Embracer Group Splitting Itself Up

You'll never go me bait. It's the internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for April twenty second, twenty twenty four, the next hour or so.
Let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
Live with me Jeff Grubb. Today, Embracer Group is shifting to the Garfield
and Friends School of Business, and Starfield is totally hot and uncensored around the
world. But first please join me and welcoming today's co host of Game Mess
Mornings. It's Emma Fife. Everybody. Emma, how are you doing.
I'm great. Yeah, I had you know, it's early on the West
coast, so I had myself a little bowl of on sale granola with almon
milk. And now my cat, who's just out of frame right here,
let's me if I can get him. Hey, this cat, he decided
that he deserves to finish that. So that's that's how my morning's going so
far. Yeah, my cat has gotten worse about eating human food. He's
an old bastard now and he's gotten worse about it, and it's definitely has
caused him some intestinal issues when he like finds the kid's food under their table
or whatever. Yes, they're messy, their kids, and so every day
it's like I got to get in there and clean that up or else he
is going to eat it and have stomach issues. Truly, My brother has
a one and a half year old and his dog has never ate better in
his whole life. I was facetiming with them yesterday. She had a bowl
of pretzels. He ran off, My brother ran after her, and I
just watched as the dog immediately stuck his whole bretzel. Yep, that's how
it goes. Yeah, you can't. The kids are basically animals, and
it's too busy, too busy taking care of them to like realize, oh
my god, this cat is going to make himself so sick and I got
to clean a cat butt of poop and stuff. It's a whole thing over
there. No, it's real, real, and he's a he's a long
hair cat too, So it doesn't come out easy, everybody. It's it's
worse than you're imagining. Absolutely, But that's a good way to kick off
on Monday. A little little cat. Cat cat butt talk, cat butt
talk. Yeah, welcome to cat butt talk, everybody. How was your
weekend going otherwise? Am I was it refreshing to you? Do you feel
well recovered? You ready to get back at it? I do? Uh
yeah. My body decided that I needed to just lay in bed all weekend.
My back was just like, Nope, we're going to just lay here.
We're gonna play some switch and we're gonna watch some I would say I
was gonna say, watch some terrible television, but I actually everything I watched
this weekend was good. So yeah, I finished Fallout. I thought that
show was pretty good. It definitely like I gotta keep stuff in perspective because
I'm like, I'm kind of a I think I'm a little bit of a
TV snow. I'm like, there's like a couple of shows that I think
are actually good and the rest of it's kind of mindless dribble. That's fine
to watch or whatever. I'll still enjoy it, but I'm not. I
don't think it's up there with you know, the Sopranos and and Or.
Those are our two shows, and my god, those are better than everything
else. And they are Or is literally the highest bar in television. It's
so so good. But that being said, I really dug the Fallout show.
It's funny because I thought that the pilot was outstanding, and then the
rest of it was pretty good, but then it got it back in the
end for me, so overall NET positive, really looking forward to the next
season. Then I went to try to go watch The Three Body Problem on
Netflix, and I got like halfway into the first episode and I found it
repellent. Like I'm just like, there's something about the way the show looks,
the way they're acting, the way it's written. Everything was just pushing
me away and I'm just going to go read the book. Screw this.
I just cannot handle it, Like, I don't like. Netflix just feels
like they want to be that the second screen just on in the background show
and so they're not even trying though, and it's I'm like, I could
not stand that show. Yeah, I haven't watched it. My brothers read
the book and he said he watched it and he liked it. But yeah,
I mean yeah, for me, I watched h Freakin' Fallout and I
watched X Men ninety seven, so I had a great weekend of television.
X Men also very good, absolutely very good. Yeah. I think Fallout
just like a really solid show. They did a pretty good job with it
not like und blowing or anything like that, but I, you know,
definitely way better than like what they were doing Halo and all that stuff.
The other thing that happened to me this weekend was I tried I tried my
new roller blades, and they were a little they were a little they were
a little bit different than the last one. So I was like, I
think my ciner balance on my foot was like way different that was expecting.
I basically ate shit right away and landed on my wrist. I like tore
up my elbow and stuff. It was. It was real rough. Yeah,
so I did the whole piece and love thing. Instead of you know,
like instead of a playing ice, like that's the old tech. You're
not supposed to put ice onto injuries anymore. I just did compression and kept
it elevated and rested. Now it's you know, kind of back in action
we're doing. It could have been way worse. But then I'm like,
Okay, I need to acclimate myself to these different staates. Yeah, it's
wild. When you're a child, you don't have that far to fall.
Yes, it was very so, so when you fall down, you get
back up. It's no big deal. I ripped up the entire back of
my leg rollerblading as a kid, got severe roadburn. I was back on
my rollerblades next day. No, yeah, exactly. I know. I'm
like, Man, I don't another one of those and I'm done. I'm
gonna turn it dust. So gonna be careful of here. All right,
let's explain what we do here most weekdays. I, Jeff Greb will help
peace. You're gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you
were watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show
later on podcasts 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 Embracer Group announces plans
to split into three separate companies. This is from Chris Scullyen at VGC.
Swedish game and media holding company. Embracer Group has announced its plans to split
into three separate entities. The group will separate into three companies as Mody,
Coffee Stain and Friends and Middle Earth Enterprises and Friends. And I'm not joking,
that's what they're actually calling these things. Those are the actual names,
Coffee Stain and Friends and Middle Earth Enterprises and Friends, each of which will
be listed as a separate company on Nasdaq Stockholm. As part of the separation
process, Embracer has entered into a new financing agreement through Asmody, which is
worth nine hundred million euro. Embracer says the proceeds for this will repay existing
debt and reduce leverage in the remaining Embracer group. As Modi will continue to
operate as a publisher and distributor of board games, trading cards, and digital
board games, and will consist of twenty three fully owned studios. Coffee Stand
and Friends will focus on PC, console and mobile games, including community driven
free to play games, Live ops games, and indie slash double A games.
It will operate under premium and free to play divisions. Of the premium
segment will consist of Coffee Stain, THHQ, Nordic ghost Ship, Tuxedo Labs,
Tarsier Amplifier, Game invest and others. Finally, Middle Earth Enterprises and
Friends will be a creative powerhouse in Triple A game development and publishing for PC
and console and will own the Lord of the Rings and tombraator Ips, along
with the likes of Dead Island, Metro and Kingdomcome Deliverance Studios. Joining Middle
Earth Enterprises and Friends will include Crystal Dynamics, Dambusters, Idos, Montreal,
Flying Wild Hog, Tripwire, Vertigo Games, Warhorse Studios, and four A
Games. Yeah. That's that's the gist of the news there. Okay,
So most of this is just sort of like inside baseball, them trying to
reposition themselves to be better financially positioned to attack the marketplace with their new projects
and so that they're basically so they're not a situation they were in last year
where you know, Dead Island two comes along, sells really well, does
very well for them, and it didn't really make a dent in their numbers
because it was such a large, unwieldy company with so much debt that a
successful game didn't benefit them. This should shift that a little bit so when
they if they have future successes, like you know, and I think they're
still co publishing that Space Marines game with the with the God with a team
that left recently, and it's like, okay, so if that that happens,
they might get some benefit now to to these companies, But beyond that,
it also feels like a chance to get away from the Embrace or name.
Uh do you think that this is going to succeed at like resetting the
perception of Embracer and now these new companies in effectively they have been operating as
it's like Embracer and then a bunch of divisions And basically what they're doing here
is say they are making the divisions into their own separate companies. And I
think that that actually is potentially a smart move because, as you say,
getting away from the Embracer name of it all and putting themselves in a position
wherein you have three companies sharing a massive amount of debt. So suddenly that
debt becomes a lot more manageable and there's more opportunities to recoup being in these
smaller positions of Okay, this company, Coffee Stain and Friends has has put
out a new game in Roadblocks, which is something that they actually do and
you know, you get sort of more individual attention on the different like brands
within the company, so to speak. Yes, I mean, I think
definitely what Embracer definitely needed. It needs a lot of things, but one
of the things that needed was to sort of be able to scale things down
so that some of these component parts can get feel like they're getting more attention.
And now that like the top of the chain sort of stops at like
a publicly traded company, that makes more sense in some ways. It still
doesn't make These things don't make a ton of sense, but they make a
little bit more sense that the Embracer did. Overall. That could help a
lot of these studios. But mostly I think we are not a lot has
changed. Probably is really what happened has happened here. These are still gonna
be this. Yeah, They're still gonna have the same operating issues they did
before. Yes, I also think that I don't get why Asmodi doesn't have
any friends. It's uh coffee friends, Middle Earth Enterprises and friends. Where's
Asmodi's friends. It's got twenty three studios in there, is it? Just
like I mean, and as Modi is the one who's out here making tabletop
games. You need friends, You need that the whole idea. Yeah,
oh boy. They like announced this in a big presentation like on the stage
with Lars Winge Firs who's the CEO, and another I think the probably the
chief financial officer, uh being like, hey, all right, get excited
for this, and it's just like, man, they are in such a
weird position that this is like the big event for them that they're announcing that
they're spinning off all these things into their own verticals going forward. Do you
think that they're like, we're going to look back in a couple of years
and be like, oh okay, yeah, god remember Embracer and we'll be
able to like put that stuff behind us. Or do you think this is
the stink is going to carry on? Well, I think that the stink
is potentially going to carry on, and some of it has to do with
just I don't know the state of gaming and games media. We've seen so
many instances of these companies restructuring of and that affecting the workforce and potential future
titles. Now, look, do I think that people are trying to churn
any kind of content be it TV, shows, video games, etc.
Out At an alarming rate wherein the quality is suffering. I kind of do,
but you know, but the fact remains that this impacts people who despite
the fact that there's like a people are talking about respect for humans in the
chat and this is you know, kind of showing a lack of respect for
humans. Because you know this, a lot of jobs cancel, a lot
of games. Do I think that those games were necessarily going to be huge
hits? I don't know, but I hope that this puts us in a
position wherein you know, the companies operating on as these smaller separate entities have
the opportunity to recuperate and you know, get people back into the workforce.
But I don't know, it's uh, yeah, it's just a it's just
a bummer all around. Yeah. I also wonder like what does it look
like where where like the debt all gets shipped like with like as Modi's worth
nine hundred million euro and they're like, oh okay, and it will basically
be taking on all the debt that's going to uh leverage like enable, it's
going to reduce leverage in the Romanian Embracer group. It's like, why is
asmody having to take all that on? Is that something that's going to drag
down the uh, the board game group. I don't know, it's it's
a weird move, yeah, it's uh. But you know Lara Kroft friend
of Middle Earth, yes, a friend of Middle Earth indeed. Yeah.
So they sold off Saber, they sold off Gearbox that like, those things
felt they felt too big for what's happening here. These do feel like smaller
initiatives overall. Although you know Idos and Crystal Dynamics are still pretty big studios,
they actually are a bit smaller than something like a Gearbox or even a
Saber, which has several studios under its banner. So Thistific feels like a
paring down and like a kind of trying to write size, which is that
word that executives always use when they don't want to say downsizing. The downsizhing
has already happened, the layoffs have already happened here, yes, and now
it's like, okay, let's rebuild the company in an image that looks like
it can actually grow again, because I think that's where they were going to
be in a real tough position with Embrace or overall. The growth was originally
coming from acquisitions they were making it more acquisitions to be like, Okay,
revenues up, revenues up, revenues up, because we added more revenue from
these companies that we bought, right, and they were at the end of
the road of that, and so now it's like and then they were looking
at like, Okay, well, now that we're at the end of the
road, how can we get embraced into a place where it feels like it's
growing fast enough? And it's like that doesn't that's probably going to be really
difficult to pull off. So now they just like they sold off a bunch
of studios. They have a bunch of studios left, and it made them
smaller overall businesses that feel like they have a higher ceiling. Now it's a
kind of a house of mirrors a little bit. Yeah, But I mean
I hope the studios underneath it are able to make good games. I guess
that's all that really happened. I mean, that is really what it boils
down to. And ultimately, I am four breaking up extremely large corporation,
you know what I mean, It's like the potential of smaller businesses to operate
independently and make something that is ultimately more interesting that they're putting all of their
resources into definitely exists. So yeah, as you say, hopefully these smaller
companies just make good games, all right. Moving along here, Stellar Blade
will be uncensored in all regions. This is from Jordan Midler at VGC.
A post from the game's Twitter account reads, Stellar Blade offers the same uncensored
version in all countries, including the Japanese version. This post came in the
wake of some PlayStation titles having regional variations, which players have routinely called out
for perceived censorship. Stellar Blade will be released on April twenty six as a
PS five exclusive demos available, all that stuff. This is probably mostly notable
because so many games recently in Japan have been have had different versions so that
they could get the appropriate age rating so they could actually go on sale in
the country, and that's happened repeatedly now, and this news actually was like
so it caught the attention to like executives over at EA where they're like,
hey, we put out Dead Space in Japan and it has like similar looking
monsters and a similar level of violence. And if you've seen seen Stellar Blade,
the way that like she like slices apart the Monsters is pretty violent.
Dead Space had to have a different version. They're like, why the hell
did we have to do that? And Stellar Blade does not, which you
know is never like you never would be like, oh, you know,
why do punish everyone else the same amount you punish me? That's never a
good look. But I get what they're saying there, but Stellar Blade seems
to be getting away with it. I wonder if they're like, this is
like the EBB and flow of regulation in so many countries where it has nothing
to do with Stellar Blade, and maybe just has something to do with like,
oh at the moment, maybe Japan's being more lax on the regulation.
I don't know, but as it stands, Stellar Blade is going to be
uncensored, which probably doesn't mean like full frontal nudity. It probably just means
I have to tell you, When I saw Stellar Blade and uncensored, my
immediate thought was oh more jiggle my yes. And I think I noticed this
story was like number one on VGC, and I'm like, what the why?
Who cares? Like of course yeah, And it's like, oh,
because people, it's like that unrated DVD edition where like people think that implies
something like scandalous when really just means like, well, no, there's a
version you submit to the MPAA and this version didn't get submitted to the MPAA.
That's all that actually means. But there's something like scintillating about the possibility,
and so when people hear uncensored, yes, the bind immediately goes there.
I totally see that, which is why half the reason this story is
in the rundown is to grab the attention. Of course, absolutely, I
do wonder like what this game's legacy is going to be as we go through.
It's it's out in a couple of days, right, God, is
it out very soon? Man, I'm trying to play it a little bit
and I was like, oh, yes, uh, it's sexy anime lady
fight monsters. Yeah. I don't. I don't think it's that d I
don't think it's got a ton going on. I thought though, fighting was
pretty good in the boss fights, and like it's got a vibe like in
between those those big moments too. But god, yeah, it's it has
not deserved the amount of attention really that it has gotten. It's I think
it's going to be a pretty decent like B game when it's all said and
done. Look you bring the Waifu's people show up. We had this conversation
about Yep, they absolutely do all right. Midori confirms a sequel to Sonic
Frontiers is in development and the name could get a change. This is from
my Nintendo news. It would seem as though the Sonic team's next big project
is a sequel to Sonic Frontiers, which launched in twenty twenty two. The
news was first shared by Daniel RpK and was corroborated by reliable Sega Atlas leaker
Midori. Sega has not announced a sequel to Sonic Frontiers, but it seems
as though it is their next big game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
I am someone who liked Sonic Frontiers enough. I didn't think it was spectacular,
but I thought it was a decent first effort for like going in that
direction with Sonic, and they got more right than they got wrong. They
just didn't get it like super right. It wasn't like, oh well,
this is just of course, this is the way you're going to do things.
It's like, okay, this feels pretty close. I think though,
a sequel is a no brainer because it's like so many ideas that could build
on from there. So this is my expectation too. I'm not too surprised
to hear this. How about you, I fully forgot about the existence of
Sonic Frontiers. Well that I mean that. And that's the thing is that
when a game is good, fine exists, you do just kind of forget
about it, you know, totally, because it doesn't it doesn't make a
big splash unless there's something that's really keeping it in the public conversation, typically,
be it that it's really good or really bad, or it's fallout and
there's bugs, just so many there still are. But but yeah, I
mean, when when a game is just kind of like good, it kind
of comes and goes. So that's how I feel about Sonic Frontiers. And
and exactly as you were saying, when you're in a situation wherein there's a
lot of good ideas and you mostly got stuff right and it did fine and
people mostly liked it, Okay, why not make a safe ball, right.
It's the kind of thing where Sonic is not like in some position where
everything that they're trying is working right. The Sonic Superstars came out after Sonic
Frontiers. That one really came and went and I beat that game. It
was I think it's kind of bad. Okay, it's it's it's like,
there are some parts of it that are enticing. I think it looks pretty
good. The characters look pretty good once you really get move and that's fine.
But the boss fights are inane and the levels are not like that inspired
or anything like that. Yeah, but you know, I get like,
Okay, so that's like the two D or like the two D gameplay.
It's got three D visuals on a two D plan. That's that should continue
to be continue to happen. Yes, although I think I would prefer Sonic
Mania at the same time, Sonic Frontiers is that kind of thing where I
can just to put that on. My kids will start just messing around in
that game in a way that they can mess around in a lot of like
decent three D platformers, and the game is conducive to that, and there's
something a playful, uh that I think Sonic should be embracing with that.
So I think Sonic Frontiers is a really solid foundation for that, even if
I think people's reactions to it very like greatly beyond like Okay, so I
think it's a solid foundation. Some people playing like no, this is just
a straight up bad game. Some people playing no, I really enjoyed myself,
and I think that's like the kind of the funnel that exists in But
I think all that stems from this foundation they could build on really well what
they follow up. I played so much Adventure on the Dreamcast, and yeah,
I'd love to have that joy uh recaptured for me. And but we
are going to need to figure out uh Mara. Dreamcast had the little like
cartridge thing that you put into your controller and you could just like take you
go with you the VMU. So we're gonna need to figure that out.
Because I like to play with my chow's and the VMU. They should bring
back the VMU just in general. Just let me have a VMU for whatever
reason that would be worth it to me. Oh my god, making the
chow garden and like just making new chows. You could get such cursed ones
off. It's so good. I like it because it's like you would you
could like take your VMU to school and then then your brother would be like,
all right, I'm gonna go sit down and play some Dreamcast games.
And it's like, wait, where the fuck is the safe thing? Oh
the VMU. My asshole brother took it to school and now I got Now
I can't play anything. It's like, yes, that it was a cool
idea and they should bring it back. That's what I want. Yep.
All right, let's take a quick break. When we get back, a
lot more headlines, including what's happening with Fallout and its resurgence. Right after
this, all right, we are back, and as promised, Fallout seventy
six records its best concurrent player count on Steam just a week after setting previous
record. This is from League Mathur at ign Fallout seventy six, the open
world multiplayer RPG title, has broken its all time concurrent player count on Steam
six years after its launch. The game from twenty eighteen has received a surge
of popularity after the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime Video. After the player
surge saw the game record its best ever active player count, the record has
been broken once again. The record was broken just one week after the previous
record was set. As it stands, Fallout seventy six recorded sixty four thousand
players actively playing the game on Saturday, per Steam database. The previous record
was a week ago below forty thousand. I think it's probably worth noting as
I remember it, Fallout seventy six did not launch originally on Steam. I
think it launched originally on the bethesta launcher. That could be wrong. I
think that's the case, though I think you're yes, I'm pretty sure,
but either way, it's like setting new records because of the show, not
too surprising, and like as a follow up to that, Like yeah,
Fallout four's five and twenty five percent increased player account is approaching hell divers two
levels. This is from Paul Tassi at Forbes. Thanks to a massive resurgence
in interest due to Amazon's great new Fallout show plus some big, big time
sales, Fallout four is experiencing what are far and away its best numbers since
it's launched on Steam in twenty fifteen. Fallout four used to be topping out
at respectable twenty four thousand players a night, which is very respectable, by
the way, but as it stands it has one hundred and sixty thousand concurrent
players and rising over the weekend. This is approaching more more recent Steam mega
hit of the moment, the multiplayer twenty twenty four released Hell Divers two,
which currently has one hundred and seventy five thousand players. Yeah, so that
is buck wild bananas numbers. And I mean I think we go over this
over and over again where it's like, yeah, if the show is a
hit, it can really fuel the games. But every time something like this
happens and puts it in like such stark contrast of five hundred and twenty five
percent growth one hundred and sixty thousand concurrent players, like the second most for
a game that is like primarily like a premium price game, like the only
games above that were like Hell Divers and then some free to play games.
It's okay, yup, that is wild, And a lot of people are
saying, I'm sure Microsoft and but as they're kicking themselves for not having like
Fallout five, Yeah, fall of five writing to go, it's like,
yeah, of course, But I think part of like where we're at in
terms of gaming is like if you can get an older game to pop off
again and people might play it as if it's a new game, that's a
success as well. Oh that's the dream, honestly, is for your previous
projects to have some kind of longevity in popularity and the thing that we are
absolutely seeing. And I mean this happened with The Witcher back in twenty nineteen
as well, where suddenly there was this huge surgeon sales of The Witch are
three. I think that it was like, now, granted it had just
come out on Switch in October of that year, I want to say,
but like it was failed went up by some crazy number like five hundred percent,
over five hundred percent, and even without the Switch sales, it was
still a pretty healthy, like sixty percent increases in sales. So I mean,
the fact that this is happening with Fallout on such a massive scale,
especially because you do have these games being out there for very very affordable pricing,
you know, it was, it was very I'm I have to assume
it was intentional that these games were on I mean, they're on sale on
Steam all the time anyway, and they're all like in Xbox Came Pass.
But one has to assume that there was some intentionality behind the fact that these
games were on massive sale when the show dropped, and clearly they're it's having
the desired effect. Yep, it is, And I think you know games
weren't they did. They didn't used to be this way. They used to
be like, hey, they would come out and then a couple years later
that game would be obsolete to the point where it's like you couldn't continue to
sell that and you could, like it's kind of even hard to like rent
them still, like back when rentals things were still happening, it's like,
no, that's old stuff. People don't want it anymore. And then like
since about like twenty fifteen, maybe a little bit before, a little bit
after, but around twenty fifteen is when like these perennial forever games started to
hit in a really long way, and not just like forever games as in
online multiplayer live service games, stuff like Fallout four and Witcher and before that
Skyrim. Skyrim's like, oh yeah, exactly that before like people just continue
playing these forever and and having like a new way out to surface these things
and continue to sell them is beneficial, and clearly the TV show is that.
I think the other thing this really highlights for me is just how much
of a miss that Halo Show was because it didn't do the same thing for
Halo. It didn't move the needle for Halo at all. Yeah, I
think when it did move the needle, it was mostly people just being like,
I hate this. I want to go play something that feels more like
Halo. Yeah. Well, I once again am looking at wiki data and
it is it has been since the show came out. And again, the
thing that's really interesting is the fact that you know, Amazon Prime typically releases
their show on a week to week, their shows on a week to week
basis the way that network shows do, but with Fallout, they released all
of it at once, and typically in that case, going to see that
the wiki trends start going down if it was a TV show that didn't have
any supplementary material. But of course this is based on the Fallout video games,
so we've just seen it go up and up and up. Literally there
was there were like a couple of days in the middle of the week last
week where it dipped a tiny bit from what it had been the top,
which was the day after the show premiered, and now like it's it's gone
up by hundreds of the since it's wild yep. And I think that that
is difficult to predict, but I think it's something well, I think it
did play into some of the decision to release it all all at once.
But I think it's also the kind of thing where it's like, once that
snowball gets going, it does just kind of build and build on itself,
and I think we're seeing that, and you know, even if it's not
people watching the show, I think just the zeitgeist a round Fallout is encouraging
people. I asked over the weekend, like, hey, why did the
show make you want to play the games? And many of the answers were
I didn't watch the show, but everyone's talking about it, and that got
me left thinking, Hey, I like Fallout or I have thought and I
should finally play it truly. Yeah, I mean, you know, my
fiance I spent all weekend playing Fallout four. I'm like, I got to
load up New Vegas, which is my favorite. So yeah, because again,
it's like, I think that the thing that the show did particularly well
any story gripes that people might have aside, is it did such a great
job of portraying that universe and that version of a nuclear apocalypse, and it's
weird to be like, yeah, it made it's a really fun apocalypse,
but it is kind of fun. That's the point of Fallout is it's goofy,
and yeah, it's a this this is not surprising to me at all.
However, the insane spikes are really put stuff in perspective. Let me
let me put it that way. Yes, yeah. The highlights for me
for that show were when it got the goofiest, when it was like when
John Daly shows up as a snake oil salesman and his snake oil actually works,
and I'm like, yeah, oh oh yeah it's Fallout. I forgot,
like I forgot I'm watching the Fallout. That actually it really really got
me where I'm like, Okay, I'm glad, I know, I'm glad
they recognize what show we're watching and that they reminded me that that's what I'm
watching. Spoilers for the Fallout TV series very very minor, very minor,
so don't stress about this, but I guess cover your ears. Fred Armison
showed up randomly, Yes, very good bit like radio teaching, and he's
got he's got the perfect like Fred Armison character for that guy. Like people
get fully mad at this music. Okay, oh man, that was a
great great yeah, and every everything with Matt Berry, like oh god,
it's just yeah, o god. Yeah. The NPCs were great. Let
me that way, yes exactly. Matt Barry was great. But yeah,
just Fred Armison talking about the Mids. Those are the Mids there. You
can hear him right there, Yeah, you hear him. Yeah, like
part Landia's smile, It's yeah, Fallout Landia. I would watch a whole
series of Fallout Landia. And then they went out of their way to make
sure that we hated Thaddeus because anyway, I'm not going to say anymore,
it's great. You should watch the show. Loved it. Yeah, it's
a it's a really good time. Okay. So then they you know,
they just weren't going to have a Fallout five. That was not going to
happen. No, No, it wasn't. No, they definitely weren't.
You know. I think that the thing that I will say is that it's
good that they've gotten Fallout seventy six to the point that it's at now when
suddenly you have a bunch of people who are interested in Fallout, either again
or for the first time, and they find themselves in a situation wherein people
who possibly had previously been avoiding Fallout seventy six have been hearing oh it's playable
Now show comes out, they're in full Fallout mania and they go, you
know what, I am going to get Fallout seventy six to try now.
And by and large, my understanding from people who stuck with it is that
it is actually, you know, fun to play now, certainly more fun
than it was at launch. Yes, and I think it's the kind of
thing where Okay, so we see sixty thousand concurrent players for Fallout seventy six.
It was seven, normally has around twelve thousand, but one hundred and
sixty thousand for Fallout four. People are going to play Fallout four and I
listen, I like that game a lot. I think most people don't like
it as much as me, and I'm like, I'm fine with that.
I really really really do not care. But I think what's going to happen
is like people be like, that didn't quite scratch the scratch the edge for
me. Maybe now I will go go check out Fallout seventy six because I'm
like, in there, I think a lot of people are like, I
want to play a Fallout game, let me just go play the last real
Fallout game. I think that's what people are doing right now. I think
that is what people are doing right now. I think once they get sort
of through that process and they look around, like, oh, this Fallout
seventy six, that's right, this is new where they've done a ton of
updates. Everyone I talk to that place that seems to like it. I
think they will funnel into it into it a little bit more after they sort
of splash out of Fallout four, and I think the game is like well
positioned to take advantage of that. We say they didn't have a Fallout five,
but they on percent have a ongoing Fallout game to take advantage of.
Yeah, totally, yeah, absolutely, And you know, I like the
idea of playing Fallout seventy six with friends again. Apparently you're kind of locked
into playing by yourself for a while, but I'm not against it, Like,
yep, yeah, it could be fun. Yeah, I think.
God, I just I just finished Tales of Kenzera Za and I want to
play some more Hades too on my steam deck. But I'm like, you
know what, I Fallout seventy six on my steam deck seems like I'm probably
be a pretty good time. And yeah, I heard it's like again you
could like mostly pay play by yourself and I'm like, I'll do that and
then like later on, if I have a character I want to do some
multiplayer stuff with, I'll have it ready to go, so we'll see.
I am in the fall out mood as well as everyone else. I'm I
would I am in a fallout mood. But you also mentioned Hades, which
is where my head is at right now. Yes, absolutely, did you
get a chance to play any of it? Because it was God, It's
it's real, real good that Hades. I haven't played the technical test.
Yeah, I haven't gotten a code for It's very good. I'm going to
just reach out to Yeah direct Honestly, I think Jan just signed up for
the technical test on Steam and then just he just got approved natural so that
it'll be fair. I haven't looked directly on Steam and maybe I did get
approved and I did, then I will not be doing any work today,
sorry to my employers. All right, there's rumor that Sony is considering launching
Hell Divers two for Xbox. This is from Jonas Mackie, a game reactor.
Sony released Hell Divers two for PC and PlayStation five earlier this year,
and it immediately became immensely popular. Since then, it has remained one of
the most popular titles on Steam and shows no signs of slowing down, and
perhaps those great numbers could grow even further in the future. According to Xbox
Era insider Nick nick Baker shouts to Nick, Sony is currently in talks with
Microsoft to potentially release Hell Divers two on Xbox, but he notes that negotiations
or conversations around it are in a very early stage, very preliminary. Microsoft's
gaming bus Phil Spenser has previously said that he thinks Sony should release Hell Divers
two on the Xbox, and it would almost certainly mean millions of extra players
and more revenue for Sony. Emma, I'm in a space where I look
at games that like sometimes skip Xbox, and that's not what Hell Divers two
is. Held Divers two is a PlayStation published game. But I look at
games that skip Xbox and I go, I kind of get it. I
kind of get it, Like that's a little bit, it's quite a bit
of extra work, and that's that juice might not be worth the squeeze.
Sometimes it is, but not not always, and these companies are being a
little bit conservative. I get it. Held Divers two is a game that
would do very well on Xbox just straight up would crush on Xbox. This
is it's and so is it money on the table or is it the cost
of doing business? That's the comp that's the like the choice that companies now
face, and those companies being Microsoft and Sony, and Sony's like, well,
no, Microsoft is like looking at those two options, and there's they
seem to be leaning towards that's money left on the table, and they're starting
to put more stuff on PlayStation Sony. I think it's like for a long
time been like that's the cost of doing business, of growing the PlayStation brand
and growing the PlayStation five install base, is we leave money on the table
by not putting games on Xbox. Of course, I do think that that
position probably is softening, and Helldivers two just feels like the right game to
sort of burst through that. Oh absolutely. I mean that's the thing is,
you know, for me growing up a child in the nineties, you
know, my first experiences playing shooters was on like well, you know,
Nintendo sixty four Refold and I obviously, but then other than that, it
was you know, playing Halo on Xbox, and so yeah, it totally
appeels to me like Hell Divers two would crush on Xbox. Yes, I
mean, I think there's plenty of people that that is their only barrier of
entry for Hell Divers two is that they have an Xbox and they don't have
a PC and they just haven't been able to play it yet. Yep,
And I think if it was. I mean, it's a game with cross
play already. When you're in the game, the game makes it very clear
that everyone's working towards the same goal. And so like early on players were
like, man, we wish we had the Xbox players in here helping us.
That would be nice because we'd be able to make a stronger push.
And so it's already got this communal. This is a Hell Divers too.
This is a Hell Divers two thing. This isn't like, oh, this
is a PlayStation game. It doesn't feel like that when you're in a show
like this is its own world and it separated from all those other desires to
keep like to have another game on a list of exclusives. All that said,
what do you think the chances are of this really happening? I think
conversations probably are happening, But conversations. As I think when we see on
the show all the time, people talk about everything all the time, and
everything's always on the table, every acquisition has been talked out or whatever.
Dead Space two actually does get brought up in conversation. They do consider it
that sort of thing. But what are the chances of this really happening.
I I think that they're going to be proprietary and not do it. But
I think that that is a mistake because you've already won, you know,
and you're going to make more money by making a deal with Xbox to release
your gut Like but I I get this is not the first time we've seen
something wherein oh it was on on Steam and on PlayStation for some reason,
I think of Fall Guys, where like when that launched, it was on
Steam and it was on PlayStation if you wanted to play on console, right,
So, but again, this game already supports cross play. It just
to me, adding Xbox is a no brainer. But you know, I
think that there's the perception of yeah, yeah, it does feel like this
is the one that they'd be able to get away with it the most,
and yet it would probably still cause some headaches for them. Among their die
hard community. But they're diehard community is not necessarily shown up for these kinds
of games. They're the ones that are like very interested in like the single
player, narrative driven games that have like high high Cineta right exactly. So
it feels like, yeah, let him have twel divers too. At a
certain point. Yeah, I'm gonna say on like the grand scale of time,
so like, you know, five years and within five years this does
happen, I think, but we'll see. That's not a guarantee. Definitely
far from a guarantee, all right. Moving on, Ubisoft is reported to
have completely scrapped plans for more Watchdog games watch Dogs games. This is from
Marcus Pearson at Game Reactor. There seems to be no more hacker adventures from
Ubisoft, and the company is said to have completely given up on the brand.
This is according to a leaker with a track record of sharing information about
past Assassin's Creeds games who describes Watchdogs as dead and buried. The person mentions
the failed Watchdog's legion as they coup de gras for the game series, and
that Ubisoft has subsequently canceled several ongoing projects linked to the series. Including one
with a Battle Royale theme. Ubisoft seems to have left the hacker lifestyle behind
of its in favor of its millions selling Assassin's Creed and Far Cry games,
with the recent release of Mirage and a seventh chapter in the later latter series,
Imminites. Yeah, okay, so this one also is like, not
like completely shocking, but it is. I think it's indicative of like where
the trouble that these companies face where Okay, yes, you do have Assassin's
Creed and you do have far Cry, and these things are successful, and
so the answer I suppose is double down on the successful franchises to at the
expense of the thing that hasn't quite broken out yet. And yet it's like,
man if it always feels like Watchdogs is just like one or two things
away from really fighting itself and breaking into that next echelon. And at the
same time, maybe it's like they thought Legion was that, and because it
didn't, they're like, Okay, well that was the big chance for it,
and because it and now it's time to scrap everything. I get it
to a certain extent, But what do you think this says about Ubisoft?
Oh boy, Ubisoft I, Yeah, this is not so surprising to me
because I do feel like everything that Ubisoft puts out outside of their you know,
Big Assassin's Creed Farcry kind of series, it struggles. And look,
there's been plenty of other game series over time that have had this exact kind
of situation of Okay, well, this is the last one of these games
that we're going to put out, and if this one doesn't do well,
then this series is done. And it's like, I I feel like,
I don't know, has Watchdogs had enough chances to abandon it. I can't
really say yeah. So I remember that first Watchdog's getting announced to be very
exciting one of the early next gen games shown off at the time. It
looked very promising. The game comes out didn't quite live up to expectations,
but had a lot of cool stuff there. Uh. And then I think
for me a big problem is like the sequels like always felt like pretty separate
from like all everything they built with the first Like so they go to a
different town and then have different characters, and it's like, Okay, I
get what you're doing. You're kind of doing the GTA thing, but in
GTA, you know, the cities have so much character, Like, yeah,
that like conveys so much of what the game is about. And I
got I am trying to remember. I'm going to assume the second game was
San Francisco because they did a bunch of stuff about Facebook and Google. So
now I'm like remembering, it's like, yeah, that was San Francisco,
and people like it was like kind of a pretty realistic San Francisco. But
that's like as much as anyone ever said about that world. And then was
like London, but it was like this goofball thing and they were doing more
with like the characters you could pick up and trying to have more systematic elements,
and it just seems like that stuff didn't pan out quite either. Yeah,
I don't know. I think that Watchdogs is the kind of thing where
three tries probably was enough to know whether or not that idea had the ability
to break out or not. And yet I don't think it's a great idea
for them to be kind of, you know, returning and sort of falling
back in terms of their position to just fall out or far cry and an
Assassin's Creed though, like, yeah, the Assassin's Creed has been proven to
be like when it works, it works, but when you miss it like
goes off the rails hard for several years and people are like, no,
I'm done with that. And Mirage is the Mirage I think did well because
they're like they're promising like smaller scale and like kind of like bringing things that
like back to the original and it's like, Okay, yeah, you did
that. I don't think you're doing that with the next one, and probably
for the next several after that seems like they're getting bigger and bigger again.
You could burn people out real quick. Absolutely, I mean, and it
is interesting, you know, with Mirage, because I do feel like Valhalla
was I know a lot I liked Valhalla, and I know a lot of
people that really liked Valhalla, so I think that there was like pretty positive
feelings around Assassin's Creed in general, except to be like, well, this
felt like we were missing the kind of you could. I mean, obviously
you can still go to the stealth route. I attempt to play every single
game like a shirt of your solid so you know, uh, not enough
boxes for my taste. But but yeah, I mean like there's yeah,
but Valhalla was massive, yes, and and Mirage was kind of bringing it
back to a smaller scale and the sort of more traditional as in gameplay of
Assassin's Creed. So I think that feelings around that game, right around that
series right now are overall hopeful. So to me, I feel that that's
why it kind of makes sense that they're really putting their resources into that,
because they're like, Okay, we're in a in a situation wherein we have
a real right to win. Yep. Yeah, and it's and I don't
think it's like much better over it like Far Cry, where yeah, Far
Christ's got a formula, a very strong formula in terms of they are going
to do what that game does over and over again, to the point where
it's like, you know, they were trying a lot of interesting stuff in
Far Cry too. You know you could like shoot off branches off a tree
and then we would realistically break and fire would spread in a realistic way.
And then they do Far Cry three and it's like, we don't think players
can about that stuff, and I think, unfortunately they're right, But then
I think what that put that puts them in a position where it's like,
well, then we're just going to and it's maybe this is like reflective of
their overall strategy. We're just going to repeat back the things the players tell
us they like by like using the metrics that we see what that's what they
engage with, and we're just going to keep making that over and over again.
And then things start to feel pretty stale. And I really don't know
how many people are that excited about Far Christ six, and then it came
along and was kind of disappointed on its own, and it's I guess Far
Christ seven going to solve that. Ubisoft is very much a quantity based so
perhaps by scaling back on some of their ancillary projects, they can focus on
making their flagship titles good. Yep, speaking of Ubis, let's jump down
to this last story real quick. No, Killian Murphy, he is not
starring in Far Christ seven. There was a brief period of eyebrow raising when
a leaker recently seemed to suggest that Killian Murphy was going to be the next
star of Far Christ seven. No doubt, it's high profile leading villain like
we like as the high profile leading villain like we saw with Gean Carlo es
Mosito in Far Christ six. Turns out, no, that's not happening.
Which I mean, even if far Krei does nap stars year in there,
Killian Murphy, last year's Best Best Actor Oscar winner, Killian Murphy. Come
on, Murphy was shown, Yeah, go ahead, it's Killian Murphy's oscar
statue. Actually is going to be the villain. Absolutely, yeah, It's
going to be an oscar statue with his name printed on the placard at the
bottom of it. Yes, exactly, I mean, and I would be
terrified. It's like, what's the definition of insanity. It's a it's a
it's an oscar. Which okay, so Murphy. It was shown by the
leaker Jonathan with a zero instead of an O, as part of a series
of images seeming to suggest elements of far Christ seven, but they have been
a bit too cryptic for their own good, leading to this bit of alleged
news, though perhaps other sites may not have been wise to fully jump to
this casting conclusion in this context. The French leaker later said, mind you,
I never said Killian Murphy was going to be in the game. The
image means something else, which to me that means it's like, what do
you think of when you think of killing Murphy? Right now? You think
of Oppenheimer and you think of nuclear weapons. So now the far didn't Far
Cry five have a new go off at the end of its game. So,
I mean, I don't know who knows, but web I just hopped
in the chat very quickly to let you all know that the same day that
this leaked, Killian one an ifter, which is the Irish version of the
Bafters. It's the highest honor that an Irish actor can get. And whenever
you googled his name or you search for him on Twitter, the first thing
that came up wasn't him winning Anifter, it was him being in a Far
Cry again. He should just do it, or fucker, he should just
do it now it absolutely and ask for all the money in the world exactly.
Yeah, they probably give it to him. Yeah, either way,
Far Crist seven it's happening. Maybe maybe this means it takes place in Ireland.
I would like that. That would be fine. Yeah, Yeah,
we need more, uh games that are not set in the US. There's
a lot of games set in the US. Uh, you know, we
make our way down to Mexico. I feel a fair amount, but uh,
you know, I think Europe needs some love. YEP, I think
Ireland especially. That would be very cool. All right, you know we're
gonna skip the little big plan three services shutting down. That's said they're shutting
down. They did that without any notes. It's that we're gonna go to
Sony and Apollo discussed joint bid for Paramount, says source. This is from
Dawn Chimowski or Chimaluski at Reuter's uh Sony if Sony is and Apollo are making
a joint bid for Paramount Global. According to a person familiar with the matter,
the companies you have yet to approach. Paramount, which is an exclusive
deal talks with Skydance Media, an independent studio led by David Ellison, though
some investors have urged Paramount to explore other options. The competing bid, which
is still being structured, would offer cash for all outstanding Paramount shares and take
the company private. The source set Sony would hold a majority stake in the
joint venture and operate the media company and its library of films such as classics
as Star Trek, Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones, and television characters like SpongeBob
SquarePants. According to the source, Okay, so this is obviously not PlayStation
news doesn't mean it couldn't affect PlayStation. It almost certainly would in some ways.
But what do you think this means for Like Sony's strategy overall is because
like Sony had Crackle for a while, they now these days they just licensed
their shows and movies to like Netflix primarily, but to a bunch of different
services. They don't have their own platform. Is this a play to like
build back up toward a platform of their own or just like having more stuff?
So it's super interesting because Paramount, you know, merged with Showtime,
which was huge for me because I was like, well, I have Paramount
Plus and I have Showtime literally just to watch Yellow Jackets. So this works
out. But I am I don't love monopolies, and everybody is definitely trying
to. I mean, but how do you not try and acquire companies when
the Walt Disney Corporation is basically running the planet And I don't know. I'm
also like, as far as video games go, I'm just envisioning all future
you know, Sonic the Hedgehog titles being on Sony since Paramount has the you
know, film and television rights. But I just I wouldn't be so surprised
if this went through, because I feel as though Paramount is kind of tread
and water, and Sony is in the very advantageous position of not simply being
a media company. They also make hardware electronics. That was really what Sony
was originally known for. It's it's the same way that Amazon is in an
advantageous position because of I mean, Amazon gestures to the world Amazon and and
Disney theme parks, NBC Universal Theme Parks. So I wouldn't be surprised if
something like this goes through. Yep, it's kind of a training in that
direction. Yeah, real quick, before we get the pull, that trailer
for the Tales of the s Shire Tales of the you know, not Tales
of Jason Schreyer Tales of the Shire is here. This is the survival game.
I think, yeah, that's what it looks like for Friendship. It's
animal crossing. But but Hobbits, it was just two weeks ago, it
says forty six minutes ago. So all right, fair enough. It looks
pretty decent. It looks like kind of fun and cute. I think,
yeah, I'm interested. We'll see, all right, I got a pull
question to get to. I'm gonna get that set up. While I'm doing
that, Emma, why don't you tell people where they can find you on
the Internet and all that good stuff. Yes, you can find me on
the internet at Emma Fife. That is my name, That is my handle
on basically everything, all the social media that I don't actually participate in but
still exist on. And the m Fife on TikTok again. Really just a
lurker there on em Fife in the Giant Bomb discord. So if you really
want to talk to me about something or yell at me about something, find
me there. Uh and I there should be If you're going around the gaming
wikis later this week, you might see my face talking talking about some wiki
stats. Woo ooh, I'm excited. All right. Whole question, I
have this one from Friday. Did you play Kingdom Come Deliverance? Twenty four
percent said yes, seventy six percent said no. Now they're making another one
though, actually that was part of the whole deal with Embracers splitting out those
groups. Kingdom Come Deliverance is from more Horse Studios, and they're making a
sequel. I think it's the second one has a chance to do a little
bit better. Than that, but I'm not I guess I'm not shocked that
only twenty four percent of responded. So the three thousand people that voted said
that they actually played this game. Is this one game that you've played?
Have you even heard of Kingdom Come Delivery? Oh I am? I am
seventy six percent? Yes, yeah, you know it's a historic open world
RPG. It's it's got some cool stuff in there. But the game definitely
had some sort of bad juju when it came out in terms of people at
the studio. Embracing Gamer gave a little bit which kind of sullied things back
in the twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen whenever it came out. Yeah, yeah,
it's pentiment, but Skyrim is a good way of putting in it.
Octom Okay, definitely, I'm still interested in the second game. We'll see
like and we'll see how it goes all right, Newpole question, do you
want another Watchdog's game? Yes or no? We will get the results for
that and discuss it on Game mess Mornings on Giant Bomb on Wednesday. Speaking
to Giant Bomb on Tuesday, we will have the Bomb cast. We should
be doing some fun stuff earlier this week, we'll hopefully be able to get
up on the site relatively quickly. I'll probably find more time for more Fallout
New Vegas. That was a ton of fun. I am like, I
want to be playing that game all the time, so try to find more
time for that. It's really really good, and then you could expect the
regulars Blake Clubs to be back. God, Dan could beat that game relatively
soon. Honestly, he might beat it next time he's he's still playing Superman
sixty four. He's almost through it. He is on the last level,
which he has to play on hard to actually beat the game. We'll see.
But then once he's done, it's it's my turn. And apparently they've
already picked out my game, and I'm frank, I'm gonna say it's I'm
gonna say it's Arm Marines Project Swarm for the Nintendo sixty four. That's my
guess for the game that they're making me play, all right, anything else,
no, not that I could think of em. Thank you so much
for hanging out with me today and talking about video games. I really appreciate
it for having me absolutely and thank you all for watching your the best audience
in gaming until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself
and mio mio. Bye.