theft Out of five, NBA two K twenty
<v Speaker 1>five at number nine and number ten is EA Sports
<v Speaker 1>FC twenty five. Kind of familiar story where the new
<v Speaker 1>games do break in and then it's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>familiar games making out the rest of the list. You know,
<v Speaker 1>this is the last sales report we get shown before
<v Speaker 1>the switch to launched. That'll be in the June report.
<v Speaker 1>You know. I think overall, like we keep looking at
<v Speaker 1>the console market and being like kind of poke it
<v Speaker 1>with a stick, saying, hey, do something, and I think
<v Speaker 1>that it's still mostly in that position. But it's just
<v Speaker 1>things aren't like grim like things aren't falling apart over here,
<v Speaker 1>or maybe they have fallen apart enough and that's sort
<v Speaker 1>of stopped and it's kind of reached equilibrium. But it
<v Speaker 1>does feel like this is still a pretty vibrant market
<v Speaker 1>where people spend a lot of money. And you know
<v Speaker 1>this is not just consoles as PC as well, and
<v Speaker 1>then there's some mobile spending in the data, but overall
<v Speaker 1>just seems like gaming isn't in a decent place. Is
<v Speaker 1>that the sense you get from like looking at these numbers,
<v Speaker 1>because clearly when we look around at anything else, that's
<v Speaker 1>not the sense we get.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think the feeling that I get with gaming
<v Speaker 2>in general right now is that's in a weird place
<v Speaker 2>right now, maybe a transitional place, like you're saying with
<v Speaker 2>the consoles, it's not necessarily dooming gloom, but especially you
<v Speaker 2>know this is from May the day of that we're
<v Speaker 2>looking at here. But the vibe that I get from everyone,
<v Speaker 2>even ignoring everything that's going on with Microsoft and all that,
<v Speaker 2>we are just seeing a shift in how people interact
<v Speaker 2>with games, how people buy games, and because of everything
<v Speaker 2>related to business of that, what people are buying, I
<v Speaker 2>think that's reflected here where you do see like the
<v Speaker 2>you know, you see the big new thing of the month,
<v Speaker 2>that's the one that everyone wants to jump onto. But
<v Speaker 2>other than that, I don't know. I see some weirdness
<v Speaker 2>in here. People are maybe trying some different things. I
<v Speaker 2>think we get into it after this like Star Wars
<v Speaker 2>Pedal Front two being back on the menu. Apparently you know,
<v Speaker 2>people don't people don't know it did too right now,
<v Speaker 2>So they're just frying some different things, maybe trying some
<v Speaker 2>cheaper things, and it's caused the top twenty here to
<v Speaker 2>look a little different. I think you may expect.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, a little bit. I think overall, like the story
<v Speaker 1>continues to be, oh, this is a an industry where
<v Speaker 1>you can make money, but can you have that growth
<v Speaker 1>that you're looking for? And it's well, no, that definitely not.
<v Speaker 1>And I think what what you know, looking at the
<v Speaker 1>Microsoft layoffs in comparison to to this kind of information,
<v Speaker 1>it does feel like, you know, this industry will in
<v Speaker 1>the next couple of years, and it's happening now for sure,
<v Speaker 1>lose the interest of these mega corporations. I think there
<v Speaker 1>was an idea that, like, we can treat gaming as
<v Speaker 1>one of these areas where it's really dynamic and we
<v Speaker 1>could do stuff and we can make a lot of
<v Speaker 1>new money there, And I think that's the story they
<v Speaker 1>can't tell themselves anymore. And I'm at a point Sean
<v Speaker 1>morm Okay, so what that's that is what has happened here?
<v Speaker 1>The Microsofts of the world are probably going to We're
<v Speaker 1>going to slowly detach themselves from the kind of gaming
<v Speaker 1>that I'm interested in. And while while that's you know,
<v Speaker 1>that means a lot of money is going to exit
<v Speaker 1>the space, I do think the industry is at a
<v Speaker 1>point where, you know, in the say industry, but the
<v Speaker 1>creative medium of people making games, is it a point
<v Speaker 1>where they can kind of catch what what like the
<v Speaker 1>remainder of like what is left over? Right, we stick
<v Speaker 1>around and keep playing games, We're going to find stuff
<v Speaker 1>that we're going to be interested in.
<v Speaker 2>We're at a point where indies are starting to feel
<v Speaker 2>like Double A and Double A is starting to feel
<v Speaker 2>like Triple A. I think we saw that earlier this
<v Speaker 2>year with Expedition thirty three coming out and being you know,
<v Speaker 2>like a small ERB game from a smaller team and
<v Speaker 2>it's coming out and just capturing everyone, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>part of that is it's a little bit cheaper, it's
<v Speaker 2>a little bit smaller, so it's more approachable, and I
<v Speaker 2>think we're just going to see more of a transition
<v Speaker 2>of that as opposed to, like you were saying, with
<v Speaker 2>the big two of the Big three, Nintendo's not really
<v Speaker 2>in that race, but two of the Big three putting
<v Speaker 2>everything into the sort of the PlayStation style that was
<v Speaker 2>successful for them the PS four era, the Prestige TV
<v Speaker 2>approach to making a video game. But as we're seeing,
<v Speaker 2>that's just not sustainable, so they are scrambling to figure
<v Speaker 2>stuff out. Meanwhile, people lowered down the ladder in terms
<v Speaker 2>of making games are just like, well, we're just going
<v Speaker 2>to do things the way we've always done it, the
<v Speaker 2>way you guys used to do it, and people seem
<v Speaker 2>to like that, so we're going to reap the rewards.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's why I think those spaces are thriving
<v Speaker 2>more than ever before, and it's trickling out. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we're looking at whatever closer decade here, But Sardu Valley
<v Speaker 2>like just absolutely capturing everyone's imagination, like outside of the
<v Speaker 2>gaming space. I think you know that and some other
<v Speaker 2>big indies were like Domino's that slowly fell and taught people, well, hey,
<v Speaker 2>you can just get this smaller downloadable title, and it's
<v Speaker 2>a much more approachable thing. It's an affordable thing. I
<v Speaker 2>think people are more and more picking up stuff like
<v Speaker 2>that because I do hear my Normy friends talking more
<v Speaker 2>about this random game that they downloaded, you know, on
<v Speaker 2>whatever console on Steam, on their laptop or whatever, and
<v Speaker 2>I think we are just moving closer and closer to that.
<v Speaker 2>So that's that's why we're seeing a shake up of
<v Speaker 2>the trip a space now.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. And you know, if like I don't think it's
<v Speaker 1>going to be some drastic change, there will be a
<v Speaker 1>reason for Sony to keep making consoles for a very
<v Speaker 1>long time. And as long as that's there, and Nintendo's
<v Speaker 1>going to keep being Nintendo.
<v Speaker 2>System, you know, like it's still good for PlayStation. I
<v Speaker 2>have that for NINTEOA have that it's going to look
<v Speaker 2>different from Microsoft because they own an entire other ecosystem
<v Speaker 2>that they're starting to lean into.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Yeah, and there's Lexi points out something like Peak
<v Speaker 1>has sold four point two million copies on PC alone.
<v Speaker 2>And that's also one where you know, we can't understate
<v Speaker 2>the importance of the streamer culture. Everyone just watches Twitch.
<v Speaker 2>I was blown away when what just I saw my
<v Speaker 2>recommended issinot has two hundred thousand people watching him and
<v Speaker 2>whoever playing Mario the other day on Twitch, just like
<v Speaker 2>New Super Mario Brothers. We And just when you have
<v Speaker 2>that kind of culture, you do have people moving more
<v Speaker 2>and more towards these the streamer bait game sure, but
<v Speaker 2>also just the smaller scheme titles and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's and there's something about like that those streamer
<v Speaker 1>bait games that it's like, clearly that is what they're
<v Speaker 1>going for, but they have an appeal to an audience
<v Speaker 1>that it's just like, oh, you could tell this is
<v Speaker 1>about having fun with your friends, and they don't even
<v Speaker 1>think about Like my wife saw Baby Steps, it was
<v Speaker 1>just like cracking up the entire time. She's like, this
<v Speaker 1>is my humor. This is that you are immediately appealing
<v Speaker 1>to me and nothing to do with streamers, even though
<v Speaker 1>that game also very clearly built for that sort of idea.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, I don't know, there's something in that
<v Speaker 1>direction where you can just be more broadly appealing in
<v Speaker 1>a different way that does not involve spending all of
<v Speaker 1>the money in the World on the visuals. In fact,
<v Speaker 1>it's very much the opposite, which I'm happy about. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I look at the rest of this list, you know,
<v Speaker 1>number one best selling game of the year so far
<v Speaker 1>still Monster Hunter Wilds. That's in a weird place. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>of course, man Oblivion Remasters number two for the year still,
<v Speaker 1>that's when it moved up. Actually it was ranked last
<v Speaker 1>month as number three and then number three for the
<v Speaker 1>year so far. As Assassin's Great Shadows. I think this
<v Speaker 1>year's felt really good. But for these big sellers, it's
<v Speaker 1>been like, yeah, a lot of familiar names and ones
<v Speaker 1>that like Monster Hunter Wild's. Yeah, like I said, in
<v Speaker 1>a weird place. So yeah, it's not at the top
<v Speaker 1>of the market.
<v Speaker 2>It's a lot of known quantities. Yeah, Like there's if
<v Speaker 2>you look at this top five, really every single one
<v Speaker 2>is sort of something that people would be nostalgic for
<v Speaker 2>right now. You know, Maser Hunter it's a game people
<v Speaker 2>play with their friends, Oblivion Remaster three sixty game, people
<v Speaker 2>love Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty MLB. It's all people
<v Speaker 2>just you know, settling back into those spaces that they're
<v Speaker 2>comfortable with.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, Kingdom Come Deliverance at number six though, So something
<v Speaker 1>new there.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, there we go that build, that shake up what
<v Speaker 2>you were talking about, and then you know, split fixtion
<v Speaker 2>a little bit below that too.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see here, so you mentioned Star Wars Battlefront two.
<v Speaker 1>It saw a huge jump in sales from one month
<v Speaker 1>to the next. Star Wars Battlefront two jumped from one
<v Speaker 1>hundred and thirty fifth on the monthly Best Selling Titles
<v Speaker 1>chart in April to twelfth. In May, it ranked fifth
<v Speaker 1>across the PC aggregated storefront tracking. So they just started
<v Speaker 1>over at Circana putting together sales data from a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of different PC stores, so it's not just Steam anymore.
<v Speaker 1>And it was number five across all of those. Player
<v Speaker 1>accounts started to surge with Revenge of the Sith twentieth
<v Speaker 1>hitting theaters, then bumped more with and Or peaking during
<v Speaker 1>the week of May twenty fifth. Also had lots of
<v Speaker 1>promotional activity and dis kind of pricing on digital storefronts.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, the game was on sale a ton of
<v Speaker 1>times throughout this. But this is you know, this is
<v Speaker 1>ranked by dollar sales of this chart up here, So
<v Speaker 1>getting at number twelve is not like copies sold, it's
<v Speaker 1>how much money the game made. So that's impressive to
<v Speaker 1>jump that far in a month. It seems like I really.
<v Speaker 2>Worked from one thirty five on the chart it's said
<v Speaker 2>the previous month.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh, you know, is there anything else more there
<v Speaker 1>shown to this story? Does same thing? More about the
<v Speaker 1>Star Wars games, the same more about multiplayer games?
<v Speaker 2>What it leads into what we were just talking about,
<v Speaker 2>because I forget who it was, but some like streamer
<v Speaker 2>just fired up Ballfront two and was like, hey, this
<v Speaker 2>is a good game. Actually yeah, and like you know,
<v Speaker 2>it was all maligned when I first came out and
<v Speaker 2>it had some issues, but hey, this game is fun.
<v Speaker 2>And remember this game again, Nostalogia. I remember this game
<v Speaker 2>from you know, roughly ten years ago. Let's all circle
<v Speaker 2>back to it. And it became sort of a meme
<v Speaker 2>where a bunch of streamers hopped on the bandwagon were
<v Speaker 2>just like, let's trow this Battlefront two thing, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and like you see, people seem to like this and everything,
<v Speaker 2>and everyone just started downloading it and I'm playing and
<v Speaker 2>just playing this fun game that they picked up for
<v Speaker 2>what like five bucks on uh Steam or they already.
<v Speaker 1>Had it, Like because a lot of people they have
<v Speaker 1>to game back then and it's just been sitting there
<v Speaker 1>and they're like, oh yeah, let's go back to.
<v Speaker 2>That in games with gold or like some other giveaway
<v Speaker 2>that they did at some point, right yeah. So it's
<v Speaker 2>it's another another people going back to, you know, cheaper things,
<v Speaker 2>to things that they like and taking things up a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. This does not necessarily necessarily mean like EA should
<v Speaker 1>be spinning up all of the machines to get Battlefront
<v Speaker 1>three made. I know, that's what That's part of the
<v Speaker 1>meme right now, is hey, make battle from three? Where's
<v Speaker 1>battle from three? I'm gonna go fight the Lord to
<v Speaker 1>get Battlefront three made? I don't I don't know. I
<v Speaker 1>think jumping from one, thirty fifth to twelfth is impressive.
<v Speaker 1>It is something that's a little abnormal. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>it shows that there is enough fuel in that fire
<v Speaker 1>to make EA believe that they can go do Battlefront three,
<v Speaker 1>even if it's something I would enjoy, right.
<v Speaker 2>I think if anything speaks to the importance of preserving
<v Speaker 2>your games, including your online games, that's been talking point
<v Speaker 2>right now, because it can be a source of revenue,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like you said, it's position on the chart
<v Speaker 2>in May is not number of copies. It is dollar sales, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's ranked on dollar sales. And so this old game
<v Speaker 2>that they just had sitting around because people came back
<v Speaker 2>around on it and said, hey, we should we should
<v Speaker 2>check this out again, they hit twelfth on the chart,
<v Speaker 2>you know, sandwiched in between the Late's Assassin's Creed and
<v Speaker 2>like Split Fiction. Like that's that's a good spot to be.
<v Speaker 2>That's a lot of basically free money to make, and
<v Speaker 2>that's why it's important to keep these things in good
<v Speaker 2>shape on these digital storefronts and make sure that people
<v Speaker 2>can still go play this stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Dice is like it's chat's pointing out all in on
<v Speaker 1>Battlefield six or yeah, yeah, Battlefield six and that you know,
<v Speaker 1>uh is this seven and five and then twenty forty two,
<v Speaker 1>but I think they're calling this one. I can't keep
<v Speaker 1>track anymore. The next battlefield and uh it is going.
<v Speaker 2>To Battlefield one was in there as well, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's all over the place. And you know, that
<v Speaker 1>is a game that can't not make because Battlefield is
<v Speaker 1>that big. It's like too big too like fail in
<v Speaker 1>any hard, hard, permanent way. But also they have expectations
<v Speaker 1>that that game is going to have something like one
<v Speaker 1>hundred million players. What is going on over there with that?
<v Speaker 2>That is themselves saying themselves up for failure. That a doubt, like,
<v Speaker 2>what wait, you hire people from square Enix. What the
<v Speaker 2>hell is happening over there? One hundred million? What are
<v Speaker 2>you talking about? Nobody does that?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's a weird thing to see they've never
<v Speaker 1>had that many players and that they've never had close
<v Speaker 1>to that many players. Does that imply that you know
<v Speaker 1>the next one's going to have a free to play mode?
<v Speaker 1>I guess that's the other There is reporting out there
<v Speaker 1>that they're all in on a battle Royale mode that's
<v Speaker 1>just like war zoned for Battlefield, and they're like, that's
<v Speaker 1>going to be the answer, and that has to be
<v Speaker 1>free to play, right if they're.
<v Speaker 2>Doing that at this point, yes, because what I believe
<v Speaker 2>the last one that they tried was included with what
<v Speaker 2>Battlefield won. I think is where that came out and
<v Speaker 2>just nobody cared because people were starting to play these
<v Speaker 2>free to replay shooters and so you at least you
<v Speaker 2>at least need to do it the call of duty
<v Speaker 2>style of having a component that's free and then if
<v Speaker 2>you want an that's paid as awful as the Call
<v Speaker 2>of Duty app ui is the fact that they do say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>this is the free thing that you can play right now.
<v Speaker 2>This is the sixty dollars thing where if you want
<v Speaker 2>more to Call of Duty, give us some cash, we
<v Speaker 2>give you more game. And so that actually kind of
<v Speaker 2>works out. I think if YA wants to approach that,
<v Speaker 2>that's the path that they need to take. They need
<v Speaker 2>to have the free you play balle Royale or some
<v Speaker 2>kind of free experience to get people in the door.
<v Speaker 2>Then say hey, and did you know we also release
<v Speaker 2>Battlefield six, which is this full price thing you can
<v Speaker 2>give some money and you can like play this more
<v Speaker 2>traditional shooter with your friends and everything.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I wonder if they just like look internally, they
<v Speaker 1>have like numbers for like here's what like Apex Legends
<v Speaker 1>did on its first day, like that it like rushed
<v Speaker 1>to like fifty million players in no time. So Battlefield's
<v Speaker 1>bigger than that. It should be able to do more
<v Speaker 1>than that. It's I don't know if that's how it's
<v Speaker 1>necessarily going to work. And I wonder did battlefild or
<v Speaker 1>did Apex Legends ever actually reach one hundred million total players,
<v Speaker 1>because they talked about reaching fifty million real fast, and
<v Speaker 1>then it kind of seemed to stabilize after that, and
<v Speaker 1>I wonder if it ever sort of just stumbled into
<v Speaker 1>a hundred million players over time. Hey, good luck with Battlefield.
<v Speaker 1>I hope they figure that out. But yeah, I don't
<v Speaker 1>think it's going to be able to get a hundred
<v Speaker 1>million players. That'll be insane if it does. Yeah, all right,
<v Speaker 1>let's see here, let's get Yeah, let's do this next
<v Speaker 1>story before we do the break. Analyst explains why Steam's
<v Speaker 1>thirty percent cut is worth it to some developers. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Rich Stanton at PC Gamer. Games Industry analyst
<v Speaker 1>Chris Zukowski has cracked it and knows exactly what you're
<v Speaker 1>all like, Nothing but a bunch of hordy hoarders. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>I'm looking at you, with the huge Steam library balked
<v Speaker 1>out greedily during every big sale in which you've only
<v Speaker 1>ever played half of and that's being generous of those games.
<v Speaker 1>The troop is in there. The amazing thing about Steam
<v Speaker 1>and its player base, this is the quote now, is
<v Speaker 1>that they buy games they aren't going to play, says Zukowski,
<v Speaker 1>and in a new post forst spotedby Game of Games
<v Speaker 1>Radar plus more than likely the person buying your game
<v Speaker 1>is not going to play it. This The idea here, Sean,
<v Speaker 1>is that Steam has created a culture around collecting and
<v Speaker 1>gathering games and that's not necessarily something that is happening
<v Speaker 1>to the same degree on other platforms, especially on PC.
<v Speaker 1>And because people behave this way, there's you know, I
<v Speaker 1>think the Zukowski refers to them as a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>drunken sailors just spending money like crazy when they see
<v Speaker 1>a game sale on Steam. Because of that, the Steam
<v Speaker 1>PC gaming market is propped up by these people that
<v Speaker 1>spend a lot of money on games they don't necessarily
<v Speaker 1>need to or want to play or don't intend to play.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, oh, that's excuse me, that's holding up
<v Speaker 1>the whole thing over there, and that makes the thirty
<v Speaker 1>percent cut that Steam takes worth it because they've created
<v Speaker 1>that culture. Does that sound right to you.
<v Speaker 2>I I'm a little confused on the statement being made here,
<v Speaker 2>because part of me is, or obviously most of me
<v Speaker 2>is like, what's the problem. Everyone's making money?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I don't think there is a problem. I don't
<v Speaker 1>think I think this is the problem would be that
<v Speaker 1>people don't necessarily like giving Steam thirty percent of their
<v Speaker 1>game sales and so, and this is saying, well, yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 1>no one likes that, but what you get in return
<v Speaker 1>for that is access to a marketplace of a lot,
<v Speaker 1>lot of consumers who spend a lot of money kind
<v Speaker 1>of irresponsibly. And that's a good thing because that means
<v Speaker 1>more people get to make games. And sure some people
<v Speaker 1>aren't going to play those games after buying them, but
<v Speaker 1>don't worry about that. That's not really the issue. The
<v Speaker 1>getting money to flow in this marketplace is a good thing.
<v Speaker 1>And that's so. Yeah, it's like kind of a justification
<v Speaker 1>for the cut that Steam takes.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, maybe I'm like misreading the article here because
<v Speaker 2>it feels a little a little I can't attack the
<v Speaker 2>way it's alets to be a.
<v Speaker 1>Little sarcastic in this stuff. Yeah, there's a little yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Because ultimately, as long as people are spending money,
<v Speaker 2>I feel like that is what the good thing is
<v Speaker 2>because then look, if someone doesn't play your game right away,
<v Speaker 2>but they give you the cash, that's ultimately the best
<v Speaker 2>case scenario for a developer, because their game is only
<v Speaker 2>going to decrease in value over time. So if they
<v Speaker 2>put their game on sale for like forty percent, someone
<v Speaker 2>buys it, they don't play it for like three years
<v Speaker 2>or whatever, and then they play it, Well, the dev
<v Speaker 2>made more money than if that person had weighed another
<v Speaker 2>three years, and that game goes down to like two
<v Speaker 2>bucks or whatever. Yeah, so yeah, I guess I do
<v Speaker 2>think that is a good thing in general for the ecosystem, because, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>these PC gamers will spend money left and right, even
<v Speaker 2>if it's not a ton of money on a game
<v Speaker 2>on release. Although that does happen. We do see the
<v Speaker 2>hot new big Triple A release go to the top
<v Speaker 2>of the Steam chart all the time, just like on console
<v Speaker 2>and everything. But you also do get them spending a
<v Speaker 2>bunch of little money here and there. So sure, they
<v Speaker 2>may not have spent one hundred and where we up
<v Speaker 2>to two hundred and ten dollars on three new games
<v Speaker 2>that month, but if they did spend you know, like
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and fifty bucks in Steam sale and everyone
<v Speaker 2>gets a little piece of the pie. I that does
<v Speaker 2>feel like a rising tide and lifting all the ships
<v Speaker 2>in there, right.
<v Speaker 1>I think? So, yeah, definitely it's in you know, the
<v Speaker 1>it is trying to consumers behave in the way that
<v Speaker 1>they're going to behave. For the most part, you can
<v Speaker 1>sort of kind of funnel that river and in certain
<v Speaker 1>directions and kind of work with it. And it's like
<v Speaker 1>it felt like when game Pass came along, it was like,
<v Speaker 1>let's try to make this river run backwards. Let's get
<v Speaker 1>the money, let people own nothing, and they could try
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of games that they might want to play.
<v Speaker 1>And it's okay, I see the value there. I see
<v Speaker 1>what you're going for, and I'm down with it a
<v Speaker 1>little bit. But don't think I'm ever going to give
<v Speaker 1>up what I have over on Steam, which is I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna just have a huge collection of games that I
<v Speaker 1>might not play but I spent money on and I
<v Speaker 1>own and I feel good about that. So it's always
<v Speaker 1>it was always going to be a compliment to that,
<v Speaker 1>but clearly one is just more organically working than the other.
<v Speaker 1>It just feels like this is the way people want
<v Speaker 1>to consume video games the way it happens over on
<v Speaker 1>Steam and Valve is there providing all the tools to
<v Speaker 1>like lubricate lubricate that process as much as possible, and
<v Speaker 1>that's where the value comes from is then providing all
<v Speaker 1>those tools around that, whether it's simple support or you know,
<v Speaker 1>being able to just like deal with you know, having
<v Speaker 1>a community that is right there on the service that
<v Speaker 1>can help you inside of the game. And yeah, there's
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of reasons why Valve has value in Steam,
<v Speaker 1>but the amount of money being spent is the number
<v Speaker 1>one reason that the system works.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that that's the value of stea. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>circling back to what this article is all about, right,
<v Speaker 2>the value of the person, the purchaser in Steam, the
<v Speaker 2>user is the fact that they are sticking around because
<v Speaker 2>Valve is sort of creating this loyal user base of
<v Speaker 2>the old fashioned way by just having good customer service,
<v Speaker 2>having consumer first policies on stuff like you know, even
<v Speaker 2>the way you said it, like I Wednesday, I saw
<v Speaker 2>like some of the chat as well, the way you said, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I own my games on Steam, man, I'm like, well
<v Speaker 2>you don't, but it feels like you do more so
<v Speaker 2>than any other digital store effectively.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like, yeah, Well, the reality on the ground is
<v Speaker 1>how do I feel? And that's my reality, that's my perspective.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, that's what matters to most people. And there's
<v Speaker 1>a reason people have huge collections of Steam games because
<v Speaker 1>they feel like they own them. You could be pedantic
<v Speaker 1>about it, but for sure, we could talk about the
<v Speaker 1>legality of it, but that's not how people feel, and
<v Speaker 1>that's what they really and.
<v Speaker 2>That's what matters ultimately. And it's the same way with
<v Speaker 2>me where I still I bought a couple of games
<v Speaker 2>digitally on the Switch the r day, and I still
<v Speaker 2>had this like kind of icky feeling about buying a
<v Speaker 2>game digitally on Switch because I'm like, Nintendo shun this
<v Speaker 2>server off at some point in time. It's to Switch.
<v Speaker 2>It's their new ecosystem that they're maintaining, so it might
<v Speaker 2>not be for at least like twenty years or whatever,
<v Speaker 2>but I do feel like this is going away at
<v Speaker 2>some point, Whereas on Steam, I'm like, well, I just
<v Speaker 2>have this forever. It's Valve snipling anywhere they are PC gaming,
<v Speaker 2>and so yeah, that's the value of I guess letting
<v Speaker 2>Valve take the thirty percent cut is having that loyal
<v Speaker 2>user base who will keep pumping money into the ecosystem,
<v Speaker 2>keep if they like your game, regardless of when they
<v Speaker 2>bought it, becoming a loyal fan of your games and
<v Speaker 2>so that way, Beam also has all the little things
<v Speaker 2>of like, you know, notify me when this developer posts
<v Speaker 2>out a new game, notify me about my wishless stuff.
<v Speaker 2>That's why people always talk about please wish list our
<v Speaker 2>game on Steam. That gets people coming back, maybe getting
<v Speaker 2>the launch deals and everything like that. It does just
<v Speaker 2>seem like a good place to publish games, even if
<v Speaker 2>they are still taking that big cut, because hey, Epic
<v Speaker 2>tried saying this cut ain't worth it, and yeah, nobody
<v Speaker 2>fell for that, so I think, yep, the more time
<v Speaker 2>goes on, the more we see how valuable Steam is.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like Epic, it's the comparison, right, like, yeah, the
<v Speaker 1>much better cut. But they don't provide the thing that
<v Speaker 1>you really want from a store, which is customers. You know.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's such a huge like you want to be
<v Speaker 1>Everyone wants to be have their product in Walmart for
<v Speaker 1>a reason, and it's, uh, that's the first place you
<v Speaker 1>go because they have the customers. And it's kind of
<v Speaker 1>a similar thing here. All right, let's see here, let's
<v Speaker 1>take a quick break. We'll get back to the more
<v Speaker 1>headlines here after that. If you don't, I don't want
<v Speaker 1>to hear the break you go to giant bomb dot
<v Speaker 1>com slash join get ad free versions of these shows.
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<v Speaker 1>Become a member. Now all right, it's Game Mess Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>We are back and I'm Jeff Grubb. That's Sean Turboshan McDowell.
<v Speaker 1>Let's get into the rest of the news. Multiple Fallout
<v Speaker 1>games in development, including potential Fallout three remaster. This is
<v Speaker 1>from moyses Ta Varius over at GameSpot, but is reportedly
<v Speaker 1>full steam ahead on the Fallout franchise, with multiple primerojects
<v Speaker 1>in the fan favorite RPG series, supposedly in development. Appearing
<v Speaker 1>on the Friends per Second podcast, VGC journalist Jordan Midler
<v Speaker 1>made the aforementioned claim I don't know, saying there are
<v Speaker 1>multiple Fallout projects in development. He then goes on to
<v Speaker 1>cheekly suggest that one of them is even that one
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure you're all wanting, teasing a possible remaster of
<v Speaker 1>Fallout three among the crop of upcoming projects. Is that
<v Speaker 1>if you said the one you all wanted, would that
<v Speaker 1>be the thing you would immediately go to as a
<v Speaker 1>Fallout three remaster? That's the most obvious one that's gonna happen.
<v Speaker 2>Scott's want something else over there, I'd assume that's Fallout three, right.
<v Speaker 1>You know? Some part of me is like, isn't New
<v Speaker 1>Vegas the thing that people think of when you start
<v Speaker 1>talking about the thing you really want from Fallout, Like
<v Speaker 1>if you're talking to the real gamer fans, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like New Vegas is the one people actually want,
<v Speaker 2>is the one I want? But I Fallout three is
<v Speaker 2>the one that's been mentioned, So I'd assume that's what
<v Speaker 2>Jordan would be hinting at it there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that's that's probably fair. Fall Out three
<v Speaker 1>just feels like a shirt thing after what happened with Skyrim,
<v Speaker 1>or yeah with Oblivion Oblivion yet excuse me? Oblivion right there?
<v Speaker 1>Same system, same engine, same time frame. I think they
<v Speaker 1>could just honestly apply a lot of what they did
<v Speaker 1>and and kind of just get that going. I think
<v Speaker 1>that's going going to happen. So then, Sean, what are
<v Speaker 1>the other projects? What else do you want from Fallout?
<v Speaker 2>Ah? That's a tricky one, Jeff, because I don't really
<v Speaker 2>like Fallout?
<v Speaker 1>Right? Did you do you like any of that?
<v Speaker 2>Why? I like New Vegas?
<v Speaker 1>Okay, New Vegas right?
<v Speaker 2>Sorr? A different flavor of that.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I mean, then I don't think you're alone in
<v Speaker 1>that assessment. Uh, do you think there's a chance that
<v Speaker 1>New Vegas two is something that could be happening as
<v Speaker 1>part of all this? Because I heard a long time
<v Speaker 1>ago that their life was a conversation about maybe doing that,
<v Speaker 1>and that's as far as I ever heard of getting
<v Speaker 1>But you know, conversation was real.
<v Speaker 2>Would that have been Absidian project or with something else?
<v Speaker 2>Within the fans?
<v Speaker 1>It sounded like Obsidian was involved in the comversation. Again,
<v Speaker 1>that's all I ever heard of it, So, like, what
<v Speaker 1>does that mean? Video games are a lot more than that. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, maybe upsitting coming in and helping or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>Obsidians just just seem so busy doing a million things.
<v Speaker 2>Right, and you know what, when does the outer worlds
<v Speaker 2>to come out? Do you know? Off the top of
<v Speaker 2>your head.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, isn't that that's later this year? That's that's that's marlin.
<v Speaker 2>But now I don't know if they would if they
<v Speaker 2>would have been working on New Vegas thing concurrently, or
<v Speaker 2>if that would be the next project. That feels like,
<v Speaker 2>especially when Microsoft is going to need some wins going forward,
<v Speaker 2>you need to play to the fans a bit and
<v Speaker 2>announcing that the at least studio, even if it's not
<v Speaker 2>necessarily a team, but the studio that did New Vegas
<v Speaker 2>is doing New Vegas remastered. Yeah, I think that would, like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, garner some goodwill from people.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, especially if there if it was like following up
<v Speaker 1>a Fallout three remaster that does very well. Yeah, like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we like we're gonna do right by the fans, and
<v Speaker 1>also clearly you could trust that we're going to fall
<v Speaker 1>see this through because we're doing right by the fans
<v Speaker 1>in a franchise that has made a lot of money
<v Speaker 1>and so it's a safe bet for us, because otherwise,
<v Speaker 1>if they announce something with Fallout New Vegas two right
<v Speaker 1>now and say that's going to be coming years down
<v Speaker 1>the line, I'm like, well, you're going to cancel that game.
<v Speaker 1>You're not going to actually see that through. You're just
<v Speaker 1>going to cancel it. So I guess maybe that's us
<v Speaker 1>being very tuned in and in this moment right now.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe the wider fan base probably wouldn't even think about
<v Speaker 1>that at all. I guess. I don't know, but they
<v Speaker 1>do need, like they have to do something with Fallout.
<v Speaker 1>That TV show worked very well for them, got everyone
<v Speaker 1>very excited, and those games were there on on Game
<v Speaker 1>Pass and they were updated with the backwards compatibility, so
<v Speaker 1>they ran really well on the current Xbox system.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I did one of them get a little bit
<v Speaker 2>of DLC or something like.
<v Speaker 1>That, something like a tiny bit something you know, obviously,
<v Speaker 1>and then the live game Fallout seventy six, is that
<v Speaker 1>what it is? Yeah? Right, yeah, because of America, it
<v Speaker 1>was right there kind of ready to catch some people
<v Speaker 1>as well. But it's like, well, there's money left on
<v Speaker 1>the table because there's not the next new big Fallout
<v Speaker 1>game ready to go. Anytime soon, so they do have
<v Speaker 1>to kind of get that figured out. And at the
<v Speaker 1>same time, but as the Game Studios is making the
<v Speaker 1>next Elder Scrolls game, still that's got to be their
<v Speaker 1>focus because they already said that was coming. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they're still in this trafficgy.
<v Speaker 2>You'd think you're right, got, you're right. Know what the
<v Speaker 2>hell's going on there in general right now? Like not
<v Speaker 2>a bad that's the smart thing though, that's the smart thing.
<v Speaker 2>Then that you know, they haven't been sticking to the
<v Speaker 2>smart thing lately, so maybe that gets shaken up. But
<v Speaker 2>ideally Yeah. Also I saw people talking to the chat
<v Speaker 2>so virtue Us did Oblivion remastered.
<v Speaker 1>Right, yes?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So I guess if they want to double down
<v Speaker 2>on remasters because of how well Oblivion does, because that's
<v Speaker 2>also a bit of an Xbox strategy, Oh crap, we
<v Speaker 2>had something that worked, let's do more of that, and
<v Speaker 2>then it doesn't always pan out because they're a little
<v Speaker 2>late in gaining those projects out there. Maybe they do,
<v Speaker 2>you know, have someone else do the Fallout three one
<v Speaker 2>and then have someone more internally do a New Vegas
<v Speaker 2>if they want to keep the ball rolling with that
<v Speaker 2>stuff I mentioned earlier in the show just making your
<v Speaker 2>game successible and easily playable and stuff like that. It's
<v Speaker 2>also just an easy thing for a student, for a
<v Speaker 2>an IP holder to do do then say to some
<v Speaker 2>other studio, we give you some cash, you remake slash
<v Speaker 2>remaster this game. We get some guaranteed return on investment.
<v Speaker 2>It won't be huge, but it's like consistent revenue once again,
<v Speaker 2>not just to just wrap all over Microsoft, even though
<v Speaker 2>they we kind of deserve it as their past week. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know that their their strategy over there is whack.
<v Speaker 2>I don't understand what their investment plan is, so they
<v Speaker 2>may not necessarily do the thing that makes to invest
<v Speaker 2>in right now. So I'm kind of kind of wondering
<v Speaker 2>in my head what the future of any of these
<v Speaker 2>franchises look like if even something like a big reboot
<v Speaker 2>of Perfect Dark that they put a bunch of money
<v Speaker 2>into is something that they just cut like that, you know, yep.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it part of it feels like, you know, the
<v Speaker 1>siloing of these big brands like Bethesta kind of still
<v Speaker 1>be in its own thing over here to the side
<v Speaker 1>means they will just operate the way Bethesta has And
<v Speaker 1>I hope that means you know, they're going to keep
<v Speaker 1>making games, and that means these games just sort of
<v Speaker 1>happened naturally, as opposed to Microsoft being like, we're going
<v Speaker 1>to start up the Initiative and try to make Perfect
<v Speaker 1>Dark and we're gonna partner with this other studio. Can
<v Speaker 1>we figure this out? And the answer was no, you couldn't.
<v Speaker 1>But as has already figured the stuff stuff out a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of times. Not that they're in a great place
<v Speaker 1>with their games, obviously, Starfield disappointed a lot of people,
<v Speaker 1>but still they can get games made and ship them.
<v Speaker 1>So I hope that just sort of is momentum there
<v Speaker 1>that even Microsoft can't get in the way up. But
<v Speaker 1>you're right, there's no reason to assume that that won't
<v Speaker 1>be a problem. We'll see. I like Fallout a lot.
<v Speaker 1>I prefer Elder Scrolls a little bit over it, but
<v Speaker 1>now I like both both series quite a bit, so
<v Speaker 1>I want to see what they're doing here. And that
<v Speaker 1>Fallout TV show was pretty It was a good time
<v Speaker 1>and it made me want to play the games more.
<v Speaker 1>So hopefully they're able to get something done in the
<v Speaker 1>next couple of years. Yeah, Stalker two is coming to
<v Speaker 1>PS five later this year. With PS five PRO enhancements.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jordan Midler at VGC. Stalker two is
<v Speaker 1>coming to PlayStation five later this year. Developer GSC Game
<v Speaker 1>World has announced. No specific release date has been announced
<v Speaker 1>for the PlayStation five version of the popular hardcore shooter.
<v Speaker 1>The PS five version of Stalker two Heart of Chernobyl
<v Speaker 1>will support PS five dual Sense functionality as well as
<v Speaker 1>PS five PRO enhancements, although these features weren't detailed. This
<v Speaker 1>was one of those weird Xbox console exclusives from a
<v Speaker 1>third party that are, you know, rare, more and more
<v Speaker 1>rare these days and probably going forward and that won't
<v Speaker 1>happen anymore at all, But yeah, it was going to
<v Speaker 1>come to PS five eventually. Here it is, and it's
<v Speaker 1>probably the right time to like check in on this
<v Speaker 1>game because it was a game that people seem to
<v Speaker 1>like think, there's a lot of cool stuff here, but
<v Speaker 1>there's some early jank, there's some problems, the game isn't
<v Speaker 1>running great. They probably have addressed a lot of that,
<v Speaker 1>and it's gonna run a little bit better on PS
<v Speaker 1>five at this point, especially PS five PRO. So I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I might check in on this game as this game
<v Speaker 1>is getting ready to launch on PS five. Any interesting
<v Speaker 1>Stalker from you? Oh yeah, we lost you there.
<v Speaker 2>Sorry. Yeah, not a ton of interest in Stalker because
<v Speaker 2>it is more of in that vein of the old
<v Speaker 2>school PC shooter, Yeah, which was just never bite my
<v Speaker 2>jam I, you know, respect a legacy and everything like that.
<v Speaker 2>But they were keeping that legacy going here with Stalker two.
<v Speaker 2>As as far as I understand.
<v Speaker 1>Oh definitely. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you said though, like coming to this one now
<v Speaker 2>and now it's going to be playing PS five, they've
<v Speaker 2>had more time time with it. It usually is the
<v Speaker 2>best time to check out game when it goes to
<v Speaker 2>another platform, regardless of which direction it goes in, you know,
<v Speaker 2>an Xbox game to PS five PS five game Xbox,
<v Speaker 2>because generally speaking that's the version that's been optimized just
<v Speaker 2>over all this time organically, and then so when they
<v Speaker 2>do the porting process, as long as it's a good port,
<v Speaker 2>it gets all those benefits. So this presumably would be
<v Speaker 2>the best version of the game to check out. Also,
<v Speaker 2>I do think that the Xbox two PS five conversion
<v Speaker 2>sometimes goes a little bit better. I haven't heard anything
<v Speaker 2>more myself, but you know, I've heard in passing the
<v Speaker 2>whole Xbox SDK stuff being whack sometimes makes the Xbox
<v Speaker 2>Sports a little bit harder, whereas going to PS five
<v Speaker 2>sometimes a little bit easier. So I won't be surprised. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if this version does turn out very well as opposed
<v Speaker 2>to the kind of a mess it was on release.
<v Speaker 2>They had a lot of circumstance answers going on there.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I think I would hope people understood that
<v Speaker 2>things were wild for them.
<v Speaker 1>It's a craning developer for people wondering. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, there's been a couple of documentaries about working through
<v Speaker 2>all all the suffering over in Ukraine and still putting
<v Speaker 2>out a game, which is remarkable. Yeah, I hopefully this
<v Speaker 2>release is really good. It's always funny to like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the fire up the Butterfly app and see people talking
<v Speaker 2>about oh exclusive going to another platform and everything like that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, real grown adults having grown up, grown adult conversations
<v Speaker 1>about such a thing.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, you know you know what this grown doll was
<v Speaker 2>thinking about the other day though, Joe, remember when Xbox
<v Speaker 2>was super stoked about getting pubgy as a Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>was like, that's the moment it all fell apart, That's
<v Speaker 2>the moment I realized that they were cooked.
<v Speaker 1>I think when they couldn't make tomb Rator exclusivity work
<v Speaker 1>for them, I'm like, oh, this is this is never
<v Speaker 1>going to work. Actually, so I think they've realized the
<v Speaker 1>same thing and it's just kind of been all downhill
<v Speaker 1>since then. Limited Runs Super Nintendo release of Doom is
<v Speaker 1>available for pre order now, alongside a new Super Nintendo controller.
<v Speaker 1>The sim Jordan Miller of VGC Limited Run Games is
<v Speaker 1>open pre orders for physical superin Nintendo copies of Doom.
<v Speaker 1>The release, which will be playable on the original and
<v Speaker 1>original Nintendo hardware, is being spearheaded by Randall Linden, a
<v Speaker 1>programmer on the original game. Pre Orders for the cartridge,
<v Speaker 1>as well as an SNS compatible controller are available now
<v Speaker 1>and will close on August eighth. This version of the
<v Speaker 1>game includes impossible graphics tricks according to Limited Run, as
<v Speaker 1>well as levels missing from the original game. Other new
<v Speaker 1>features include support for circle strafing and the ability for
<v Speaker 1>monsters to respawn on Nightmare difficulty. This is a cool thing,
<v Speaker 1>you know. Limited Runs got their issues for sure. I
<v Speaker 1>know people will be happy to list them and chat
<v Speaker 1>feel free, but I appreciate this kind of stuff. I
<v Speaker 1>think this is a kind of a cool kind of
<v Speaker 1>thing of Hey, let's go back and do even more
<v Speaker 1>work on this game, release it, and then actually release
<v Speaker 1>a physical version that will work on a shoot Super Nintendo.
<v Speaker 1>That's pretty cool. And any interest in something like this sean.
<v Speaker 2>No, because my interest in limited runs stuff is more
<v Speaker 2>of what they've been doing on the sort of creation
<v Speaker 2>and publishing side of things, right, you know, like stows
<v Speaker 2>to MVG and the crew who work on the Carbon
<v Speaker 2>engine and everything. I do think that them leaning into
<v Speaker 2>having new releases with additional features and stuff is what
<v Speaker 2>really gets me interested from them. I've never really been
<v Speaker 2>into this reproduction of an old game, even if it
<v Speaker 2>is a better version of existing game, like putting out,
<v Speaker 2>you know, a new cartridge of Doom to put into
<v Speaker 2>your Supernintendo that has additional levels or controls or whatever
<v Speaker 2>like that. That is a neat thing to exist. But
<v Speaker 2>I am usually more interested when they put out that
<v Speaker 2>type of release on Steam. In that way, I can,
<v Speaker 2>you know, have it readily available and not to worry
<v Speaker 2>about playing it on original hardware as much. There's a
<v Speaker 2>market for that. I don't know if that market is
<v Speaker 2>super happy with some of the business practices have limited run,
<v Speaker 2>so I don't know how well that's going over there.
<v Speaker 2>I'm looking at this Super Nintendo controller. I'm like, ah,
<v Speaker 2>this is the kind of thing where I'm like, I
<v Speaker 2>just don't I don't gel with this kind of thing.
<v Speaker 2>I'll vibe with this kind of stuff I'm looking at
<v Speaker 2>right now. It's just it's a Super Nintendo controller, kind
<v Speaker 2>of Doom Marine themed. I guess some people.
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't like is it the the rumble Tech Super
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo control er just have rumble in it? Oh?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I scrolled down a little bit. This is
<v Speaker 2>the new Okay that that's actually cool.
<v Speaker 1>It's neat, and they're going to open that up to
<v Speaker 1>other developers to put rumble in their games and then
<v Speaker 1>that will work on Super Nintendo's. It's it's weird, it's
<v Speaker 1>neat for me. For me, it's like the just Doom
<v Speaker 1>is so such well trodden terror to and there's even
<v Speaker 1>like some more interesting stuff happening with Doom. In the
<v Speaker 1>the hobbyist space. Someone just put together a SUPERFS three chip,
<v Speaker 1>which is just a Raspberry pie that connects to the
<v Speaker 1>PCB for Doom and kind of enhances the graphics that way.
<v Speaker 1>Where it's like we had it like doubled the frame
<v Speaker 1>rate and things like that, and it's like, that's really
<v Speaker 1>cool too. And I guess maybe I'd be more interested
<v Speaker 1>in the impossible graphics tricks that they're doing with this
<v Speaker 1>version if there wasn't also some cool stuff happening over
<v Speaker 1>there in the hobbyist space. But still, I'm nothing against this,
<v Speaker 1>and I think it's a neat idea to like in practice.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think I would say more in theory. I
<v Speaker 2>like the idea of it personally, but yeah, it's fair.
<v Speaker 2>I think some of the stuff about this is cool. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like opening up the the API or whatever it's going
<v Speaker 2>to be to implement this rumble feature in other homebrew
<v Speaker 2>games or whatever, so way more projects can have this
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing, And so that way you can that's
<v Speaker 2>a little cooler to me of being to have a
<v Speaker 2>stock Super Nintendo. You plug this cartridge and you plug
<v Speaker 2>in just a special controller and some only rumble on
<v Speaker 2>your original harbor. Yeah, it's pretty neat.
<v Speaker 1>All right. The Nintendo switch to is finally available on Amazon,
<v Speaker 1>but there's a catch. This is from zax swiz In
<v Speaker 1>at Kotaku. Basically, it popped up on Amazon and like
<v Speaker 1>the last week it's not you can't buy it yet,
<v Speaker 1>and it's not on sale as part of Prime Day
<v Speaker 1>or anything like that. But there is a button you
<v Speaker 1>can click to be notified or to sign up for
<v Speaker 1>the option to maybe buy one of these things. That's
<v Speaker 1>the catch here. But yeah, Nintendo consoles back on Amazon. Man,
<v Speaker 1>they have an on again, off again relationship. I guess
<v Speaker 1>I never look into it too closely to figure out
<v Speaker 1>what's going on over there. Do you have any idea,
<v Speaker 1>any insight into this?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it seems like now is an on again situation
<v Speaker 2>where now I saw I saw the Warrior sixty four
<v Speaker 2>posts where he was just like, yeah, a bunch, it's
<v Speaker 2>like a flood. Everything is back on Amazon. All the
<v Speaker 2>switch stuff, like all the first party switch stuff you
<v Speaker 2>would want, it's all back there. There's listings for everything
<v Speaker 2>now and the switch to being here as part of that.
<v Speaker 2>I would assume that the reason that you can't buy
<v Speaker 2>one right away is because this you'll just got negotiated
<v Speaker 2>a little while ago, And that makes sense. Amazon physically
<v Speaker 2>doesn't have any switch to s. You have to chip
<v Speaker 2>out to people. If I had to guess, that's why,
<v Speaker 2>I would say, because yeah, this is all a pretty
<v Speaker 2>recent thing. I think it's just what an agreement on
<v Speaker 2>Hu's you know, trying to figure out like, yeah, who
<v Speaker 2>makes how much?
<v Speaker 1>Allotment's probably a little bit too. It's probably like all
<v Speaker 1>bundled up into one. But I bet has to do
<v Speaker 1>with like, yeah, percentage cuts and allotments and Amazon trying
<v Speaker 1>to say, hey, we want this much at this price,
<v Speaker 1>and Nintendo being like, we don't really negotiate with anyone
<v Speaker 1>even amazing.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it's two very strong personalities together and trying to negotiate.
<v Speaker 2>And where you have strong personalities negotiating, well, if you
<v Speaker 2>live in the US, you know what happens.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh exactly. And I think that at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>there like a little bit practical where like, yes, we
<v Speaker 1>are disagreeing, and I'll walk away from the table. If
<v Speaker 1>I come back to the table, we can keep talking
<v Speaker 1>again at some point. So that's why it is so
<v Speaker 1>on again, off again. It's not like they're holding grudges.
<v Speaker 1>They're just like, that deal doesn't work, so we're not
<v Speaker 1>going to give you the switch to and then now
<v Speaker 1>that the deal does make sense, we're back, you can
<v Speaker 1>have the switch to whatever. It's just an odd situation,
<v Speaker 1>but those. It just could happen with these two companies.
<v Speaker 1>It feels like, yes, all right. Finally, Nintendo is collaborating
<v Speaker 1>with Crocs for Animal Crossing footwear. This is from Billy
<v Speaker 1>Gibbons and Game Spot. The Animal Crossing themed crocs, which
<v Speaker 1>are set to launch on August twenty sixth, will be
<v Speaker 1>available in both kids and adult sizes. The shoes sport
<v Speaker 1>a green forest background on top of the on the
<v Speaker 1>top segment and a water scene on the bottom inspired
<v Speaker 1>by the game's locales. A variety of animal crossing gibbets
<v Speaker 1>charms come pre installed on the shoes. Gibbets pre installed.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think you can say that get away with
<v Speaker 2>it on the area.
<v Speaker 1>Uh yeah cool. I guess really. What I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>ask here, Sean is in the WIU days, uh i
<v Speaker 1>wa was like it was just just like it's we're
<v Speaker 1>talking long term here, and the WEU days a lot
<v Speaker 1>it was like, shit, we we gotta fighter figure out
<v Speaker 1>other ways to make money. And one of the responses was, look,
<v Speaker 1>we have We're gonna figure out the game stuff, don't
<v Speaker 1>worry about that, but we are going to start licensing
<v Speaker 1>the hell out of our products again. And it's gonna
<v Speaker 1>They're gonna be everywhere, and we're gonna do movies, and
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna going to do theme parks, and we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>do a ton of merch. Uh. Do you think Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>has found like a pretty good balance of Hey, there's
<v Speaker 1>all kinds of merch, and at the same time, it
<v Speaker 1>still feels special because hey, it's Nintendo merch. They struck
<v Speaker 1>a balance there, if they figured it out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think. I mean they figured it out for
<v Speaker 2>the most part, because I don't think to myself, oh,
<v Speaker 2>new Nintendo merch has dropped and it looks cheap and
<v Speaker 2>is saying that nobody wants. It's oftentimes brands that people
<v Speaker 2>like or would want to from otherwise and putting something
<v Speaker 2>out there that's Nintendo theme. It's often limited, very limited
<v Speaker 2>time or limited quantity. So they still keep that aspect
<v Speaker 2>of keeping the brand value high in all that, and
<v Speaker 2>you know what I'm looking Someone in Chad said that
<v Speaker 2>they look good, and I pulled them up. I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>you know what, as far as cross go, these actually
<v Speaker 2>they look.
<v Speaker 1>They look pretty nice. Like I would get them from
<v Speaker 1>my kids without a doubt. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. For audio listeners, the top portion is like an
<v Speaker 2>animal crossing island, you know, yeah, grass trees and all that.
<v Speaker 2>The like middle of the shoe, the seam where the
<v Speaker 2>top and bomb connect is like the beach, and then
<v Speaker 2>the bottom is water. So they look like animal crossing islands.
<v Speaker 2>That's actually pretty cute, and that's that is the kind
<v Speaker 2>of thing you often do. That's what you kind of
<v Speaker 2>get with Nintendo merch. Is that higher equality. I'm sure
<v Speaker 2>someone in their marketing team or whatever it had like
<v Speaker 2>a watchful eye on whoever it was.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly the whole time. I think that's right though.
<v Speaker 1>I think they have a watchful ete. They have they
<v Speaker 1>take care of these things, and that's why it feels
<v Speaker 1>like it's mostly worked and hasn't just been complete a
<v Speaker 1>product Barfa.
<v Speaker 2>So like, you know, slightly different because they're not actually
<v Speaker 2>the same company, by no. Like with Pokemon, if you
<v Speaker 2>want to draw art for a Pokemon card, you have
<v Speaker 2>to get approved through a process where they're like, look,
<v Speaker 2>you drew your art. You're right, this is cool and everything.
<v Speaker 2>But is the Pokemon you know, adhering to the design
<v Speaker 2>language of the company. Is it like, does it have
<v Speaker 2>all the all the fingers and toes that needs to
<v Speaker 2>have and everything like that. Like I heard a story
<v Speaker 2>of someone getting like they got a proved to draw
<v Speaker 2>the card, but their artwork got rejected like a dozen
<v Speaker 2>times before they were like, Okay, finally, yes, you got
<v Speaker 2>everything right, We'll put this on card. And I think
<v Speaker 2>that's sort of throughout the Nintendo family.
<v Speaker 1>That's I bet, I bet it's very similar. Yep, I
<v Speaker 1>think you're right. Uh, all right, that does it for
<v Speaker 1>the headlines. Let's get to the poll question from earlier
<v Speaker 1>this week. We asked, are you going to play Destiny Rising,
<v Speaker 1>which is the mobile game from Bungee and net Ease.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's right. We have the results here. Five
<v Speaker 1>percent say yes they're going to play this, thirteen percent
<v Speaker 1>say I'm stuck playing the Horse Game. That means eighty
<v Speaker 1>two percent said no, they're not going to play.
<v Speaker 2>So it has a lot of alt accounts to vote
<v Speaker 2>for Red Milon.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh, lots lots of jans out there is.
<v Speaker 2>The one you described as Genschen when you first heard
<v Speaker 2>about name.
<v Speaker 1>Uh the Horse Game?
<v Speaker 2>No, no, No, the Destiny Game.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I think this was. Yes, I think you're right. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>God man, I forgot about that. Yes, this one was
<v Speaker 1>inspired by Genschen, I think a little bit. So now
<v Speaker 1>how much of that is left the here? And there's
<v Speaker 1>been a lot of backlash and this game's changed even
<v Speaker 1>since I did that reporting on it, where it's like
<v Speaker 1>there was only going to be hero characters and like
<v Speaker 1>characters that were defined and now you can make your
<v Speaker 1>own character in this game. That's not how it was
<v Speaker 1>for a while there. Either way, five percent, it's going
<v Speaker 1>to try it. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe maybe
<v Speaker 1>takes off and there's no reason to assume it couldn't
<v Speaker 1>take off in other circles of gamers. That happens all
<v Speaker 1>the time, But this audience doesn't seem too excited.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't think. I don't think Destiny is appealing
<v Speaker 2>to the casual audience in the way that maybe once did.
<v Speaker 2>And so it's a good luck try and capture that
<v Speaker 2>audience again.
<v Speaker 1>All right, That does it for that poll question. We
<v Speaker 1>have a new one coming here in a second. Before
<v Speaker 1>you do that, Turbo Sean, why don't you tell people
<v Speaker 1>where they can find you on the internet what you
<v Speaker 1>have going on all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>You can check out turboshan dot com, sahaw and that's
<v Speaker 2>just a link treat all the stuff I do. If
<v Speaker 2>you want to follow me on Blue Sky, I stream
<v Speaker 2>on Twitch on the weekends, put the VODs up over
<v Speaker 2>on YouTube. It's all the same name, Turbo Sean And
<v Speaker 2>of course you can find me helping out here a
<v Speaker 2>Giant Bomb once again helping out with editing and production stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Mostly if you see a funny social video nowadays, it's
<v Speaker 2>probably me, and so please share that, you know, repost
<v Speaker 2>it at thumbs up on the YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>Short.
<v Speaker 2>All that good stuff boost our numbers because you know,
<v Speaker 2>as an independent Giant Bomb, it's more important than ever
<v Speaker 2>to get our names out there, right, yep, yep.
<v Speaker 1>And every little bit helps. We appreciate everybody, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So we did that new pole question how many unplayed
<v Speaker 1>games do you own on Steam? Giving you some ranges
<v Speaker 1>here zero to nineteen twenty to thirty nine, forty to
<v Speaker 1>fifty nine or sixty and more or more. I should say, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I want to see the results here. Okay, okay, really well, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Real quick, because I you know, I don't have your
<v Speaker 2>fancy Steam conn. I was gonna ask you about that,
<v Speaker 2>like interferes with their Yeah, six, I have a grand
<v Speaker 2>total of I'm rounding up because I'm beat at math.
<v Speaker 2>Around four one hundred and forty games on Steam, and yes,
<v Speaker 2>the vast majority of those were random things that were
<v Speaker 2>included a bundle.
<v Speaker 1>Bundles. Yeah, bundles are going to push people like real
<v Speaker 1>fast over some of these numbers here. Yeah, several digits
<v Speaker 1>too small. Maybe I need a few more zeros in there.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Well, we'll see if a ton of people
<v Speaker 1>are in that sixty or more. Again, that's going to
<v Speaker 1>say a lot about what's going on over there. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we did the poll question. We'll get the results of
<v Speaker 1>that on Games Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking
<v Speaker 1>a Giant Bomb stick around, we are very quickly going
<v Speaker 1>to go into but I believe it's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a grub bag. I put a vote to the premium
<v Speaker 1>members in the discord and say, hey, what kind of
<v Speaker 1>show do you want me to do? And one of
<v Speaker 1>the options was a grub bag where we go on Steam,
<v Speaker 1>we enter a random keyword, we find some random weird stuff,
<v Speaker 1>play through those Steam games and have a good time
<v Speaker 1>and just hang out. And that one is far in
<v Speaker 1>the lead.
<v Speaker 2>That a few times in the past and was as
<v Speaker 2>pretty fun. So Hopefully we shiit some good stuff out
<v Speaker 2>of that today.
<v Speaker 1>And then Dan Rykert and Chat is saying play as
<v Speaker 1>long as you want, Grub because he has to play
<v Speaker 1>his new Blake Club game.
<v Speaker 2>Are not ready for this? Nobody is ready for this.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody knows what it is. You've heard of it in passing,
<v Speaker 2>but I guarantee you nobody is expecting this and the
<v Speaker 2>costume to go with it. Oh, Jeff, Dan's gonna look
<v Speaker 2>so cool.
<v Speaker 1>These guys looks so cool. All right, let's see here,
<v Speaker 1>I have what else do we have going on? Okay,
<v Speaker 1>so we'll do that. Then tomorrow we'll back with all
<v Speaker 1>the regular stuff games mornings. We'll have a voicemail dump truck.
<v Speaker 1>There's some other stuff happening here and there. There was
<v Speaker 1>a Tony Hawk's pro Skater three plus four quick look
<v Speaker 1>that went up. Everyone should check that as well. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>stick around, we'll get into all that in the meantime. Sean,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for hanging out with me today
<v Speaker 1>and talk about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's a pleasure.
<v Speaker 1>Jeff, thank you all for listening and watching. You are
<v Speaker 1>the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a
<v Speaker 1>good one, take care of yourself and goodbye Beat