PS5 Could Get More Expensive Soon with EposVox!

<v Speaker 1>You'll be like a go me beer. Hey everybody, welcome
<v Speaker 1>to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grub, your host
<v Speaker 1>from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for tuning in.
<v Speaker 1>In this episode, we're going to be talking about one
<v Speaker 1>of the year's best games, potentially going to switch to
<v Speaker 1>and yet another major price increase possibly on the horizon.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be a good one though, because we've got
<v Speaker 1>Addie epos Vox on the show. Addie, how are you
<v Speaker 1>doing doing all right?
<v Speaker 2>How about you?
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing great? Yeah, yeah, Like I said, I was
<v Speaker 1>telling you right before we start the show. Busy lots
<v Speaker 1>going on, but mostly good problems to solve, but happy
<v Speaker 1>to be hanging out with you. I do have an
<v Speaker 1>initial question to kick us off. Me and Jan are
<v Speaker 1>still using our goxlers with that open source interface. Now,
<v Speaker 1>how much time do we really have left on these things? Honestly,
<v Speaker 1>you're you're you're good for now.
<v Speaker 2>You want to change anything or make it better, and
<v Speaker 2>then you're gonna run into a wall.
<v Speaker 1>Basically, Yeah, that's that. I do get that sense that
<v Speaker 1>I think I keep putting it off because I'm like
<v Speaker 1>I if I want like this has been a nice
<v Speaker 1>all in one package, but I recognize its limitations and
<v Speaker 1>from the beginning, uh, and I'm like, if I want
<v Speaker 1>to do more than this, it is going to be
<v Speaker 1>a whole other thing I'm gonna have to get into. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>To be fair, that open source software solved a lot
<v Speaker 1>of the problems.
<v Speaker 2>It is great and it's really nice, super stoked. It
<v Speaker 2>works out of the box on my Linux rig too,
<v Speaker 2>Like you can just do that's just about whatever with it.
<v Speaker 2>But it's one of those things like when you first
<v Speaker 2>get to set up with the gaux Laar, you're like,
<v Speaker 2>this is amazing, and the second you want, you like
<v Speaker 2>you start getting that ear to like nitpick things and
<v Speaker 2>you can't fix anything.
<v Speaker 1>Uh Huh.
<v Speaker 2>You realize that it's it's built to do this one
<v Speaker 2>thing for this one like market, and then that's it.
<v Speaker 1>That's it. Yep. Absolutely So the reason I asked you
<v Speaker 1>that question is that's definitely a space that you spend
<v Speaker 1>a lot of time in, uh, streaming technology and stuff
<v Speaker 1>like that. What do you tell people a little bit
<v Speaker 1>about yourself if they're unfamiliar with epos FOS.
<v Speaker 2>I've been teaching people how to live stream do what
<v Speaker 2>we're doing and make YouTube videos for about ten years now.
<v Speaker 2>I've started out doing like obs tutorials, FRAPs tutorials back
<v Speaker 2>in the day, that kind of stuff, And so mostly
<v Speaker 2>I teach tech and streaming and content creation, and then
<v Speaker 2>I have a gaming channel where I do sometimes hopefully
<v Speaker 2>thoughtful thoughts on retrogaming and like contextualizing where we are
<v Speaker 2>now and that kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>How do you feel about the overall like ecosystem of
<v Speaker 1>people making content and streaming and stuff right now? It
<v Speaker 1>definitely seems, I guess, precarious, but it's been always been precarious.
<v Speaker 1>But how do you feel about it?
<v Speaker 2>It's a train wreck at the moment. It's one of
<v Speaker 2>those things where like it's reached kind of critical mass
<v Speaker 2>in terms of popularity mainstream appeal, and that comes with
<v Speaker 2>a lot of personality conflicts with you know, it used
<v Speaker 2>to be the inside thing for geeks or whatever, whereas
<v Speaker 2>now it's a lot more you get. The people that
<v Speaker 2>do the popularity contests in any context are very much present,
<v Speaker 2>and things were going great the past few years. Now
<v Speaker 2>with everything going on, the economics and the algorithms behind it,
<v Speaker 2>especially with YouTube's new leadership, are not fun at the moment.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's I mean it was always challenging, but now
<v Speaker 1>it feels like it's almost actively working against a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people in a lot of ways. It's difficult to
<v Speaker 1>figure out for sure. All Right though, we got plenty
<v Speaker 1>to talk about, so let's explain what we do here
<v Speaker 1>most weekdays. I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece your gaming
<v Speaker 1>life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
<v Speaker 1>some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
<v Speaker 1>I'll get the input of a bona fide expert. Will
<v Speaker 1>make me look smart. If you were watching live on twitch, welcome,
<v Speaker 1>you can always listen to the show later on podcast
<v Speaker 1>feeds by searching for Game mess Mornings. I need to
<v Speaker 1>fix that air on the RSS feed on giant bomb
<v Speaker 1>dot com. You can also catch the show later on
<v Speaker 1>YouTube Hello YouTube, And of course a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>are are going to giant bomb dot com slash joined
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<v Speaker 1>any trouble getting the ad free RSS feed, let us
<v Speaker 1>know you know on the discord and the forums, someone's
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<v Speaker 1>so far. We've gone independent and we're going to keep
<v Speaker 1>doing this thing with your help, please, all right, we
<v Speaker 1>have a lot to get into, so let's start the
<v Speaker 1>morning mess with. Nearly five years in PS five sales
<v Speaker 1>remain neck and neck with the PS four. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Andy Robinson over at VGC. Nearly five years into
<v Speaker 1>its life, PlayStation five sales remain neck and neck with
<v Speaker 1>its predecessor PS four, and its latest results covering the
<v Speaker 1>three months ending March thirty first, twenty twenty five, Sony
<v Speaker 1>said it's sold two point eight million that's two point
<v Speaker 1>eight million PlayStation five consoles for a total of eighteen
<v Speaker 1>point five million for the fiscal year. That is down
<v Speaker 1>from twenty point eight million in the previous fiscal year.
<v Speaker 1>That means PS five is now sold seventy seven point
<v Speaker 1>eight million units total since its launch in November twenty twenty,
<v Speaker 1>just over one million units behind where the PS four was.
<v Speaker 1>When you line up the life cycles, basically line up
<v Speaker 1>the launches there, it's about one million behind. That is,
<v Speaker 1>you know, statistically basically even addie. The thing here though,
<v Speaker 1>is Sony does predict it'll sell fewer PlayStation fives through
<v Speaker 1>the next fiscal year than the PS four did in
<v Speaker 1>the equivalent time, So it's it. They don't expect it
<v Speaker 1>to catch up to the PS four at this point,
<v Speaker 1>and obviously, I think we can point to a million
<v Speaker 1>reasons why, including something we're gonna have to talk about
<v Speaker 1>in a moment on the show, prices and price increases.
<v Speaker 1>I think if people were waiting on the sideline for
<v Speaker 1>this thing to become more affordable, well they've just given up, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I that's always the kicker with the mid the
<v Speaker 2>mid console life fan like refresh, the We've we've had
<v Speaker 2>slim consoles and pro consoles, and with the PS five
<v Speaker 2>we got the Pro and it did not push prices down,
<v Speaker 2>and I am I'm very curious how that will affect
<v Speaker 2>continued adoption rates with regards to like we're seeing we're
<v Speaker 2>finally seeing that that leap where we're not getting as
<v Speaker 2>many cross generation games. We're still getting a lot, but
<v Speaker 2>like they're finally starting to cut off finally in the tail,
<v Speaker 2>and I think people are going to be holding on
<v Speaker 2>more than ever. So I'm curious if anyone who is
<v Speaker 2>flexible enough in their production pipeline that maybe we're going
<v Speaker 2>to go exclusive for an next gen or fish gin
<v Speaker 2>where maybe still gonna make a PS four compatible version
<v Speaker 2>at this point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think for a lot of developers, they just
<v Speaker 1>looked around were like, it doesn't make any sense not
<v Speaker 1>to make this game for PS four. It's plenty powerful
<v Speaker 1>for what we're doing obviously, right, we're talking about that
<v Speaker 1>upper etchelon. Maybe it's not the right word, but that
<v Speaker 1>game that probably shouldn't be compatible with the last gen,
<v Speaker 1>but still just doing that because it makes sense financially. Now,
<v Speaker 1>you know, let's go over all the caveats that are
<v Speaker 1>always important to put out here. The PS five was
<v Speaker 1>definitely supply constrained early on, so it did fall behind
<v Speaker 1>the PS four specifically because of that, but then it
<v Speaker 1>also had a huge amount of demand throughout the pandemic,
<v Speaker 1>so they were able to make up a lot of
<v Speaker 1>that during that period of time. I think another caveat
<v Speaker 1>worth pointing out is, you know, this is the PS
<v Speaker 1>five sort of boxing against itself because the Xbox is
<v Speaker 1>not presented much of it much in the way of competition.
<v Speaker 1>I think the Xbox One Series X is a very
<v Speaker 1>good console to use. I enjoy it, but everyone no
<v Speaker 1>one's going around being like, you should definitely get that
<v Speaker 1>instead of a PS five. When people talk about getting
<v Speaker 1>a console. If you're out there in the regular, regular
<v Speaker 1>audience and you say, what should I get, everyone's pointing
<v Speaker 1>you to a PS five. So there's a lot it
<v Speaker 1>feels that there should be like a lot of like
<v Speaker 1>tailwind pushing the PS five ahead, and yet it's kind
<v Speaker 1>of just even with the PS four. Do you think
<v Speaker 1>part of that is this sort of macro trend. Sure,
<v Speaker 1>us nerds who grew up with this stuff are showing
<v Speaker 1>up and we are spending a lot of money on it,
<v Speaker 1>and when we're a big enough audience that these corporations
<v Speaker 1>can't ignore us, But we're not necessarily being replaced by
<v Speaker 1>a lot of younger people kind of playing games in
<v Speaker 1>the same way we are.
<v Speaker 2>I really think that's it. I'll point to your own
<v Speaker 2>video about the Xbox price increases, where you know it's
<v Speaker 2>very much they are out of new people to sell
<v Speaker 2>consoles too, for the most part, and convincing you to
<v Speaker 2>upgrade over their previous version with the price increases. I
<v Speaker 2>think they know that it's not a compelling offer in
<v Speaker 2>all situations. And you mentioned like if you the Xbox
<v Speaker 2>versus PlayStation, if you tell a normal person buy a console,
<v Speaker 2>I think, honestly, for the past few years, it's just
<v Speaker 2>been Switch like it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's true.
<v Speaker 2>It's hard. It's been harder to have that conversation when
<v Speaker 2>you are talking to someone who wants the big bombastic
<v Speaker 2>on your big TV games. But realistically, like the console
<v Speaker 2>offering from the Switch has been so compelling at some
<v Speaker 2>such an affordable price that we're seeing so much shift
<v Speaker 2>to Switch and PC instead of Switch versus PlayStation versus Xbox.
<v Speaker 2>That to me, it is very impressive. With the stock
<v Speaker 2>shortages that we had early on, with how much like
<v Speaker 2>every conversation was I really want to PlayStation five and
<v Speaker 2>I cannot find one that it caught up as much
<v Speaker 2>as they did. Like that, that speaks a lot to
<v Speaker 2>not only was the demand there, but they kept people
<v Speaker 2>like fed enough that they kept coming back. They didn't
<v Speaker 2>just go elsewhere. And maybe that speaks to how not
<v Speaker 2>compelling the Xbox offering was was that people could not
<v Speaker 2>get PlayStations and they just waited until they could. And
<v Speaker 2>I think people still waiting, like you said, for the
<v Speaker 2>for the price to drop, especially with the Pro coming out,
<v Speaker 2>you kind of would expect it to happen. You're not
<v Speaker 2>getting that, and the Pro is just not where people
<v Speaker 2>are going to buy a console these days price wise,
<v Speaker 2>I just it's it's really hard. I want to see
<v Speaker 2>more people getting into gaming. I want to see, yes,
<v Speaker 2>a hobby spread like that. That's why we do what
<v Speaker 2>we do. We talk about these things. But I also
<v Speaker 2>I can't convince someone to go spend six hundred dollars
<v Speaker 2>for a single game to then spend you know, a
<v Speaker 2>few hundred other dollars into the other. Like it's it's
<v Speaker 2>a really hard standing point. Games are incredible, but it's
<v Speaker 2>like if you're not there already, how do you get
<v Speaker 2>into it.
<v Speaker 1>It's a really high barrier to entry, I think, higher
<v Speaker 1>than ever, and uh, it might continue to get worse. Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>the price increases that have already happened are are are noticeable.
<v Speaker 1>The you know you talk about the Pro, that's I mean,
<v Speaker 1>that was such an inflection point where like last generation
<v Speaker 1>we got the PS four Pro and it was very
<v Speaker 1>much like this. I remember talking to someone from Sony
<v Speaker 1>who basically just said, like, this is a way for
<v Speaker 1>us to keep the price where it was at launch.
<v Speaker 1>We're just going to replace the original PS four with this,
<v Speaker 1>and and you know it's it's for a smaller audience.
<v Speaker 1>But that most hardcore audience, the one that would pay
<v Speaker 1>we we know has paid this price before, pay it
<v Speaker 1>again for something that's significantly better. It's like, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I get it everything. You know, the whole stack moves down.
<v Speaker 1>And then the PS four standard went on to sell
<v Speaker 1>very well after that point for the rest of the generation.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, we've come to a point where that's
<v Speaker 1>obviously not happening. And I think, you know, tariffs aside,
<v Speaker 1>we'll talk, but there's more. There's tariffs to talk about
<v Speaker 1>here as part of the news because stuff continues to
<v Speaker 1>move there and Nintendo's talked about it a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, before the tariffs, like we were getting
<v Speaker 1>price increases. Before the tariffs, we were not seeing any
<v Speaker 1>more price cuts, So that was just becoming the norm.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of that is just the way that these
<v Speaker 1>the components seem to be sourced, don't really lend themselves
<v Speaker 1>to this, to the way of cutting prices the way
<v Speaker 1>they once did. Another part is I think these companies
<v Speaker 1>have realized that this audience will kind of pay more
<v Speaker 1>and more and more and keep showing up because we
<v Speaker 1>don't feel like we can go anywhere. I think I
<v Speaker 1>have retreated to PC and switch in a lot of ways.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm still getting these consoles the most part. And
<v Speaker 1>I know that that sort of stubbornness is a big
<v Speaker 1>part of the way we all play games, and I
<v Speaker 1>think they're just taking advantage of that. So it's those
<v Speaker 1>two factors of you know them. The way they make
<v Speaker 1>things doesn't necessarily lend itself to cutting prices, and they
<v Speaker 1>know they can really come for us because we're not
<v Speaker 1>going to go away if the price goes up ten
<v Speaker 1>to thirty percent.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and platform hopping is just a hard concept for
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people to get. Like I think if
<v Speaker 2>it were easier, if games were inherently just cross platform,
<v Speaker 2>like you bought a license and you could play it
<v Speaker 2>wherever or whatever, it would be a more compelling offering.
<v Speaker 2>But if you already have a massive PlayStation library, especially
<v Speaker 2>with the backwards compatibility that has been pushed forward from
<v Speaker 2>PS four to PS five, you can't just abandon that,
<v Speaker 2>Like you if you're trying to convince someone to stop
<v Speaker 2>buying it, it's like, Okay, I have fifteen twenty thirty,
<v Speaker 2>two hundred. However, many games you have across both platforms
<v Speaker 2>and will continue to be playable forward, you want me
<v Speaker 2>to rebuy those, and like you can keep your older console,
<v Speaker 2>but that means you're still not getting any money towards
<v Speaker 2>your like your new system, be at Xbox or PC
<v Speaker 2>or whatever. Like, people get really locked in now on
<v Speaker 2>the platform, Whereas it felt like, especially with how cheap
<v Speaker 2>games could get in earlier generations, it was a lot
<v Speaker 2>easier for people to just like dump their console. Like
<v Speaker 2>I remember working a game stop and people would just
<v Speaker 2>bring in like their PS one and their PS two
<v Speaker 2>and just dump their whole library and jump over to
<v Speaker 2>Xbox for a little bit, and then they dump their
<v Speaker 2>because they could get whatever games they wanted to grab
<v Speaker 2>for like five or ten bucks, and the consoles were
<v Speaker 2>just everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>And I think it's a double edged sort of like
<v Speaker 2>there are a lot of cool games I think we'll
<v Speaker 2>talk about in a minute that are coming up for
<v Speaker 2>PlayStation that will be compelling, but there are so many
<v Speaker 2>premium experiences you can get right now on a home
<v Speaker 2>console in terms of the big budget games that are compelling,
<v Speaker 2>but they don't feel like if you try to sell
<v Speaker 2>upsell a PlayStation five pro and you're like, yeah, you
<v Speaker 2>can get better graphics higher framewrates whatever, it doesn't feel compelling.
<v Speaker 2>But at the same time, if you try to sell
<v Speaker 2>someone now on a PS four, if they've been in
<v Speaker 2>the weeds, and because that used to be the thing
<v Speaker 2>is like okay, you know, we're we're not gonna do
<v Speaker 2>the Xbox quote. But like, if you don't want a
<v Speaker 2>PS three right now, grab a PS two for fifty bucks.
<v Speaker 2>You've got so many games to play forever. But now
<v Speaker 2>there's so much bigger, like Fomo for the new the
<v Speaker 2>new Doom, the new Death Stranding, the new Ghosts of Yota,
<v Speaker 2>like there is you're missing out on a lot more,
<v Speaker 2>it feels like, and so even though you can't upsell anymore,
<v Speaker 2>no one wants to go like, no one wants to
<v Speaker 2>settle for less either.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's a kind of a miserable position in
<v Speaker 1>a lot of ways where it's like, oh yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>mean the business model of gaming has really encroached on
<v Speaker 1>the enjoyment of gaming in a lot of ways, and
<v Speaker 1>that's been very frustrating. As you point out, let's see
<v Speaker 1>here there is a bunch of games. Oh yeah, there
<v Speaker 1>it is, Okay, Ghost of Yota Marathon. What else did
<v Speaker 1>they have for this year. Oh yes, Death Stranding two
<v Speaker 1>is coming out soon, and then they were looking forward
<v Speaker 1>to a big pup with GT six. Obviously that's moved
<v Speaker 1>the next year, and then Intergalactic is a couple of
<v Speaker 1>years off. That's the new one from Naughty Dogs. They
<v Speaker 1>got plenty of stuff that should be getting people's attention,
<v Speaker 1>but nothing really is going to change the story probably
<v Speaker 1>until GTA six really maybe Intergalactic all right. Sticking with
<v Speaker 1>this general theme, PS five could get more expensive as
<v Speaker 1>Sony considers plans to deal with tariff impact. This is
<v Speaker 1>from Darren BoNT Use at GameSpot. Sony is bracing itself
<v Speaker 1>for a six hundred and eighty million dollar impact from
<v Speaker 1>US tariffs, and to compensate for those potential losses, the
<v Speaker 1>PlayStation manufacturer might pass the increasing cost to its customers.
<v Speaker 1>During the company's earnings call, Sony CFO Lindau told investors
<v Speaker 1>that price increases on its hardware are being considered. Although
<v Speaker 1>PS five console was not mentioned specifically, CEO Herokayu Totoke
<v Speaker 1>did mention that PS five comp so manufacturing could be
<v Speaker 1>moved to the US. Most of its consul are Yeah, maybe,
<v Speaker 1>said could be. That's crazy. It won't be most of
<v Speaker 1>its consoles are produced in China and are subject to
<v Speaker 1>a thirty percent tariff for now, as this would be
<v Speaker 1>an efficient strategy to avoid being caught in the crossfire
<v Speaker 1>of US President Donald Trump's tariffs. Yeah, good luck with that.
<v Speaker 1>So this is something I think we kind of knew
<v Speaker 1>when those worldwide price increases happened, things that weren't necessarily
<v Speaker 1>directly related to the tariff, although I think that was
<v Speaker 1>definitely in mind when they were raising the prices in
<v Speaker 1>just about every other territory other than the United States,
<v Speaker 1>and they were just waiting on raising the price here
<v Speaker 1>because they didn't know exactly how much to raise the
<v Speaker 1>price by because the tariffs were such a moving target.
<v Speaker 1>They are still although we're in this weird ninety day
<v Speaker 1>holding period where the tariffs are only you know, quote
<v Speaker 1>unquote only thirty percent on China. So yeah, I still
<v Speaker 1>think a price increase for the PS five is incoming
<v Speaker 1>for the United States, which is just another thing that
<v Speaker 1>is going to make it more difficult to keep up
<v Speaker 1>with the PS four obviously and put up those barriers
<v Speaker 1>of entry that we were talking about.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, So I got a question for you. Yeah, Shoot,
<v Speaker 2>do you think The shift to focus on game pass
<v Speaker 2>and PlayStation Plus subscriptions instead of purely hardware sales or
<v Speaker 2>like purely like fit and direct game sales is having
<v Speaker 2>a negative impact here because used to it was always
<v Speaker 2>you sell the hardware at a loss, make it up
<v Speaker 2>in games. But they are now doing games at a
<v Speaker 2>loss through the subscription effectively and not being able to
<v Speaker 2>subsidize it as much. Do you think we're seeing like
<v Speaker 2>a weird almost feedback loop of they cut their funding
<v Speaker 2>for their hardware here and now they're having to make
<v Speaker 2>it up. But then if they're not selling the hardware,
<v Speaker 2>they're not going to sell the games on the hardware. Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's a cycle.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I definitely think that, Like they notice the pressure
<v Speaker 1>from from that game sale subscription side a little bit
<v Speaker 1>when they are pricing the hardware. I think you're right
<v Speaker 1>that is feeding back in to a certain extent. Now
<v Speaker 1>you know the way those subscriptions work, I'm sure they
<v Speaker 1>probably do come out positive in terms of average lifetime
<v Speaker 1>value per user where they are looking like down the line,
<v Speaker 1>but in the moment, at any given time, they are
<v Speaker 1>definitely worried about, well, this could slip in a direction
<v Speaker 1>that is going to make it feel like we're going
<v Speaker 1>to take a hit, so we have to keep everything
<v Speaker 1>floating as high as it possibly can in terms of
<v Speaker 1>our average retail price or whatever. So yeah, I think
<v Speaker 1>that's definitely a part of it. I think that these
<v Speaker 1>companies are also just they are looking twenty years into
<v Speaker 1>the future and being like that is a big unknown
<v Speaker 1>in terms of are we going to be able to
<v Speaker 1>make the shift to whatever gaming is going to look
<v Speaker 1>like when a lot of these console gamers are aging
<v Speaker 1>out at a certain point, And so we have to
<v Speaker 1>make as much money now as we possibly can to
<v Speaker 1>be able to weather any possible transition that we're not
<v Speaker 1>prepared for. So yeah, and you know that. Then we
<v Speaker 1>speak to Sony's other businesses, which are you know, not
<v Speaker 1>in shambles, but they're definitely a lot of them are
<v Speaker 1>in much rougher shape than PlayStation. So PlayStation has to
<v Speaker 1>sort of lift that entire ship at a lot of
<v Speaker 1>a lot of points, so it has to make as
<v Speaker 1>much money as possible. Now, the good news there for
<v Speaker 1>them is it is making a lot of money. It's uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they did report their earnings. It was like
<v Speaker 1>two point eight billion dollars in profits essentially operating income
<v Speaker 1>and that's like, that's really really good. That gets up
<v Speaker 1>like almost fifty percent, around forty five percent from last year.
<v Speaker 1>So they are figuring things out in terms of making money.
<v Speaker 1>But I think they continue to be like, well, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but we're leaving a lot on the table because we
<v Speaker 1>don't have the big live service game or whatever. And
<v Speaker 1>in the meantime, we're not going to take any hits
<v Speaker 1>that we don't have to, and these people keep showing
<v Speaker 1>up for our console at this price, we should just
<v Speaker 1>keep it as high as we can. And a lot
<v Speaker 1>of that is also strategic positioning, right, so when the
<v Speaker 1>PS six does come out, they can compare that to
<v Speaker 1>the current price of whatever the PS five will be
<v Speaker 1>at that time, and then when they need to charge
<v Speaker 1>charge seven hundred dollars for the base version of that,
<v Speaker 1>it feels more justified. So there's just a lot of
<v Speaker 1>angles that they're considering, and price increases feel like they
<v Speaker 1>were always on the table even before the tariffs. Now
<v Speaker 1>they feel like a guarantee.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, will we get our E three moment where then
<v Speaker 2>Xbox comes out on the stage and says two ninety nine.
<v Speaker 1>I think they will go even more expensive at this point.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's the actual new E three moment that we get. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>all right, let's see here. Yeah, let's do this next
<v Speaker 1>one because it's still on this topic. US slashes tariffs
<v Speaker 1>on Chinese small parcels to thirty percent. This is from
<v Speaker 1>Oscar anton On Docale from Game Reactor the latest news
<v Speaker 1>on the United States and China. The United States has
<v Speaker 1>recently announced a significant reduction to its deminimous tariff on
<v Speaker 1>low value Chinese shipments, lowering to thirty lowering it to
<v Speaker 1>thirty percent for direct to consumer postal packages. So this
<v Speaker 1>is the thing that makes like things like Chian and
<v Speaker 1>what's what's the big one that everyone led the cheap
<v Speaker 1>team team Tamu. Thank you. Yes, things like Tamu work
<v Speaker 1>because people can buy you know, up to like eight
<v Speaker 1>hundred dollars worth of stuff and it was not necessarily
<v Speaker 1>going to be hit by many, if any tariffs coming
<v Speaker 1>into the United States as long as it was shipped
<v Speaker 1>as a small parcel that enable those business models to
<v Speaker 1>have very very aggressive profit margins, and people love that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Thirty percent is still a lot. They're just you know,
<v Speaker 1>we say they're cutting it. It was a you know,
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and forty five percent or something like that,
<v Speaker 1>so I guess it is a cut from that. But
<v Speaker 1>this is this is good news for kind of everything
<v Speaker 1>that you can that they might ship from China. That's
<v Speaker 1>not going to necessarily be a PIS five because those
<v Speaker 1>are going to come over on large freighters and and
<v Speaker 1>things like that. But you know, your FPGA consoles and
<v Speaker 1>things like that, you're you're misters, those might be able
<v Speaker 1>to skirt by with just a you know again, quote
<v Speaker 1>unquote just eight thirty percent tariff. So that's some good news,
<v Speaker 1>but it's a ninety day pause. This stuff could change
<v Speaker 1>as well. Boy, I'm addie, I'm glad I'm not in
<v Speaker 1>one in the business of trying to make hardware in
<v Speaker 1>China and bring it to the United States as my
<v Speaker 1>small business. A lot of those guys I just completely admire.
<v Speaker 1>They're doing such cool stuff. I wish they didn't have
<v Speaker 1>to deal with this. What do you think the future
<v Speaker 1>of those kinds of businesses are?
<v Speaker 2>That's honestly what I worry about. Everyone focuses on the
<v Speaker 2>Ali Express, the Timu, the whatever, and like, sure, we
<v Speaker 2>could all do without those in our lives. Like yes, fine,
<v Speaker 2>but it's the it's the like you said, the small
<v Speaker 2>business is like the retro tink, Like everyone was up
<v Speaker 2>in arms about the retrodink four case price, and then
<v Speaker 2>there was a cheaper one that was eventually made. They
<v Speaker 2>can't keep getting made cheaper when these things keep happening.
<v Speaker 2>And then even the individual like macrospace, like Ada Fruit
<v Speaker 2>and all of these places where you get like raspberry
<v Speaker 2>pie boards and like your own components to build stuff.
<v Speaker 2>These have been dirt cheap because of the pretty flexible
<v Speaker 2>policies so far, and it will be a mostly unsustainable
<v Speaker 2>business model at this point because if you need to
<v Speaker 2>pay an extra thirty or one hundred and forty percent
<v Speaker 2>for what was a thirty part for your little build,
<v Speaker 2>you're not gonna be able to do that or scale that.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm I obviously eventually these things will be figured out,
<v Speaker 2>but I worry how much we're gonna lose along the
<v Speaker 2>way of businesses that just can't sit it out for
<v Speaker 2>this long. Like I really worry about that space because
<v Speaker 2>we could we could all say buy to Timu and
<v Speaker 2>live better, but you know we may not get especially
<v Speaker 2>in the in the retro gaming scenes, so many products
<v Speaker 2>are made from custom design PCBs printed chiefly in China,
<v Speaker 2>import it over even if they're open source, Like there's
<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of retro stuff that's open source, and
<v Speaker 2>it's like, okay, but you're still gonna go to what,
<v Speaker 2>I forget the name of the website, one of those
<v Speaker 2>websites that lets you just like print your own PCBs.
<v Speaker 2>You upload the specs and you print it. Like you're
<v Speaker 2>not gonna be able to do that affordably anymore, Like
<v Speaker 2>I yeah, that's that's where I'm worried the most about,
<v Speaker 2>and I think it's gonna be really hard. Thankfully, the
<v Speaker 2>community driven stuff where it's you know your your local game,
<v Speaker 2>you know your your smaller game. Business stuff is very
<v Speaker 2>You can do big group buys, you can everyone can wait,
<v Speaker 2>like especially when it's not that person's full time job,
<v Speaker 2>like theoretically they can wait to ship stuff and everyone
<v Speaker 2>can just hold out on the pre orders, like we
<v Speaker 2>all know what's going on. But anyone trying to just
<v Speaker 2>sell it to like bigger sellers and get it like
<v Speaker 2>shipped on a bigger scale is screwed.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was. I might have told the story on
<v Speaker 1>the show before we went on our break, but I
<v Speaker 1>got the flippy drive thing. Yeah, and I was able
<v Speaker 1>to like, my order got delayed and that this is
<v Speaker 1>a basically an optical drive emulator that were all for
<v Speaker 1>the GameCube everybody, and it's the one I ordered was
<v Speaker 1>delayed way into August. And then I read their blog
<v Speaker 1>post about how they are going to be hit pretty
<v Speaker 1>hard by the tariffs and they're trying not to pass
<v Speaker 1>that cost onto anyone who's already pre ordered. So they
<v Speaker 1>basically cut a bunch of contractors that were helping them
<v Speaker 1>fulfill orders, and there was just the two of them
<v Speaker 1>doing everything seven days a week, pretty much NonStop. It's
<v Speaker 1>just like, yeah, that's so they're already doing as much
<v Speaker 1>as they possibly can. There is no more fat left
<v Speaker 1>to cut off if they you know, if one minor
<v Speaker 1>tragedy happens, it could it could just be done. And
<v Speaker 1>so you're right, like, I worry about losing these companies
<v Speaker 1>in this period of chaos. And we get to the other
<v Speaker 1>side and you're right, things do get figured out, Things
<v Speaker 1>go back to some sense of normal, maybe if we're lucky,
<v Speaker 1>and then we look back and be like, man, there
<v Speaker 1>are a lot of cool companies doing a lot of
<v Speaker 1>cool stuff, just because they're super passionate about it have
<v Speaker 1>gone away and we're gonna lose a ton Like we
<v Speaker 1>were kind of we were like a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>a golden era of the kinds of projects, and so.
<v Speaker 2>Like twenty seventeen until like twenty twenty three when things
<v Speaker 2>started getting funky, was just like this incredible golden age
<v Speaker 2>of all these retro projects, and I just, yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 2>still waiting on my flippy drive and I've just kind
<v Speaker 2>of made peace with the fact that I may not.
<v Speaker 1>Get it exactly. Yeah, I was able to have to
<v Speaker 1>be okay. I just like reached out and like, does
<v Speaker 1>anyone have one extra one? And someone sent me this one,
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I got an installed. It's great. I love it.
<v Speaker 1>I wish everyone it could have one. Yeah, all right,
<v Speaker 1>let's actually, you know what, let's take a break. There's
<v Speaker 1>one more tariff story after this from a nintend but
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna take a quick break. We'll come back and
<v Speaker 1>talk about that right after this. This episode of Giant
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<v Speaker 1>eeposvoxes with me, I'm Jeff Grub from Giant Bomb. You're
<v Speaker 1>watching Game mess Mornings. Let's get back into the news.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see here switch to news with Nintendo warning of
<v Speaker 1>substantial negative impact from tariffs. This is from Eddie McCoo
<v Speaker 1>at GameSpot. Basically, short version of this is, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we were talking about PlayStation mentioning what they think their
<v Speaker 1>exposure to tariffs is going to be something around six
<v Speaker 1>hundred and eighty million dollars dollars. I think that number was.
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo is kind of saying something something similar. They're saying
<v Speaker 1>several tens of billions of yen, and so every ten
<v Speaker 1>billion yin is worth sixty seven million dollars. So they're talking,
<v Speaker 1>you know, one hundred and fifty million dollars plus basically,
<v Speaker 1>and it very well could be a lot more. Now.
<v Speaker 1>When for a Kyawa was talking about this, Addie, it
<v Speaker 1>was during they're saying they did that calculation when they
<v Speaker 1>were expecting Chinese tariffs to be one hundred and forty
<v Speaker 1>five percent. Once again, they are at least temporarily down
<v Speaker 1>the thirty percent, and so that will change things quite
<v Speaker 1>a bit. But as you know, I do, and I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to insist on keeping on reminding people thirty percent
<v Speaker 1>is high on its own. When we were first talking
<v Speaker 1>about tariffs, we were like, man, that'd be crazy. I've
<v Speaker 1>went up to thirty percent. So now here we are
<v Speaker 1>kind of being grateful that it's down to thirty percent. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>these companies are just going to have to continue to
<v Speaker 1>navigate this chaos, right that that means we all are.
<v Speaker 1>But especially if you're trying to watch your new system
<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty five, like you just have no choice
<v Speaker 1>at a certain point but to pull the rip.
<v Speaker 2>Cord, right, Yeah, like you're and I think especially when
<v Speaker 2>you're this close to release and it's a whole new
<v Speaker 2>system and whatever, you're not gonna try to try to
<v Speaker 2>wiggle through the lines of like, all right, this this month,
<v Speaker 2>that's thirty percent. Next month, that's two hundred. Like you're
<v Speaker 2>just gonna go for the biggest number you think that
<v Speaker 2>you can. It's gonna be that will help you absorb it.
<v Speaker 2>And like we're even if it gets whittled down to
<v Speaker 2>thirty for a bit, like you're still gonna be eating
<v Speaker 2>the one hundred and forty five percent projection, Like it's
<v Speaker 2>that's yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, so it's uh. I think this is also Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>keeping price increases on the table. You know, they didn't
<v Speaker 1>increase prices after the tariffs were initially announced. They've now
<v Speaker 1>said multiple times that they weren't taking into consideration these
<v Speaker 1>Trump tariffs as they you know, when people ask them
<v Speaker 1>about it, it's like these tariffs that people were talking about,
<v Speaker 1>now we never even thought about these. We're thinking about
<v Speaker 1>all this other stuff. It's like, yeah, for sure, I
<v Speaker 1>get that, because you have to be able to say
<v Speaker 1>when you increase the price later, it's because of these tariffs.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I mean, I guess if excuse me, if
<v Speaker 1>this price does go up, when do you think that
<v Speaker 1>could happen? How much do you think it would be? Like?
<v Speaker 1>What can they get away with here?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how they get away with much more, honestly.
<v Speaker 1>Right, it's already it feels already maxed out in a
<v Speaker 1>lot of ways.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Like getting the switch spread so much after they
<v Speaker 2>had their own supply chain issues at the start too,
<v Speaker 2>but like they spread so much because everyone could get them.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that was the same thing with the Wii,
<v Speaker 2>like you could every household could have one or two
<v Speaker 2>Wi's because they were everywhere and that is how they
<v Speaker 2>built up this base, and I don't think trying to
<v Speaker 2>milk them for a six hundred dollars handheld is going
<v Speaker 2>to work out. I don't they what I have been expecting,
<v Speaker 2>especially with the games lineup they they've shown off so far,
<v Speaker 2>which is lacking some major heavy hitters. Is I think
<v Speaker 2>they are banking on cranking it up as far as
<v Speaker 2>they could go. I can't imagine like six hundred would
<v Speaker 2>be the cap, like who's who's gonna buy it after
<v Speaker 2>that point? Like right, But as they project towards that direction,
<v Speaker 2>I think they're banking on the core like true Nintendo
<v Speaker 2>fan boys and for lack of a better word, and
<v Speaker 2>the people who are going to be really invested in
<v Speaker 2>the social ecosystem because they they're the big bacon game
<v Speaker 2>is Mario Kart. They've got all these the webcam accessories.
<v Speaker 2>They're cranking up the pricing on the accessories already, like
<v Speaker 2>they want that person that is going to do the
<v Speaker 2>social stuff, which will help spread word of mouth, help
<v Speaker 2>pressure friends into getting in on the fun, and buy
<v Speaker 2>up all of the accessories to kind of add in
<v Speaker 2>some of that extra buffer and then whenever they do
<v Speaker 2>have the next big like Zelda, Mario, Metroid, whatever, that's
<v Speaker 2>when they'll start playing with the price a little bit
<v Speaker 2>to be like, all right, for this launch, let's try
<v Speaker 2>to get you actually in the door now that you've
<v Speaker 2>seen all your friends playing Mario or and then they
<v Speaker 2>have the new download feature like the DS had, where
<v Speaker 2>like you can start sharing it a little bit, so
<v Speaker 2>like they're they're I think they're they're setting up a
<v Speaker 2>interesting maneuver to know that they're not selling every single
<v Speaker 2>child bearing household a switch like they did before, but
<v Speaker 2>that they're gonna play at the seeds so that it
<v Speaker 2>becomes a desirable thing. And then whenever the truly compelling
<v Speaker 2>game tool whatever hits suddenly we'll see one hundred dollars
<v Speaker 2>off and it'll still be way more than you'd ever
<v Speaker 2>thought you'd pay for it. But it's like, oh, I
<v Speaker 2>can't get that. I can get up bundle with an
<v Speaker 2>extra controller.
<v Speaker 1>Hm m yep. I think they're going to try to
<v Speaker 1>play around with pricing in a lot of different ways,
<v Speaker 1>and right I think they're going to be you know,
<v Speaker 1>for lack of better word, I think dynamic with the pricing,
<v Speaker 1>like they're gonna have dynamic dynamic pricing for as much
<v Speaker 1>as you can get away with with the console. That is,
<v Speaker 1>you know, been something that they've been sort of scared
<v Speaker 1>to do in the past. I think these last this
<v Speaker 1>last generation where pricing has been a little bit more likely.
<v Speaker 1>Is this going to go up? And then it does?
<v Speaker 1>And then and then it's the consoles tend to keep
<v Speaker 1>selling as much as they can after that. I think
<v Speaker 1>these companies are maybe a little bit emboldened and that
<v Speaker 1>could easily bite them, but so far it hasn't. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think you're right. That will probably see them be
<v Speaker 1>malleable with how they present the price. A lot of
<v Speaker 1>that will come down to, hey, does it have a
<v Speaker 1>packing game or does in it? And then you know
<v Speaker 1>how much trial do the subscription right exactly? And then
<v Speaker 1>they could just kind of move things up and down
<v Speaker 1>based on how they are packaging it with other stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But when you do the math, you're like, hmm, this
<v Speaker 1>feels like a little bit of a price increase, and
<v Speaker 1>it actually turns out to be exactly that.
<v Speaker 2>I do wonder how it will affect the the smaller excuse,
<v Speaker 2>the light version, the two DS, the O lead possible
<v Speaker 2>upgrade model. Like, I feel like a lot of people
<v Speaker 2>are going to have originally at least expected these additional
<v Speaker 2>models that we got with the Switch one and prior systems,
<v Speaker 2>And I'm wondering if that will even be a viable
<v Speaker 2>option because at this point, yeah, well what a switch
<v Speaker 2>to O lead costs? Like theoretically they could have that
<v Speaker 2>ready from the start because they just swapped the screen out,
<v Speaker 2>but like what would that look like at this point?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I mean they probably pomp another fifty dollars
<v Speaker 1>on top of their right and at least at least
<v Speaker 1>that would be so be five hundred and five fifty,
<v Speaker 1>you know, but with a game or something like that
<v Speaker 1>that that looks really rough on a store shelf. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I Nintendo loves doing that. That is way too again,
<v Speaker 1>like you know the way the PS four Pro and
<v Speaker 1>the PS five Pro we were talking about earlier. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>these people that we know show up. It's a good
<v Speaker 1>way to get us to buy stuff again. But so
<v Speaker 1>you're right, though, that does feel more challenging this time around.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I felt when I was watching the original direct
<v Speaker 2>for the Switch to I was really since they obviously
<v Speaker 2>didn't have the price in it. I spent the whole
<v Speaker 2>thing really confused, because it felt like, for the first time,
<v Speaker 2>Nintendo was worried about steam Deck. Like if you look
<v Speaker 2>at the kind of games they presented in the like
<v Speaker 2>massive lineup, you look at the extra features, the focus
<v Speaker 2>on specs, like, it felt not Nintendo in many ways,
<v Speaker 2>and it felt like they were looking over their shoulder
<v Speaker 2>a lot at the steam Deck, which I felt like
<v Speaker 2>they did not need to do. I felt like, that's
<v Speaker 2>that's very not Nintendo. And I've always said, as much
<v Speaker 2>as I love steam Deck and this new generation of
<v Speaker 2>PC handhelds, Nintendo has got nothing to worry about. But
<v Speaker 2>then the price hits and it's like, maybe that's why,
<v Speaker 2>Like maybe they've known they couldn't get the price down
<v Speaker 2>even before all of this, and they kind of have
<v Speaker 2>to worry about steam Deck now in terms of a
<v Speaker 2>compelling price. And obviously we'll probably see seam Deck price
<v Speaker 2>increases too, We'll probably see whatever. Yeah, the valve will
<v Speaker 2>be more likely to eat it in the short term
<v Speaker 2>at least, But I think maybe they really did need
<v Speaker 2>to be scared of the steam Deck because hardware compelling wise,
<v Speaker 2>like price wise, it's just.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just the narrative that people can tell themselves, right,
<v Speaker 1>it's changed a little bit with that price. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>think they immediately became became like, yeah, we are going
<v Speaker 1>to have to compare this to the Steam deck in
<v Speaker 1>order to sort of make this price make sense. It does.
<v Speaker 1>It seem like a pretty good deal when you compared
<v Speaker 1>to some of these PC handhelds in some ways, but
<v Speaker 1>like that is the comparison point. So if those PC
<v Speaker 1>handhelds began making moves, Nintendo could easily look out of
<v Speaker 1>touch again. Now that is going to be for a
<v Speaker 1>very a narrower audience is, but it is still the
<v Speaker 1>story I immediately went to for sure, all right, sticky
<v Speaker 1>with Switch to a little bit. Best Buy confirms that
<v Speaker 1>some select stores will have Switch to stock on release night.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jack Valentine at Dual Shockers. Basically, for
<v Speaker 1>the unlucky gamers who haven't been able to pick up
<v Speaker 1>a Nintendo Switch to pre order, you can test your
<v Speaker 1>luck at participating Best Buy locations. An email from the
<v Speaker 1>retailer says that they will have limited inventory of the
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo Switch two systems, games and accessories. It is unclear
<v Speaker 1>if they will have both Nintendo Switch to skews available Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so this was just sort of announced. It does feel
<v Speaker 1>like these companies do have quite a bit of switch
<v Speaker 1>to stock that they were able to put into the
<v Speaker 1>pre orders system. And now as they get another wave,
<v Speaker 1>Best Buy is going to do, you know, hey, come
<v Speaker 1>to the store at midnight and try to get one.
<v Speaker 1>Other people will be picking up their pre orders, will
<v Speaker 1>have a few more there. So yeah, I think that's
<v Speaker 1>going to be another thing where people will probably have
<v Speaker 1>to line up and test their chances, as this is saying,
<v Speaker 1>But it does feel like they got quite a bit
<v Speaker 1>of a switch into the supply chain. I'm kind of surprised.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Best Buy consistently, like this has been a thing
<v Speaker 2>with a lot of electronics, Like they've consistently been the
<v Speaker 2>one that like you can kind of sneak in and
<v Speaker 2>get other stuff, Like there's this camera that I've been
<v Speaker 2>trying to order forever that is now completely not chipping
<v Speaker 2>to the US because of tariffs, but it was like
<v Speaker 2>impossible to find in any camera store whatsoever. But a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people were having luck talking to Best Buys
<v Speaker 2>like support chat and being like like verifying that they're
<v Speaker 2>a real person, they're using it for personal use, they're
<v Speaker 2>not trying to resell it and like actually getting some
<v Speaker 2>extra preorders, and it's like they seem to have a
<v Speaker 2>pretty consistent line on a lot of electronics for a
<v Speaker 2>pretty good pre order stock that a lot of stores
<v Speaker 2>are not able to keep up with, which is quite surprising.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Best Buy is the one that came out looking
<v Speaker 1>good of the pre order and Nintendo switch to thing, right,
<v Speaker 1>that's the one everyone was like, at least this one
<v Speaker 1>seemed to work somewhat okay. Yeah, well I hope that continues.
<v Speaker 1>To hope everyone's able to just get their systems right
<v Speaker 1>at midnight like they're hoping, and then I hope that
<v Speaker 1>some people who haven't been able to get a pre
<v Speaker 1>order are able to go to these midnight launches and
<v Speaker 1>get one that sounds like fun. Right now, I'm like
<v Speaker 1>trying to figure out my schedule with the summer game
<v Speaker 1>FESTIM like, where am I actually going to be in
<v Speaker 1>LA on the fifth? I think I probably will be,
<v Speaker 1>but we'll see, all right. Sandfall Interactive is not ruling
<v Speaker 1>out a switch to release of Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jonas Mackie, a game reactor. Hardly a
<v Speaker 1>day has passed since Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three was
<v Speaker 1>released without us having a reason to return to this
<v Speaker 1>fantastic role playing game that has managed to charm both
<v Speaker 1>critics and gamers. It's out now for PC, PlayStation five,
<v Speaker 1>and Xbox Series X and S, and it's also included
<v Speaker 1>with game Pass. Sales have been very good, but releasing
<v Speaker 1>Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three to more formats would still
<v Speaker 1>open up even better results, and maybe that's something French
<v Speaker 1>developers Sandfall is considering. In a video interview hosted by
<v Speaker 1>Mister MV studio head Gilame Broch says, and this is
<v Speaker 1>translated by MP first, well, at this point, considering the
<v Speaker 1>success of the game, it kind of changes everything. So
<v Speaker 1>clearly it's too early to say, but we're kind of
<v Speaker 1>in a situation where, let's say that there are a
<v Speaker 1>lot of opportunities showing up way too many at once,
<v Speaker 1>and we're figuring out what we'll go for and what
<v Speaker 1>we won't. But yeah, it's definitely something that could be interesting. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>and that was in response to putting the game out
<v Speaker 1>on switch to This feels like the kind of thing
<v Speaker 1>that like when a game pops off like this, it
<v Speaker 1>does get the port treatment a little bit faster. I
<v Speaker 1>think I'm trying to think, you know, you know what
<v Speaker 1>it was. This isn't exactly a port, but like when
<v Speaker 1>Cyberpunk was kind of having its reinvigoration and they like
<v Speaker 1>got it ready for the Steam Deck right away, It's
<v Speaker 1>like they do that because they know if they do that,
<v Speaker 1>it'll pay off. This feels like a similar thing where
<v Speaker 1>if they get this thing on on the Switch to
<v Speaker 1>it's clearly going to pay off. Those audiences feel like
<v Speaker 1>they would mesh really well.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Oh yeah, I mean JRPGs and handheld's go hand
<v Speaker 2>in hand. Yes, even on the PSP. I've just picked
<v Speaker 2>up Final Fantasy one and two for the PSB because
<v Speaker 2>these covers were incredible visual novel games, and JRPGs are
<v Speaker 2>just handheld matches, so it's perfect fit. Obviously, galing the
<v Speaker 2>game to the Switch too will be questionable until we
<v Speaker 2>see how it handles everything else, with all the U
<v Speaker 2>five things that have been talked to death, but it
<v Speaker 2>would be dumb not to at this point, like that's
<v Speaker 2>potential gamers to tap, although how many people will have
<v Speaker 2>the Switch too is up for debate, but like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it is a market that you're getting a lot of
<v Speaker 2>money get your game to more people.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, I think for the Switch one and it's launch,
<v Speaker 1>there was this huge opportunity if you were the game
<v Speaker 1>there that people were talking about Golf Story. Right. Everyone
<v Speaker 1>bought Golf Story because it was just one of those
<v Speaker 1>games that was there and it's a really good game,
<v Speaker 1>but it was there and people noticed it and it
<v Speaker 1>was able to capitalize on that. It's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a little bit more crowded on the Switch too, right,
<v Speaker 1>you probably still want to be there because if you
<v Speaker 1>are going to be one of these games that becomes
<v Speaker 1>like one of the chosen ones, and you know, it
<v Speaker 1>feels like Cyberpunk is on its way to be in
<v Speaker 1>that because they've talked to the fans in a way
<v Speaker 1>that been like, we're putting this game entirely on the
<v Speaker 1>card because we know it's important to you and we
<v Speaker 1>think that matters and all that stuff, and people are like,
<v Speaker 1>oh my god, we're God got for you saying these things.
<v Speaker 1>So it feels like Cyberpunk is going to ride this wave.
<v Speaker 1>Expedition thirty three coming relatively soon. I don't know what
<v Speaker 1>that would look like within the next year. Feels like
<v Speaker 1>it could also be like, oh man, they're putting out
<v Speaker 1>this really awesome game from last year onto this thing.
<v Speaker 1>We're going to want to pick this one as well.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, you kind of can't miss that opportunity. Even
<v Speaker 1>if it just sells okay on the switch to it's
<v Speaker 1>probably going to make quite a bit of money. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>all right. The title of the Super Mario Brothers movie
<v Speaker 1>sequel has accidentally been revealed early. This is from Chris
<v Speaker 1>Scullion at VGC. The title of the sequel to the
<v Speaker 1>Super Mario Brothers movie was accidentally revealed earlier by NBC
<v Speaker 1>Universal and a press release published on the NBC Universal
<v Speaker 1>website for its upfront showcase. The company revealed the name
<v Speaker 1>of the second Mario movie in a section on Peacock Streaming,
<v Speaker 1>referring to it as Super Mario World, which I think
<v Speaker 1>we probably should have been able to guess based on
<v Speaker 1>the way the first movie went. The there's a quote
<v Speaker 1>here with all the stuff they have coming, Oh, a
<v Speaker 1>new Doubton Abbey movie. Excuse me, I love me some
<v Speaker 1>dowbn Avy Super Mario World, right, Yeah, that make a
<v Speaker 1>Yoshi heavy Mario sequel that makes all the sense in
<v Speaker 1>the world. Sorry, I didn't mean to do the World
<v Speaker 1>World THNK. But Addie, are you looking forward to the
<v Speaker 1>Mario movie too? Yeah? Uh huh.
<v Speaker 2>It will exist. It will be one of the movies
<v Speaker 2>that comes out.
<v Speaker 1>That is definitely how I feel about the first one,
<v Speaker 1>where I'm like, this is not I do not find
<v Speaker 1>this offensive or even all that bad, but it is
<v Speaker 1>just there.
<v Speaker 2>It's not made for me, and that's okay, yes exactly.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, Super Mario World Yoshi does feel like
<v Speaker 1>a good path for them, like having a ton of
<v Speaker 1>success again, right, Like there's no reason to assume that
<v Speaker 1>they're not going to be able to recapture a lot
<v Speaker 1>of the magic of the first movie, right in terms
<v Speaker 1>of making money.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, absolutely, And I think there's a lot of
<v Speaker 2>room for that kind of like preteen and slightly younger
<v Speaker 2>than preteen humor that they do with these movies with Yoshi,
<v Speaker 2>like eating every want, Like there's no end of comedy
<v Speaker 2>for them to play into that. Like, I think it'll
<v Speaker 2>I think it'll do really well.
<v Speaker 1>What's uh, what what is your opinion on Yoshi overall?
<v Speaker 1>I people seem to have strong opinions on this character.
<v Speaker 1>I'm wondering if you're one of these people that.
<v Speaker 2>Does cute little dinosaur I got, you know, I got
<v Speaker 2>my wife the the the yarn one from the w
<v Speaker 2>U where they have a little thing like like it
<v Speaker 2>appreciate playing through Super Mario World from time to time.
<v Speaker 2>I don't have any major like, he's probably my favorite character,
<v Speaker 2>but that's not a very high list of.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so so I am jumping over a pit. I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna miss it. I h drop the Yoshi into the
<v Speaker 1>bottomless pit to survive. Your feelings are like, yeah, that's
<v Speaker 1>what you do.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Okay, A double jump in other games like whatever,
<v Speaker 2>like you can double jump sometimes.
<v Speaker 1>Like uh huh, yoh, Yoshi the Dinosaur double jump. Absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>I yeah, my kids really like the first Mario movie.
<v Speaker 1>They watched that for a while, so it'll be nice
<v Speaker 1>to get another one so we can throw it into
<v Speaker 1>the rotation. That's sort of where I'm at with that. Otherwise, Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>last headline I have here. Nintendo SF store allows customized
<v Speaker 1>customized switch o lead colors. It has been revealed that,
<v Speaker 1>similar to Japan, the newly opened Nintendo San Francisco store
<v Speaker 1>will allow gamers to customize their shiny new Nintendo Switch
<v Speaker 1>O lead model for a price. You have the option
<v Speaker 1>to choose your preferred colors for the Joycon system doc
<v Speaker 1>and you're all important risk straps for your toy cons.
<v Speaker 1>If this sounds like your cup of tea, then it
<v Speaker 1>will set you back three hundred and fifty dollars. As
<v Speaker 1>noted previously in this article, this is exactly the same
<v Speaker 1>service that Nintendo has offered for the Japanese web store
<v Speaker 1>for years. This is pretty cool. Some friends were at
<v Speaker 1>this thing. I seem to think the store was pretty impressive.
<v Speaker 1>One thing that they definitely noticed, and I saw Tam
<v Speaker 1>posting about this, was that it has like a lot
<v Speaker 1>of metroid merch where you know, a lot of the
<v Speaker 1>other Nintendo stores necessary don't necessarily have that sort of thing,
<v Speaker 1>So it feels like they are trying to serve a
<v Speaker 1>hardcore gaming audience as well as the people, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the families that would show up to a Nintendo store.
<v Speaker 1>You ever done any like customized hardware from a like
<v Speaker 1>an official channel before official store.
<v Speaker 2>Not exactly. I did have the privilege of attending the
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Center when it was alive for all six months
<v Speaker 2>or whatever it was, and so I've been lucky enough
<v Speaker 2>to see a lot of the world and that is
<v Speaker 2>still because of the age and the generation of Pokemon
<v Speaker 2>that was out at the time. Getting to do that
<v Speaker 2>and get like a Pokemon downloaded to my cart was
<v Speaker 2>like one of my fondest memories in terms of gaming
<v Speaker 2>interacting with the real world. I wish these kinds of
<v Speaker 2>stores were more sustainable, that we could say that we
<v Speaker 2>can get them in more places, because I don't live
<v Speaker 2>near anywhere interesting to ever go visit them like on
<v Speaker 2>a regular basis, but like it seems like a really
<v Speaker 2>cool service. I immediately worry that, like, okay, especially with
<v Speaker 2>the markets being how there is, Like are they just
<v Speaker 2>going to get bombarded with resellers like grabbing them and
<v Speaker 2>running them off, and you know it's it's the the
<v Speaker 2>build a Bear model, Like it's cool. I I am
<v Speaker 2>someone who would do that and then play it until
<v Speaker 2>the rap got destroyed because I don't want to sit
<v Speaker 2>in in a box and then never look at it again,
<v Speaker 2>and that would offend a lot of people. It's a
<v Speaker 2>really cool thing and it's interesting to see them, and
<v Speaker 2>obviously like that's all they could do right now. But
<v Speaker 2>it's interesting to see a reason to go buy a
<v Speaker 2>switch O led as the switch to is coming out,
<v Speaker 2>Like that's honestly kind of smart because especially since most
<v Speaker 2>of the games aren't going to be switched to exclusive yet,
<v Speaker 2>like you're You're still giving someone a reason to be
<v Speaker 2>excited about going and getting a new switch hardware, which sure,
<v Speaker 2>like I'm down with that, Like why not?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? I Like It's definitely the kind of thing where
<v Speaker 1>it's like, if I were in the right mood and
<v Speaker 1>I was at that store, there is a chance I
<v Speaker 1>walk away having just spent more money on a switch
<v Speaker 1>one like that's yeah that Normally that wouldn't happen, but
<v Speaker 1>this could. This could be the kind of thing that
<v Speaker 1>might be able to convince me. I guess it would
<v Speaker 1>really depend on some of the cool color options.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. The Nintendo Store in New York, I think is nice.
<v Speaker 1>I've been there a couple of times. It's okay. I
<v Speaker 1>think the best part about it is just watching any
<v Speaker 1>of the videos where people are watching Nintendo directs. I
<v Speaker 1>guess it'll be nice to have another place where people
<v Speaker 1>do that. I suppose, But.
<v Speaker 2>You remember, did you ever have in your malls near
<v Speaker 2>you the WB Store, Yes, I did, Brother Store, Like
<v Speaker 2>it kind of feels like it's that where it's like
<v Speaker 2>it's the big thing to get kids to come in
<v Speaker 2>with like the giant tower of stuffed animals or whatever. Huh,
<v Speaker 2>Except they always try to do the interactive elements, and
<v Speaker 2>I think that makes it like it almost turns it
<v Speaker 2>into like an amusement park kind of thing. It ends
<v Speaker 2>a tourist stop, and so I appreciate that they're doing it,
<v Speaker 2>even if realistically, especially as an adult, like what you're
<v Speaker 2>gonna get from it is super limited. It at least
<v Speaker 2>lets you go and be like hey, especially as everything is.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we were just talking about midnight releases Best
<v Speaker 2>Buy for the Switch too, like that that's so uncommon
<v Speaker 2>these days. Like having something where you can go in
<v Speaker 2>person and just kind of engage with the hobby a
<v Speaker 2>little bit is pretty neat to me.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, I agree. I mean, I think we're always looking
<v Speaker 1>for ways to do exactly that, to have a real world,
<v Speaker 1>tactile sort of thing, or at least I am, And
<v Speaker 1>you know, the Nintendo Super Nintendo World has been really
<v Speaker 1>cool for that, But I don't always have the capacity
<v Speaker 1>or the funds to go to a theme park, and
<v Speaker 1>maybe I do want to spend a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>money on some merch or something like that. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>think these stores are super cool. I agree. I wish
<v Speaker 1>they were just in a few more cities. Yeah, maybe
<v Speaker 1>put one in the Midwest, that would be cool. All right,
<v Speaker 1>that does it for the headlines. We have a poll
<v Speaker 1>question from Monday. In fact, let me see if I
<v Speaker 1>can find that right here there we go, all right,
<v Speaker 1>So on Monday we asked giant bomb question mark and
<v Speaker 1>your options were yes, or and forever, and seventy four
<v Speaker 1>percent selected and forever. Twenty six percent of you said yes.
<v Speaker 1>Hey everybody, we're just glad to be back. We're glad
<v Speaker 1>to be doing this stuff. It's been awesome to get
<v Speaker 1>this all figured out. There are still a million moving
<v Speaker 1>parts to turn this into a business going forward, but
<v Speaker 1>so far we've appreciated all the support. We're gonna get
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of stuff turned on, bunch of what other
<v Speaker 1>ways to make money again, to make this make sense.
<v Speaker 1>People have been asking about super chats here on YouTube. Well, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna do those. Looking forward to all of it,
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, we'll get that stuff turned on and show
<v Speaker 1>you ways I'll show you new ways of interacting with
<v Speaker 1>us all here at Giant Bomb here pretty soon. In
<v Speaker 1>the meantime, we have another poll question. We'll get to
<v Speaker 1>here in a second. Before we do that, though, Addie,
<v Speaker 1>why don't you tell people where they can find you
<v Speaker 1>on the internet what you have going on and all
<v Speaker 1>that good.
<v Speaker 2>Stuff you postbox most places for social media handles and
<v Speaker 2>things like that. Obviously, my loose sky handle is below
<v Speaker 2>my picture here. I also have gaming content over on
<v Speaker 2>lost Saves, and yeah, that's pretty easy to find me.
<v Speaker 2>I did say I did want to propose some alternate
<v Speaker 2>names for the show.
<v Speaker 1>Just please do this. I'm always open to this.
<v Speaker 2>The most compelling and professional names for your morning live show. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>the Giant Morning Cast of course, Morning Giant Cast, the
<v Speaker 2>Giant Morning Mess uh huh, Independent Morning Mess Cast, uh huh,
<v Speaker 2>the Morning Mess Cast, the Messy Morning Bomb, and most importantly,
<v Speaker 2>Jeff Grubbs Giant Mess.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's just my life, Giant. What was the second
<v Speaker 1>to the last one? Giant Morning Mess? Yes, I like
<v Speaker 1>that one. I like the sound of that. That's good,
<v Speaker 1>all right, everybody. If we change the name to any
<v Speaker 1>of those, you will be the first to know. In
<v Speaker 1>the meantime, the poll question for today, are you going
<v Speaker 1>to a midnight launch for the switch to yes or no?
<v Speaker 1>Just curious, so I want to see if people are
<v Speaker 1>making plans to do that. I guess you know, if
<v Speaker 1>you pre order from best Buy and you're gonna go
<v Speaker 1>pick it up at midnight, I would count yourself as
<v Speaker 1>a yes. That seems like a yes. Or I guess
<v Speaker 1>if you're not going to go at midnight. No, you
<v Speaker 1>guys know how to answer questions. All right, let's see
<v Speaker 1>I got that done. What do we have happening on
<v Speaker 1>Giant Bomb. Yeah, we'll get the results of this poll
<v Speaker 1>talk about it on Games Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow.
<v Speaker 1>In addition to that, later today, we should have the
<v Speaker 1>new episode of Blake Club, the new season. Mike MINAUGHTI
<v Speaker 1>will be starting his game. That is at two pm
<v Speaker 1>Eastern eleven am Pacific time. Yeah. I'm really looking forward
<v Speaker 1>to y'all seeing how cool this guy's gonna look. Any
<v Speaker 1>idea is addie what he's gonna play? I do not. Yep,
<v Speaker 1>No one's gonna No one's gonna see it coming because
<v Speaker 1>he's just gonna look so cool. Again. That's two PM
<v Speaker 1>later today and then tomorrow back for game This mornings
<v Speaker 1>we'll have voicemail dump truck. There should be some more
<v Speaker 1>quick looks popping off here pretty soon. On Friday, we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna do a UPF We're gonna play the Capcom Fighting
<v Speaker 1>Collection two. Probably probably spend a lot of time in Powerstone,
<v Speaker 1>so looking forward to that. All right, with all that
<v Speaker 1>out of the way, how do you think. Thank you
<v Speaker 1>so much for spending today talking with me about video games.
<v Speaker 1>I really appreciate having me. Yeah. Absolutely, we'll make it
<v Speaker 1>happen again sometime soon. For now, thank you everybody for watching.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you for listening. You're the best audience in gaming.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of
<v Speaker 1>yourself and goodbye. He'll be lacker, gon't be bear.