Game Mess Mornings 082523

It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for August twenty five,
twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so, let me help you
sort through the world of gaming on gamess Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grubb.
Today, Excite Black sixty four is actually the best game of the year two
thousand. But first please join me and welcome me today's co host to Games
Mornings. It's Emma Fife. Everybody, Emma, how are you doing.
I'm surviving, you know, just out here vibe in living my life.
Yesterday was the launch of Pumpkin Spice, returning to Starbucks for the fall season,
and as interesting and cool as I pretend to be, I am very
basic that that might be playing for everybody. I hope it's not. Oh
man, that is ASSARQ being like, we don't want to hear about Pumpkin
Spice. Okay, do you guys hear that music? I think so.
Yeah. It's my first podcast, everybody. I tried to turn off my
speaker because of the notifications playing through there, and for whatever, we were
complaining about computer audio before the show started. For whatever, It's like,
well, you you're turning off your speaker, So clearly you want us to
play this video that was paused in another tab and another browser that you can't
even find. I'm not really the gate caught it at something. I do
that truly all the time, though, where it's like I will have because
I always have a lot of tabs open, because especially if I'm like working
out a script or something, it's like I'm researching things, but then I'm
also you know, trying to keep track of what's on my calendar and my
email and blah blah blah. I was have a ton of tabs open,
and a lot of the time I do like bring up a little YouTube low
fire girl situation because I like to listen to that when I research and right,
sure, yeah, but then but truly all the time, I will
like start hearing some weird ad from somewhere and I have no idea here.
It is. That is that it wasn't God saying when we got the little
speaker things showing up in the tabs, You're like, okay, that helps
find it. But yeah, you're like, okay, that one's clearly playing
sounds, huh, and that helped me there. It's that was people couldn't
hear it, but it was Joe Cocker. Uh, you can leave your
hat on chip tune cover because I'm a very cool person. There you go.
But yeah, I mean, you know how you've been otherwise, and
but we've had we haven't had you on for a little bit. I've been
good. I was just on a little vacation with my family, all my
my mom, all of her brothers and sisters, well brother and sisters were
there. She's one of five, so I got to see a lot of
extended family for the first time in a long time. Got to meet my
niece in person for the first time, so that was very exciting. Yeah,
it was a It was a nice, nice little trip to the coast
of Maine. Uh, didn't really do a whole lot, just kind of
chilled to hung out with my cousins and uh yeah it was good. Yeah,
that's sounds like a great time. All right, we're gonna get to
this mess. Before we do, we're gonna explain what we do here.
Most week days, I GREB will help peace your gaming life back together.
That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For
all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will
make Me look smart? If you're watching live on Twitch Welcome, You can
always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings,
or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch
the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
we have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning Mess
with Excite Bike sixty four is coming to Nintendo Switch Online next week. This
is from Nintendo Everything. A new N sixty four game is making its way
to Nintendo Switch Online in the form of Excite Bike sixty four. It will
be available starting August thirty I as part of the Services expansion pack tire.
They provide a bunch of information about it, but you know, it's the
sequel to Excite Bike for the NS on the N sixty four, But it's
definitely in that same vein as the Wave Race and ten eighty and Nintendo's Extreme
sports games that came out on the N sixty four, where it's heavy on
the physics simulation, heavy on actually a pretty technical technical game, really heavy
on power slides and hitting the boost or the turbo right at the top of
the ramps. And then if you pull back, you'll stay in the air
longer. And there's all these really great ideas that make it a ton of
fun but also very difficult. And I really loved it at the time,
and it's one of those games I've gone back to a bunch and it still
holds up. So I'm excited about this emma where you like Nintendo Switch Online
and the support like something like in sixty four is getting on the expansion packed
here. You know, I think there's a lot of good offerings on the
N sixty four Expansion pack. By and large, I find that, you
know, when you go back to those games, a lot of it really
is hinging on nostalgia. And that's not a bad thing, like that's the
point of it. But at the same time, it was really interesting because
again when I was on vacation, and granted this was on an actual N
sixty four, so we were out with my partner and his sister and their
kids because they happened to be in Maine at the same time as us.
Swim met up with them and at this like restaurant that we went to,
they had an N sixty four set up in they had like a little gaming
room and it literally just had an N sixty four, and so he was
attempting to play Mario Kart sixty four. This, you know, this eight
year old kid, who of course has played Mario Kart eight Deluxe on the
switch, Mario Kart sixty four is so hard like that. The thing is
is like you go back to these older games and you don't quite realize how
many sort of quality of life improvements games have had over the oh yeah,
over the years, and so you go into it being like, oh,
I still play Mario Kart all the time. I loved this when I was
a kid. I'm still going to be great at this, and you just
like immediately drive into a wall. And so again it's it's like, I
think that there is a lot of value to these nostalgia titles, and I
think almost part of the fun is going back and discovering how kind of difficult
they were due to some of the limitations that existed at the time that don't
exist anymore. So again, it's I'm sort of of two minds about the
whole, uh, you know N sixty four online thing. Again, fully
in support of hey, it's like cool to go and be able to play
these things again that you did play, and obviously they're adding a lot of
titles to it that make it very appealing. But at the same time it's
there is the frustration if you take something like a Majora's Mask and it's like,
there was this amazing version of Majora's Mask for the Nintendo DS that made
it way more playable than the N sixty four version, But what you get
is the N sixty four version because they can't figure out how to do the
dual touch screen, right, they're not going to or they're not going to
do the work to sort of adapt it to a sight not at least not
for Nintendo Switch Online. Right for the subscript service, they might do it
and it sell it to you again totally and yeah, but at the same
time, the thing that's good about these services is if you sort of look
back at the annals of gaming history, I think it's something like seventy five
in that I be a modest guests, percent of games are just basically lost
to history. And so with these subscription services, these games are still getting
a chance to exist and be remembered at the very least. Yeah, and
excited by sixty four is one that's like I think most people didn't even try
it at the time, and it's uh and and so it's one it's like,
hey, I'm glad it's going to get a chance of spotlight. You
were mentioned like the the anachronistic ideas that were in a lot of these games,
and Excite by sixty four definitely has that, but it was in the
it's in this direction of it's hard because they were They're like, we have
the ability now to play around with physics. We are just that we're going
to make that the game. The game is going to be how does the
bike interact with the dirt and and and then how how does the bike interact
with gravity? And it's like okay for me at the time, and still
to this day, that is the stuff that like, really, you know,
it gets me going, I'm like that, yeah, that's why I
like playing around in that in that space, and and Nintendo was really nailing
that at the time, but they don't actually make many games like that anymore,
or like ten eight another example when it's online where it's like it's super
hard to actually do the ten eighty. And since then, we've had SSX
and people love SSX because right, you're just gonna feel cool no matter what,
and ten eight, it's like you really have to work at it.
You know. The game that I was thinking about the other day was because
I was a PlayStation kid, our neighbors had n ST four, so we
would, you know, go over there and play all the multiplayer you know,
Golden Eye Smash, Yeah, Mario Party Mario, Yeah exactly. But
uh, I was really into extreme sport racing games on the PlayStation. I
was thinking about the game Jet Moto. Did you ever play? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, like Jet Moto. I always when when Wave Race was
coming in four online, I was like, Jet Moto, shit, and
it's no Wave Race. But it was like, no, Jet Moto was
fun. No Jet Modo rocks. But yeah, but I was thinking about
that too, because that was another one where it was like playing with the
physics and and you know, a lot of it was like okay, like
how heavy is this is this character? Or what's their max acceleration? What's
there you know, sort of pick up speed. Uh So there was a
lot of of of video game physics inspired by the rail world to play a
round with, yes, and it's and since then it's like developers and publishers.
I'm like, you know, that's for a certain group of people,
and now we now that we've like experiment with that and we see about that
how that works. It's like when we put out games that are about you
know, riding a bike on dirt or you know, riding a watercraft really
fast, we're gonna pull back on the more accurate physics or like trying to
be truthful to physics at the very least, and instead we're gonna like make
sure it's our Katie fun for most games, and of course the sims are
out there, but it's like, I don't know those in sixty four games
just struck such a good balance right from the get go in terms of being
fun and truthful to reality. And it's so it's in many way it's like,
I don't there hasn't been a better snowboarding game for me than ten eighty
than there has been a better wave race or you know, a watercraft game
than than Wave Race, because by sixty four, I haven't played a lot
of the dirt bikes game since a few of them, but even in those
cases, I haven't played one that's better than because I like sixty four.
I don't think I've played another dirt bike game. There's there's. They always
have the craziest names these days. It's like motocross and then five other words
and then like usually the word Mountain Dew in there, or maybe Monster Energy
Drink, and it's like, I love a video game that just has an
energy drink and its name. I mean Mountain Dew was a team sponsor in
jet Modo games and Jet Moto Mountain Dew, right, that rule I love.
That's actually one of my favorite things about Jet Modo are of those Mountain
Dew ads. It's like Mountain US logo. It's like so good and low
rest It's like, oh, I know what that is. Still, even
though it's all smudgy, Honestly, it truly is like as far as low
res logos go, mount Dew pretty elite. Yes, you could just spot
it instantly, know what that is? The color scheme and like the shapes,
You're like, that's Mountain Dew. Yeah, all right. Phil Spencer
says we can look forward to more frequent Xbox showcases. This is from Jonas
Maki at Game Reactor. Microsoft kicked off twenty twenty three with a developer direct,
followed by several ideat Xbox shows. Then they had a huge Xbox showcase
in June, which was followed by a dedicated Starfield showcase, and now they
have the biggest, their biggest games com effort ever and it seems like this
is something we should get used to. While speaking to IGN, the xbox
Box pil Spencers says that Microsoft has reevaluated their showcase strategy as they simply have
too many games. Now what I could say is we're going to have more
beats to talk about more of what we do because the content lineup is so
strong, Spencer said. He then went on to continue to say, you're
going to see more regular times to talk about our games because the portfolio is
deep enough that we can support that. This does sound right, Emma,
where it's like oh yeah. For a while there, the Xbox would basically
just have their E three showcase and then they would do some other smaller stuff
in between that We're always felt stretched too thin, and they would take hours
and have long developer interviews because they were filling time and they were not like
presentations of the sort that we did get at E three now that we get
at Summer Gamefest. If you know, if they are hitting their stride where
they're like, hey, four big first party games per year and then a
lot of partner games and a lot of other stuff for game Pass, they
are going to need more showcases and I would expect them to get kind of
get do that the Nintendo Direct state of play schedule of like two, three,
maybe even four things a year right literally exactly what I was thinking that
this sounds like a Nintendo Direct strategy and it does make sense for Xbox,
whereas with Nintendo, again, a lot of it is being like, oh,
this this game is coming to Nintendo Switch Online, this is what we're
adding the nixt four collection, this is we're adding the ness nes, etcetera.
Now with Xbox, obviously, and I mean they've they've been on this
road since I want to say it was leading up to twenty twenty. We
were getting there. In twenty twenty is when I feel like they really hit
the strategy hard of get an affordable console, get the console in the home.
People are going to subscribe to game Pass, and then they're going to
be Xbox people, And that is and that is right for Xbox because again,
it's like as far as like, you know, the first party triple
A exclusive titles like PlayStation has always kind of led the charge in that department,
and so I think Xbox strategy is incredibly smart and this is the thing
is like a ride or die for PlayStation girl. I would still recommend to
anybody that's like, well, I don't know what console should I get,
I would say Xbox simply because of again, the Xbox Game Pass offering.
And now we are again, as you say, like getting into a position
wherein Xbox is also pushing some big first party titles. They're constantly add of
stuff to game Pass. This just makes sense for them. Yep. Yeah,
and it's I think they the messaging is still a big part of what
they need to be focused on because these games are are coming, but we
are. We're gonna get Starfield, and they're gonna hope that's gonna hit the
way they needed to, in the way that Redfall didn't. But it's like
they're gonna they're gonna want to carry the momentum forward in other ways than just
releasing games, because the game the next games will be like, you know,
three four months away, but you know, we got what we got
forts Horizon coming later this year, that'll be one. But it's like forts
Horizon is a good example because it's not for everybody. So it's like,
right that that that'll hit that audience, and it's a big audience for excuse
me, I'm saying Fort's Horizon for it's a motorsport. The ports of games
are like are they sell very well? They do have their audience, but
there's a lot of people who are like, I'm not going to play a
game about a car, and it's just not for me. And so what
you do is like, Okay, some people are excited about the next game.
The people that are looking past that, what are you going to do
for them? And the best thing you could do for them, other than
put out the game sooner, which is a lot of cases is not going
to be possible, is to give them showcases that get them excited and continue
to make them feel good about the big purchase they made when they bought your
console. And so, yeah, they did a I think they had a
really good show at Summer Game Fest. And if they can kind of do
many versions of those throughout the year and then still have an equivalent big showcase
at Summer Game Fest again next year. Then I think they're in a good
position, right, Yeah, definitely, And I mean again just kind of
circling back to what you were saying about building up the hype around these big
titles that are going to have, you know, long periods of time in
between their releases. They do have the added bonus of having the Xbox Game
Pass offering as well, and the more that they can highlight what's on there
or get people hyped about stuff that's coming on there. For example, you
know, one of their big things at the Xbox Showcase was showing off that
they're getting the you know, re Actually it looks like a little bit more
than a remaster the Persona three that's coming to the Xbox. It's definitely more
of a remake. But also you know the fact that they're offering up all
of the Persona titles. That was a huge get for them, especially because
Xbox has kind of lagged behind in the import game world. They've kind of
just shared stuff that has also been on PlayStation. And while certainly Atlas Sega
is never going to be like Xbox, you're our guy forever and ever and
ever, We're never putting anything on the switch or the PlayStation. Ever again
having those things, the Xbox Game Pass offerings is huge, Yes, and
what is it? It refound Tasio. What's the name of that game?
Oh? Yeah, the one that's like really fantasy and it's not right but
not persona. Yeah, and it's like that showing up again in an Xbox
showcase. That is like it speaks to that that specific weakness that you mentioned
of, like really, well, a lot of Japanese games don't come to
Xbox, or many don't, and Xbox clearly trying to change that. Well,
how do you change that narrative? It is, well, of course
releasing the games. Actually releasing that's the biggest thing. But the second biggest
thing is the messaging because gamers are very tapped into this stuff. Even casual
fans that are not watching these showcases do hear like the murmuring from their friends
who are tapped in, and that stuff filters out. So it's like,
you want to make sure that you're keeping a positive sentiment, which is something
I think Mike Stuff has been very aware of and they've been relatively good at
that. It's just that when it comes to releasing the game, sometimes things
have gone have set them back, and that's where they kind of got into
a pretty tough situation earlier this year following Red Fall. But right, if
they can match up releasing good games with the with the strong messaging, then
I think they'll be okay. No, And I think that xbox Is messaging
and strategy has been very clear. It's been well executed. They have come
away looking good through most of it. And again, you know, you
mentioned the sort of Red Fall fiasco, like they addressed that pretty much,
very specifically. Yeah, exactly. Again, they come in with the strong
messaging and you know, you kind of look at the whole Xbox Activision Blizzard
acquisition thing. The only people who kind of looked moronic during that was Activision
Blizzard, not Xbox. Like Xbox, they got their pr on lock.
And you could tell that was a strategy where you know, hey, Bobby,
no one likes you in the house. Your bad cop, and we're
gonna be good cop, and we're gonna go out there and we're gonna attack
this from both sides, but we're going to maintain our reputation throughout this or
do our best to do that. A lot of it, you could see
through a lot of that stuff. Some of it's transparent, but for the
most part, I mean, you know, that's just the way this works.
And a few days later people forget and it goes back to like,
oh, yeah, man, game Pass is good and all this stuff,
I just wish through some good games. Well, it's like, hey,
that that part might be starting, And now all that positive messaging machine that
they've built up over all this time can be used to that end instead of
just being like, here's a new feature or here's an update to the Xbox
os or something like that. Yeah, all right, we're gonna come back
after the after a moment and talk about the rest of the news, including
what Certain Affinities working on, and maybe PlayStation making a Day's Gone movie.
We'll get to all of that right after this. All right, we're back
and we're talking about Certain Affinity has announced an original first person shooter code named
Lauro. This is from Tom Ivan at VGC. Certain Affinity has announced that
it's working on an original first person shooter codenamed Lauro. The studio CEO Max
Hobberman said the company has been pitching the title beyond Behind Closed Doors at Gamescom
this week, Our playable demo put a lot of smiles on people's faces.
He tweeted. We tell everyone, We tell everyone the project code Dame,
and it's about to get out, So let me be the first say hello
to Lauro, a working title for our original first person shooter. Based in
Austin, Texas, Certain Affinity is a prolific support studio founded in two thousand
and six by Hobberman, who was formerly a multiplayer and online lead at Bungee.
Has collaborated on over thirty products and across more than a dozen franchises,
including installments in the Halo and Call of Duty series, as well as Left
for Dead and Doom. Last September, Certain Affinity appointed vetery veteran industry executive
Paul Sam's as the studio's president and chief operating officer. Sam is now kind
of overseeing the strategy to turn Certain Affinity into a studio that puts out some
of its own games in addition to continuing to do this work work for higher
business that's been very good at Project lau new to me, it's news to
me. This is a first verson shooter, original first person to shooter.
This is apparently in addition to the first person Shooter obviously content that they are
making for Halo Infinite, or that it might be a cousin to Halo Infinite
that is supposedly some sort of Battle Royale game that's Project Toutanka. And then
there is also the Monster Hunter Like, which I assume wouldn't be first person
first person, especially since this game they said they're pitching this at Gamescom,
and the Monster Hunter like that they're making they are working with Xbox on that,
so I assume they would not still be pitching that anywhere. So certain
Affinity a very busy studio, But I think I think it's a good thing
when a studio that has been doing the work of helping others companies and has
a very good reputation for that is able to build up the momentum enough to
put out their own stuff. And I'm pretty excited about that, how about
you? Yeah, absolutely, because I mean this is the way that you
get the experience and you kind of get to come at it from Okay,
well, we're not in charge of the project from top to bottom. Were
essentially contractors that are working on this very specific DLC or you know, whatever
sort of support you're going to do. So it makes sense to me that
that a studio you know, like certain affinity would move into the They've certainly
proven that they know what they're doing when it comes to the first person shooters,
and it makes sense that they would go this route, right, And
like being a support studio, you got to be there like this, have
this certain selection of talents of knowing how to address problems or fix issues or
how also how to not cause problems and cause issues, and that that skill
set is something that's well, you know, eventually that's enough where hey,
we could see from beginning to end what a project needs, and now we
have the confidence and obviously the history of making enough stuff. Then they've made
a ton of stuff that they can now tackle these projects on their own.
Also, they you know, being based in Texas, Austin, a ton
of talented developers in that in that space, it's where retro's at, It's
where some of the you know, the former bio where people were there.
But there's there's a lot of studios there, so there's a lot of talent.
So I it's just like, man, we can keep growing, we
can keep attracting talent, and then we can keep doing our work. But
then also take on these other projects and work with companies like Microsoft, or
work with other publishers, or eventually even start publishing our own stuff, which
a lot of studios in these situations end up doing after a few years.
So it's like, this is the business again, kind of working the way
it should and being pretty dynamic and enabling talented studios to start as one thing
and grow into something more. And you know, that's not necessarily always happening
in a lot of other spaces. You know, we always like, you
know, the dynamism dynamism of gaming is not replicated in music and movies and
things like that. So it's like, it's good to see that this is
still working for some studios. That's what I was going to say, that
it feels like this is the way it should work, right, because I
think that one of the things that we're sort of missing in the workforce across
the board is the sort of more junior level roles. It's kind of like
entry level and then senior level, and the junior level kind of gets lost
in the mix sometimes. And this is the perfect example of here is how
this is supposed to work. You have, you know, your big studios
that are the ones that are actually you know, doing a project from start
to finish, and then you have these support studios. The support studios are
so important because by being a support studio, you learn the ins and outs
and like you said, Jeff, like how to fix and also anticipate potential
problems. So yes, yeah, this is good. Yes, And I
mean, you know, he started this studio in two thousand and six,
but even you know, being at Bungee leaving starting your own thing and then
over the course of almost twenty years, building that up into something that's bigger
than ever. And it's that also is how it should work. Is people
can work at a studio that has had a lot of success. They can
take their money, they can take their stock options, and they could take
their experience and turn that into huge investments from from outside, you know,
from venture capital, and now now you're building your own thing. And that's
also that's the whole process working. That's what's going to happen with Activision Blizzard.
You know, Microsoft's going to acquire Activision Blizzard and a lot of people
who are at call of duty are making Call of duty games right now,
who have stock options, They're gonna wait for that stuff to vest. They're
gonna make a couple more Call of Duty games at at under Microsoft, and
most of them are going to leave to start their own things. Yeah,
that's what happened with Respond. And it's like, you know, Respond still
so very strong studio. It's attracting a lot of very good talent, but
it's at the same time, a lot of the people that were there when
the EA purchase happened, they've vested their their their their stock options, and
now they've moved on and started a whole bunch of other studios that we haven't
heard from yet, but we're going to over the next couple of years.
Yep. All right. Up next, New PlayStation Productions Montage hints at a
Day's Gone film. This comes from Hannah Townsend at Twinfinite. Fans of Ben's
Studios twenty nineteen game Days Gone have been wishing for a sequel for a few
years now, and while a sequel seems not to be on the horizon,
it's possible that a film could be. Uh. Let's take a look at
what hence seemed to have been dropped. Day's Gone appears in New PlayStation Productions
Montage look in the product PlayStation Productions is the company that deals with turning Sony's
video game ips into full fledged movies and shows. A new video was recently
added which features many beloved PlayStation characters, including the Freaker fighting hero from from
Farewell, Deacon Saint John. That didn't think it's Saint John. I think
is the character from Day's Gone. I've never played it. Yeah. The
source comes from an ex Twitter post by the user real rat Radick, who
noticed the Saint John how hiding out a little bit further in the back of
the video. There were rumors back in two twenty twenty two of a Day's
Gone film being in the works, but these were seemingly unsubstantiated and unconfirmed.
But this new revelation could be adding credit credence, credits credence to the rumor.
So this this is a montage that has a lot of elements from getting
from games that we know are getting worked on at PlayStation Productions. Would it
be surprising to you if a character like seak in Saint John from Day's Gone
would show up in that if they weren't working on A Day's Gone movie,
It would be unusual, I would say. And also, you know just
kind of looking very specifically at PlayStation's track record. Obviously, the Last of
Us was a huge, huge success for them earlier this year, so it
stands to reason that they would be looking for other titles to give the on
screen treatment too. Yes, and they've been open about that that that's like,
that's a huge part of their strategy is Hey, we're Sony and look
at all these other divisions, and we see this happening with like their hardware
stuff, the PlayStation VR two, PlayStation portal, the new headphones and all
these things. These are initiatives started by other parts of Sony for the most
part, and then they're but they're coming out there the PlayStation brand and Sony
pit looking at this fertile PlayStation of ground of like there's a lot of ip
here that we can that we could take a turn into films is doing the
same exact thing, maximizing the return on value on the value of PlayStation,
which is the most valuable thing at Sony maybe except for their insurance business,
which I never understand. Yeah, but the Day's Gone is weird one because
for a lot of these other projects, we have at least heard rumors of
a game coming for the biggest example there. The biggest example is Last of
Us getting the Last of Us Part one remake and Last of Us Part two
getting like a remastered version rumored, so like maybe coincide with the next season
of the show and all that makes a ton of sense because we saw how
The Witcher sold a bunch of games, win It with the Netflix and then
Twisted Metal. There's at least that rumor of the studios working on Twisted Metal
games, so you know one was working on and then it moved to another
studio, and we have that show now and the show did pretty well,
maybe we get a second season and maybe they have a game ready to go
with that as well. The thing we've heard about Days Gone is they definitely
aren't making a sequel. There's been all the rumors that we have heard about
a sequel are have been squashed and people are like, there's just no way
that that's happening. That's laughable. Even like people in the studio are like,
we're laughing at this when someone mentions like, hey, they're making a
Day's Gone sequel. So that's where I'm like, I'm confused, Like,
do you think there's a possibility we get a Days Gone movie or Days Gone
TV show without getting a new game. I do think so, and I
think that the strategy here maybe to release a Day's Gone TV show or movie,
see if that garner's interest with a new audience, and then be like,
oh, well, now it's done well. Because the thing that's interesting
about Days Gone is like it was a commercial success. It made money,
but the reviews were just a little bit low. Yeah, they're kind of
met, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, the reviews were mixed. Yes,
So I wonder if the strategy I don't know. I mean, if anything,
I would say, if we're getting a day Is Gone like movie,
TV show, whatever, maybe it's the game is not that old. Thous
I was like, oh, a remastered version of the Dames. That's true.
No, you're absolutely right, So maybe a rerelease, a remaster included
with your PlayStation plus extra subscription. I don't know. I think I think
I agree with you about what you said about like this might be then testing
the waters, because I mean what I put out a day Is Gone show
and it does very well, and then then the demand for a Day's Gone
sequel it just becomes evident. It's like Okay, well, we will start
working on that in earnest, and we'll keep the show going and hopefully we
can get a new game out before you know, for interest wanes, but
I bet they'll be like, we're at least we at least think that's worth
an attempt. And I could I could ibagine you're saying that now, making
games very big, very expensive, very time consume. Trying to line up
these you know, television or movie production right with the game stuff is challenging.
But I still think Sony's in a position where they're like, we want
to see, like how far we can push the limits of this idea,
of these strategies, and they's gone is a relatively good test bed for that.
Yeah, I think so too. And I mean, you know,
you brought up the example of The Witcher and how the Netflix series sold a
bunch of copies of the game, and I would also hazard to guess,
a bunch of copies of the books. So yeah, again, it's like
I think that they're in a good position to again, you have this this
game that's still relatively contemporary twenty nineteen, and then what you have is a
TV show, movie, whatever it is. See how that affects sales of
an existing game and then go, okay, cool, this is impetus for
us to definitely make a seq little this. Yes, absolutely, I think
that's that seems to be kind of what could be happening here. There was
also in this this video apparently some characters from Medievil. Oh yeah, I
sort of remember Medievil. Yeah, they did a rereleased remaster remake of that
a few years ago, and it's so yeah, okay, that's uh.
That's another one that's like, oh, you could see how that also makes
sense because you can maybe aim at as a slightly younger audience, make it
kind of the fun spooky thing and children's contents or even like, you know,
the between content is very very valuable to these streaming services. Uh you
know, maybe Amazon's backed off it a little bit, but a lot of
these other services are still like, we need as much kids content as possible.
A lot of people make their decisions about what what subscriptions to keep based
on what their kids are watching. So I could see that working. Maybe
that Madiev will come out as like some other sort of thing and won't be
for kids, but I get to see that, like, oh that makes
sense because they don't have a lot of other things that they're pushing forward as
content for younger audiences at least family friendly. Yes, right, family friendly,
you know. Yeah, all right, Well we'll see. Sony Pictures
are gonna keep making the stuff PlayStation entertainment. Uh. They still they have
that you know, Marvel Cinematic Universe opening scrawl that they have. We'll see
what what characters show up in there in the future. Uh. Sony is
to acquire Audissey. It's a U D. E Z and so you know
these nuts. So I can't help myself, but but I think it's Audi
Z. This is from Jeffrey Rizzo at Games Industry dot biz. Sony Interactive
Entertainment has entered a deal to purchase audio technology company Audissey. Terms of the
transaction, which including the cost, we're not disclosed. With the acquisition,
Sie aims to expand the audio technology of PlayStation games. Audissey will continue to
operate as a separate entity into help It's Audio Products. Founded in two thousand
and eight, the firm creates headphones for music professionals, gaming consumers, and
music listeners. Audissey is a premier brand for headphones, and this acquisition highlights.
Sony interactives focus on innovation, innovation, and providing the best audio experience
to PlayStation players. And that's from Sie Senior Vice president of Platform Experience Hideaki
Nishino. Headphones have huge profit margins and that's it. I know they can
if they can get it their their core audience that spends a lot of money
on PlayStation stuff. Excited about new headphone technochnology that is just money in the
bank that has just a lot of dollars you can rub together because they can
make them for very little money and they could charge a lot of money.
Oh yeah, this is no. I don't blame them either. I mean,
like it's it's so funny because both of my parents they're retired now,
but they were computer programmers and so we were all ways upgrading our technology.
And this just has like my dad will buy whatever. These headphones are both
like written all over it. And I mean, look, I've had lovely
audio experiences playing games on my PS five just with my you know, hyper
cloud headphones and uh yeah, so, I mean you've got stuff that's targeted
at the PlayStation. They do such a good job. But now games with
like localized sound, so that you almost have to play them with their headphones
on because it's really fun to like run away from somebody while they're talking and
like those Yeah, the positional audio is so good, and so you know,
any any way to enhance that. As you say, it's cheap to
make headphones, you can sell them for a lot of money profits. Yeah,
and Sony's moving to their new protocol that's kind of similar to what Xbox
is doing, where you know, these companies always had ways for you to
connect wireless headphones to your thing, yep. But in the past, like
you know, Microsoft has had no dongles for that, you just gotta do
the Xbox protocol, which is built into the thing and PlayStations like yeah,
we'll probably just probably just have people used angles. But it seems like they're
moving away from that with the new headphones that they have. It sounds like,
oh, that stuff it will just be built in going forward, at
least since my understanding that could that could change. Maybe those things have dongles
as well, or maybe they do specifically for the PS five, But it's
like, Okay, this is them starting a new sort of Hey, this
is how we're handling gaming audio going forward. So if we're gonna have this,
this whole new initiative, we might as well really go hard on it
and try to sell a bunch of headphone new headphones to people, even people
who might have bought headphones previously. So yeah, yeah, because I mean,
if if you have a new offering, you're gonna have your people who
are tech heads. It's the it's the same people that get a new iPhone
every year, you know, like they will buy these yep. And and
Sony's done a good job of making audio feel important on the PS five what
absolutely happen? What is the technology? Call it? I can't They had
a word for it, and now I can't remember it. Maybe oh I
don't remember either, remember, but it's like, I know people people have
mentioned that a bunch of times. How about how important that is to them?
And it's like, yeah, I mean I get it, Like audio
is the big thing that they could still make pretty big advancements. And we
were sort of reached the plateau with with visuals where it's say this every episode
now, but it's limited by hard words, limited by time and money.
You know. The Last of Us Part two looks better on PS four than
almost any game on the current gin consoles. But audio, it's like we've
mostly been using our TV speakers. It's like, if we could get some
other stuff in there and then really focus on that technol like path traced audio
was a big thing. It's like, man, if we can get that
going, we're sort of emulating that with the positional audio. Absolutely, and
and that is and that is exactly like what I feel like my experience has
been with the PlayStation, particularly with the PlayStation five, is feeling like,
okay, cool, I actually really want to play this with headphones on or
in like my nice surround sound speaker set up in the litter room, Like
I like my little speaker bar that I have at my desk. Just ain't
gonna cut it anymore. And it's a tempest tempest audio. Thank tempag phototrope
for that. I appreciate it all right, let's h yes. In video.
G Force now gets its first nineteen Xbox Game Pass titles. This comes
from Chris Gooing at BGC. The first batch of Xbox Game Pass titles arrives
on in videog Now today. The streaming service will now add an Xbox button
to supported PC games, and g Forced now Subscribers will be able to launch
them from any supported device as long as they've either bought them on the Microsoft
Store or subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass. This will
enable gamers to stream Xbox PC titles from g Force Now to PC's, mac
os, chromebooks, smartphones, and other devices. A total of nineteen Xbox
games are being added to the service. The games include things like Crusaders King,
Crusader Kings, Three Dead Cells, Death Loop, Gears Five, Quake,
Pentiment, Valheim, a whole bunch of stuff. This is, of
course, I'm a part of their strategy of dealing with regulators where it's like,
hey, all every time a regular say, hey, you're buying Activision
Blozzier, this seems bad, and Microsoft be like, hey, how's it
bad when we're trying to put more games in more places. Look how we're
going to make a deal with Nvidia and now, hey, their games are
in more places for more people. And to me, this continues to look
like the regulators got what they wanted and gamers have more options and another good
thing for the most part. Right, No, it definitely is a good
thing. So interesting. I was just talking about Nvidia g Force Now with
our colleague Tom Caswell over a game spot, and he was because I was
basically saying to him that I had been holding out to play Balder's Gate three
until it came to the PlayStation five, partially because I'm a consulicate I always
have been, but also because I have friends who have better gaming PCs than
I do, who it was like completely blowing up their PC because it's such
a gigantic game. So it's like, you know what PlayStation, My PlayStation
five is dedicated to only games. I don't need it to do anything but
games. I'll just wait for that, and they're gonna they're gonna optimize that
thing for the PS five, just like they optimize it really well for the
Steam Deck. It's like when they, yes, when they aim it at
a platform, they know what to do, but it's like people know exactly
what to do and bridges for a lot of PCs, though yes, it
was too big for the bridges for a lot of PC's. However, Tom
was saying that he had been playing it via g force Now and he's it
was incredible. G Force Now was very good. It's very good tech and
it has been Yeah, throughout the entire pandemic when people were struggling to get
PC's it was like, don't don't buy anything right now. Just if you
really want to be if you're like Ore on an older computer and you want
to feel like you're playing games at modern settings, please just use g Force
now for the next year or so instead of buying a GPU at eighteen hundred
dollars for one that came out four years ago. And it's and you know,
but even even like now that we're well well passed that and prices have
come down on PC components inted in Vidia, g Force now is still very
good, a very fair option in a lot of cases, and now that's
getting more games, it's like even more of a pretty decent option now.
I think, yeah, there used to be a free tier, but I
think that's when it was in beta. I think now you have to pay
something after a certain point. I honestly don't know how the business model works,
but still it's I don't think it's some prohibitive price in terms of how
much it costs, but this as an option, yeah, and also talking
about adding those Xbox Game Pass titles now based you don't even need an Xbox
or a PC that can run these games. You just need a computer and
you can subscribe to Nvidia, subscribe to game Pass, and you have access
to all of these games. So again, it's like you said that the
accessibility as far as games go, is getting just a lot better, and
PC in particular, I think was the area wherein that kind of struggled previously
because you know, there's a lot of components to a PC, whereas with
a console, you just get the console, you hook it up to your
TV, you're good to go. But now PC is getting in the game
of making PC games accessible to people via these cloud services, and when they
work like g Force now does, it's pretty awesome. Yep. Absolutely,
to clear up my approximate knowledge of the situation, the free tier, it
does exist, but like I said, at a certain point you have one
hour long sessions and then if you session where I think you can log back
in, but you might have to wait or something. So the other option
is to pay ten dollars a month or what I think is, or you
can pay like twenty dollars a month and get a forty eighty equivalent rig.
Otherwise I think you're working with like RTX thirty eighty or something like that.
But and then you can extreme at ten eighty. Yeah you want to watch
what you want to play a game cudo, sure thing ten eighty or four
K, depending on how much you play. And it's like, yeah,
okay, yeah, all that makes sense. But again, this is not
exactly like game Pass. You're gonna have to bring the games, game purchases
or the subscription service from game Pass yourself. So I think having that free
option is is pretty good. Yeah, okay, moving along here, Xbox
Series X is at the end of the beginning of its life cycle. Phil
Spencer says. This comes from Darren Bontheus at game Spot and a new interview
xbox Head, Phil Spencer explained how the Xbox Series X and S S consoles
are only just getting started and with the third anniversary of these systems coming up,
how he sees the Xbox console cycle being at the end of the beginning
of its life cycle now that certain supply chain issue have been resolved, I
think we're kind of at the end of the beginning. I think the supply
issues early on length in the beginning to some extent, both on costs as
well as availability, Spencer said to IGN, I think from a game depth
standpoint, not just us, but third parties, you're really just now starting
to see the swell of games that got slowed up during COVID production now starting
to launch. There are so many games coming out right now that we're starting
to get through the beginning of this generation and hopefully into a place where as
the owners of a console, we've got games that are taking full advantage of
the hardware and are great games for people to go and play. He goes
on here a little bit, But to me, this is like talking around
this idea of what is the rest of this console generation going to look like
in terms of hardware revisions, of half measures, of like pro models,
how long the generation is going to last before we get the next gen.
I tend this sentiment he's putting forth. I really agree with that. It's
the beginning of this generation has been felt elongated, and now here we are
and it does feel like we've arrived. But that does not mean it's arrived
to the point where I'm going to be very happy about us spending more money
on an Xbox Series Z or PlayStation five Pro next year. But I know,
how do you feel. I mean, it is interesting because with all
of these now current gen consoles, your Excesses, your PlayStation fives, they
did have such a kind of slow start from the point of view of actually
getting them into the hands of consumers because of supply chain issues. And so
now we are in a situation wherein we are able, people are able to
get these things now, and so I think just you know, with more
with more actual consumer feedback, we're getting into a position wherein we can actually
better assess how all of these things are working across market. And I want
these consoles to stick around for a while because it's very difficult for me at
this point, as a mirror mortal to conceive of where we go from here.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, I think the perception
of this generation is really different depending on who you ask. I think for
some people that are like, no, three years is a long time.
The console generation is only gonna be five years, And it's like that's people
who remember console generations being five years, which hasn't been the case for twenty
years. But it's in a lot of people's minds that's still like what it
is. So it's like, you know, the generation is pretty much almost
over already. It's no, no, that's just that's definitely not true.
But at the same time, three years is a long time. So this
idea that it's still the beginning, like even fill Spencer, you're saying,
it's it's not anymore. It's the end of the beginning. So we're moving
into this next phase. I just I don't know what these companies think they
then do with that. You know, the rumor is Sony's going to put
out a PS five pro next year, and I don't know if that's if
they're working backward from we think the demand will be there, or if they're
working backward from this is this is just our strategy, and so we're gonna
we're gonna force it to this round this round peg to fit into a square
hole or whatever. Yeah. I also wonder if the working backward again comes
from the fact that when the PlayStation five launched, it was so difficult to
get so there are a number of people who still haven't gotten it. And
I think you have people now who hadn't gotten themselves a PS five are now
looking at the PS five and going maybe, but they're the same, they're
the same people that are upgrade grading their iPhone every year, that are going
to buy those headphones. They're now at a point where they're going, well,
let me wait, because there might be a PS five Pro. Yeah,
and it's and Microsoft and Sony on very different, very different positions themselves,
right because Microsoft has the Xbox Series X and the series it has a
pro model, the Xbox Series X already and I think that's how they view
it. But PlayStation comes up the PS five Pro that significantly surpasses the Xbox
Series X, and then the Xbox Series X even if you know, even
with all the power has doesn't feel very pro anymore to a lot of people.
So it will say we literally did. I was working over it then
when the consoles, when the new current generation of consoles launched, and we
actually did console races between the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation five and oh
my god, the PlayStation I've destroyed the Xbox Series X and basically every test
we did, Yeah, and it's and then, like PlayStation is the lead
development platform for all these studios. So even with the extra hardware power that
the Xbox Series X does technically have, it's just it's it, but it
doesn't get taken advantage of because that would the extra work and they don't see
the point of doing that. Once again, circling back around xboxes, goal
I don't think is to sell Xboxes. It's to sell the brand Xbox.
Yes, yeah, totally. And I think that's so it's that's the whole
thing where it's like, now, yeah, how do they communicate that to
an audience that doesn't really understand that? And and and it was like,
we're used to something and he said, you're you're a console kid. I
think a lot of people are just like, hey, I'm a I'm a
console person. This is what I'm comfortable with. And you know, and
Bill Spencer said on Our Couch a SGF, he said, I that's like,
that's just we're not even thinking on those terms anymore. Really, we're
growing faster on PC and we do think of the cloud is going to be
a thing. Yeah, but it's at the same time, it's like,
man, it does seem like if you could sell more consoles, that would
be the best thing for for everything here. So but you know, that
doesn't I don't think they're interested in sort of disrupting what they are doing with
Xbox Series SNX just to keep it with Sony, and maybe that's maybe it's
a mistake, or maybe Sony is gonna kind of be like, kind of
bite it a little bit because they do a PSI probe when no one wants
one. I bet they're going to find a way to make people want one
though, so we'll see. Uh. And Video announces DLSS three point five
that will support a Cyberpunk DLC and Alan Wake two. This comes from Andrew
Heaton at Destructoid Video Game and general graphical technology is advancing so fast that it's
tough to keep up with now. In Video has announced that the latest version
of its Deep Learning Super Sampling or DLSS d LSS is on the way,
and it's already going to support some modern titles. Details can be found on
en videos website. The longest short of it is DLS DLSS three point five,
is due to release sometime this fall. It represents the next stage in
Team Green's upscaling AI tech, with a recent video from the company explaining just
how it's better than previous iterations. And I know people probably turn off their
brains a little bit when they start hearing this tech talk. This if you've
heard the hype around ray tracing for what five, six, seven years.
Now this does feel like it's actually going to get get it there in some
ways. So the thing with ray tracing has always been it's a tech that
I think has been more appealing to developers than to players, but only in
like the long term, because ray tracing what it does is it simulates the
path that that life light takes through an environment, just like a wooden reality.
And and so it can make really really beautiful looking games in terms of
lighting very easily. But not every computer or console supports ray tracing. So
for developers they have to make the old style of baked lighting, and if
they want to support ray tracing, they can do that as well. You
have to have both, so it's like for them it's not actually any less
work, even though ideally long term ray tracing will be less work because you
set up the lighting, you turn on, you turn on the switch,
and the lighting just works how it's supposed to. Now for gamers, though,
you look at it a game, and developers got really good at baked
lighting, they got very good at rasterized technologies, and so games looked good
before and they look good now with ray tracing, only sometimes they run a
lot worse. So it's like you try to explain why ray tracing is exciting
to players, and I don't get it because there wasn't much to get.
Now with three point five, what it does is it's really this new it's
an upgrade to the d noising tech. So when these ray traces, when
these rays go into the world, they sort of they can there's no way
they could ever do enough of these rays to hit every single possible pixel in
the world. So what they do is they kind of spread out and then
they create this like grainy looking version of what the lighting should work, and
then they apply a de nooising filter to interpret and to interpret what that should
look like. And it's been okay so far. With three point five,
they are now at a point where they're they are doing the calculations using AI
for upscaling and denoising at the same time, and it's much much better.
And now the global illumination lighting is actually starting to look even better than rasterized
lighting. It's like this could be the start of actually ray tracing. Mattering
could be And I only say it could be because what are we talking about
two games right now? How long is it going to take for other games
to support this? No idea, Emma, And when I even when I
say all this stuff, I'm excited. I don't know if anyone else is,
but I'm gonna say this is that Alan Wake two. I think it's
going to really benefit from this speech has so much of that game is atmospheric.
U, So you're gonna you're gonna want the again, to me,
this is the this is the right use of the AI. This is this
is what we should be using AI for, because again it's like what we're
doing is we are then better able to replicate how light and things would function
in the real world. But again, if you're using the AI to do
it, it's kind of automatically detecting what you can and can't handle graphically.
So to me, like, yeah, it's it's so interesting though, because
again it's sort of the like what I said previously of I can't quite perceive
where we go next with like visuals as far as gaming consoles go, because
I'm like, I feel like we're the I feel like we got to the
top. We're like where isn't this the peak? But I guess we've always
felt that way with every new generation. So who knows. Yeah, I
mean it's it's the diminishing returns are definitely a thing. I mean, we're
just not getting leaps like we used to. Everyone understands that. And it's
like, so when these technologies come along, it's like they they have way
more growing pains than even stuff had in the past. And there was always
growing pains for new graphical technology. When we did get early three D lighting
and stuff like that, that was it was only supported in a handful of
graphics cards on PC, and it took years for that to get into a
place. But it took about two years. This has taken much longer.
And even even as we even as it feels like this has arrived in my
opinion, I know, it's like, no, this is actually just the
start of the beginning. To kind of paraphrase what phili Spetzer was saying about
the Xbox, it's like we the technology is beginning to make sense. Just
when you look at a screenshot now and it's look at a side by psych
comparison, even with ray tracing, like working in d LSS three point zero
versus three point five, it looks way better than that actually, so you
know, without gray tracing, it is a significant improvement. So that's that's
exciting. But yeah, I'm not saying don't rush out and go get a
forty card from in Video based on this, because again it's going to be
about what games support it exactly. And once again it's like you look at
it from a consumer standpoint, and as you say, this is more exciting
probably on the tech side into developers than it is to your sort of average
consumer because you playing a game, you look at the game, this technology
is in place, your brain just goes looks good, exactly, and it
needs to be that simple. It really does. One other weird thing about
this, and this is an M and Goldie mentioned in chat like videos solve
some of these problems by not putting some of these new features onto older cards
like the twenty and thirty series, and the video they do say that this
new de noising tech that really is making the big difference here is supported on
all deal all a new in video ray tracing cards. So if you have
the tensor cores, which all the RTX cards do, then you get the
benefit of that, which is weird because you don't you still don't get the
frame generation is one of the big texts from DLSS three point zero, so
it's like, you get some benefits from DLSS three point five, but not
all of them dlsus three point zero, which is some stuff that's in three
point five. So it's confusing, but that's what they say. They say
that this stuff will work on all the cards, so we'll see. I'm
hey, you know what, there's a lot of PC hardware guys out there.
They're going to do a ton of testing of the stuff so you can
enjoy that content when they're not fighting with each other. One last story here
out of Japan. I just I'm not I'm not gonna la let off on
it. She's over there, four years old playing Pickman right now. Pick
four number one for the fifth week in a row and has now sold seven
hundred twenty one thousand physical units alone. It is the best selling game in
the series. The latest Japanese box, video game, software and hardware charts
and this is my Nintendo news are here for the week of August fourteen,
twenty twenty three to August twenty Nintendo's very own Pickment four continues to perform extremely
well in the Land of the Rise in Sun and it's become the best selling
game in the entire Pickman franchise, selling seven hundred twenty one thousand, two
hundred one box copies. The best selling game a best selling the system this
week. In the Land of the Rise of Sun is the Nintendo Switch family
of consoles, which shifted in additional seventy seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty
units, which put it above the PlayStation five, which had about thirty eight
thousand units sold. Pickman for selling almost a million cost seven under fifty thousand
physical units in one country and just physical, not digital. I know.
Just I am so happy. I'm so happy that this game is just crushing
it. So yeah. I wish it would have been a little bit higher
on the Sircano report, but it did. It did fine enough on there,
but in Japan it is just this. It's turned into like I was
almost a Splatoon like success. Now nothing's been spat there, but it's it's
having that Switch effect and then some And I'm pretty excited about this. You
are you Pickman fan? I just I love Pickman four. Oh I've played
a little bit of Pickman. I'm not like deeply into Pickman, but I
you know, I think exactly what you brought up of, Like your daughter
is over there playing Pickman right now, and that is the power of the
Nintendo Switch. And again, also in a country like Japan wherein you know,
people rely so much more on public transportation, the Switch is truly brilliant
because you can take it with you can play it on the train on your
way to work, under a school, whatever the case may be. So
I mean, just to speak to that point in terms of like what's popular
in Japan, this is one of those weeks, like many weeks in Japan,
where the top ten software sales every single game as a Nintendo Switch game.
So it's like, yeah, PlayStation five selling pretty good, selling a
little bit faster than four. It's not selling software that well, not in
anywhere compared to what the Switch is doing. Animal Crossing New Horizons in number
ten with five thousand, six hundred and ninety nine physical copy sold, and
no physical PlayStation game is sold better than that this week. So it's it
is people like using their switch and they like buying games for their switch in
Japan, and when it comes to a big game that gets properly marketed,
Japan, like Pickman did, there's a chance for it to blast stuff into
orbit. Oh, yeah, there we are. It was very evident to
me when I was in Japan. It was definitely a Nintendo switch. Uh
Town Tokyo, shall we say? I mean literally, like on the subway
they would show ads for Tears of the Kingdom. It's everywhere. Street pass.
I wish, I wish to switch had street pass. I hope that's
the next thing they bring are one of the things they bring back for the
next switch? Wait? Was that the one with the whin the DS where
you would like walk by people and then you could meet up with them and
like meetopia basically, yes, you basically got you would three DS would the
little light on it would turn green when would passed on the street pass?
Yes, And I would always kind of I used to walk around with my
DS in my pocket when I because I was a tour guide at Universal for
so long, and so when I was giving VIP tours and I was walking
around the park with my guests, I would just like put my DS in
the pocket of my uniform pants so that I could just collect people. You
get any any famous people's street passes or oh, no famous people, but
got the actual Reggie once. You could go to packs or something that they
were when they would send out to everybody. But I got Rand's real one
once, and that was very cool. That's sick. I mean, you
know, just a reminder to everybody that Brie Larson used her real given name
on the opening night of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios, Hollywood. You
could see her name on the boards because they gave everybody the little wrist things.
But yeah, literally her name was Brie Larson. She's done some work
with Nintendo, right, she's done some ads, I think, so,
yeah, yeah, she's a yeah, she she's like fully in this.
Yeah that she should have been Lars Breeson. Yeah, Lars Breeson, absolutely
absolutely, but yeah, I mean it was so funny because again it's like
I had seen her earlier in the night, and then I was like looking
at the at the boards of where the rankings were of everybody doing the stuff
with their power up bands, and it was just like Brie Larson. Okay,
that's fantastic. All right, we got a pull from yesterday. We
were going to discuss the results of are You Excited for Xbox's Release Schedule?
After Starfield. I'm gonna say yes, there's a lot because I'm excited about
a lot of it. Twenty seven percent also said yes, there's a lot,
twenty seven percent and say yes one or two things. Thirty two percent
said no, there's nothing, and fourteen percent says no, I'm completely focused
on Starfield. I think it's completely fair to be like, listen, Starfield's
coming out, and that's a big game, one I can play for a
long time. Whenever comes in, I'll wait until, like you're something else
is good after that. For now, I'm playing Starfield. But are you
excited about Starfielders? But that's the RPG has ever been in your game?
I know it's like a case for some people in Yeah, I've I've played
some Fallout and I uh, you know, looking back at the Elder Scrolls
series, I played a lot of Elder Scrolls three Moro wind on thee I
guess og Xbox is what it was. But yeah, look I look at
Starfield though, and I go, this is too much. I also,
like, don't love open world games as much as other people do. I'm
a I'm a story game kind of gal. For me. I think that
like mass effects strikes the perfect balance of me feeling like I have a lot
of autonomy to do different things and make a lot of different choices, but
still there is a nice, a nice story for me to follow that feels
good to go back to. Which or three was the same way I felt.
You know that that is one of the games that has the most incredibly
executed side quests. They're different, they're interesting, they really add a lot
of flavor to the game. But again, the side quests very story heavy.
You learn a lot about the world, you learn a lot about the
characters involved, and also very spiritually true to how I feel. The Witcher
books are, which obviously started as a series of short story so it almost
feels like, oh, I'm like picking and choosing little short stories to go
do. Yeah, I mean Starfield to me, I just feel like,
oh my god, this is where do I even begin? And you know,
it comes out the same day that Baldishkate three comes out for the PlayStation
five, which I fully intend on playing. Definitely a lot of ye but
you're going to find plenty of stories in there. Yeah, exactly like that.
That to me is the perfect amount of open world and decision making.
All right, We got a new poll going up while I do that,
though, Ema, why don't you tell people where they can find you what
you have going on? Things like that? Yeah? Absolutely so, I'm
M A Fife. You can find me all over the internet at my name
M A Fife, except on TikTok, where I'm the M A Fife because
M A Fife was taken. I don't really I know, I don't really
like make TikTok's, but I enjoy watching TikTok's so, but I needed to
own my name in some capacity. Yeah, I'm on all the threads and
the Blue Skies and the I don't know, because I feel like it's the
death of twitter x. It's who knows, it's coming, who knows.
But I still have that account also, And yeah, I'm working on a
bunch of stuff over at game Spot. Got a new series on the Horizon,
which I will divulge more about as we get closer to it. And
that's what's happening with me, man, you know, just send that show
together to check that out for sure. Let's see the new poll going up
on YouTube dot com slash giant bomb under the community tab there, what do
you think Sony is doing with Days Gone. It's making a game in a
movie, it's making a movie but no game. It's making a game but
no movie, or it's not making anything Days Gone. You can vote on
that and we'll talk about it on Games Mornings. On Monday, you're on
giant bomb dot com speaking a giant bomb. It's Friday. That means upf
we are gonna play Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I gotta go see if we've got
codes right. I need to tell Dan to go buy the game, but
we're gonna play that, and then if we on out of Steam there we
might play a Ews New Stadium Stampede thirty player mode. No idea how many
people are playing that online. So and again I said this on Twitter,
don't go out and rush out and buy that game to play with us because
we might not even end up playing. But if you already have it and
you want a chance, maybe have it loaded and ready to go and we
can all hop on on the same time and see if we can all just
get into the same game. And that could be fun. But no idea
how that's going to work. So that will be experimental. Things could go
wrong, so we'll see. Is it on game Pass, Colonel Sanders,
Marine, Colonel Sanders. I didn't think that it was on game pass.
Oh, game pass, that's right. Texas Chainsaw is on game bass.
That's right. That's what we're talking about. I did mention that that's what
we'll do do the game pass. It was on the it was even on
the list of the in video games. That's what I'll play it through.
Okay, yes it is. You is in about an hour. We're starting
about an hour one pm. I'm pretty sure I think that's right. Okay,
Emma, thank you so much for spending today talking with me about video
games. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me always happy
to expound upon the state of gaming as it were. It's it's good stuff,
it's a good time. I really appreciate it. Again, thank you
everybody for watching. You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
have a good one, to take care of yourself, and goodbye. I