GrubbSnax Ep. 04: Activision Lawsuits, EA Play Live 2021, and Dragon Names

Yeah, it's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this. I'm Jeff Grub. This is grub Snacks on giant bomb dot com. We are going to talk about some video game news today. We're gonna get all into it real soon, real quick. Though. At the top when to write people. This is an interactive show. We take questions from the audience. If you're watching live, make sure you do that. If you have a question, you can send them in using the ask a Question button there at the top. I will get it here. And you know what, I gotta make sure I get that actually set up so that it shows up when I go there. So hit that and we'll get that going here in a second. So, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff I wanted to talk about today. EA play is happening later again if you are if you're watching live, staff at John Bomb's gonna talk over that, So make sure you stay tuned after this for that kind of like should they should be ready to go pretty soon after that after we're done here, And that is one of the things I wanted to talk about today. I'm also want to talk a little bit about the Steam deck and it's pricing. We'll get intol of that. Let's let's start with the the big awful news coming out of Activision Blizzard. Uh. There's a lot of great reporting out there right now about this. Uh. This is the kind of thing where we're kind of lucky right now to have so many people kind of verary on top of these things right now. When when when stories like this break? And so I've been reading up. I read the the full uh basically complaint from the State of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, I think is what it is. I read the full complaint from them, and it's pretty terrible stuff. And it's it's terrible, and yet it's also unsurprising at a certain level. I've I've heard complaints from women specifically who've left Activision and Activision Blizzard, saying stuff along these lines that it was a terrible place to work. That's you know, I have been told those words. That's what I'll say. I'm not gonna, you know, go in there and say that any specifics. But the thing this with this complaint from the Department of Fair Fair Employment Housing is pretty damning. Uh. They are when when they're filing a complaint like this, they will include everything, and uh there it'll be their job to prove it once they actually you don't get to the point where that's the you know, that's where that unless activision tries to settle or something. But I will say, like, when it comes to an investigation like this that's happening at a like with public servants working on your behalf to hold a company accountable, that's the kind of thing. I wouldn't take that too lightly. I would not brush it off. I would not say that this is this is not like some private lawyer, uh trying to to you know, try to drum something up. Not that that would be something that let's we've actually ever really seen before. Happened very often in gaming. But this is you know, these are public servants who who pick and choose these cases because it you know, their time is very valuable and they have to decide, hey, this is going to be a case. It's going to make a difference for a lot of people, it's going to set an example. It's an especially egregious case. I'll say, like I've had you know, personal experience with this sort of stuff. I was underpaid by a job in Ohio and I complained to a state, you know, a state department, and then they were like, hey, yeah, we'll handle this for you. And they took the time to make sure I got my money and got paid out and stuff like that, and was like paid for, you know, the re retaliation I got for complaining in the first place. And these are people just doing their jobs to make sure like they can enforce the rules. And I think one thing that's you know, it's it's difficult to remember that we give a lot of power to companies in our in our society, in our in our and the way our economy is set up. We give them a lot of power, especially in the United States, like we let them, uh, you know, handle the healthcare like they're they're the ones that pay for healthcare and stuff like that. And we also set it up so that like people will basically starve if they're not willing to work, so that encourages people to go get a job. Like that's how we think about employment here in the United States. And when you give that much power over to you know, something like business, uh, the state holding a business accountable isn't some weird thing. And that was one of the most maybe infuriating things I read since the you know, outside of the complaint itself, was Activision's response to it saying something along the lines of this is just bureaucrats and they're they're the reason all these big companies are leaving California. Pretty awful stuff. That's not there's no way that's what's happening here, that these are just board bureaucrats messing with a you know, an innocent company. It's it's vile. I will say that. Uh, we'll see what happens next. We'll see kind of where this goes. We know, we haven't had too many examples of a state coming down and cracking down with its own rules and saying, hey, you actually have to play by these rules of fair employment and pay people you know, equivalent pay. Just because they're a different gender, you should still give them the same opportunities. But it goes far beyond that. There was a lot of like explicit sexual harassment claims and and and general harassment claims, and it just to me, it just seems like like such a long laundry list of awful things that you know, are they going to be able to just get off with a slap on the wrist. I would really really hope that's not the case here, and I hope it's I and I think I hope it's not just making an example so that other companies will kind of like put themselves in line. I'm sort of over that with how we treat companies, like, oh well, we'll we'll go after one company, treat them harshly, and then other companies will step up and you know, pay for their own uh training to ensure that people are treated more fairly. I think that we could see that that's you know, let's just actually just do the enforcement thing. You know, we have these state state departments for reasons. Let's let them handle this and actually enforce the rules that are on the books. Also, maybe it's time for Bobby Cottick to go, right if the company's been like this for years and years, and you know, I guess a lot of it was at Blizzard as well, So I don't know, maybe it's time for leadership to step down. And but we'll see, we'll see what happens. Okay, let's get into some of the other news. If you have questions about that Blizzard thing, of course, feel free to send them over. I've been reading the news like most everybody else, so I won't have too many insights. I'll just the things i've heard in the past line up with what i've heard there. So that'll probably be my answer for anything you might ask. But feel free to ask if you have anything there. The steam Deck I want to start here. Steam Deck got announced right as we're going live last week. It is, you know, the Valve handheld portable system. It is something I reserved because I'm very excited about it. I have two kids running around all the time, so one of the ways I can play games is on the switch or maybe streaming games to my phone. But I hate actually putting my phone in like a like a back bone thing or the racer thing. I just I feel like it gets hot and it's it drains excuse me, it drains the battery. And then when I went like need my phone to go, like go do something else, I'm like, oh, I got twenty percent batter left because I was playing games on it. That's pretty silly. Why would I do that. I just don't like it. I think it's the same reason like virtual reality phone stuff didn't work very well because people did it once and they never wanted to put their phone in there again, It's just like this mental hurdle I couldn't get over. So like the Steam deck of having like a native computer that you hold in your hands is something I'm very excited about. And it seems like Valve spots a real opportunity here to create a new market. So last week when we talked about this, I remember I was talking about, like one of the big keys here for Valve is to make steam OS a one of the go to operating systems for these handheld computers. As this space blossoms and becomes maybe a new tier alongside desktops and laptops, you know, they'll be desktop gaming computers, they'll be laptop gaming computers, and now there's probably gonna be handheld gaming computers. I see that probably happening almost certainly. And while Valve certainly wants to ensure that STMOS is thought of as the default operating system for that market, that would really be a huge deal for them, especially if they can get out ahead of Windows ensure that like Linux becomes sort of the default there, that'd be great. The pricing suggests that they really also think that they can come out on top in terms of hardware so I was like, I was looking at the price in the hardware a little bit last week, but I didn't really realize how incredible the value proposition that Valve is making here. So it starts at four hundred dollars, it goes. Then there's like a middle model that's like five hundred something, and then the top model six fifty, which is five hundred and twelve gigabytes of MVME SSD, and that's the one I got. But all those prices are really really good, especially when you compare them to other handheld gaming PCs that are on the market. You can get something like the GPT Win three, which is like eleven hundred dollars for something that's not nearly as powerful. There's the Ian Neo, which is it goes. It starts at like nine hundred I think, but that might have been the Indiego go price. I think it's more like one thy eleven hundred dollars now, also not nearly as good. It uses Vega graphics instead of our DNA two graphics. A bunch of technical stuff. Point is is that the value proposition here of the Valve hardware is really impressive. They are getting they're being very aggressive with it and gave Newell spoke to that a little bit, and I think he talked to IGN. He said that the price point that they picked is going to be painful, and I think it's more painful than we might even realize. They two weeks before, about even the weeks before, I'm not sure, actually the timing valve was talking to some people. They were they were kind of pre briefing some people about this hardware, and they were saying this it was going to start at five hundred dollars instead of four hundred dollars. So just in the months before, like right leading up to the actual reveal, they had a pricing model, a pricing structure in line that was going to be much more expensive, not much more, but more expensive. And I think what happened is first they might have done I think their analysis probably came back and they're like, hey, this is going to be pretty big. I think people are going to be pretty into this and it could turn into the next like frontier of gaming computers. But also I think Nintendo probably didn't help him out too much because they did the oh lad and it was only fifty dollars more. And I think Valve might have been expecting Nintendo to come out with a Switch Pro at four hundred dollars, so they would they had to switch Pro at four hundred and then one hundred dollars more for the Steam Deck. That's not that much more and that thing's way more powerful that like, it's a really good deal. I think once that didn't happen, Valve kind of reassess things. It was like, Okay, maybe maybe we should go with the four hundred. And I'm sure the whole time they always had four hundred as a possibility, I think, but that was not going to be the price a couple of weeks before that. It's something that they probably like it was an audible that they called at the last minute, and I think that it seems like the right coal. I'm sure that they are losing money on this hardware. Excuse me, I'm sure they're losing money on this hardware upfront. But people, I think people who play on handheld gaming devices buy a lot of games. That's something we're seeing with the Switch. People buy a lot of games for the Switch. That's one of the key things for for Nintendo this generation. It's selling a lot of hardware yes, it's selling a ton of first party games, absolutely, but the like the attach rate, which I think is like the official definition for attach rate isn't like how much like how much like what percentage of a game of a console install base that game sells to attach rate is actually like how many games are being sold per console in the world. And the attach ate for the switch is really really high. It's it's really impressive. And h I think that Valve expects they'll be able to make up the money on the back end there. So yeah, So yes, Steve Deck was going to be five hundred and they dropped the price, and I think it was probably the right move. Okay, I'm I want to talk about EA. I have a list of stuff I was gonna talk about. You know, we'll get to that in a second. Let's let's do this E football thing real quick, just a real quick thing. So up pez which what is it called? What's the actual name for it? I can't remember now, but the Konami soccer game is gonna it's gonna be called U E Football now it's going free to play, and I just want to speak to this because this is something that I think it's going to be even more common than it is already, where like you have a crowded space and there is something like a FIFA Orange Shooters, there's something like a Call of Duty, and there's other things out there, or in like sports games, there's like NBA two K, right, and then there's another franchise that tries to like make things work and has often been very good or is just in a slump right now, or is trying to figure out it's business model. And I think we're going to see it much more frequently that these go free to play and try to establish a different business model and basically go for a blue ocean strategy instead of trying to compete directly against pro evolution soccer. Thank you argent. Yeah, so instead of trying to compete directly for the same customers for their same money. It's it's it's going to be something where these companies say, hey, we can go free to play and make this work. So the reason I think this one's an interesting case because I think we're going to see this as well with electronic Arts, EA Sports and the basketball game not anytime soon. So that's NBA Live is EA Sports is Basketball game not like this year they're not working on it right this second, but I think the plan is to revive, like, and I know the plan to revive NBA Live has always been around. They've just completely messed that up over and over. But right now I think the plan is bring back NBA Live, maybe as a free to play game. Now that's a little bit more challenging because EA doesn't want to lose the NBA license. But NBA is very happy with two K, like so happy with two K that like when a EA tries to do stuff, the NBA can kind of like underhand, like be kind of underhanded a little bit and sort of say, oh, two K, look at thea's trying to do in two k's going, oh, he's trying to do what Now, maybe we should talk about this and can kind of make it challenging for EA to kind of come back into that space. Because NBA twok is such a monster makes so much money for everyone involved. The NBA doesn't want to mess that up. Two K obviously wants to protect it. But when something like E football happens, and like we have this soccer game happening, if it succeeds, if it does well, he's probably gonna be able to point to that and say, hey, let's the FIFA game is still selling. See our FIFA game is still selling even though there's just free to play soccer game. Let's try this out on our side now with a basketball game and see if we can make it work. But free to play competition is just going to continue to increase, and I think one of the things people always want to point out here is how many free to play platforms can exist. Right, people have limited time. Yeah, that's that's true. But I think people you need to remember that when a game costs money, it doesn't mean it doesn't cost time as well, Like it just means that they are competing for both time and money, and that's like that's a real hurdle, that's a real challenge. If you're just competing for time, yeah, you're competing against all these other things that take up a lot of time as well. And yes, the business model does require maybe longer term engagement, so you get that lifetime value from players, absolutely, but it still seems like it might be a less less of a hurdle than trying to say, hey, we already know that you're playing a ton of other games, but come play our game and also pay us sixty dollars up front for it. That's a real hurdle. Let's talk a little bit about EA. EA is gonna do EA play live today, and that's probably gonna be a bit of a I feel like there's not gonna be a lot there, and I'm a little bit I'm sorry about the dead Space thing. I feel like that would have been their big surprise. I didn't we really weren't gonna try to tease it, and it like really just got out there. But when when they're doing something like this, it's almost like, what could they have Everyone was going to guess Deadspace anyhow at a certain point. But yes, I think it's going to be like their big marquee thing, and then what else will there be? Well, they were also going to talk about the Battlefield Portal stuff, and the Battlefield Portal stuff is uh something that they prebrief some people on and they were talking to some influencers about. But basically, it sounds like they are trying to bring together a bunch of different elements from other battlefield games into one and enabling the community to use these components to build their own takes on the Battlefield stuff. So to me, it almost sounds like the you know, the Hitman missions, like where the community is able to make their own Hitman missions. That that's the kind of thing that I'm expecting this to kind of feel like. But it's cool that they are using all this other stuff that they've already made for these other games. And I think they're using stuff from Battlefield three, Battlefield nineteen forty two, Battlefield Bad Company too, and then Battlefield twenty forty two. I think that's the roster of stuff and it's it's stuff that you should be It could could create a lot, like a lot of fun, but they're also going to enable people to go in and adjust the rules and actually use like visual programming to that stuff up. This is all things that they we're going to talk about today during AA play. And then game Rant went out there and was like, hey, we're breaking embargo and it happens. It does happen. Like, no no hate towards Game Rant, but that is that is one of the big things that we're gonna talk about. So now that that's out there and we kind of know it, dead Space is coming, it's really gonna come down to execution. They've already said that they're not going to talk about Dragon ages and stuff, and we'll talk about that in a second. About what's going on there. Yeah, let's let's kind of go through some more of this EA stuff. So Dead Space probably gonna happen, and I imagine that it's gonna be a teaser of sorts. We'll see if they have how much they have to say. I've heard good things about it. I've heard that it looks pretty good. But we'll we'll see exactly what we get to see here, and if they don't show a ton maybe we'll get a lot more later. Yeah, and then to answer some of the questions, I've already seen Dragon Age four, they've already said Dragon Age four won't be there, but like kind of getting an update on that game, seeing where it's at it is. Those are reports that we got a little bit earlier this year. I think about, Hey, they were thinking about going with a like not an MMO style, but a connected world style, something maybe akin to Destiny, a live service game. They were thinking that at one point, And by they, I mean it doesn't mean like that's exactly what they were ever working on, but it's something they were considering maybe, and it was more more like executives thinking, hey, this is what this game should look like. Dragon Age four though, is going to be single player narrative focused, Like that's for sure. They are confident that that's what they want to do now, they're happy with that idea. They know that that's what people want. It seems like that is going to work out fine for them in terms of the teams saying, hey, this is what we want to do, and it seems like the executives aren't and be like, hey, no, you have to make it a live service. No, it's going to be able to come through as a single player narrative game. But like, when when do you expect? Like when should we start seeing it? I think the reason we're not going to see it now is because the next time we when we do start seeing it, it will be part of ramping up towards an actual release. So we okay, we might not see it now, but then, so when do we see it? Like maybe at the Game Awards, But if we start seeing it in twenty twenty two, it's gonna be like, Okay, now here are all the regular cadences of here's another beat here's another beat. Because this game is probably gonna come out in twenty twenty three. I think that is internally what they expect to have right now is to have it in twenty twenty three. Now a comment on that, twenty twenty three will be about four or five years after the first like announcement of this game. That's a that's a pretty that's you know, half a decade, and I think it's important to remember that that's going to be really normal right now. Five years of Okay, we hear about a game, they start working on it, and then it comes out five years after that first announcement. That's gonna be pretty standard for most games going forward. I think maybe four years. But rarely are we going to hear about a game going into development and then get it like two three years later. That's if we get situations like that, it's going to be games that we did not know about that sort of surprised us and came out of nowhere. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. I'll just say that that game is a huge hit within the walls of EA. The executives are very happy with that. It's a very successful game, and it's not just it wasn't just like successful in Oh, it popped and it came out and it did well at launch, and now, oh remember that game. It was a success. It's continued to sell very well. Excuse me, it's continued to sell very well for them, and so they've been looking at this as the possibility of rethink game what they how they approach single player narrative adventure games that leads directly to something like dead Space. Dead Space gets the green light because of something like Star Wars Jedi Phone Order and the way it's sold over time, and even though you know they've had they've discounted a little bit. That discounts have done very well enabled them to continue to see really good sales from this franchise, and they're gonna stick with Star Wars Jedi fallon Order as well. But the legacy of the game might be EA shifting its focus and saying, you know what this did so well, we can do something like dead Space, and dead Space could work. Yeah. Right, I think that's all the stuff I have here on my list. I think it's time for questions. FI feed Chia pet I never thought Starfield was coming to Police Station, but thought Elder Scroll six might since, and that's because Minecraft Dungeons did. However, I'm second guessing since Elder Scrolled six will likely not run on Nintendo's platform thoughts. Uh yeah, Fifa, Chia pet, Let's just do it. Let's just say it. Elder Scroll six is Xbox exclusive. Like just like Starfield, it is going to be exclusive in the exact same way. I can't remember if I think I've talked about this a little bit here. I think I talked a little bit on BombCast when I was there. But Microsoft looked into all this stuff. They've looked into what would happen if they released these games on other platforms, and they had a they had a scenario where all these games were completely Xbox or at least Game Pass exclusive and also came to PC. And they saw that scenario and said, that is going to be the best one for us. It makes the most sense for us, and it's going it's going to be the scenario that they apply to all these games going forward. So Elder Scroll six Xbox exclusive. From minto Hey, Jeff, longtime snacker, first time askar. I like that. It's grub snacks. The reason news keeps breaking on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like there, you know, there's some new stuff happening that was breaking from grub Snacks a couple of times, but I think a lot of it's just that when you know what happens. The reason they have is on Wednesdays and Thursdays is people come in to work on Mondays and they don't want to announce anything on Mondays because everyone wants to regroup. So you have that regrouped and on Tuesdays you make sure that everyone's in line, and you know, a lot of the news does get announced on Tuesday because of that. But then if you don't announce it on Tuesday, you like, like you say, okay, we regrouped yesterday. Is everyone's still okay with this? Should we go through it one more time? All right? And then on Wednesday you announced the news. That's what it is from We's Man fifty four. Will there ever be a guest on grubs Necks or will always be a solo show? Never say never. It really just comes down to this is the way I like to work a little bit. But I'm sure there will be reasons to have guests in the future and The thing is, there's lots of opportunities for guests to like show up on other stuff, So I'd say, I don't necessarily feel that they're needed here, but if we do bring in guests, I don't want to lose this segment here where we're asking lots of questions. I want to be able to ask. I want to be able to get a lot of questions from the audience and not take any time away from that. So I'd have to figure out how the best way to integrate it. Maybe you would be like a small interview in the middle that I could throw to and maybe that could like be prerecorded or something that could give me a break. We'll see it. Never say never, though. From Doomsday Dan, I can't let go of the hope in my heart that Titan Fall three will happen someday. How can I fix this? Doomsday Dan, I think you're just gonna have to live with that, that constant disappointment in your life of hoping for that and then seeing it not happen because there's no cure. There's no cure for loving Titan Fall. That's just the way it is. From Zug's Wing, Will we ever get more virtual console games from Nintendo. Why are they suddenly so guarded about releasing back catalog stuff on like on three ds, etc. I don't know. I don't know. I think that Nintendo has plans to bring more stuff to the Switch, more backwards compatible stuff, but they're also trying to figure out like how they when they bring it, is it going to be something where like they can raise the price of Nintendo Switch Online. Do they just use it as a marketing beat to make sure more people sign up for Nintendo Switch Online? And it just seems like they don't have a good vision for that because they know the good vision. There's not a lot of like like push, there's not a lot of propellant behind efforts to get that stuff onto the switch. So we're just kind of well sitting there like we're waiting, and Nintendo's like, well, keep waiting because we're still not sure what we're gonna do here from I'm hungry, asking a very irrelevant question, what color skittle is the best? My favorite grub snack skittle? I think I like the red ones. I do. I'm not great. I'm not like a super taster or anything. I just I could I could barely tell you what each flavor color is supposed to be. I just say, hey, that tastes like sugar. That's good. My tongue likes that, but I like I like red and green. I think they might just because they're bright colors. Though from corrupt With Microsoft buying spree not stopping anytime soon. In the constant rumors about them buying Sega, do you think it can actually happen at some point or we'll continue to live as a twenty plus year old rumor. I think that the buying Sega is probably not gonna happen. I think that they have a fine partnership. You know, if something catastrophic, catastrophic happens with Sega, if they just have bad year after bad year after bad year, maybe something like that could happen still in the future, but I think right now the possibility of that happen is very slim. That's not Microsoft's plan, that's not Sega's plan. Microsoft's gonna work with some creators in Japan, for sure, They're gonna but they're probably gonna work with people like Kajima and then see what else can happen after that, and probably and if they invest in a company in Japan, It'll probably be on the level of something like a Cogima Productions and not necessarily like a huge publisher. But we'll see. We'll see from Emmy Emmy Lay, Emmy Lee. Hey, Jeff was wondering if you had any information about Valence Studios and Knockout City. What are their expectations for the game and are they currently on track for it. My understanding is that everyone involved is pretty happy with the way Knockout City is doing. Villain Studios is also a pretty like that. Other companies seem very impressed with Villain Studios right now as well. Vlan Studios did Mario Kart Home Tour or whatever it was called, and then they done Knockout City, a game that you know, could have come out and fizzled and has instead found something of an audience and has impressed some people. So I think that everyone involved seems pretty happy with both the studio and that game from Future Creep. How does Bobby Cottick sleep at night? I don't know. It's it's a bummer to think about Bobby Cottick. I just think we look at that company and how they just if you just look at how they run the games side of things like actually getting games out the door and the decisions they make about making games. It's all like real, like so safe and so like a factory floor, just shoving stuff out, and then we get stories about the way that they treat people, and it's just it's not worth it. All. This is not the games that you're producing. Almost no game would be worth this. But when we just say you just it's so devoid of creativity and people are getting traded treated awfully, that's it's just such a recipe for I don't know, I really really bums me out from yetie forty six Vagrant story remaster or remake. They'll probably remaster it. They'll probably they'll probably find a way to bring that back eventually, not anytime soon. I think there's like a list of stuff they want to get done first and then they'll get to that. Any chance of ant Lists releasing a new etry and Odyssey or the old ones ported somewhere or are they just in the Atlas void? Etr and Odyssey is the one where you need to that's the one where like it's a DS game, right, etry and Odyssey. I think they might try to do a new etryn Odyssey, but porting the old ones might be somewhat challenging because they have to like figure out how to display the information. But I think they'll probably do a new etry Nadyssey at some point. From Nicholas, was star Fox grand pre ever a real thing? Will we see it some day now? Star Fox Grant Free? That's the thing that was rumored that Retro was working on. I don't know. I don't know if that was ever real. I've asked people about this one, and I've gotten every possible answer about it, and so I'm just completely lost on that one. I leaned towards it not being a real thing, but I've had people say it is a real thing absolutely, and I find people say it's the thing where Nintendo faked it to try to ouse sleakers and stuff like that. I've heard everything, and I'm just a lost as everyone else on that one. How difficult do you think it will really be to change out Steam deck SSD? I have no clue. I feel like it could be super simple, or it could be super difficult. It could be the kind of thing where you just pop off one panel and it's right there. That's the way it should be. That's I guess that's problem. That's if I had to like say, right now, what I think it's gonna be. I think it's probably gonna be that. But there is a possibility that because of cost concerns and the engineering of it, that they just ended up putting that thing behind the screen or something instead of just behind a back panel, and then you have to take the whole thing apart to get to it. They said, it's not supposed to be like serviced by the user or anything like that. If I had to guess, I would say, it's probably going to be relatively simple. And then it's just a computer, right, so you know, no matter what, if you want to get to it, if you're determined, you'll be able to get to it. And then once it's in there, it's gonna work because this thing is just a computer and you're gonna have free access to the hardware to do whatever you want and it. But for it to become the thing a thing where like, oh, everyone is just getting the cheap model and then putting it in their own cheap st SD. For it to work like that, it will have to be easy to access, and that will have to be just popping off a panel and going from our line stup. So what's the point of playing anything on of Activision Blizzard ever? Again, I mean, I'm right, I'm right there with you. I'm kind of feeling the same way where I'm like, playing one of their games is not something that's very appealing to me right now. Kind of the same way with you be Soft, where I tried playing that latest Assassin's Creed game and I got it. Now we're in and it's like, man, you just every time I picked up this game, what I'm thinking about is the reports coming out of you be Soft, And so yeah, I'm just not going to be playing many of these games. I think as part of my job, I will come across them and I'll see, I'll see how what happens when I have to do that, and like cross that bridge when I get to it. But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pick up anything on my free time, that's for sure, all right. Based off of Activision Blisters response, can we expect them to probably take absolutely no action based on this lawsuit, especially in regards to Jay Alan Brack. I think that's the tone I got. I got the tone that they're gonna let the lawyers try to fight this and see if they can get out of it completely. And yeah, I think that they'll probably take no action unless unless it's part of the terms of a settlement or something like that. But you know, most of the time the terms of a setmay is we admit no wrongdoing, and so I'm sure that's what they're aiming for. The company definitely seems like they are going to try to fight this, And the combative tone of the statement so far was just it was surprising. It felt like I missed opportunity. They just want to sort of say, make this about oh, a government bureaucracy coming after the poor individual maker, the person that makes something, as opposed to the government man. And that was just absolutely infuriating. And if that's the tone they're gonna strike right out of the gate, I imagine it's only going to get more combative from here. From warp or any idea. What happened with ray trace Minecraft on Xbox X slash s Microsoft showed that running via Digital Foundry in early twenty twenty, and then silence. I think I can't remember exactly, but I think there was just some issues early on with the drivers and stuff, and getting that stuff in line, and I imagine that they just want to take time and get it right and sure that when they put it out it works good on Xbox s, but also on s. Hopefully it's not something like you remember the Ultra HD pack that they were planning for Minecraft, that thing they got announced years and years ago, and then they finally canceled that when they started doing the ray tracing thing. Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen here. Yeah, you might want to check your audioce. Yeah, I'm gonna have to try to figure this out afterwards. I think. Sorry about this, everybody from Santar. Do you think we'll ever see game Pass exclusive games? I think eventually at some point down the line. Uh. We that's something that we could see down the line, I think, But no time soon. It's not gonna happen anytime, and not like the next couple of years. Microsoft very much is about the choice thing. The choice thing is is is key to this because when people say why I like buying my games, Microsoft needs to be able to say, well, you can buy your games, that we're not trying to take anything away from you here. When when people are like, oh, this is just renting stuff excess. People like, well, it's not it's not renting stuff. But if you do want to use game Pass to try something and then go out to buy it, you should use it for that, and you know, you get a discount and all this stuff, and it's it's your choice how you want to consume this stuff and how you want to collect this stuff, and if you want the physical versions, we still make those, go get those from a store. Once they start taking those options away on in any scenario that'll be that'll be a conversation that they're going to have to have again and they're going to re explain their position because now it's no longer about choice. I think what's maybe more likely is a sort of cloud exclusive game that is exclusive to game Pass, but then you can only really access if you have internet access and you're able to get on the cloud and stuff like that. And then but even then I would imagine they might sell a physical version in the store and stuff like that. So we'll see from Goose much one are your thoughts on pennies. I hate them. I want them to go away. Pennies are disgusting and I hate them. I hate every time I see one. I hate even looking at them. They're filthy little poop nuggets' is Valve expect from anti VANTI is Valve expecting to sell much steam Deck hardware or is it mainly a way to kick start the existence of this kind of device, hoping other manufacturers will jump in, kind of like Microsoft with their service line of products. So I think it's a bit of both. I think that it's definitely so then where Valve is thinking, hey, we wh would sell a lot of hardware here, but even if we like get off to a slow start and this just like it shows people how to make hardware and then to use steam Os, They'll be happy as long as people are still using steam os or still like considering steam as like the central way to consume gaming on these handheld devices is something I talked about earlier, Like, this is absolutely something they want to They want to sort of canvass the entire area of possibilities here. I think the aggressive pricing does suggest that they think they could sell a lot of hardware and that they could be the hardware leaders in this space. But yeah, steam Os will be the real long term play here. From final dasta, any chance Microsoft there's so many jump into the handheld market. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit. I think Microsoft might eventually do a surface handheld. I'm not I'm not sure when that would happen though, maybe years, because it seems like years away because I know right now Microsoft's plan is their handheld strategy is is X cloud. It is game streaming, it is cloud stuff. Like when I've asked about that, that's been the answer is we have one of those. It's it's x clouds, So just use your phone. And I hate using my phone, so I'm not satisfied with that. And I think I think Microsoft will learn pretty over time that yeah, there's an audience out there that will jump on with their phone. But there is a reason the switch works, and it is because the hardware and the OS and the software is an integrated experience from the top to bottom, an end to end solution. And then form factor really matters, and having a dedicated gaming form factor handheld is the kind of thing that it encourages developers to develop for the system, but it also encourages players to buy more games because they like when they pick up the thing they think about playing games and they're not picking up a phone and thinking like, okay, I could buy some games, or I couldn't play some games, but also I could spend thirty minutes fruit in my poot on TikTok or whatever like that. There are issue there are concerns there in terms of providing a hardware experience that fits. And that's what Switched does so well. That's why it succeeds, and it's why people are so excited about the Steam Deck. And I think Microsoft will come to this realization as well, and that's why I think they'll probably do one eventually. Sony probably not. I think the thing was Sony is they don't want to split up their development resources anymore. Developing games way harder than it even was on like the PS three when they had the VA going as well, and the PS four and they had the VA going as well, and they split up resource and they had one team. They had one team making like the real game, and then had another team making the uncharted for handheld. And that's that's fine. Those games a lot of times turned out really well. But those games, those those developers now are making the big games on the Big Boy console and they're trying to solve for seventy dollars and that's where their focus is. And uh, and they don't want to have to split that up again. And so for Sony, the solution would have to be take the PlayStation five experience and create a way to do it on a handheld. And what does that look like? Uh, it's it's gonna It's just it doesn't make a lot of sense because it would probably be streaming and that's something that you know, they already enable with PlayStation now and maybe like when they start bringing PlayStation five stuff stuff to that is that's something they emphasize, but they use X eighty six, you know, real computer component hardware and that stuff. While while it has shrunk down a lot, and it's clearly that's what is inside the Steam deck, it's it's very efficient, efficient enough now to fit into a handheld, it's not efficient enough to fit in a handheld and run PlayStation five games. So Sony's just kind of in this place where strategically they don't know how they could get there, and they don't seem interested in getting there there. They've already talked about the ways we're going to band is we're going to keep making the big games we make for PS five, then we're also going to make more first party live service games, and then we're gonna focus on mobile and releasing more stuff on PC. When they talk about growth right now, that that is all they talk about. So I don't expect them to do another Handheld anytime soon. One angry zeus, What do you think the next big game for Naughty Dog will be? That's a good question. I wonder if they're going to do something different next or if they try to, like, because I feel like there was talks about there was talks about another studio coming up to do Uncharted and taking over Uncharted, and that didn't pan out, and so I wonder if that's because Naughty Dogs like, well, well maybe we'll do another Uncharted. So just leave that to us. But I guess I would be surprised if they went back to Uncharted now and Last of Us Part three, Like they would want to take a break, right, But maybe it takes so long. Maybe they don't want to take a break. Maybe that's what they're passionate about. So we'll see. From all the dinos. Had you heard if any of the high profile Activision Blizzard departures were related to the workplace culture, either for good reasons or to escape potential consequences. So, yeah, this is something I meant to actually bring up. It's hard not to like draw conclusions right Like a bunch of important key people at Blizzard left over the last two years. This investigation has taken two years. It does feel like there is a chance that these these key people knew what was coming and said, Oh, Blizzard, are we going what are we gonna do here? Are we gonna going to just try to be like are we going to admit to this? We're gonna cop to this and come out and try to take responsibility and make some changes, and or what are we're gonna do? Are we gonna try to fight it? And either way I don't know. There would probably be situations where people be like, well, I'm not going to take responsibility for this, I don't want my name attached to them that I'm out of here. I imagine that that was that did placed factor. All these people would have been interviewed during this process, like this Department for Fair Employment and Housing in California would have wanted to talk to all these people while they were working at Blizzard. Sounds like they talked to many people who used to work there as well once they left, if they hadn't talked to them yet, they like tracked them down said we need to talk to you about this stuff. It sounds like that's what happened. So everyone knew that this investigation was ongoing, and if some of these stories, like if they knew some of these stories were coming out, it doesn't paint anyone there in a good light. So I think there might be something too that that's me guessing though, So yeah, speculation please. From Infection Inflection Pixel, what's the last thing you've heard of the Colony Wars series? I haven't heard anything about the Colony of Wars series. It's a series that I liked back in the day. Oh okay, it sounds way better. Thank you everybody, Thank you for your help. Sorry about that. I wish I would have fixed it earlier. It just it was a yeah, okay. From Inflection Pixel, what's the last thing you've heard heard of the Colony Wars series? I've not heard anything. It is a franchise that I always like to go back to and mess around with because I was a Nintendo sixty four kid and I saw the magazine ads for Coledy Wars and it's something like, oh man, that looks like a lot of fun. I'd like to try that. It seems like my jam. And so whenever I'm going like I break up, you know, the emulator or whatever, when I get on retro Arch, it's a game I have ready to go on my computer and I play it a lot, and to me, it just seems completely dead. But maybe I'm missing something, maybe I haven't heard something. It seems like the kind of thing that if it was ever going to come back, it probably would have come back by now. Let's see. And then next question, Fisk zero. Didn't they try to have a shared battlefield launcher with four in Hardline already? Yeah, they had that like online like Portal right where it was just like a shared launcher. That's not what this is. Battlefield Portal is a user created, user generated content experience where people can take content and make it's gonna it's like roadblocks. Battlefield is what it is. Uh, you know, they'll show us show, they'll show it to us today. But this is like a big pillar of this new battlefield where they are going to they you know, they have ripple effect or whatever what was formerly dice La working exclusively on this to make this a huge thing for this game, and it is about enabling like long term content to come out for this and enabling anyone who wants to get in there and start making different modes, different exp like this could be where like the DODA four comes from or whatever. Right, probably not, hopefully not. I'm sorry that even spoke those words out loud from Ida or I'm sorry from the dug and do ID at Xbox personation soon slash this summer? Do we see Tunic this year? Now? They did that idat Xbox long like very long stream, like a couple of months ago, so probably not anytime soon. They might. They'll probably do some updates and stuff. They'll probably give some blog posts, maybe a YouTube, like maybe a dedicated section a bigger thing coming up at some point, But I wouldn't expect like an ID and Xbox exclusive presentation anytime soon because that last one was like four hours and they talked about so much stuff from the Devil strip. What is the grossest thing you've ever eaten? On purpose? I am struggling to I'm terrible, Like we're calling this sort of information from my brain because of ADHD. So I'll see if I can get back to you. See anything occurs to me. Most of the stuff I don't have, like the wild Palette or anything. I don't go and try a bunch of stuff, but I will. I will try stuff if it's put in front of me. But I'm not like, I'm not remember anything. And when it's stuff, it's like, yeah, I've had oysters, but that wasn't gross. It was just you know, weird for me at the time, and now it's completely normal. But yeah, I can't think of anything at the top off the top of my head from aj the sayer, Uh excuse me. Do you think other manufacturers will make their own versions of the steam deck like Valve kind of once? Yeah, I think so, but I don't think they'll be I don't think they'll be branded as steam decks. This will not be a steam machine situation. I think it'll be other companies make their own versions of the steam deck as their own things and give them, give them their own names, and we'll probably start calling these things portable PCs or we'll call them decks or whatever, which would be pretty cool. And they might and they might run steam os but I don't think it's gonna be a thing where it's not gonna be like an android phone situation where oh this is an Android like or this is like a Steam deck. It's not gonna be like that. I don't think we answered this one. Fiefie the Phantom knots in relationship to Dead Space? Have you ever have you been in the no regarding the Callisto protocol? I mean, I'm aware of it. I've heard a little bit about it. I know that they haven't been like hiding too much about it, But as far as like what's happening with it right now, I haven't checked in on it. They've just been They've announced it and said it was coming and said they're working on it, and you know, I know that they have a lot of pedigree there, a lot of talented been the talent talented developers who did work on Dead Space working on this. So I don't know. We'll keep an eye on it, but I'm not sure how much more there is to know from celest leon Hart, how Jeff bit of an odd one here? Why have we never seen Final Fantasy thirteen trilogy on PS four slash five despite having four k Xbox Series X patches, planned physical release. Maybe when it comes to Square Nick stuff like that. I think it's usually the that you answered the question yourself. I think they want to always keep these things available for doing bundles and doing compilations and doing rereleases. I think that. I think that's why we don't get Super Mario RPG even on the switch, because Square Nicks is holding and like Chrono Trigger, which is Chrono trigger on the switch thing, I don't think it is. I think they hold that stuff back for like we're gonna do a Final Fantasy compilation, then we're gonna do a Square RPG compilation. We'll release that on the switch for sixty dollars or fifteen dollars each. And I would imagine that Nintendo's not I'm not promising that kind of money for them, so they're instead they're gonna just try to release it on their own. And I think the same thing. And when it comes down, okay, so why haven't we seen it yet? I think it's just a matter of timing and then having enough resources to get to it. I think the plan is to get to it eventually. Emily, you mean Amy Lee, We answered this one about Villain and Knockout City Dominito. Hey, Jeff, I'm curious if you've heard any romans on Dragons Dogma two. No, just the just the hacked stuff. The hack stuff was all it was in the hack's It was supposed to legally come in in the next eighteen months or something. I haven't heard anything that suggest that that that's off track, and I think we'll probably hear about it by next three. We'll probably hear about it before that, right, we'll probably hear about it, like maybe at the Tokyo Game Show or something like that. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But that's just me kind of going working backward from the hacked information from slide awesome or Slay mccawesome, screw games. How are you doing, Jeff, I'm doing okay. It's summer. Summer's not good for me. I get hot. My wife's a teacher, so she's spent off the summer. She's about to go back to work, and that's stressful because it's like, oh man, it's nice to be able to like, you know, do stuff and have her take the kids for a while, and then I gotta watch the kids. One of them will start going back to school in person, though at least we're gonna try to get the other one in preschool. You asked this, this is what I'm thinking about right now. I think I'm gonna take a vacation. Actually, we're gonna planning that and try to do that very soon. If anyone has good ideas for like last minute vacations, we're in We're in the Colorado area, so any of the good ideas there, something like we're gonna go and like stay somewhere else, get me, get me on Twitter, Hit me up on Twitter. I would love to hear about it from weapon thing, name your favorite dragon, Jeff. Okay, a couple of things here. When I was in middle school, I was a pretty nerdy, but the nerdiest kid in my classes. And you know it was middle it was junior high actually in Michigan. He was in only a couple of my classes. But he wrote like very graphic dragon poems, and I know you thought I was going to say another word there at the end, very graphic dragon poems about like dragons like ripping flesh apart with their teeth, and I read I got one once and I read it and I'm like, Wow, this is intense, and I did not like feel the urge to like necessarily make fun of him, but I could imagine other people wanted to do, and that's stuck with me this whole time. But also there's another Jeff Grub, who is a fantasy author, sci fi fantasy author. I get mistake mistaken for him all the time. He's written for a bunch of games. I think he worked on Guild Wars and stuff like that. I think he still works in games, and he's written like a lot of modules for dungeons and dragons and all this stuff. But one of the first books I got from him is Siety Chats, Like what is going on here? One of the first books I ever I tried to read one of his books. I haven't ever really read anything. One of the first books I tried to read was like one that just had a dragon on it, and she did this dragon and it just said Jeff Grab and it's like this big black dragon. And so if I had to pick my favorite dragon, it's probably the one on the cover of that book that I tried to read and failed, probably because I'm just jealous of the other Jeff Grub from Fisco. Do you know if Star Wars Squadrons met EA sales targets, any hopes for more of that? It did? It did pretty well. Another situation where it continued to sell. They allowed themselves, for once, to have moderate expectations that game. They set a moderate price and they're like, let's just get this out here and see how it does. And I think it exceeded those moderate expectations. Whether it would have exped exceeded like the typical really high expectations and if it had been sixty dollars would have worked, they didn't do all that stuff, So it doesn't matter to answer your question. I think they're very happy with it. There is a chance we might get more of it. We'll have to see. I think they know that they if they're going to continue to work with Star Wars and they're going to continue to like have this Frostbite engine that does vehicles really well, it's only going to make sense to keep making like starship based shooter games. But we'll see. From ogdo what do you think Nintendo's thinking after the Steam Deck. It's a it's a good question. They're probably not too worried. I imagine what's going to happen is developers are going to say, hey, we're trying to make this game for the Switch. We want to make this game for the Switch. We love working with you, Nintendo. We've made a lot of money on the Switch, but like we have this other target now that's a handheld gaming platform, and it would just be fantastic if you guys could do something to close the gap please, And I think Nintendo might get a little bit a little bit more pressure to continue working towards that Switch pro But whether Nintendo response to that, I really have I doubt it. They don't. Typically they're not going to worry about this too much. Nintendo's worried about their own little kingdom, and it's worked out fine for them so far. They've been better about the way they treat indie games, as Grismos saying on Jam on the Bomb Cast this week, that's absolutely true. And developers and indie developers have had a lot of success on the Switch. It's just massive sales for indie games on the Switch. Hades being a good example where that game came out on PC and then when it winning one point, you know it also hit switch and nothing else and that game sold so well, like Nintendo like adopted it, and like every other Nintendo video on its YouTube page for like a couple of months, was about hades like these games could become like huge breakout hits on the Switch. Nintendo doesn't want to lose that. If anything threatens that, Nintendo might try to do something to work on it. But Alsointendo is gonna say, hey, yeah, we could see the Steam det coming, but we know we're almost positive that more people are going to buy your name on our system still, so just try to make it work. I imagine that's probably what's gonna be the conversation there for now. From Arma x sank this does the success of Jedi fallone order and Apex Legend suggest respond may get to make titan Fall three. I'm not sure if it necessarily works that way. It's not about like, may get to make Titan FALLO three like they're waiting for necessary for permission. There's obviously some of that they gotta get greenlit. I think what it comes down to, the company's very busy. The studio is very busy. The Jedi Fall in order it was very successful. They're working on a sequel. Apex Legends very successful. They have a team dedicated to that. Now if they get if they have the opportunity to start prototyping, do those prototypes turn into something that becomes titan Fall three or do they try to make something new. It's going to come down to sort of the wills and the desires of the team actually working on those prototypes, which is again it's how respond works a lot of prototypes. I'm hopeful. I love titan Fall, but also I'm I'm happy if respund gets to make the games they want to make, So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt if they if they announced something different that isn't titan Fall, I'm gonna be their day one. I'm gonna try it out. From Turbo addiction, any thoughts as to why a lot of supers squarestuff games have never made their way to the Switch in some form, Yeah, I just talked about this. The ones that I would love to see the most is Chrono Triger, Final Fantasy six, Mario RPG. Look at how much those games cost on mobile. They sell those games on a mobile store where like the most expensive game you buy on there is what like six dollars from Minecraft seven. Like when you bought the Asphalt Racing game ten years ago, it was like, what seven dollars. They're selling those games on mobile for fifteen dollars or something like that, and that was like they were already doing that, and now they're like rereleasing them and selling them for fifteen dollars. Again, they aren't actually bundling all the Final Fantasies together. They want to keep selling these games for as much money as possible. It's wild because even Nintendo kind of stopped doing that. Nintendo was like, let's just start giving like all these games away with like the Super Nintendo thing. We'll just bundle all together in this one Super Nintendo system we're gonna sell and at the Supernintendo Online we'll just put them all in there. That's fine. We've sort of tapped out what we can get for these games. And Square Nix is like, nope, we're never gonna do that. That's what's happening here is they want to keep selling these games for a higher price, whether that comes out as like fifteen dollars, I mean, that's the final Fantasy games are gonna get sold on Switch eventual. They know it was like Steam and Mobile right now, but they will come to switch and they're gonna be fifteen to twenty dollars maybe maybe thirty dollars a piece something like that. They're gonna be wild in terms of pricing. That's what Square Nix wants. They're not going to do anything the best with that. And while yeah, like Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG and Final Fantasy six all were on that Super Nintendo Classic thing, they said, I'll promise it would be a limited time thing, and Square Knicks probably said that was probably part of the deal from Devil Strip. A very good question. Any word on Bakti three? Uh, I think that phones have light sensors, right, so they should make back Thy three as a mobile game, make it like a Pokemon Go thing where you go outside and the like walking does like charges one resource and people don't know what back Tai is. Bakti was a game Boy Advanced game that had a light sensor built into the cartridge and it was a Kojima produced game, and you'd have to go outside and charge your game cartridge with the light, not like to play it, but to charge it so you could charge your weapons in the game to kill vampires. A wild idea there's two of them. And now now Devil striping me are going to talk about Box TI three, which we hope really happens. I think it could work as a mobile game that light sensor. Try to tap into that, like on an API level and use that. I don't know. I guess that the thing with the light sensor is it detects like indoor light, not necessarily sunlight. I wonder if we could tell the difference. I don't know. We have to see, but you know we don't need Konami. You and me are gonna make this devil strip weapon Dame. Well, don't literally name the dragon, Jeff, what is the name of your favorite dragon? Rather a aragon? I named one. I'm sorry from Kane high Wind oh nine. Speaking of Star Wars, you think a deal could ever be worked out with regards to bringing back releasing the Rogue Squadron games? Are they pretty much gone forever to the due to Factor five not being a thing anymore. So I'd had to look into the exact state of Factor five. I think Factory five is still around in some form. I know a lot of people that worked at Factor five now do stuff like port. They like ported Hulu to the switch. Like the people that were like really good at like technically getting stuff to work on the Nintendo sixty four and the game Cuban did the best looking games you ever saw in those systems. It turns out they're still really good at Nintendo hardware, and they're the ones that got Hulu running really well and handled that port for Hulu. But as for like Factory five itself, I'm not sure. And I but I still think though those games could come back even with Factory five in this limbo state. So but I'm not sure. We'll have to wait and see. I think when they got moved to Steam recently, I think that gave me some hope. But they were just like the exact games that were on PC originally getting released on Steam and uh and they had been gog for a while, So I'm not sure if that's indicative of the abilities for those games to get then get ported to another new system. From Winter Reese is Vince Sampella and the team at Respawn perceived as one of the most valuable teams in the industry right now. Uh, yes, one of the things like that's one of the things I was thinking about with this activision story is that people tend to be pretty okay and pretty happy working at Respond, and there's people you know, this is a this is a team that started as we are leaving Activision because you're not gonna pass our bonuses and so like that's like, that's how that's They were the Call of Duty team, they were Infinity Ward and they didn't get paid their bonuses. Bobby Kotick was trying to cheat them out of that, and so they're like, Okay, screw you, we're leaving and we're gonna go start our own thing. We're starting Respond. And so they they are fully aware of the way Activision can treat employees, and they have I think they've made a conscious effort to avoid many of those pitfalls. I'm not gonna say it's perfect. I think a lot of companies tend to like, once you're like in the in the forest, it's hard to see it for the trees and all that stuff. Once you're in there, you're still gonna make some mistakes. But the people have talked to who sometimes like have had cross contamination between these two companies, they speak very differently about Respond then they speak about Activit. And so I think when you have people that are happy to work there and continue to work there for a long time, and even when they leave, they still speak really highly of it in a way that they never spoke about Activision. That's that's key. And then the leadership style of Van Sampella has been something that EA is looked at and said, we do want to apply this across the board. We think it really works at Respawn, we think it's going to work at Ripple Effect, and then we might want to apply it everywhere else as well. And having someone who knows how to do this and has made hit game after hit game, and even Titan Fall two when it comes in it's not a hit, it's still like it's absolute critical darling. They want to capture that magic, and I think other other companies, I think I have also begun taking notice other publishers looking over there at response saying yeah, we want to be like that you talk about, like most valuable company right now. I think EA bought him at the exact right time, like right before Apex Legends and Star Wars Fall in Order really started blowing up. So yeah, I think right now, if they're like they were up for sale at this moment, they would probably go for quite a lot of money. The Blue Bomb with a question I've been considering myself. Will the Steam set the Steam Decks sell better than any gaming laptop? I mean I think yeah, I think so, right, Like it's hard to like, i'd have to see if there's numbers out there for like the best selling like single gaming PC device or whatever, single gaming laptop. I imagine it's going to do numbers that are like when you like, you know, Razor Blade is probably the one that tends to sell the most, probably, I guess, but that's expensive, so probably not right. It's it's it's hard to gage with stuff. I just don't have the numbers in front of me. But when I think about it's like, I think that the Steam Decks probably gonna do in several millions of units, and I would imagine that most gaming PCs struggled to do one million in terms of like a single gaming PC gaming laptop skew. So yeah, I think it's probably. I think it's gonna be one of the best selling like personal computing devices in a long time. Yeah, It's probably not going to be like iMac levels, but it'll be pretty close. I think. I guess it could be close. I could have to look at the iMac levels and let's see how much that actually sold, you know, in terms of over the next ten years. If this thing really does take off, I think it could be up there from Arlene's up. Yo, what's up with in sixty four game Boy, game Boy Advance games not on the Nintendo Switch Online, or whether or not they are coming into no Switch Online. I mean, your guess is as good as mine at this point. I feel like it's something that was supposed to happen a while ago, and why doesn't it. I think it just comes down to what we talked about before with Nintendo trying to figure out the best ways to position this stuff and and get the most value from it. Now, this comes back a little bit to the Square what I was talking about with Square Enix. Nintendo has decided that it has squeezed the money out of Nintendo and Super Nintendo games in terms of selling them a la carte, in terms of selling them individually as single games. They've said, listen, we've done this for enough time now we could start treating them as a service and giving them to people. I don't think given like bundling them all together and not trying to make as much money from each individual game. I don't think Nintendo feels that way about Nintendo sixty four. Nintendo sixty four is also a little bit more difficult to emulate. I think Nintendo has solved those problems for the most part with its emulation layer that it dealt for Super Mario sixty four, for that bundle Super Mario three D All Stars. I think all that stuff is it should be pretty solved. But I bet there are games that are still giving an issues. So it's probably like, well, before we start doing in sixty four, let's make sure we have that tech in place in sixty four part to emulate. But when it comes to game Boy and game Boy Color and game Boy Advance, you would think that at least with the game Boy and game Boy Color, Nintendo's saying, hey, we have also squeezed all the money we can get out of those. It's time to put those into a bundle. Are put those into a service, but maybe not. I wonder if they have to hang up there is Pokemon. I wonder if Pokemon's like a big sticking point where you know they have to work with the Pokemon Company, and they own a third of the Pokemon Company, but they still have to like work with those other companies involved and and saying, hey, we're gonna put a bunch of Pokemon games into the service with one if that's like something that I're still having to like talk through and and you know, even if we put a whole bunch of Pokemon games in the service, like you know, or if we don't put a whole bunch of Pokemon games in the service, like, then does that service make sense? Because that's all anyone's gonna ask for, is all these Pokemon games. I wonder if that's like part of the problem there is just ensuring that they get the most money from Pokemon going for and Nintendo's interested in that as well, and ensuring that Pokemon feels like this big thing. But to me, I mean, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking the same thing. You hear that, and you're like that it would only help to have all these classic Gameboy games, even if it is just like the Gameboy games that are about to get remade or whatever, like you're still gonna buy the like if you're a Pokemon fan, you're still going to buy the remake. You might even be more willing to buy the remake if you went to go back and play the old ones. You're like, oh man, this is great. I remember being a kid and playing this stuff, and now I'm going to a chance to play this remade version. So really, it's just hard for me to imagine what is happening here, what is really the hold up? And it probably just comes back to Nintendo not having a lot of internal propellant, like I said earlier, of saying, hey, we we want to make this happen, and not having someone there and say okay, I'll make this happen, and instead being like, okay, we just generally we want to make sure that this happens. All right, let me fix that. Sorry, uh, And then just generally we just generally want to make sure that this happens. And when when when things get approached like that, when people are saying, hey, well yeah, I guess that would be nice, and no one's taking the leadership and they're everyone's busy doing something else, these things can often not happen. Yeah, chat is out of frame now, I just saw that. Thank you, everybody. Let's see here. Hi, Jeff, do you model your your look on WWF Star Diesel. Yeah, absolutely, I got the I think that's what I'm going for. I think he's an icon Kevin Nash. He was if I look like him and that what's the magic Mike double XL or whatever it was, That's what I want to look like when I'm one hundred years old or how over old he was from the Duke and do no hope for x clout on switch or is Papa Spencer just to lay in the inevitable with his comment? So I think people as the comment that people he's referring to here is that Phil Spencer was on kind of Funny and he was asked about that switch on his shelf and he's like, well, that was just a thing from nintend It was just a gift from Nintendo. It doesn't mean anything. And I think that's probably true. He probably does put a lot of stuff on him a shelf. The Coachima Productions thing, still, I think was maybe subconsciously suggesting all that stuff was. I just I talked about it because that thing was on a shelf. That was not the source for that information. I have different sources for the information, obviously, but I don't think That means everything on his shelf necessarily was trying to communicate something like he has a puzzle Box Master. That's not necessarily what was happening. But the way he spoke about it is like I have conversations with people and they give me gifts or whatever, and I put those things on my shelf to show them off. I do think that the switch was probably part of aver, Like the switch gift was part of a conversation with Nintendo, and I think the part of those conversations was bringing game past the Nintendo. Nintendo listened to that conversation and then said no, but they listened. They had that conversation. I mean, we know they did because that was in the epic lawsuit between Apple. That stuff came out in an email where Phil Spencer said directly to Tim Sweeney, it's something I'm still working on. So and you know, I haven't given up hope on that, like as and He's already had this conversation and has been told no. But the thing between Nintendo and Microsoft is is not going to be something that I think a lot of consumers are going to care about. But there will be a deal between them. I think at some point relatively soon. You know, that's something I heard a while ago, so I guess maybe things could have fallen apart, and I'm not I'm not exactly sure what it's going to look like. But the way I've heard it explain to me is, don't expect something that would be like at any three stage. Don't expect something that would even be in like a blog post. Maybe this is something for investors, Maybe it's something for people making games. Maybe it's for people in other regions that try to sell games, and these companies are gonna work together and make that easier or something like that. And the switch on the shelf. Whether or not that as the direct reference to that or not, I don't know, but it still seems like something that could happen. See that's Ryan Jeff Don't let them Mmo Grubs Necks Never from bast May nineteen eighty six. Once EA play concludes today, what would be the next big conference event to look forward to for any new announcements or follow ups on established titles? Are we done un till Game Awards? Is there an event you have heard about that has yet to be announced? I thought there was one that just got announced and now I'm like struggling to remember it. But yeah, in terms of like that level of announcement, yeah, that's going to be. That's probably gonna be Game games Com, right, games Comm Opening Night Live. They're still going to do something along those lines. I know they're not doing one in person? Are they? Are they doing games Coming Person this year? That seems like a crazy thing, But either way, they'll still do an Opening Night Live thing and they'll probably have some announcements there. I don't know if it'll be huge, because I know there's some companies that aren't port I think Sony said they're not gonna have anything at games Com. Maybe I misheard that, but I still think that we'll see some new game announcements and we'll get updates on those existing titles like you talked about. Okay, let's see where where we at. We're an hour and seventeen minutes in. It's ten eighteen. We're gonna wrap up right at ten thirty mountain time today, So we got a time for a few more questions and then from there, once that's all done, I'm gonna fix this chat thing again while I'm talking to you guys. Once that's all done, we will. I'll let you guys go and watch the AA play thing live with the crew talking over it. In the meantime, I do want to get back to some of these questions. We got a lot of questions, and once again, thank you everybody for sending these in. If you ask the question, I've got to it yet, hopefully I will, but thank you, thank you for sending them in. It makes the show so much better. This is again so much fun for me. Can I play with magnets? Asks any news on Disney doing any other deals with different studios involving ips after having Star Wars games at EA and You Be Soft and also Marvel at Square, Yeah, at Square in two K. Yeah, Disney's doing a lot of deals. Disney is interested in getting the IP out there into gaming a lot more, and Star Wars and Marvel are are definitely the biggest part of that. There's I've said this before. I think on this show a lot of talks about a lot of Star Wars games are happening right now. Lucasfilm seems very very busy trying to make those deals happen. Uh, you know, how soon will we see the fruit of that stuff? It still seems like a bit off. I think we might start getting announcements next year. I think I know we got the Ubi Soft one this year, but next year things will be a little bit more clear. Of EA in terms of its deal. It's exclusive deal with with with Star Wars, and then from there companies can start stepping in and say, hey, we're working on this, we're working on that, and it's all coming to console and PC. And then EA will probably start talking about Star Wars J Phone Order two next year and they're not going to give up on it, so we'll still keep getting those games. But yeah, there's a lot of talk for a lot of Star Wars games. And my understanding is Marvel is in a very similar situation where they've they've been happy with the deals they made. They like Marvel Ultimate Alliance three on the Switch, they were happy with that. They're going to continue doing these things. They're going to keep trying to get exclusive deals with these companies and and they're gonna try to see it through. And to me, it makes a lot of sense because it has been working so well. From Monkey of Doom. Have you heard anything about the Steam Decks supply, It seems like the amount of people that have a December estimate for their order is pretty low. Is this a case of Valve being conservative with estimates or just another issue with chips being hard to get. It's both. It's both. Chips are gonna be hard to get. These things are going to be some plains trained. And also I think Valve is being conservative with estimates. I think that. I mean how many Yeah, I didn't even know their word December estimates for anybody. I got mine really quickly, and I got a Q one, And I think what's going to happen is once those dates start to sort of get more granular, like as we get closer and Steam says here's the date it's actually gonna ship, the people who got those December dates will probably get that date. And then I think those Q one dates, there's a chance they might turn into just before Christmas or around New Years or something like that. And then I think a lot of the Q one dates will probably be much closer to the beginning of the New Year than later in Q one or something like that. And then the Q two it might start moving in Q one. That's my guess. That's if everything goes well, you know, they're working directly with AMD. It seems like they probably were expecting pretty good sales. They had to know, they had to know that setting the price was going to be kind of a fire starter there in terms of getting a lot of heat going in terms of hype, and so I imagine them to be able to keep up with these early orders in terms of moving those dates up. But as more people come in and reserve, more people buy the system, yeah, it could just kind of get more and more backlogged. And I don't know exactly what the supply is, but I think they're being conservative. Steal Night two thousand, will scall and Bones actually come out at this point, I don't know. I understand that they have to try to release it because they're deal with the government in Singapore, but it seems like something that they don't want to release. It seems like something they want to give up on. It seems like something that it started as an expansion for Assassin's Creed, and if they could, I think they would put it back into the Assassin's Creed platform for Infinity right. They would just loop it back in and say, Okay, we tried this makes more sense, Let's just do the skull and Bones season for Assassin's Creed Infinity, but I don't think they can do that now per their agreement with the Singapore government. So I imagine that game does come out and it's a it's a disappointment. It's like something just comes and goes and they just get it off their books and they try to just get it behind them. But I don't know. We'll see from Kan Kane high Wins zero nine any news on up any upcoming Time Switters. I remember THHQ Nordic getting the license and then nothing. Hey Kane high Win, congratulations, they announced they're making a new time Switters game. What was the deal? What were the details on that? I think I wrote about this story. I mean, just google it real quick and you're gonna be able to hear that because I have a video broadcast turned off, So sorry about that. Yeah, Timesplitters is officially returning the studio that it's working on. It is even Free Radical Design, like Embracer Group, is creating a new studio in naming it Free Radical Design to work on it. So it's still really far away, but I'm happy to bring you this good news. This is fantastic. That feels good. Check the time. We're doing pretty good. We'll definitely get a couple more questions in. You know what I'm gonna do for these last few questions, and this applies if you've already If you've already asked and I missed them, please send him in again if you like, Hey, he just skipped over mine. I know that sending in again. That's completely fine. I want to answer them, but for now maybe we could just I'll just vamp until more questions come in. But I'd love to hear Keyboard as well. I'm I'm hungry, That's what I am. You know, we do this grub Snacks show. I got the I got the music, let's see, and I closed it. That music makes me hungry. So i haven't really had breakfast yet, so I'm gonna go out. I'm wondering what I should go get today. I'm gonna go. I might get like a burrito. That's a burrito kind of day, all right. This is from Fireproof two thousand and four. What move does Epic make in response to steam Deck steam os support? Uh, yeah, that's a good question. They talked about it and Tim Sweeney was like, I love this thing. This is great and thank you for seeing you love Grub's next Fireproof. By the way, I appreciate that it's it's confusing because you know, Fortnite isn't on Steam and that would be the only way to be good on steam Os. I think, I think, I guess maybe there are other ways to sideload stuff, and even if there is, it's not going to be like because you could sideload stuff on Android, and that's what Epic tried to do with the Epic Game Store on Android, like just sideloaded, don't go through Google Play, just sideload it and we'll be fine. And people are like, not, dog, I'm good. That sounds like a lot of work. I'm actually just gonna go download this Fortnite clone instead. So I wonder if they're like just hoping this turns into like a super open platform and well, yeah, people are buying this little lap this little handheld gaming laptop thing and it comes to steams. Everyone's gonna install Windows instead. I guess I'll have to see how this works. I imagine this is steam Os three point zero. I think I might just install it on something and take a look at it and see what it's like, and if it if it is something where you can install something separately outside of the Steams sort of store right there without a lot of hassle, which I think you probably should be able to know. I'm thinking about it because it's just gonna be Linux. Then yeah, I would imagine that Fortnite gets a Linux version and that's the solution there. From Slay mc awesome. Do you like big butts? Note that you cannot lie. I do, yes, A Ridium eight eight four new fire Emblem win. I think that I think they might be working on it, but I'm trying to think the team that actually did the development on that, so I know it fire Emblem is Intelligence Systems, but Intelligence Systems did not do the bulk of the development on three Houses, right. I just bring this up. You guys can hear the mechanical keyboard again Intelligence Systems and man, it was right there and I click yeah Coe Techmo And I'm trying to think it's like Koe Techmo busy with other stuff right now, or would they still be available to help with this, or would Nintendo work with someone else on the next one. I imagine that it's probably on its way. I know I've said I imagine a lot today. But that's my way of saying I don't know. I don't know, but I hope that they are working on it. I you know, they Intelligence Systems has Advance Force coming, but we know that that's actually way forward, right, So Intelligence Systems not busy with that. And Firewoman has done very well. Three houses, sold three million copies. That's pretty good, especially for when it came out on the switch. I think that they'll probably do another one pretty soon. I just I'm trying to like think like co Techmo could be pretty busy, but we'll see. I'm not sure. From permanent side, is Rock Stars Agent dead never? It can never die. Yeah, it's probably dead. Zoe Kudu, do you have any shoe recommendations for Jan to replace his boots in the summer. I get cheap boots off of Amazon now because I am a scrub, I'm a shlub. I am yeah. And what I do I actually got. I bought the same pair of shoes. No, I had two pairs of shoes, and I bought replacements for each of them in the exact same kind because I liked them. They were fine. That one was a pair of boots and one was a pair of just slip on sneakers and I just got these and they work out fine, and yeah, so just go by no name, no brand shoes off of the Internet from Arma X Sanctus. Do you think Calcom ever revives the Dino Crisis license? Yes, I do. They will. They'll bring that back. That's gonna come back. They'll they'll they'll experiment with it and once they're like they need a break or they need to do something else. Well, they like refunigal resid Evil. After it's current like residueval on a really good trajectory right now, it will get to a point where there are diminishing returns on that and Capcom will once again want to rethink what Resident Evil is. I think during that gap we'll get Dino Crisis, and I think it'll start with remakes. They'll start with Residevial style remakes from It's a me. Tell me, I can expect a new prototype game and I think you probably mean Capital P prototype And I'm gonna say probably not. That was a t Was that a THHQ game prototype? A lot of type in a day. Oh, I don't know what I was expecting when I type Prototype. It was just like, here's the definition of prototype, radical entertainment, Oh activision and see era entertainment. Man, I'm gonna say, no, no, that's that's probably not coming back. I'm sorry, man, time splitters. Yes, Prototype, no from totally. Butts. Does the Steam Deck takeaway any chances of Xbox games on the switch? I don't think so. I think the chances of I think the chances haven't changed. Xbox games probably not coming to switch into you said game pass. Game Pass probably not coming to switch anytime soon. And just because steam decks out there, I mean, if anything, it might increase the chances because I don't know, the TATA might look at it, and the Microsoft may might be able to make an argument that it didn't shift anything too much one way or the other. For the Steam Deck thing, I guess that probably doesn't track. I don't I would say that it doesn't shift the chances one way or another, one way or another because Nintendo isn't probably paying attention. They probably don't care. The reasons Nintendo isn't doing it exist and they continue to exist now after the Steam Deck is coming. All right, everybody, Yeah, Prototype was all right. I liked Prototype I definitely played it. I think, yeah, gonna tell a story about my naughtiness, but that'll be that'll be for another time. We gotta wrap this up. It's time. They're gonna get started with this EA play thing here real soon, so they're gonna want to talk over it, but they're gonna want to talk before it as well. I'm gonna let them go do that. I gotta get ready to like go cover this, go right about it and stuff. So I'm gonna go do that myself. Thank you everybody for watching, Thanks for your help with all the questions, Thanks for your help with the audio. Good looking out everybody. Until next time, I'm gonna get out of here, take care of yourself, have a good one and goodbye. Yeah.