PlayStation Shuts Down First-Party Studio

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, Welcome to Games Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
<v Speaker 1>your host from GiantBomb dot com. Thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 1>In this episode, we're gonna be talking about reviews for
<v Speaker 1>another Switch to edition release and PlayStation cutting more jobs.
<v Speaker 1>But it's gonna be a good one because we have
<v Speaker 1>Phil Salvador on the show. Phil, how are you doing?
<v Speaker 2>Hello, I'm doing well. I think the last time I
<v Speaker 2>was on I talked about how I was very tired
<v Speaker 2>but I had tea. That is still true specific time.
<v Speaker 2>This is a little earlier than usual, but I'm fired up.
<v Speaker 2>I'm ready to talk about this impossibly worthy Switch to game.
<v Speaker 1>But oh man, they they somehow get weirder and wordier
<v Speaker 1>with each of these releases. This is my favorite so
<v Speaker 1>far for sure. We'll talk about that and more here
<v Speaker 1>pretty soon. But yeah, yeah, you been saw you briefly
<v Speaker 1>at GDC. It was great to see you.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Your panel was a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 1>What was it like putting that all together and getting
<v Speaker 1>all those great people together and to do a panel.
<v Speaker 2>It's a lot of fun because we all know each other.
<v Speaker 2>For context for listeners, we had a panelicle What's New
<v Speaker 2>in Game History, where it was just like, hey, here's
<v Speaker 2>everything happening in the field with museums or emulators or
<v Speaker 2>you know, academic press, like all these little sub fields.
<v Speaker 2>It's a pretty small field. So all of us just
<v Speaker 2>kind of knew each other and it was like, all right,
<v Speaker 2>let's get wes on, let's get you know, trans ray on.
<v Speaker 2>So it was just very fun to see everyone in
<v Speaker 2>one place and get that all through. We could have
<v Speaker 2>trimmed our things by about one minute apiece and left
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of Q and A, but we were very.
<v Speaker 3>Happy with it. Yeah, I mean, that's that's how it goes.
<v Speaker 3>I'll tell you. I showed up and I did not
<v Speaker 3>feel cheated by the lack of a Q and A.
<v Speaker 3>I was.
<v Speaker 1>I was glad to get even more content from all yous.
<v Speaker 1>So that was really like, oh man, and each perspective
<v Speaker 1>was so different. You all came at it from different angles.
<v Speaker 1>It just felt like, oh man, we're going from this
<v Speaker 1>to that, this to that.
<v Speaker 3>Very cool.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. How long were you at the Festival of Gaming
<v Speaker 2>this year?
<v Speaker 1>It was I left on Wednesday, So I got in
<v Speaker 1>on Sunday night and left on Wednesday.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, okay, you didn't get to see the show
<v Speaker 2>floor of all the weird AI crap.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Okay, my understanding was pretty heavy with that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was heavy.
<v Speaker 2>But it was also like all the space that wasn't
<v Speaker 2>leased out by all the companies that are laying everyone
<v Speaker 2>off and have no money anymore was taken up in
<v Speaker 2>like common areas like couches and eighty games. It was like,
<v Speaker 2>I kind of like this, like maybe this isn't not
<v Speaker 2>great for the health of the event, maybe, but it
<v Speaker 2>was a great vibe, so positive things to that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, you know, I hope that the people see,
<v Speaker 1>the people running the show see the value and keeping
<v Speaker 1>stuff like that going and just enabling people to connect
<v Speaker 1>because that has always been the most important part of
<v Speaker 1>GDC for sure, So hopefully they can make it make
<v Speaker 1>sense for them. But yeah, that I did come away
<v Speaker 1>from that GDC thinking, yeah, a lot. I'm looking a
<v Speaker 1>lot of people going into these panels about AI and
<v Speaker 1>they do seem very keen on this, So expecting a
<v Speaker 1>lot a lot more stories on that topic going forward,
<v Speaker 1>for sure. Oh lord, yep, exactly exactly. Let let's go
<v Speaker 1>ahead and ge into the show. Everybody, Thank you for listening.
<v Speaker 1>We are Giant Bomb, We're Independent Games Media. We're out
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<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.
<v Speaker 3>That includes breaking.
<v Speaker 1>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
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<v Speaker 1>with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
<v Speaker 3>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 1>let's start the morning mess with a couple of review roundups. First,
<v Speaker 1>critic reviews for Super Mario Brothers Wonder, Nintendo Switch To
<v Speaker 1>Edition plus meet Up in Bella Bell Park.
<v Speaker 2>Scott Jason Super Mario Brothers Wonder.
<v Speaker 1>It's uh man, that is a lot to say that
<v Speaker 1>it's about equivalent to the Mario Party Jamboree switch To
<v Speaker 1>Edition that had its own subtitle and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 1>and said Jamboree like five times. This one has an
<v Speaker 1>eighty four on Open Critic. It does seem like those
<v Speaker 1>reviews are specifically for the Switch to Edition. Nine out
<v Speaker 1>of ten from Steve C at the six Axis, who
<v Speaker 1>says Super Mario Brothers Wonder. I'm just gonna say Switch
<v Speaker 1>To Edition is a great upgrade to the original game
<v Speaker 1>if you're going to take advantage of the multiplayer modes,
<v Speaker 1>but is far less essential if you're mostly a solo player.
<v Speaker 1>There are some nice additions for the main campaign, but
<v Speaker 1>the seventeen pound price point feels excessive without party play.
<v Speaker 1>Taken as a complete package, however, this makes the already
<v Speaker 1>fantastic game even more wonderful and addresses most of the
<v Speaker 1>issues we had with it. Seven out of ten from
<v Speaker 1>Bobby pashaladis I'm going to say at Console Creatures, super
<v Speaker 1>Mario Brothers Wonder Nintendo Switch To Edition plus Meet Up
<v Speaker 1>in Bella Bell Park is a fine offering from Nintendo,
<v Speaker 1>but it's another switch to title offering enough grade with
<v Speaker 1>not enough substance. And then an eight out of ten
<v Speaker 1>from Alistair Kennedy. Yeah, Kennedy att gffinity. Super Mario Brothers
<v Speaker 1>Wonder Nintendo Switch To Edition is the definitive version of
<v Speaker 1>the twenty twenty three hit, adding four K clarity and
<v Speaker 1>the social heavy Bellabell Park DLC, featuring new minigames, Rosalina
<v Speaker 1>as a playable character, and family friendly additions like a side.
<v Speaker 1>It's a must buy for newcomers and social players, despite
<v Speaker 1>minor visual.
<v Speaker 3>Upgrades and familiar progression hurdles.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this is one another one of those weird Onesville
<v Speaker 1>where a lot of these improvements are ones that feel
<v Speaker 1>like they.
<v Speaker 3>You know, probably should just be included in a patch.
<v Speaker 1>There is a separate patch for this game that includes
<v Speaker 1>some of these things. But then the Nintendo Switch To
<v Speaker 1>Edition does have like a CIS mode. It's they've listened
<v Speaker 1>to some criticisms about what it's like to play this
<v Speaker 1>game local multiplayer that the core game with like little kids.
<v Speaker 1>They've addressed some of that stuff, where like the camera
<v Speaker 1>now can stick just on player one instead of swapping
<v Speaker 1>over to let's say a five year old who's struggling
<v Speaker 1>to play the game, and then everyone has to move.
<v Speaker 3>At their pace.
<v Speaker 1>That stuff is cool, and I think that's like a
<v Speaker 1>free upgrade kind of getting this game to you know,
<v Speaker 1>four K. That's okay, that's cool. It already looked pretty sharp,
<v Speaker 1>but I'll take it. That's a Nintendo Switch To Edition feature.
<v Speaker 1>And then this Bella Bell Park stuff, which I've like
<v Speaker 1>gone and seen, but because I didn't, I wasn't able
<v Speaker 1>to play on line, and I wasn't able to set
<v Speaker 1>up a local multiplayer. And there's kind of two sides
<v Speaker 1>to the Bella Bell Park theme park like presentation here.
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't really do anything with any of that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>That's all multiplayer features. So I don't know how to
<v Speaker 1>assess this personally yet. I'll say that they presented this
<v Speaker 1>fill as a multiplayer sort of expansion. They're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot of fun, like kind of party
<v Speaker 1>game stuff and it's okay.
<v Speaker 3>Is there any single player stuff?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there will be some additions, and those editions are
<v Speaker 1>changes like Rosalina, some new character, enemy characters in the
<v Speaker 1>single player campaign popping up here and there. That kind
<v Speaker 1>of stuff that is interesting, but it's definitely not enough
<v Speaker 1>to justify this for I think most people.
<v Speaker 3>How do you feel about it?
<v Speaker 2>Phil, It's really funny. As I was running this through
<v Speaker 2>in my head, my two thoughts that came in first
<v Speaker 2>were like, oh, back in my day, they would call this,
<v Speaker 2>you know, Game of the Year edition or Mario Wonder Gold.
<v Speaker 2>But like, the more I thought about it, it's like, no,
<v Speaker 2>I understand them wanting to distinguish it as its own product.
<v Speaker 2>I get the value of that. And the other thought,
<v Speaker 2>you don't, under any circumstances have to hand it to Notch.
<v Speaker 2>But I remember when Minecraft was blowing up, he was
<v Speaker 2>saying something like this game should get more expensive over
<v Speaker 2>time because we're riding so much and so like, as
<v Speaker 2>I thought about it, it's like, on paper, I get
<v Speaker 2>why Nintendo is doing this. I get why they're doing
<v Speaker 2>it as a separate product with a certain price. But
<v Speaker 2>like I understand it, and I think probably for people
<v Speaker 2>who aren't us, it probably makes sense to build as
<v Speaker 2>a separate product like this. I have to imagine, especially
<v Speaker 2>if there were families who didn't jump on it who
<v Speaker 2>have a switch to now want something to play together.
<v Speaker 2>It makes sense. I get why they're doing this, certainly
<v Speaker 2>more than you know, adding a couple extra levels to
<v Speaker 2>Kirby or whatever happened with that one.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that was like remixing some levels with maybe some
<v Speaker 1>fresh levels here and there. Yeah, I mean I enjoyed
<v Speaker 1>that stuff. But yeah, that this feels it is distinct
<v Speaker 1>from that for sure. And you know, like you said,
<v Speaker 1>I get it on paper, and I get it. As
<v Speaker 1>they get ready to release the Mario movie Mario Galaxy,
<v Speaker 1>like that will do exactly what the first game did
<v Speaker 1>and get a huge audience of families excited to go
<v Speaker 1>back to their switch. And now they're switched to be like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>what Mario games have we missed that we can pick
<v Speaker 1>up and what's in the store, and having this game
<v Speaker 1>out there with switch to Edition on the box will
<v Speaker 1>make a difference to them of going, oh great, there
<v Speaker 1>is this new game effectively a new game to me,
<v Speaker 1>and it's got an update and it takes advantage of
<v Speaker 1>the switch to I spend a lot of money on,
<v Speaker 1>so I feel like it's worth whatever.
<v Speaker 3>Money I'm spending on it. Yeah, that that all makes sense.
<v Speaker 1>I do think that you know, this switch to Edition
<v Speaker 1>run that Nintendo's been on is you know, for the
<v Speaker 1>audience that has primarily shown up for.
<v Speaker 3>The switch to so far, which are the enthusiast.
<v Speaker 1>I think this concept is wearing thin for sure, where
<v Speaker 1>people are like I kind of want more from these things,
<v Speaker 1>or like the promise of real, actual follow up games
<v Speaker 1>and sequels and the idea like hey, where is the
<v Speaker 1>next Animal Crossing instead of Animal Crossing you know, New
<v Speaker 1>World or whatever it is? Yah, yes, yes, Funky Edition exactly.
<v Speaker 1>And I you know, we're getting a little bit antsy
<v Speaker 1>on that side of things, and I think Nintendo is
<v Speaker 1>probably going to see that reflected in the sales numbers
<v Speaker 1>for a lot of these things, unless this one specifically
<v Speaker 1>breaks out to that prime that bigger audience because of
<v Speaker 1>the movie.
<v Speaker 2>That's a weird contradiction, right, is like for the audience
<v Speaker 2>that wants to spend twenty bucks on this, it's like, no,
<v Speaker 2>this makes a ton of sense. Sintendo's charging that that's
<v Speaker 2>just not who owns Sintendo switch to is right now?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Like I was thinking about you know, we talked
<v Speaker 2>to the designer of Spiro of the Dragon last year
<v Speaker 2>and he mentioned that, you know, when they were designing it,
<v Speaker 2>I think it was Mark Cerney said, like, hey, design
<v Speaker 2>this for a lower age audience, because right now it's
<v Speaker 2>all enthusiasts. As time goes on, it's going to widen
<v Speaker 2>to a broader family audience. Maybe this would make sense
<v Speaker 2>next year in terms of like actually having some kind
<v Speaker 2>of return and investment.
<v Speaker 3>But I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>That's a weird place to be in when you're a
<v Speaker 2>family friendly company where everyone who's bought it so far
<v Speaker 2>are the like spend of five hundred bucks sent in
<v Speaker 2>the first month people.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, And I think you're right that that demographic
<v Speaker 1>makeup of the Switch To owners does slowly more ful
<v Speaker 1>over time. If Nintendo's successfully able to hit the big
<v Speaker 1>points that they're going to want to hit with the
<v Speaker 1>movie with releasing an actual three D Mario and a
<v Speaker 1>Zelda and Animal Crossing and Super Smash Brothers. Every time
<v Speaker 1>they do that, the funnel gets wider and wider and wider.
<v Speaker 1>And having this game just sitting there ready to go,
<v Speaker 1>We've Nintendo's proven that they're able to make games like
<v Speaker 1>that take advantage of those multiple points of people taking
<v Speaker 1>interest in the system and keeping the prices high throughout
<v Speaker 1>the entire generation.
<v Speaker 3>So that they get the full effect of that excitement.
<v Speaker 2>If someone shows up two years from now, this is
<v Speaker 2>still the same price. It's still a relatively new game
<v Speaker 2>of them, like that doesn't change exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, the window at which a game feels new
<v Speaker 1>is longer and longer than ever.
<v Speaker 3>I mean this.
<v Speaker 1>You know, if they released a new Mario two D
<v Speaker 1>platform this year, it would look probably pretty similar to
<v Speaker 1>this game, And why wouldn't it. They kind of are
<v Speaker 1>used to doing that with new Super Mario Brothers are
<v Speaker 1>probably going to go with this asseetic a couple of times.
<v Speaker 3>So it's like, yeah, well that this feels about right
<v Speaker 3>all right.
<v Speaker 1>Getting to the other review round up here, critic reviews
<v Speaker 1>for Screamer, which we talked a little bit about on
<v Speaker 1>the BombCast yesterday. This is an anime racing arcade racer
<v Speaker 1>sort of thing and has dual stick controls where you
<v Speaker 1>steer with the front tires with like the left stick
<v Speaker 1>and then you kind of go into a drift with
<v Speaker 1>the right stick.
<v Speaker 3>I thought it was pretty cool. Not everyone does. Seventy
<v Speaker 3>nine on Open Critic from a bunch of reviews.
<v Speaker 1>I think I actually, I think it's like a little
<v Speaker 1>bit over ten reviews, so maybe it's still a little
<v Speaker 1>bit early. Seventy two from Phil Iwanuk from PC Gamer,
<v Speaker 1>who says an immaculately, immaculately presented arcade racer with a
<v Speaker 1>thousand good ideas, but the twin stick drifting wasn't one
<v Speaker 1>of them, So yeah, that might be your mileage may
<v Speaker 1>very sort of thing where it kept me very engaged
<v Speaker 1>in the part of the game that I think I
<v Speaker 1>liked the most, But I can see people getting frustrated
<v Speaker 1>by it. Eight out of ten from Luke Riley at
<v Speaker 1>ign tedious characters in difficulty Spikes notwithstanding, Screamer is a
<v Speaker 1>unique and confidently assembled racer that feels like the result
<v Speaker 1>of locking Blur in a room for twelve months with
<v Speaker 1>nothing but a crunchy ros, some description, and then eight
<v Speaker 1>out of ten from Steven.
<v Speaker 3>Tailby at Push Square.
<v Speaker 1>Screamer is a bold and exciting arcade racing game that
<v Speaker 1>stands out from the pack. It takes some big swings,
<v Speaker 1>and most of them have worked out, save for a
<v Speaker 1>story that maybe outstays.
<v Speaker 3>It's welcome.
<v Speaker 1>The racing itself is unique and challenging, and once you
<v Speaker 1>have a handle on all of its systems, it's very
<v Speaker 1>rewarding to master.
<v Speaker 3>That's how I feel about it as well.
<v Speaker 1>With its stylish presentation on top, this is one racer
<v Speaker 1>very much in its own lane.
<v Speaker 3>Phil this game's pretty cool.
<v Speaker 1>I think I kind of like every time I see
<v Speaker 1>something like this, it's like, man has or have people
<v Speaker 1>in the industry figured it out a way to continue
<v Speaker 1>making arcade style games work and make sense for them,
<v Speaker 1>because I know it feels like for most part, for
<v Speaker 1>the most part, big publishers have decided they.
<v Speaker 3>Don't make sense.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, have smaller studios kind of unlocked some
<v Speaker 1>ideas here in a game that's like, hey, let's match
<v Speaker 1>up anime presentation with arcade racing feels like, oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that is one solution you can come at this with
<v Speaker 1>that might that could possibly work, And it seems like
<v Speaker 1>it's working in this case.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I can't think of specific titles, but I
<v Speaker 2>feel like the last couple of years have been good
<v Speaker 2>for arcade erasers as a genre. I feel like we're
<v Speaker 2>kind of coming around on that. Weirdly, I was thinking
<v Speaker 2>about this. It comes back to I remember, I want
<v Speaker 2>to say it was twenty fourteen, there was a game
<v Speaker 2>that got a kickstarter that was on Steam called Drift Stage,
<v Speaker 2>which that game never came out. All the developers had
<v Speaker 2>kind of a crash out as a whole thing, but sure,
<v Speaker 2>I remember that was one of the moments where people said,
<v Speaker 2>oh shit, we can just make games that look like this.
<v Speaker 2>So I like that. You know, the twin stick thing.
<v Speaker 2>I have not played it. I don't know how that plays,
<v Speaker 2>but I like that this is not carrying water for
<v Speaker 2>the entire genre. It's not like, you know, oh well,
<v Speaker 2>this game didn't work out super well, so there will
<v Speaker 2>never be an arcade racer again. It's going to be
<v Speaker 2>like one of five games that look or act like this.
<v Speaker 2>That makes me happy because it means you can have
<v Speaker 2>different perspectives like I saw someone in the chat mentioned Automolista,
<v Speaker 2>and it's like, yeah, you can have that and a
<v Speaker 2>Ridge Racer and whatever blood you know, like was happening
<v Speaker 2>with Blur and Split Second. Those games like those can
<v Speaker 2>all exist and have their own approach on this stuff.
<v Speaker 2>That makes me really happy. That to me is healthier
<v Speaker 2>than you know, one of these games selling five million copies.
<v Speaker 3>Or whatever exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it's I think you're right that arcade racers
<v Speaker 1>have sort of re established themselves in the last couple
<v Speaker 1>of years. And there's that year where like Burnout not Burnout,
<v Speaker 1>a cruising Blast, and then a couple other arcade racers
<v Speaker 1>like I think a Lego or not only hot wheels
<v Speaker 1>racing kind of came out at the same time there
<v Speaker 1>was a.
<v Speaker 2>Garfield cart racing game. I don't think.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah necessarily now everyone was raving about Garfield Cart and
<v Speaker 1>Garfield Cart too, of course. Yeah, that's a genre that
<v Speaker 1>we're I think everyone involved has gone, yeah, we can
<v Speaker 1>make this work. It is cost effective, and we can
<v Speaker 1>play around with the systems here and try new things
<v Speaker 1>and have a fresh idea. Still, not everything's actually been
<v Speaker 1>tapped out, because when we were getting.
<v Speaker 3>A lot of arcade Racers.
<v Speaker 1>The idea was, let's just you're either sim or you're drifting,
<v Speaker 1>or you're trying to like look just really cool, and
<v Speaker 1>it's like, could we do more with the controls? And
<v Speaker 1>that has been happening in a game like this is
<v Speaker 1>a really good example of that that I really appreciate.
<v Speaker 3>The you know, arcade sports is the one where I'm like,
<v Speaker 3>are we going to get those back?
<v Speaker 1>And you know, I think I hope that we get
<v Speaker 1>to a point where developers that are making these arcade
<v Speaker 1>racers kind of look over and say, hey, can we
<v Speaker 1>make the NBA jams come back? And a bunch have
<v Speaker 1>tried here and there throughout the years, but it just
<v Speaker 1>feels like there's got to be a movement at some
<v Speaker 1>point where a lot of studios kind of wake up
<v Speaker 1>and say.
<v Speaker 3>EA, is not going to do that anymore. We could
<v Speaker 3>maybe own it.
<v Speaker 1>What like, we have a lot of experience now, maybe
<v Speaker 1>we can get the funds together to get like an
<v Speaker 1>official license and really go for it.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, I wonder if we're in a world
<v Speaker 3>where that could happen.
<v Speaker 2>What do you think I was thinking? Like the market
<v Speaker 2>seems so divided now between like you either have to
<v Speaker 2>make a high end triple A game or something like
<v Speaker 2>that ends up on mobile. Realistically.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, like the.
<v Speaker 2>Space that is happening where people are doing that. I
<v Speaker 2>never thought I would say this, but it's whatever a
<v Speaker 2>claim is now with they're like the Basketball Classics game
<v Speaker 2>or something, so like, I don't know that that market
<v Speaker 2>exists anymore. I don't know if there's some who's gonna
<v Speaker 2>spend ten bucks on an Arcade sports game. I feel
<v Speaker 2>like if I don't know, like there's I almost want
<v Speaker 2>to say there's more of a chance for success for people,
<v Speaker 2>like not pursuing the license and just making like an
<v Speaker 2>action the Arcadie game people can play, rather than trying
<v Speaker 2>to be like we're gonna make the new NFL Blitz
<v Speaker 2>and work within all the expensive like like likeness rights
<v Speaker 2>and licenses and blah blah blah, versus someone just making
<v Speaker 2>a new sport that is fun to play online with someone.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's I think you're probably right.
<v Speaker 1>Captain Seubass is the one I'm thinking about recently where
<v Speaker 1>it's like, that's kind of an Arcadie soccer game that
<v Speaker 1>has this anime presentation and a story mode and that
<v Speaker 1>doesn't need an official license and that works.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, man, could you do more of that?
<v Speaker 1>And again, anime and arcade style games working together. I
<v Speaker 1>would welcome more of that.
<v Speaker 2>What was the soccer one that came out recently that
<v Speaker 2>everyone destroyed and dip at?
<v Speaker 3>Was that? Oh?
<v Speaker 2>That was the Rocket League destroyed dip It was min
<v Speaker 2>Max you crushed at right?
<v Speaker 3>That was? What was that called chat Rematch? Yes?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, that that feels like more fertile ground than
<v Speaker 2>trying to make like we're gonna let you play as
<v Speaker 2>Lebron James and he can, like, you know, to capitate
<v Speaker 2>people or whatever they did back in the NBA Jam days.
<v Speaker 2>You get to capitate people in NBA Jam, But.
<v Speaker 3>If you know what you're doing, maybe, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I never can make it happen for sure, but the
<v Speaker 1>kids on the playground swore I could do it. All right, Well,
<v Speaker 1>let's keep going here, Tomadaci Life. The previews were out
<v Speaker 1>for Living the Dream. People seem very.
<v Speaker 3>Positive on it.
<v Speaker 1>If you don't believe them, if you don't trust the press,
<v Speaker 1>well you can check it out for yourself. There is
<v Speaker 1>a Welcome version demo. It's the name of the demo.
<v Speaker 1>It's the Welcome Version that's available now. This is from
<v Speaker 1>sal Ramono Akamatsu. A demo for Tomadaci Life Living the Dream,
<v Speaker 1>dubbed the Welcome Version, is now available for Switch via
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo E Shop. Nintendo announced save data from the demo
<v Speaker 1>can be transferred to the full game when it launches.
<v Speaker 1>Players who finish the demo will also receive a hamster
<v Speaker 1>costume for your me character to wear in the full game.
<v Speaker 1>The game is out April sixteenth. I'm good to since
<v Speaker 1>the Nintendo's pretty confident in this game. They're kind of
<v Speaker 1>playing it up, trumpeting up and doing, you know, parading
<v Speaker 1>around for these previews, and the previews went very well,
<v Speaker 1>and this demo ready to go, and it just sounds
<v Speaker 1>that they have a good handle on things where it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>the save data is going to transfer. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if Nintendo's done that all that frequently before. Sounds like
<v Speaker 1>they kind of know what game they have here and
<v Speaker 1>they're doing everything to give it a chance to succeed.
<v Speaker 3>I'm a big Tomadachi Life fan. Phil any love from
<v Speaker 3>you for the series.
<v Speaker 2>I've never played it, but I respect and appreciate people
<v Speaker 2>doing things of the Life sims that aren't just trying
<v Speaker 2>to make a SIMS clone as someone who is deep
<v Speaker 2>in that series, and one sees all the panic happening
<v Speaker 2>right now with that and with the future of that
<v Speaker 2>series is and then also saw things like Enzoy that
<v Speaker 2>were just like what if we shove AI into this?
<v Speaker 2>And I appreciate people taking a different perspective on, like,
<v Speaker 2>you know what matters. It's not necessarily like you know,
<v Speaker 2>building a house and accumulating stuff. It's all these like
<v Speaker 2>social story Like that's cool to me as someone who's
<v Speaker 2>never played Timadacien Life, I think that's neat. Do I
<v Speaker 2>understand correctly? I saw on social media someone's saying that
<v Speaker 2>they're was not yet a word filter in this demo?
<v Speaker 2>Is that accurate? Is that I don't want to like
<v Speaker 2>spread misinformation?
<v Speaker 3>But no, that seems pretty accurate.
<v Speaker 1>It seems like there it's effective or effectively true to
<v Speaker 1>say there's basically no filter. Now, there's a couple of
<v Speaker 1>reasons for that. This is not really an online game.
<v Speaker 1>It's something that you do mostly just kind of played
<v Speaker 1>by yourself in a silo, and Nintendo has announced you're
<v Speaker 1>like suggested that there will be pretty strict limitations on
<v Speaker 1>I guess taking videos and being able to share those
<v Speaker 1>social videos from the game, like maybe the share button
<v Speaker 1>doesn't work, so Nintendo's not as maybe thinking like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>most people are not going to share something from this
<v Speaker 1>game that's going to make it look bad, So.
<v Speaker 2>What's about twenty minutes Because that was the fact was
<v Speaker 2>that was how I learned. A demo came out with
<v Speaker 2>somebody posting videos as their me is saying obscene things.
<v Speaker 1>So yes, you cannot share your screenshots to the Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>app as saying casey, right, that's okay, Okay, that seems
<v Speaker 1>pretty like a I think that's a bad choice. But
<v Speaker 1>I think if it's between them adding a word filter,
<v Speaker 1>because I do want my needs to be able to
<v Speaker 1>say whatever I want, I want to be able to
<v Speaker 1>control that, I'm kind of glad we're getting that functionality.
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't really make sense to put a filter in
<v Speaker 1>there because that can cause some headaches for a game
<v Speaker 1>that is offline and just exists for one person to enjoy.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, that's I expect that to be the way
<v Speaker 1>it works when it actually comes out. It also seems
<v Speaker 1>like and I've not played the demo yet, but a
<v Speaker 1>lot of the previews were saying that there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>more options for for gender and dating and you know,
<v Speaker 1>in sexual preference, because that was something that was not
<v Speaker 1>just an option in Tomadacci Life for the three ds,
<v Speaker 1>they had it very lockdown to this is one way
<v Speaker 1>that the relationships can possibly work between genders and sexual preference.
<v Speaker 1>So kind of them fixing that is one of the
<v Speaker 1>things people are waiting for, and so it's kind of
<v Speaker 1>been all good news for the Tomadacci Life community. I've
<v Speaker 1>been kind of keeping track of the subreddit there and
<v Speaker 1>everyone looks mostly positive at this thing.
<v Speaker 3>So far.
<v Speaker 1>There's a chance this could have a very similar sort
<v Speaker 1>of Pacopia like storyline where you know, we know who's
<v Speaker 1>bought the swing, which too. So far, the audience that
<v Speaker 1>showed up for animal Crossing for the switch one is
<v Speaker 1>has maybe been on the sideline in te Pacopia, and
<v Speaker 1>now having this as another option there, it's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they're going to be feasting in that cozy game community.
<v Speaker 3>I think, what do you think?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I didn't expect this what happened, but
<v Speaker 2>I appreciate that they seem to be taking based on
<v Speaker 2>what you're saying, being like, here's your toy. You can
<v Speaker 2>play with an approach, and I think that does matter
<v Speaker 2>to people. I think I does you know again, I
<v Speaker 2>the SIMMS is just my reference point because I've spent
<v Speaker 2>a lot of time researching Maxis and getting involved with
<v Speaker 2>that side of things. But you know the fact that
<v Speaker 2>people could go off script and kind of tell their
<v Speaker 2>own stories with it is what made that game catch
<v Speaker 2>on in the first place, instead of trying to railroad people.
<v Speaker 2>So if people can take this thing and say like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I can do my own story with this, I can,
<v Speaker 2>you know, do my own weird thing where my mes
<v Speaker 2>are into this weird thing and they can express themselves
<v Speaker 2>in different ways like that, to me has the potential
<v Speaker 2>to break out more than something where they are trying
<v Speaker 2>to force you into types of stories you're trying to tell,
<v Speaker 2>or formats or templates. If it can be broken in
<v Speaker 2>a way that people enjoy, like absolutely, that's going to
<v Speaker 2>catch on with the I don't know how we define
<v Speaker 2>cozy games anymore, but self expression games, let's something in
<v Speaker 2>that field.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly right, Yes, it's definitely just Cozy's become this
<v Speaker 1>detached from the actual definition of the word and kind
<v Speaker 1>of just catch all.
<v Speaker 2>For uh, well, I people I heard the opposite of
<v Speaker 2>running guns. It's a tendon ment. I've heard people that
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, You're you're putting things in their place, and
<v Speaker 1>that's a whole genre.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm looking forward to this that it's always had
<v Speaker 1>such a good sense of humor. And we're doing Marry
<v Speaker 1>mutomadoctr right now with Abby and it's reminding me of
<v Speaker 1>like how much fun that game can be and just
<v Speaker 1>letting it sort of do like do its thing in
<v Speaker 1>the background with all the simulations and the relationships and
<v Speaker 1>how it figures that stuff out and the rolls of
<v Speaker 1>the dice that you don't see and creating fun scenarios
<v Speaker 1>that you weren't expecting.
<v Speaker 3>That's great. It does seem like.
<v Speaker 1>This game Living the Dream does give you a few
<v Speaker 1>more options to like just pick up characters and put
<v Speaker 1>characters together and having them interact. So if you want
<v Speaker 1>to to have a more forceful hand on the way
<v Speaker 1>characters are hanging out, you can. And I think that's
<v Speaker 1>something that feels like, oh, okay, this is not just
<v Speaker 1>Tomadaci Life four through three DS again and now on
<v Speaker 1>the Switch, which is something Nintendo's often done that's been
<v Speaker 1>the animal crossing really with some minor changes here and there,
<v Speaker 1>it feels like, oh no, they're taking the concept and
<v Speaker 1>expanding it, and I find that to be pretty exciting.
<v Speaker 1>You know, this is a switch one game as well,
<v Speaker 1>I think Nintendo definitely yeah, kind of coming out of
<v Speaker 1>a period in the holidays in earlier part of this
<v Speaker 1>year where I think a lot of people are looking
<v Speaker 1>around being like, what is the what's going to get
<v Speaker 1>me excited to get a switch to? Or why am
<v Speaker 1>I excited that I have a switch to? And there
<v Speaker 1>aren't a lot of answers to that until Pocopia. But
<v Speaker 1>you know, now they have this game. But again, this
<v Speaker 1>is happening before we get a three D Mario, you know,
<v Speaker 1>a brand new Zelda and these games are aren't even
<v Speaker 1>announced Smash Brothers all that stuff. Is this like too
<v Speaker 1>similar of a game to Procopia back to back? Is
<v Speaker 1>there any risks of sort of like one eating the
<v Speaker 1>other's lunch?
<v Speaker 2>That feels like a gateway drug almost where it's like, hey,
<v Speaker 2>you like Pucopia, do you want this other? Thing? Almost
<v Speaker 2>makes me think like, hey, if you like that. We
<v Speaker 2>added social features to Bella bell Park, Fight Me and
<v Speaker 2>Bella bell Park like I wonder if that's not because
<v Speaker 2>again we've talked about what the audience is for switch to.
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if they are building more of a Oh,
<v Speaker 2>it's a cozy game of complain myself, even if there's
<v Speaker 2>no animal crossing. Directing people to experiences like that is
<v Speaker 2>more fruitful than just trying to be you know, hey,
<v Speaker 2>here's Bonanza two or whatever. The next thing they would
<v Speaker 2>do building that direction is yep.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's go ahead and take a break. Plenty
<v Speaker 1>more headlines to get to after this. If you want
<v Speaker 1>to skip out on these ad messages, you can do so.
<v Speaker 1>Go to giant bomb dot com slash join become a
<v Speaker 1>premium member. Once you're there, you can find ad free
<v Speaker 1>versions of the video and audio program on the website.
<v Speaker 1>We will be right back. All right, it's Game Best Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>That's Phil Salvador. I'm Jeff Grubb. We're getting back into
<v Speaker 1>the headlines with PlayStation shutters first party partner studio Dark
<v Speaker 1>Outlaw Games. This is from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor.
<v Speaker 1>While Epic Games may have taken the majority of the
<v Speaker 1>headlines yesterday after laying off one thousand people and making
<v Speaker 1>the future of Fortnite look a bit bleaker than it
<v Speaker 1>had just.
<v Speaker 3>A few days ago.
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation has also apparently made some layoffs very recently. Namely,
<v Speaker 1>the company appears to have shut down the first party
<v Speaker 1>partner studio, Dark Outlaw Games. This comes via Bloomberg's Jason Schreyer,
<v Speaker 1>who broke the news on Blue Sky. This hasn't yet
<v Speaker 1>been officially confirmed by PlayStation or dark Outlaw Games. The
<v Speaker 1>studio was formed by ex Call of Duty lead Jason Blundell,
<v Speaker 1>who had formed another PlayStation studio in the past, Deviation,
<v Speaker 1>which was shut down in twenty twenty four. Schreier reckons
<v Speaker 1>this is only part of the cuts planned at PlayStation,
<v Speaker 1>as the company also wants to take a step away
<v Speaker 1>from mobile development, something that built up over the last
<v Speaker 1>several years. Around fifty people are reported to have been
<v Speaker 1>laid off in total. Yeah, it feels like man, the
<v Speaker 1>shifting landscape and the shifting strategies from a big corporation
<v Speaker 1>like Sony and PlayStation has caused them to constantly be
<v Speaker 1>reassessing the decisions that they made years ago and decisions
<v Speaker 1>that they kind of just made like maybe last year
<v Speaker 1>or the year before. And they're being pretty harsh with Hey,
<v Speaker 1>if this doesn't work or we don't have high expectations
<v Speaker 1>for this, we're just going to cut it off and
<v Speaker 1>move on because we're going to try something different. We
<v Speaker 1>don't really know what that looks like yet. The last
<v Speaker 1>time we heard from from PlayStation really about hey, what
<v Speaker 1>is your idea for how to grow into the future
<v Speaker 1>when they're talking to investors, it was we have ten
<v Speaker 1>to twelve live service games, and obviously we've had a
<v Speaker 1>couple of those come out, and many of them have
<v Speaker 1>not hit. I think, you know Marathon, which we'll talk
<v Speaker 1>about here in a second, Yeah, that like even that,
<v Speaker 1>it's like, oh, that's doing well, but is it doing
<v Speaker 1>well enough to justify Bungie and Marathon's got a lot
<v Speaker 1>of positive word of mouth, and even if that's not working,
<v Speaker 1>can any of these things work? I think that's kind
<v Speaker 1>of changed the tune around what PlayStation feels about a
<v Speaker 1>lot of these projects that it green lighted in the
<v Speaker 1>last couple of years. So what do you think happened here?
<v Speaker 1>What do you think is happening over at PlayStation.
<v Speaker 2>The way that a lot of this was explained to
<v Speaker 2>me by a friend who is more like the business
<v Speaker 2>side of this is that a lot of companies look
<v Speaker 2>at this kind of thing where they're investing in studios.
<v Speaker 2>It's not thinking about we're going to get product out
<v Speaker 2>of this. They're looking at it almost as just like
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, like corporate cal sheet to an extent
<v Speaker 2>where it's like, all right, let's put one hundred million
<v Speaker 2>into all these studios. One of these or a couple
<v Speaker 2>of these will be a mega hit that will subsidize
<v Speaker 2>all of it. But there's only so far we can
<v Speaker 2>go with that logic before you are just like, this
<v Speaker 2>is the second studio from the same person that they
<v Speaker 2>invested in and then shut down. That is wild to me.
<v Speaker 2>That just seems like a let's throw money at things
<v Speaker 2>and see what happens without I don't know, discipline, Like
<v Speaker 2>that's just that's weird that, Like, I know, there's probably
<v Speaker 2>many stories of studios that we've never even heard of
<v Speaker 2>that founded, got some exploratory funding shut down, But to
<v Speaker 2>have it happening this frequently at this scale from one
<v Speaker 2>publisher is boy, they really just spread They went to
<v Speaker 2>the roulette table and just bet on every single number,
<v Speaker 2>and we're like, hey, we'll win if we get any
<v Speaker 2>number of the roulette table then you know, we'll win something.
<v Speaker 2>So boy, there's it feels if there needs to be
<v Speaker 2>a course correction there.
<v Speaker 1>That's uh yeah, you know, And I think that's the
<v Speaker 1>question is like what does the course course correction look like?
<v Speaker 3>We don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I think Sony probably actually doesn't quite know themselves yet.
<v Speaker 1>I do think that that is it all kind of
<v Speaker 1>goes back to explaining many of the choices they are
<v Speaker 1>making right now, including pulling back from releasing games on PC,
<v Speaker 1>at least the single player games. I think they want
<v Speaker 1>to reset the clock and just go into late PS
<v Speaker 1>five and PS five Pro and you know, a post
<v Speaker 1>GTA six world and then into PlayStation six with a
<v Speaker 1>lot of their cards back close to their chest, you know,
<v Speaker 1>like Okay, now, how can we go from here? And
<v Speaker 1>I think they're kind of waiting for Grand Theft Auto
<v Speaker 1>six to come along before they make any long term
<v Speaker 1>decisions about how they should be spending their money, and
<v Speaker 1>so it's like, okay, well, let's cut some costs in
<v Speaker 1>the meantime and then kind of come back to the
<v Speaker 1>table when we're ready.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know what the future could look like for
<v Speaker 3>a PlayStation.
<v Speaker 1>You know, obviously they're going to keep doing the stuff
<v Speaker 1>that has worked for them making the console, making it,
<v Speaker 1>you know, for the audience that they've always made their
<v Speaker 1>console for making games for the one that they have
<v Speaker 1>cultivated in the last couple of last decade or so,
<v Speaker 1>which is, you know, big single player, narrative driven action
<v Speaker 1>adventure games with high production values. Obviously that stuff has
<v Speaker 1>all still happened. They've not increased the budget of making
<v Speaker 1>those kinds of games, but they've not decreased it either.
<v Speaker 1>They're going to kind of keep that steady the way
<v Speaker 1>they've been doing it. And if that means it takes
<v Speaker 1>Naughty Dog seven years to release in game right now,
<v Speaker 1>then so be it. But they're going to keep doing it.
<v Speaker 1>It is always the question of, like, we know they
<v Speaker 1>want to grow. They keep saying that that is crucial
<v Speaker 1>to them, Like what does that look like and when
<v Speaker 1>when it is no longer the live service thing.
<v Speaker 3>It's it's just a set of question marks.
<v Speaker 1>And I just think across the industry, the sense I
<v Speaker 1>get is them going, is it AI? Do we just
<v Speaker 1>make games cheaper with AI? And they're kind of looking
<v Speaker 1>everyone's looking at each other and they all know the
<v Speaker 1>answer and it's no. But they they're afraid to admit
<v Speaker 1>it because if it's not that, there is no backup
<v Speaker 1>plan right now?
<v Speaker 3>Does that sound right to you? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>So my my take on all this is, I don't
<v Speaker 2>know if you've been following or looking at Iicon, but
<v Speaker 2>to me, that is what the future of the industry
<v Speaker 2>looks like. So Icon is the essays new event that
<v Speaker 2>it's not replacing E three, but it's their new event
<v Speaker 2>the doing instead of E three, and it is very
<v Speaker 2>much like an executive summit type event. I think tickets
<v Speaker 2>are several thousand dollars. I'm not going to Icon. I
<v Speaker 2>think it's also invite only, so none of us are
<v Speaker 2>getting invited to Icon. But their panels are not about
<v Speaker 2>like investing in new ips or game development. They are
<v Speaker 2>about like monetizing IP and doing crossovers with like sports
<v Speaker 2>leagues and stuff like that. So, like I think, if
<v Speaker 2>there's a growth play, it's not let's try to make
<v Speaker 2>the new Fortnite, it's let's do God of War again
<v Speaker 2>and make the God of War TV series and make
<v Speaker 2>a new God of War game that's twice as big
<v Speaker 2>as the previous God of War game, and just in testing,
<v Speaker 2>in like doing things that are safe, bigger. I feel like,
<v Speaker 2>is the future of this level of the game midustry
<v Speaker 2>to an extent, Like when we were talking at SGF
<v Speaker 2>we talked about the idea of game publishers as lifestyle
<v Speaker 2>brands and how you can get like accessories that look
<v Speaker 2>like an Xbox or all the you know, Mario branded
<v Speaker 2>stuff like that. Feels like if there's any growth happening,
<v Speaker 2>it's no longer just in, you know, make a new
<v Speaker 2>game and hope it blows up. It's take what we have,
<v Speaker 2>double down on it, make it bigger, make it into
<v Speaker 2>a recurring, evergreen brand. And I wonder if we won't
<v Speaker 2>see more of that. I mean, God, we're getting like
<v Speaker 2>multiple God of War announcements this year.
<v Speaker 1>Right, yeah, yeah, I mean they had the God of
<v Speaker 1>War like two D game.
<v Speaker 3>There's probably a God of War.
<v Speaker 1>You know, there's a Got of War show happening, and
<v Speaker 1>then there's Got War remakes, and then.
<v Speaker 2>That they tease something yeah, yes, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>And then there's something that there might be some sort
<v Speaker 1>of spin off that feels like a new new franchise
<v Speaker 1>but isn't so Yeah, like they are, You're probably right
<v Speaker 1>in that horii A seen as the model that PlayStation's
<v Speaker 1>looking at we have a bunch of different games and
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of different varieties, and then there's the core game,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, it's the mothership style thing.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the mothership game. Here's all the little satellites that
<v Speaker 3>are poking off of it.
<v Speaker 1>And one of those satellites, hopefully is another big sort
<v Speaker 1>of thing that could grow into a mothership. And that's
<v Speaker 1>the movies or TV shows. Excuse me, that could be
<v Speaker 1>what a lot of these companies are. I mean, it's
<v Speaker 1>working for Nintendo even so I could see a lot
<v Speaker 1>of other companies being like, that's where we need to be.
<v Speaker 3>And there is appetite for gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Ip in Hollywood still, so it's like that's another strategy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'd forgotten about Horizon, but now that you brought
<v Speaker 2>it up specifically, the fact that we have the games
<v Speaker 2>and the remasters of the games, and then the Lego
<v Speaker 2>game and then the like K Pop Demon Hunters Horizon,
<v Speaker 2>it's like, that's the future. I think for a lot
<v Speaker 2>of these big companies really hit on something that's bankable
<v Speaker 2>and then once in a while maybe spending money on
<v Speaker 2>an interstellar and hoping that's going to be another thing
<v Speaker 2>they can then spin out.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly, and you know, let that be driven by your
<v Speaker 1>biggest studios that you're not afraid to let sort of
<v Speaker 1>run wild with a massive budget until they you know,
<v Speaker 1>until they have one miss and then you know everything's
<v Speaker 1>on fire. But until that happens, they're like, Okay, this
<v Speaker 1>is the strategy.
<v Speaker 3>All right.
<v Speaker 2>That got far away from talking about that got very
<v Speaker 2>far away from talking about dark outlaw games. But no,
<v Speaker 2>that uh yeah that sucks's that's.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean, yes, it's right exactly.
<v Speaker 1>It's I'm gonna wonder what happened there, but mostly it's
<v Speaker 1>going to be. Oh, all of these companies are sort
<v Speaker 1>of pulling back in this moment. You know, there is
<v Speaker 1>a lot of excuses that could they can use of.
<v Speaker 1>We've had years of increased cost and component costs and
<v Speaker 1>people are are all looking around and feeling bad about
<v Speaker 1>the economy, So you can you blame us for cutting jobs?
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, it seems like there's more to
<v Speaker 1>the story about what than what we know that about
<v Speaker 1>what happened over at Epic with Fortnite and it's layoffs, But.
<v Speaker 3>We'll have to wait and see. My guess would be
<v Speaker 3>and this is just a.
<v Speaker 1>Guess would be that, oh, they really did extend themselves
<v Speaker 1>over at Epic and a bunch of different directions, with
<v Speaker 1>directions with lawsuits and big business ventures like the Epic
<v Speaker 1>Game Store, and those are costing the people who made Fortnite,
<v Speaker 1>which was actually successful enough to justify all the investment
<v Speaker 1>it was getting in its employees. But that's not how
<v Speaker 1>that business is going to operate because Tim Sweeney is
<v Speaker 1>going to take these big swings and it's going to backfire.
<v Speaker 3>But again that's just my guess. I hope we get
<v Speaker 3>more information there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the people who are paying for these over investments
<v Speaker 2>in these wrong directions are the people who are working
<v Speaker 2>on these games, not the people who made this decisions.
<v Speaker 2>Is that's for the story, but.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, all right.
<v Speaker 1>Analytics firm estimates that Marathon has sold one point two
<v Speaker 1>million copies, but says only nineteen percent of those are
<v Speaker 1>on PS five. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC.
<v Speaker 1>Marathon has sold one point two million copies, but the
<v Speaker 1>vast majority of those aren't on PlayStation five. According to
<v Speaker 1>a report from game and from a game analytics firm,
<v Speaker 1>Norway based a Linear Linear Analytics estimates that Bungie's online
<v Speaker 1>first person extraction shooter has sold around one point two
<v Speaker 1>million copies, generating gross revenues of fifty five million dollars
<v Speaker 1>so far, despite Bungie being part of the PlayStation studio family. However,
<v Speaker 1>a linear Linear estimates that the vast majority of the
<v Speaker 1>game's audience just under seventy percent is based on Steam,
<v Speaker 1>with around eight hundred thousand copies sold on Valve's PC platform. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think kind of what I was hearing from like
<v Speaker 1>inside PlayStation is, look, this game's selling, all right, It's
<v Speaker 1>not selling enough to sort of ensure the future of
<v Speaker 1>Bungee is unaffected by like the realities of running a
<v Speaker 1>company of that scale with that number of employees, and
<v Speaker 1>just at the.
<v Speaker 3>Cost that it takes to operate it.
<v Speaker 1>How much this game would have needed to sell to
<v Speaker 1>accomplish that. You know, there's always this concept of why
<v Speaker 1>are the expectations so high for these games?
<v Speaker 3>And it doesn't work that way in most cases.
<v Speaker 1>In a case like this, it's Bungee is this big
<v Speaker 1>and has this many employees. Can we pitch a game
<v Speaker 1>or make a game that can justify our ongoing existence?
<v Speaker 1>And Marathon was supposed to be that, and I think
<v Speaker 1>it needed to sell several million more copies kind of
<v Speaker 1>out of the gate to answer that question immediately. The
<v Speaker 1>strange thing here, I think, phil is that this game
<v Speaker 1>is getting very positive word of mouth.
<v Speaker 3>People do feel really good about it.
<v Speaker 1>It feels like it could grow into that sort of
<v Speaker 1>thing where it is the sustainable game that they needed
<v Speaker 1>to be, but it has to be nurtured.
<v Speaker 3>What do you like, does it get the chance to
<v Speaker 3>have that happen?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, just because of the expectation that's been
<v Speaker 2>put out from above, Like if this game maintains this
<v Speaker 2>kind of level of daily active users, that would be
<v Speaker 2>like the greatest success ever in this genre. But like,
<v Speaker 2>I'm glad people are loving and I'm glad it's successful.
<v Speaker 2>I think I had kind of written it off because
<v Speaker 2>of some of the bad press around it, But like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know that given the pressure around it, it
<v Speaker 2>will get a chance to grow even in the direction
<v Speaker 2>that it should. Like my thoughts just been like how
<v Speaker 2>quickly until they try to like put Nicki Minaj in
<v Speaker 2>this or whatever? Right, Like that's inevitably with games like this.
<v Speaker 2>This is a very silly comparison, But this has also
<v Speaker 2>been coming to mind thinking about these kind of games.
<v Speaker 2>There's so much expectation put on them. In college, I
<v Speaker 2>was at an event once where the organizer way over
<v Speaker 2>ordered sandwiches, and so we got like palettes worth of sandwiches,
<v Speaker 2>and he was joking like, Okay, everyone has to eat
<v Speaker 2>three sandwiches, and as people would leave, he kept updating
<v Speaker 2>the cat like, Okay, everyone's got to eat four sandwiches,
<v Speaker 2>everyone's got to eat five sandwiches. And just given their
<v Speaker 2>strategy right now, even if this is the most successful
<v Speaker 2>game of its kind, even if it's a huge success
<v Speaker 2>and it has this very dedicated fan base that loves
<v Speaker 2>it and will invest in it, Sony's looking at it
<v Speaker 2>like Marathon's got to eat ten sandwiches right now. And
<v Speaker 2>that's just it was never realistic to put in a
<v Speaker 2>game like this, especially one that again seems to be
<v Speaker 2>targeting a more niche hardcore like the tarkav audience right
<v Speaker 2>on PC.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and it's you know, these green lights happen years ago.
<v Speaker 1>They happened in a world where like they're looking at
<v Speaker 1>the way games are growing during a pandemic, and they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>if we can sort of build this thing and kind
<v Speaker 1>of make the Fortnite of it distraction shooters the way
<v Speaker 1>Fortnite was the Fortnite of of.
<v Speaker 3>Battle Royale games. We have a strong chance to kind
<v Speaker 3>of capture a.
<v Speaker 1>Wave, and it's like, yeah, I get the logic there,
<v Speaker 1>but there's a lot of reasons why that might not happen,
<v Speaker 1>and one of them might just be this is a
<v Speaker 1>genre that cannot have a Fortnite like thing. Now, Marathime
<v Speaker 1>does feel like the one that could make that happen still,
<v Speaker 1>but it's going to be a long process and probably
<v Speaker 1>a painful one where it's like people feeling really good
<v Speaker 1>about it right now, then they try some things to
<v Speaker 1>kind of grow and appeal to a wider audience, and
<v Speaker 1>that stuff could easily annoy the people who have shown
<v Speaker 1>up since day one, and then the conversations turned sour,
<v Speaker 1>and then everyone ends up.
<v Speaker 3>Like, you know, with a headache about this game.
<v Speaker 1>I don't look forward or I don't envy anyone in
<v Speaker 1>the position of having to sort of navigate these waters
<v Speaker 1>of taking a big ship like this and being like,
<v Speaker 1>we got to find more treasure here with this thing,
<v Speaker 1>where this thing can generate even more revenue.
<v Speaker 3>That's going to be complicated.
<v Speaker 1>I would hope that it could just kind of stay
<v Speaker 1>at like, stay what it is, stay true to the
<v Speaker 1>audience that loves it, and let them enjoy it.
<v Speaker 3>But I don't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's going to be enough for Bungee,
<v Speaker 1>and especially with Destiny too kind of just obviously winding
<v Speaker 1>down and them not really having a great plan to
<v Speaker 1>bring that back and keeping it making as much money
<v Speaker 1>as it might have at one point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's so frustrating because it seems like, and it
<v Speaker 2>already is the kind of game where people say, wait,
<v Speaker 2>holy shit, no, you've got to play this like that's
<v Speaker 2>where like the really organic, sustained growth comes from. That
<v Speaker 2>is awesome. But I bet yeah, whoever is higher up
<v Speaker 2>at PlayStation is looking at that versus the monthly cost
<v Speaker 2>of operating Bungie and is like, be Fortnite faster and
<v Speaker 2>that that's just not productive.
<v Speaker 3>That's yep.
<v Speaker 1>There's a there's some conversation here from Olenia about oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that the server slam happened so quickly or so assumed
<v Speaker 1>before the release that there wasn't a lot of time
<v Speaker 1>to implement changes that people would have welcomed, and so
<v Speaker 1>it's like people were kind of like I got my film,
<v Speaker 1>Gonna wait and see what happens with updates. They expect
<v Speaker 1>more people to come into this game here pretty soon
<v Speaker 1>if the word of mouth maintains around it. And again
<v Speaker 1>it seems like it's only growing, and we'll probably grow
<v Speaker 1>through this year, so we will see.
<v Speaker 3>All right.
<v Speaker 1>Xbox Boss pushes for game Pass overhaul, including Netflix collaboration.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jonas mackiat Game Reactor. The new head
<v Speaker 1>of Xbox, Asha Sharma, has had a busy start to
<v Speaker 1>the job, kicking off her tenure by promising Xbox's comeback,
<v Speaker 1>unveiling Xbox Helix, which is the new system that's coming
<v Speaker 1>out soon, and launching a feature that's been in demand
<v Speaker 1>for years now. She appears to be working on yet
<v Speaker 1>another project, overhauling game Pass, where it seems we can
<v Speaker 1>look forward to both lower prices and a partnership with Netflix,
<v Speaker 1>at least potentially. According to a report from The Information,
<v Speaker 1>Sharma is apparently considering additional tiers for game Pass, one
<v Speaker 1>of which would be an ad supported tier to provide
<v Speaker 1>access to games at a lower price, essentially the same
<v Speaker 1>model that most other streaming services for movies and TV
<v Speaker 1>shows already use. And speaking of streaming services, the same
<v Speaker 1>report notes that Sharma and Netflix CEO Greg Peters have
<v Speaker 1>discussed various types of solutions for collaborating, with the latter
<v Speaker 1>stating quote, you would have to do it in a
<v Speaker 1>way that.
<v Speaker 3>Works for the consumer and works for both companies.
<v Speaker 1>Microsoft still trying to figure out how to make the
<v Speaker 1>game pass bundle with Netflix work for Microsoft. So it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>there's conversations they might make something happen here. I'll say
<v Speaker 1>phil this, I'm slightly surprised that it seems like one
<v Speaker 1>of the points of emphasis is still still game Pass.
<v Speaker 1>I kind of was like, oh, are they just going
<v Speaker 1>to let that sort of ride on its momentum and
<v Speaker 1>stay over there and keep putting new games in there? Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, it's probably making a decent amount of
<v Speaker 1>money from thirty dollars a month from several million people
<v Speaker 1>still subscribed. I'm sure it's worthy of keeping around from
<v Speaker 1>a business perspective, But is it worth trying to be
<v Speaker 1>like this is still the future and the since I've
<v Speaker 1>getting here, is it at least it's part of their future?
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that that is something they can sort
<v Speaker 1>of I don't know if it needs to be rescued
<v Speaker 1>but sort of reinvigorate the excitement around game pass.
<v Speaker 2>It's weird because the framing of this makes it sound
<v Speaker 2>like it's almost like they see the problems, like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>we need a bigger audience, let's expand something like Netflix
<v Speaker 2>where we can incorporate it. I'm going to get into
<v Speaker 2>history mode for a second, because I to the Video
<v Speaker 2>Game History Foundation. So we did a big thing last
<v Speaker 2>year about Sega Channel, which was sort of Sega's game
<v Speaker 2>Pass back the day, where it was a monthly subscription
<v Speaker 2>service where you got access to a rotating library of games,
<v Speaker 2>and very quickly they realized it didn't have the growth
<v Speaker 2>potential they expected because the audience that would use a
<v Speaker 2>service like that isn't actually meeting their model of like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>let's back up for a second. Hardcore gamers love it
<v Speaker 2>because it's like, Okay, I get access to all these
<v Speaker 2>games all the time. It's cheaper than buying all these games,
<v Speaker 2>even if it's like an AD supported model, or it's
<v Speaker 2>integrated to something, or it's smaller scale. People who are
<v Speaker 2>like just kind of want a dialli into game just
<v Speaker 2>pop into one when it's on Netflix and play it
<v Speaker 2>and then pop out. They aren't necessarily hungering to play
<v Speaker 2>that mini games right like that, it's I think they
<v Speaker 2>found that like once people had two or three games
<v Speaker 2>that they liked, the smaller casual audience are like can
<v Speaker 2>new owners of Genesis they stop subscribing to say a
<v Speaker 2>chill because it was like, Okay, I've got my games,
<v Speaker 2>I'm good. That feels even more exacerbated right now at
<v Speaker 2>a time when it's like GTA Fortnite roadblocks called duty
<v Speaker 2>Minecraft that that's like you know, the five or six horsemen, right,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, expanding this to the Netflix audience, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know who that reaches. That, Like, you know, you're
<v Speaker 2>not getting hardcore gamers who want to pay fifteen bucks
<v Speaker 2>a month for an endless library of games. They would
<v Speaker 2>pop in, maybe play something a little bit that they
<v Speaker 2>heard about, and then never revisit it again, like the
<v Speaker 2>existing Netflix game feature. So I think there's like, I
<v Speaker 2>I guess to your point, I think you could sustain
<v Speaker 2>something like game Pass if you just went in on
<v Speaker 2>that audience and like, all right, our audience is the
<v Speaker 2>hardcore players who want, you know, first run Xbox titles
<v Speaker 2>as they come out, who want to get access to
<v Speaker 2>these deeper, you know, cut libraries. That's spending twenty to
<v Speaker 2>thirty bucks per game. I feel like you could go
<v Speaker 2>in on that and just make it a stable, profitable
<v Speaker 2>business instead of saying like, no, we need to target
<v Speaker 2>anyone who's ever ever sniffed a game. We need someone
<v Speaker 2>who wants to, you know, turn on their TV and
<v Speaker 2>have access to a video game. I don't know that
<v Speaker 2>that audience exists apart from the few stable games they
<v Speaker 2>are playing with their friends.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's like that is what the core question like
<v Speaker 1>right now is like, oh, they were for a very
<v Speaker 1>long time in user acquisition mode, and that was very clear.
<v Speaker 1>They were keeping the price down, They're making the thing
<v Speaker 1>very appealing. The refrain from if not officially Xbox, but
<v Speaker 1>from the community was the best deal in gaming, and
<v Speaker 1>that the implication there was like, oh, you're kind of
<v Speaker 1>missing out. If you're not a part of this, you
<v Speaker 1>should jump aboard because they're giving us way too much
<v Speaker 1>for what we're paying. That was the concept there, and
<v Speaker 1>then and then that shifted from like, oh, it's not
<v Speaker 1>we are no longer acquiring enough new users. We need
<v Speaker 1>to make more money from the people who are already here,
<v Speaker 1>So then the price increases came, and they came kind
<v Speaker 1>of faster than I think a lot of people were
<v Speaker 1>maybe expecting or maybe not, but it shot up to
<v Speaker 1>thirty dollars now for game Pass ultimately, and it's clearly like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>now we are in revenue generating mode.
<v Speaker 3>So it's like, is.
<v Speaker 1>The implication here that Sharma is going back to user
<v Speaker 1>acquisition mode and so with prices could come down and
<v Speaker 1>they will make it feel like a really good deal. Again,
<v Speaker 1>what is the potential to add new users? I think
<v Speaker 1>there's so many hurdles. I mean, you're talking about just
<v Speaker 1>the kind of person who has subscribed to Netflix. Are
<v Speaker 1>they interested in a game? Let's say they are. Are
<v Speaker 1>they not already getting satisfied from the games.
<v Speaker 3>On their phone? They probably are.
<v Speaker 1>If they're not, do they have a controller that's connected
<v Speaker 1>to their TV that they're going to stream a game
<v Speaker 1>to just sitting on their coffee table?
<v Speaker 3>Probably not.
<v Speaker 1>Like there is a last mile problem here that has
<v Speaker 1>not been solved from the game streaming side of things,
<v Speaker 1>if that's what Xbox is primarily talking about, which I
<v Speaker 1>think they would be, that no one is solved of, Like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>how do we just like, get these people know not
<v Speaker 1>to just have a controller, but to connect it via
<v Speaker 1>bluetooth to their television, something that just is not a
<v Speaker 1>natural thing for most people to do. And if they
<v Speaker 1>don't have that, do we have do we have an
<v Speaker 1>alternative for them to access these games where they can
<v Speaker 1>maybe control it with their phone. And at that point,
<v Speaker 1>who's going to really be thinking that this is a valuable,
<v Speaker 1>available use of their time and their subscription money.
<v Speaker 3>Probably not a lot.
<v Speaker 1>It's yeah, yeah, I don't know if game Pass has
<v Speaker 1>the juice to move past like the thirty thirty five
<v Speaker 1>million subscribers that it got at its peak.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I maybe that's fine to be in that
<v Speaker 2>place like that, I think would be a comfort place
<v Speaker 2>for a service. I saw Death Metal Dan Art in
<v Speaker 2>chat was saying something to the effect of like, and
<v Speaker 2>I felt this way too, that like the value of
<v Speaker 2>game Pass was getting access to like indies and things
<v Speaker 2>you haven't played. When I got a series ex, I
<v Speaker 2>was like, I'll sign up for game Pass, what the
<v Speaker 2>hell give it a shot, And it was like, Wow,
<v Speaker 2>I can play all the Persona games now for whatever.
<v Speaker 2>There's like cheap prices. I don't think someone who is
<v Speaker 2>just like subscribed to Netflix and isn't super interested in
<v Speaker 2>that level of game is going to be moved by that.
<v Speaker 2>So like, yeah, I don't know that user acquisition makes
<v Speaker 2>sense for game Pass anymore. But I think there is
<v Speaker 2>a world where they can double down on who the
<v Speaker 2>actual audience is. I just don't know if or how
<v Speaker 2>we get there, or if the new Xbox team seems
<v Speaker 2>to share that perception of where the market is.
<v Speaker 1>Next up, the ram Apocalypse is already claiming its first
<v Speaker 1>PC gaming handheld. This is from Darren Bonthus at game Spot.
<v Speaker 1>Essentially here in EO has suspended preorders and early birds
<v Speaker 1>sales of its upcoming next to handheld to address escalating
<v Speaker 1>expenses for components. Basically like, hey, we came back after
<v Speaker 1>Chinese New Year, caught up with our partners, and in
<v Speaker 1>that time that we were off, the prices on everything
<v Speaker 1>went up astronomically, and we're just not gonna be able
<v Speaker 1>to make this thing make sense anymore.
<v Speaker 3>This is very like there was a.
<v Speaker 1>Time where we were getting so many of these company
<v Speaker 1>like I and EO was putting out a ton of
<v Speaker 1>varia of like varied handhelds in one year, and that
<v Speaker 1>was because components were, you know, they were priced.
<v Speaker 3>Competitively, and this stuff could make sense.
<v Speaker 1>Affordable computing was a reality that we had achieved, and
<v Speaker 1>now that's gone. It's just kind of gone in a flash.
<v Speaker 1>And so this is probably not gonna be the first victim.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's going to be the kind of thing
<v Speaker 1>where you need to be able to pair up your
<v Speaker 1>handheld with a service that generates money as well. So
<v Speaker 1>the Steam deck will be safe, the Nintendo switch to
<v Speaker 1>will be safe. These are companies that have stores that
<v Speaker 1>generate a lot of money, so if they sell hardware
<v Speaker 1>at a loss or break even or a slight profit,
<v Speaker 1>they're not as worried about it as.
<v Speaker 3>A company like I and Neo would need to be.
<v Speaker 1>So we're probably in a world we're getting quite quite
<v Speaker 1>a bit fewer of these handhelds, right Phil.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what the hell?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I can't imagine going into this being like this is
<v Speaker 2>my business model. I'm just going to make cool hardware.
<v Speaker 2>Like I even think about all the retro handheld people,
<v Speaker 2>right who are like making those little devices or what's
<v Speaker 2>the one that you like the two screens that I
<v Speaker 2>can't remember the.
<v Speaker 3>Name of, theayn thor Yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Well I have no idea how you make that work
<v Speaker 2>as a business anymore. It is. It is kind of
<v Speaker 2>fascinating because I feel like we are now coming back
<v Speaker 2>around to the origins of computing, but in a like
<v Speaker 2>compulsory way. That's frustrating because early on it was like
<v Speaker 2>you had to rent a space on a computer. It
<v Speaker 2>was like there was the computer you know in your
<v Speaker 2>campus or company yep, and it was like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>you were paying for timeshare on it. And it was
<v Speaker 2>funny because at that time, that's when some of the
<v Speaker 2>first computer games started happening, because people were like, Oh,
<v Speaker 2>let's fuck around on this thing. It is very funny
<v Speaker 2>that now it's coming back around and to like, well,
<v Speaker 2>guess what, you have to rent it to have fun.
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, it is funny that it was. It
<v Speaker 2>used to be like, oh, we can rent time on
<v Speaker 2>this thing, let's have fun. Now it's like, oh, man,
<v Speaker 2>I have to rent time on this thing to have fun,
<v Speaker 2>which is a very a very funny transition to have
<v Speaker 2>made over the course of sixty years.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, people worked so hard to make the affordable computing
<v Speaker 1>thing where people can have it in their home and
<v Speaker 1>own it, and it's like second nature it almost feels
<v Speaker 1>like a utility, and so do we blink and suddenly
<v Speaker 1>it's about, oh, you got to get your AI tokens
<v Speaker 1>and your time on the server and rent this stuff
<v Speaker 1>from Nvidia specifically. It's frustrating. Yeah, I expect this to
<v Speaker 1>be a trend. We will probably see fewer of these.
<v Speaker 1>Does this market recover after a while?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. My guess would be like a lot
<v Speaker 3>of the expertise.
<v Speaker 1>Has gone into this in places like China, find other
<v Speaker 1>businesses and other industries where they can apply their hardware
<v Speaker 1>expertise and maybe sell it to like enterprises for a
<v Speaker 1>much higher amount of money. I bet that shifts and
<v Speaker 1>they don't necessarily look back once things calm back down,
<v Speaker 1>which would be a shame. It's been nice to have
<v Speaker 1>a ton of competition in that space, driving down prices.
<v Speaker 2>I will say, my mom has a good joke I
<v Speaker 2>think she stole from a comedian, probably about like inventions
<v Speaker 2>that nowadays seem like, oh that's great because it's so
<v Speaker 2>simple where it's like wow, instead of putting in contact,
<v Speaker 2>you can just put these things on over your eyes.
<v Speaker 2>And I almost wonder if five years it's going to
<v Speaker 2>be like if and when prices come down, it's going
<v Speaker 2>to be like, why you can buy a game system.
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to subscribe to anything. You just put
<v Speaker 2>the games on an SD card and you play it.
<v Speaker 2>And like, does that have novelty at a certain point
<v Speaker 2>to rebound that?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. I expect that might exactly happen.
<v Speaker 1>Last story here, Square Inox was metacritics number one ranked
<v Speaker 1>publisher last year thanks to nine quote good games. This
<v Speaker 1>is from Andy Robertson at VGC. I do have the
<v Speaker 1>list here. Squarennix was number one. Uh, then game Mirror
<v Speaker 1>gamer but like spelled like game Mirror. Uh, that's gameier games.
<v Speaker 1>They had a handful of games they had an eighty
<v Speaker 1>two average on a Metacritic than Capcom, then Thunderful, then Microsoft,
<v Speaker 1>take to Sega, Electronic Arts, Dot EMU, and raw Fury.
<v Speaker 1>We're noting Nintendo not on the list. That's uh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation not on there as well. Uh you know these
<v Speaker 1>are those are companies I think kind of I did
<v Speaker 1>have a little bit below average year in terms of
<v Speaker 1>how how their games were received. Uh does this sort
<v Speaker 1>of thing matter, this perception around the bub publisher level.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's like.
<v Speaker 1>Capcom is definitely kind of writing that little bit of
<v Speaker 1>that wave. Do you think other publishers can sort of
<v Speaker 1>replicate that?
<v Speaker 2>I immediately when this came up, just honed in on whatever
<v Speaker 2>the hell game Mirror is because I hadn't heard of them,
<v Speaker 2>I mean looked them up and they did. They did
<v Speaker 2>Dyson Sphere with their big one, but they also, like
<v Speaker 2>on they just they have a lot of smaller games
<v Speaker 2>I've never heard of, like typing break or hold the Mine.
<v Speaker 2>And it's like that, you know, it doesn't say anything
<v Speaker 2>about sales or sustainability or scale, but like that feels
<v Speaker 2>like a hierarchy of power change when you have like
<v Speaker 2>a company like that ranking above an Electronic Arts or
<v Speaker 2>like a Thunderful relatively even with Sega, like that's kind
<v Speaker 2>of a big deal. I feel like, again, that doesn't
<v Speaker 2>say anything about their business model except maybe they are
<v Speaker 2>people doing it sustainable at a smaller scale like that,
<v Speaker 2>But that feels notable. That was the immediate standout to me.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, it definitely feels like there is an opportunity to
<v Speaker 1>sort of establish yourself as a quality publisher and build that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, build your name into that brand over time.
<v Speaker 1>That we were talking about earlier and I do think
<v Speaker 1>like some of like Nintendo's early woes with the switch
<v Speaker 1>to this year, which you know, are maybe a bit overstated,
<v Speaker 1>but it is notable that PlayStation five outsold the switch
<v Speaker 1>to in January and February in the United States. I
<v Speaker 1>think some of that does just come down to people
<v Speaker 1>were not excited about most of your games. Most of
<v Speaker 1>your games were either known quantities or disappointing, and like
<v Speaker 1>Mario Tennis being a very good example of that. Although
<v Speaker 1>that would not have been counted in this I believe
<v Speaker 1>that would have been for this year's Metacritic. All right,
<v Speaker 1>that does it for the headlines. We have a poll
<v Speaker 1>question from Monday that we should get to. Let's do
<v Speaker 1>that real quick. I'm gonna refresh. I'm curious about the
<v Speaker 1>results from this one for sure. Okay, take your time
<v Speaker 1>YouTube before refreshing. I believe this is I had you
<v Speaker 1>all grade Crimson Desert there to finally loading.
<v Speaker 2>I'm so glad. I'm so glad it was here Wednesday
<v Speaker 2>and I didn't have to register an opinion about Crimson
<v Speaker 2>Desert this week. I'm just I'm relieved.
<v Speaker 1>But yes, just keep you know, stay that way, do
<v Speaker 1>not change. You know, you keep yourself safe, all right.
<v Speaker 1>If you've played Crimson Desert Grade it, the options were AB,
<v Speaker 1>CD or lower. The most common response was B at
<v Speaker 1>thirty seven percent, then C at twenty four percent, then
<v Speaker 1>D or lower at twenty two percent, and A at
<v Speaker 1>seventeen percent.
<v Speaker 3>Just it runs the gamut just across the board.
<v Speaker 1>People feel a way about this game, and it's a
<v Speaker 1>it goes from a masterpiece all the way down to
<v Speaker 1>I really don't like it at all.
<v Speaker 3>I mean officially divisive.
<v Speaker 1>I guess we could say this is an officially divisive game.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I think divisive is always a more interesting
<v Speaker 2>place to be than a consensus or even a consensus good.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, this this is my impression of it, not
<v Speaker 2>playing it is it's just like you go to the
<v Speaker 2>butcher and you order five pounds a game with the
<v Speaker 2>bone in and they just give it to you, and
<v Speaker 2>like that's just just a slab of game. And it's
<v Speaker 2>like some people are really into that. Not for me,
<v Speaker 2>but I can see how people who are into that
<v Speaker 2>would it would enjoy.
<v Speaker 3>It, yep. Man.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, yeah, people are clearly many how clearly
<v Speaker 1>are and others clearly are having a problem, it's at
<v Speaker 1>least fun to talk about. I still don't find the
<v Speaker 1>game all that interesting from like, oh, what's going on here?
<v Speaker 3>Is that worth discussing?
<v Speaker 1>It's like, not not too much, but like, let's discuss
<v Speaker 1>it because our RP people who are enjoying this and
<v Speaker 1>I'm hating it. How can we sort of bridge that gap?
<v Speaker 3>And it's like we're not going to be able to,
<v Speaker 3>but it's fun.
<v Speaker 1>To try to figure it out. All right, that's the
<v Speaker 1>pull question from Monday. We'll have a new poll question
<v Speaker 1>here in a second. Before we do that, Phil, why
<v Speaker 1>don't you tell people where they can find you on
<v Speaker 1>the internet what you have going on and all that
<v Speaker 1>good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm on Blue Sky. I think that's the only
<v Speaker 2>social media place I'm active anymore. Phil Salve on Blue Sky.
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing history stuff everywhere. We got all kinds of
<v Speaker 2>things rolling out all the time of the Video Game
<v Speaker 2>History Foundation, new collections coming out, podcast episodes.
<v Speaker 3>We are on a roll.
<v Speaker 2>We've got all sorts of cool things coming around. Currently
<v Speaker 2>working on a big new collection we have in from
<v Speaker 2>the history of Sunsoft. There's some good stuff in there.
<v Speaker 2>Can't wait to share it with folks. That's still a
<v Speaker 2>couple months out, but give us a follow support us.
<v Speaker 2>We've got things in the pipeline, We've got things that
<v Speaker 2>are out in the world that are probably new to you,
<v Speaker 2>a lot of stuff coming through, never boring in this position.
<v Speaker 1>All the Sega channel stuff from last year was excellent.
<v Speaker 1>Go watch all the the work that they've been doing.
<v Speaker 1>It's been fantastic. I am looking forward to what's happening
<v Speaker 1>with sun Soft as well. All right, new poll question,
<v Speaker 1>I put that over there there. It is do you
<v Speaker 1>have a PC gaming handheld?
<v Speaker 3>Yes?
<v Speaker 1>No, and I don't want one? No, but I plan
<v Speaker 1>to get one. See how people are feeling about this.
<v Speaker 1>We kind of check in on this topic every once
<v Speaker 1>in a while, kind of let's see where people are
<v Speaker 1>sitting with it right now. Maybe you got to switch
<v Speaker 1>to and you to feel like I don't need one.
<v Speaker 1>You can go ahead and post your feelings in the
<v Speaker 1>comments as well. Jane always kind of scrolls through there
<v Speaker 1>and sees what people are saying.
<v Speaker 2>If you want to move over to the S category
<v Speaker 2>based on what we talked about today, now is the time, Like,
<v Speaker 2>do not wait an additional week at this point if
<v Speaker 2>you're trying to get one.
<v Speaker 1>That's he's right, he's right, move now, make it happen.
<v Speaker 1>Those prices are just gonna keep going up.
<v Speaker 3>All right. So that's the new poll question.
<v Speaker 1>We'll get the results of that on tomorrow's show of
<v Speaker 1>Games Mornings here on Giant Bomb. Speaking of Giant Bomb,
<v Speaker 1>it's Wednesday. It's time to do more Blight Club. Everybody
<v Speaker 1>and our space Ace it's happening.
<v Speaker 2>He said, he's only got like forty minutes left in though, right.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's just forty minutes. Yeah, I think he's
<v Speaker 3>gonna boot up.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna be like, yeah, if we look at the
<v Speaker 1>timer here, you should don't have forty minutes last.
<v Speaker 2>Of the episode. Yeah, this is this should be the finale, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this is the run. This is this is it.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's unbelievable. If you missed the last the first.
<v Speaker 3>Episode, everybody, you should go check it out. See the reveal.
<v Speaker 1>See how he is, uh, his tone changes. He seems
<v Speaker 1>determined now, but we'll see if that lasts as he
<v Speaker 1>gets back to.
<v Speaker 3>The game this week. Excuse me, all right, So.
<v Speaker 1>That's later we're doing I think we might be still
<v Speaker 1>doing Voicemail Dump Truck today.
<v Speaker 3>That's that was the plan. Anyhow, that'll be after the
<v Speaker 3>Blake Club.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And then it's gonna be a messy rest of the
<v Speaker 1>week because many of us are heading off the packs.
<v Speaker 1>You can get a game mess mornings tomorrow everybody. Friday,
<v Speaker 1>we will not have an episode. Think me and Sean
<v Speaker 1>are gonna piece together talking over that Microsoft thing.
<v Speaker 3>I think we'll just hang out.
<v Speaker 1>It'll be very chill because it's it's not even like
<v Speaker 1>a developer direct. It's like a tier below that in
<v Speaker 1>terms of excitement levels. But whatever, we'll hang out and
<v Speaker 1>watch it together. It'll be a good time. And then
<v Speaker 1>if you are going to be in Boston for Packs,
<v Speaker 1>our panel schedules up on the website.
<v Speaker 3>It's on the reddit. We posted it on Blue Sky
<v Speaker 3>check it out come say hi, we would love to
<v Speaker 3>see you.
<v Speaker 1>We're going to be on the show floor doing some
<v Speaker 1>this is the run. We're going to be on the
<v Speaker 1>Albatrust stage on Saturday doing our panel where we're blading Vinnie.
<v Speaker 3>It is going to be a lot of fun. Why oh,
<v Speaker 3>you're asking why is it named that? Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so they I do know that there's some reasoning
<v Speaker 1>to it. If it's a bird, it means it's on
<v Speaker 1>the second level, and if it's like a land creature,
<v Speaker 1>it's on the first level. Why albatross specifically, not sure,
<v Speaker 1>but I think there's a much different birds more so
<v Speaker 1>that's fascinating to me. All Right, there we go, everybody.
<v Speaker 1>We're looking forward to seeing you at packs.
<v Speaker 3>I think with all of that.
<v Speaker 1>Out of the way, though, what we should do now
<v Speaker 1>is say thank you Phil for hanging out with me
<v Speaker 1>and talking about video games.
<v Speaker 3>Man, I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely happy to be on. Even I have limited perspective
<v Speaker 2>on current things, but happy to to to muddle through it.
<v Speaker 1>It's uh no, it's it's fantastic. We love your insight,
<v Speaker 1>We appreciate it. We'll get you back on again sometime soon.
<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, everybody, thank you for listening and watching.
<v Speaker 1>You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
<v Speaker 1>have a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye.