You'll go be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this
for October twenty fifth, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
Live with me Jeff grub Today, Nintendo doesn't want your smash tournaments and dark
Forces approach in early twenty twenty four. But first please join me and welcomeing
today's co host the Game Mess Mornings. It's Mike Manati. Everybody, Mike,
how are you doing. Hi, I'm doing pretty good. I've had
Saint Almos Fire stuck in my head for about five days now and that's been
going great. That's yeah there. Yeah, everyone around you appreciates it.
You're a good sign. I'm a big fan. They're all very happy for
me. And yeah, you know, I'm like Johnny Appleseed, but it
said disgusting apples I'm just planting Saint Almos Joel Schumacher movie theme songs in people's
head. Oh he did Batman Forever, right, so you can also see
it. Kiss by a Rose Okay, and That's by a Rose seemed like
the most important song ever when I was a kid, and I think that
was correct. Actually, I think, yeah, that's I think you nailed
it. That's one hundred percent accurate. Name a more important song, it's
impossible. And that's actually today's quiz for you. Like his name a more
important song than Kiss by a Rose? Uh? You know that the lyric
in there, kissed by a rose on a grave. Apparently he's not saying
grave. He's saying now, I can't think of the other the word he's
actually saying. I thought he was saying grain for a long time, and
I had no idea what the heck that meant. Yeah, yeah, see
in my head of like, grave makes sense on the gray, it's on
the gray, it's a great well the roses have great parts. Well,
no, it's in the other parts of the song. He's referring to like
a gray area of life or something like that, and so it's like a
reference to other parts of the song. But but I was like, on
the yeah, you put roses on grave, Yeah, kiss on the roll
was sure, Yeah, that's that's evocative. But now you know. At
the same time, when when he's asked about this, he's like, if
you think it's grave, that's fine, you can I don't care like he
really doesn't care how people interpret these lyrics. So seales got more important things
going on. He seels like, got more empointees, got Yeah, he's
got more important things going on, including well, at one point Heidi Klum
not anymore, but hey, oh wow, yeah at one point man good
for Seal, Heidi Klume the Batman Forever song. I bet like the stuff
in between there was fun too. Yeah. Yeah, probably probably wasn't just
those highlights. Probably had a lot of fun stuff going on. Yeah,
probably a lot of parties, you know. Yeah, Heidi klumans look famous
for those Halloween parties, so yeah, there you go. Yeah, she
had like huge Halloween parties. So yeah, why do I know so much
about Heidi Klum? I know, I know a lot about Heidi klumb.
You got me, all right, So let's explain what we do here most
weekdays, I, Jeff Grebel, help piece your gaming life back together.
That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For
all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will
make me look smart. If you were watching live on twitch, welcome,
You can always listen to the show late on podcast feeds by searching for Gameless
Mornings, or find therss on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch
the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. Okay,
we have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess with.
Nintendo is implementing restrictive new rules for fan tournaments. This is from Haley
Williams at GameSpot. Nintendo has released a set of strict new rules for fans
looking to organize small scale tournaments around its games, which are defined in the
new guidelines as community tournaments. The guidelines set strict rules around the number of
competitors allowed, limit how much events can charge for entry, and set detailed
restrictions on how in person events can be run. Eurogamer reports that the guidelines
were first posted by Nintendo Japan, but then they got spread to Europe and
Nintendo of America and will probably apply worldwide by the time Nintendo's done. The
new rules specify that a community tournament tournament may only include up to two hundred
participants or three hundred if the tournament is held online. Tournament organizers are not
allowed to charge players more than a twenty dollars for participation or more than twenty
dollars for participation in an event, and any money raise can only be used
towards event costs and prizes. Spectator tickets can't be priced above fifteen dollars and
can only be used to raise money for event costs, not prize money.
There's also cap on prize money. Individual prizes are limited to five thousand dollars
each, with a total cap of ten thousand dollars per organizer in a twelve
month period. The lengthy post also includes a list of guidelines for participants and
spectators at the Community tournaments to be aware of, and an extensive FAQ that
contains a few other stipulations the Nintendo has for small scale tournaments. For example,
events are prohibited from selling food, beverages, or merchandise if they want
to come under the Community Tournament guidelines, and also cannot pay fees or expenses
to any participating player. As well as those highlighted above, there are plenty
of other rules tournament organizers will have to adhere to, with specific guidelines also
laid out for school tournaments and other community groups. If organizers are planned a
tournament that falls outside these guidelines, they'll have to apply for a license to
use Nintendo's games in their event. These go into effect on November ten no
November fifteenth, Mike, And the reaction to this from the people who do
kind of throw these kinds of tournaments, who attend these kinds of tournaments and
participate in them pretty negative. No one's really happy about any of this.
It's very very restrictive, and I would guess that's the entire point from Nintendo's
point of view. What do you think? Yeah, I mean this fast
community has had problems before, so I understand it needs to be regulated.
This seems like a lot and it's hard to understand how this helps anyone.
It's also a bit bizarre. Why are they so It's about it basically being
like nonprofit now right. I mean, if you put on a smash tournament,
I you know, I think you're allowed to maybe make money from that.
It's a lot of work, like, you know, not just cover
costs and prizes exclusively. Nintendo's always had a weird relationship with competitive Smash.
They have kind of vented it and wanted it to not be a thing.
They try to just let it be heads off and they get involved, and
they really get involved, but not in a fun way. I don't know.
I don't know how you don't just say look at Capcom and say let's
just do that. Maybe you can't just do that because smash community has its
little quirks and problems, but this seems like a lot. Yeah. I
think it's like, it's easy at first glance to be like, yeah,
Nintendo's has seen a lot of problems in the smash community and they don't want
to be associated with that, and so they're trying to distance themselves. This
is like, this doesn't really look like distancing themselves. This just looks like
trying to control everything, trying to make sure that they are in the way
and that everything has to go through them. And that's like, Okay,
that's not exactly the same thing as trying to protect yourself from a bunch of
shitheads in the smash community that treat people poorly or have had, you know,
sexual assault allegations, all kinds of terrible things that have happened in that
community, and rightfully should scare Nintendo, because Nintendo should take responsibility for that
stuff if it's happening under their watch. This stuff feels like it's traconian to
a really extreme degree, to the point where I was like, I don't
get what they're trying to do here other than hey, they they see someone
using their product in a way that is not benefitting Nintendo directly or something like
that, and they'd rather that not happen. Some of these rules are also
just feel needlessly stupid. There's a role you can only use Nintendo licensed controllers
in these tournaments. That means people who have built their own controllers for accessibility
reasons or whatever. People who have like people who like been playing you know,
these fighting games their entire life and now have hand pain and built a
controller so they can continue to participate. Well, no, that they can't
use their own controller. Now they're going to have to come in and use
something from Rotendo, and that limits their choice, And that's just bizarre and
nonsense. Just seems really overthought and overwrought. I don't know who took initiative
on us. I know who Nintendo is so passionate about coming down harm and
stuff. I don't know, yep. And then the other the other hand,
on the other hand, it's like, okay, well, so is
Nintendo going to establish an alternative to something that would have happened with like Ebo
or a bunch of other things, a bunch of like these community tournaments that
have popped up, and it's like that doesn't seem likely either. No,
they did their Nintender World Championships again a little bit here and there, but
those were, you know, smaller, and when they happened, they happened,
and we kind of moved on from that. And I forget what the
rules were for those, but I feel like they may have been weird rules.
Uh. Yeah, it's like, look, if you want to go
all in and smash, to go all in and smash, like set up
a real like tournament system, do something big, or just let these people
you know do it themselves. Keep distancing yourself from it. You know,
hey, look when all that bats up was smashed, it happen and it
was terrible. Jeff, I don't think anybody was like, I don't think
anyone's like, well, this reflects poorly on Nintendo. Maybe it does.
I guess it does. But yeah, again, I just don't know how
this andcessarily helps any of that I get. I don't I get how a
company thinks that they're that they should be worried that it would reflect poorly on
them and then overreact. And that's I mean, or maybe react appropriately.
But but but this feels like an overreaction if that's the impetus here, it
really does, but it doesn't. That actually doesn't seem like the impetus anymore.
What's it's it seems like is Nintendo is just got a lot of people
that work for it that are used to controlling every aspect of their IP and
like that is the marching orders down from the top is, hey, we
we have an iron grasp on everything that happens with any of our copyrighted materials,
and that that needs to be applied, and if you work in a
certain space, you need to make sure that that is happening. And then
you know, a team of a team of lawyers, a team of people
working at Nintendo, and like the the esports division, I suppose it's just
like, okay, well let's take control of this, let's take lead on
this, and then we end up with a bunch of weird rules, right
I I I don't know. If you are someone trying to make a living
playing these games games, uh, like competitively, it seems like, hey,
maybe Nintendo's not the best bet you kind of maybe have to get out
of the ecosystem everywhere else is like being getting a little bit better, at
least in the fighting game scene, I suppose. Yeah, it depends.
Yes, Nintendo is pretty rough about that right now. I don't know.
I imagine it's hard to make a living as a competitive Smash player if you
aren't also a content creator on top of that. Yeah, I mean the
good news is Smash people aren't real people, and the Smash fans they don't
deserve rights. Why would you go play some more items on? Did you
play a one does level where like the screen scrolls and like a million like
but from the sky? Or sounding a fun party game for party people.
It's funny the people who love like who loves Smashing its and like the party
stuff on only every day like yeah, like five hours and then they touch
again. Then you lecture the rest of us who actually play it on the
right way to play Smash Brothers, you know where you should play? How
have you were playing in a tournament, Mike for a Nintendo game of any
kind? I played in a couple of Smash tournaments. Actually they're small and
local, I'll have you know. I mean, there was when when Brawl
came out, they did like official tournaments at every game stop, and of
course because it was Nintendo, it was items on and I think even random
characters. There's something stupid rad stages anyways, maybe it's random stages, but
yeah, it was. It was a nonsense tournament. I did not get
very far in that. No, no, But if they had played the
right way, you would have won, you think. Yeah, if I
was able to pick my character and not have stars and full health tomatoes drop
on my opponents, yeah, I may have done a little better. That's
true. Jeff, Well, we'll pull for you next time. I Yeah,
if I'm in this scene, I'm feeling pretty bummed out about this.
I don't blame anybody who's having the reaction to this, because it's it is
just Nintendo being weird. And I don't know if getting loud ever is going
to change Nintendo mind. It's the kind of thing where it's like, yeah,
get loud now. They're not going to change their mind immediately, but
in like two to three years, it'll be like all these weird things that
nintend to do, like the Nintendo Partner program. Remember when they would like
take money from people's YouTube channels and stuff like that, Like they stop that
after like five six years. They'll probably come back around on this in a
handful of years, maybe the next Smash game, right right, that's when
we'll figure out what this really is going to look like. Like this has
been cracking down hard on kind of the weird. I don't want to say
like off times for Smash because Smash is just always going. But we're pretty
far removed from the release of Ultimate. There are no more characters coming out
for that, Gabe, and yet we also don't really know when the next
Smash is coming out. There will be another Smash, but more so than
ever, it's hard to tell what that looks like because Smash Ultimate was Smash
Ultimate, and it seems like the safe thing to do is to just basically
port that game and add a few more characters. I'm leaning towards that take
that you had, like, because I think we talked about this a bunch
of more for and now these days, I'm like, I think the whole
next generation could go by with a Smash Ultimate Deluxe, and that would be
they would probably get away with that just had a few thanks to it.
I thought that's what those switches smash was going to be. I thought it
was just going to be smash Ford Deluxe, and then I was like,
well, wow, they really over delivered. So part of me so like,
are they going to do that or is it going to be a worst
case scenario where they do something new but it necessitates them, like, well,
not every character's coming over. In fact, it's a much smaller roster,
and you know people won't react well to that. Maybe something real wacky,
like just the Melee remake to tide us over for a bit, so
we get like another really really big one. I don't know, it's just
tripping the game yay, yeah, just all trip oops, all tripping oops,
all tripping the trouble with tripping. Okay, let's move along here.
How's Xbox doing? Key takeaways from the latest earnings report. This is from
Darren Bomfuse at GameSpot. Business is booming at Microsoft, as the company has
just posted the first quarter from that's July to September twenty two, twenty three.
Oh it's twenty twenty four fiscal financial results. While there have been a
few misses, overall revenue is up thirteen percent and net income has seen a
twenty seven percent increase, thanks in part to Microsoft's Cloud Services OEM revenue and
the Xbox division that recorded its highest ever Q one and biggest non holiday quarter
overall. On the gaming side, Xbox hardware revenue declined seven percent, even
with the launch of a new Xbox Series S console that increased available storage capacity
on that device from five hundred and twelve gigabytes to one terabyte. The good
news here is that Xbox content and services revenue rose by thirteen percent, and
overall gaming revenue is also up nine percent. While game pass numbers still aren't
being shared by Microsoft, it looks like that so that subscription services is still
on the rise, so to picking apart these Xbox numbers a little bit,
the console down year over year, I think it's really hard to figure out
exactly what that looks like until like the reverberations from coming out of the pandemic
at whatever settle a little bit, because they even like PlayStation was down last
month according to the Sirkana report, but I still would have expected that to
be up. But whatever, they're making a lot of money, and you
don't need an Xbox to play Starfield. You can do a PC. Or
the cloud. Is that how you read this though I don't know a little
bit of that. You know, we've talked about this before, how Microsoft
is kind of de emphasizing the actual box in the Xbox. And you could
see the benefits of that strategy. You could sell more games, but you
are deemphasizing the box. Maybe there are gonna be fewer people out there who
feel incentivized to go and actually buy an Xbox even when you are launching your
biggest game ever, right, I mean, if not, you know,
a holiday is gonna be a holiday. But if not this month, you
know, on's the next time we're going to have a single game that's going
to potentially help give the consoles a big boost like this. Yeah, And
I mean I suppose U Xbox Series S maybe that does well and does fine,
and it's sold fine in terms of units, but it costs less than
an Xbox Series X that maybe was selling better last year. I mean,
you can like find a way to make it make sense. But I think
the Xbox should be in a position right now where you don't have to like
try to finangle things to make it seem like they're still growing in terms of
Xbox console sales, but their stated goal has been to grow their their overall
like footprint of what their software and services do, and that is growing fast.
It's growing quickly. Obviously that's built on the back of Starfield and they're
not gonna have another Starfield next quarter or something like that. But this this
needed to hit and to have their biggest quarter ever. That's not a holiday
quarter. That's pretty that's a good sign and they should be able to carry
that momentum through the holidays, right, yeah, no, absolutely right.
I mean, you know, big third party games like Call of Duty and
you know, so there are things stuff that even came on this month,
like I guess hasscreated don't forget about abats are don't never will never will.
Yeah, no, they're going to do just find this holiday for sure.
Let's see here if there's any other details from this story. Yes. With
the acquisition of Activisi Blizzard now finalized, Microsoft can also focus on growing the
PC game Pass subscription base. As back in October, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil
Spencer admitted that the console subscriptions have begun to slow. We'll talk a little
bit about Blizzard here after the break. Being the Pixar of games. According
to Mike to Xbox, well, they both aren't quite what they used to
be. Yes, exactly might point that out, and I think that's accurate.
But you know, Microsoft is definitely in a stronger position now than it's
ever been with PC gaming, thanks in a huge part to Blizzard but also
Activision. Do you think PC game pass can grow to the point where it's
just as important as the console and console game pass? I mean, you
don't see why not. It's hard to imagine why more and more people don't
become PC gamers, Jeff, I guess it's hard to quantify that necessarily.
I know I spend a lot of time on my PC, you know these
days. Something about this console generation, which you know, I'm not saying
that it's like a flop of a generation, of course not. These are
both good consoles, but I kind of came in with real high hopes for
it and a lot of enthusiasm at first to you know, already be at
this point where we are now, where there are games that come out and
they aren't running great, They're looking great, and not all of that is
on the hardware, of course, but a lot of times they do just
run better on my PC. Actually it's like, well, why am I
so worried about these consoles? Now? You know, PlayStation does have the
exclusives, so that makes some sense there. And even though Microsoft is doing
the nicer thing by letting me play these all these games on PC day one,
again it is like, why do I have an expo? Yeah,
yep, I'm kind of right there with you where I'm you know, both
these consoles I do. I don't play too often. I've been playing my
Place they shoot five recently a lot because of Spider Man, and then got
some codes for it, so I'm booting that up a lot recently. But
other than that, it's like, yeah, I'm on PC constantly, the
Which and then the the you know, the Steam Deck and the Roger ally
which are also PCs, playing a lot of those. But yes, yes
you pointed out, of course these consoles are doing well. They're well liked,
they they do perform well, they're fun, they're easy to use,
and they're they're powerful enough. But yeah, you could see the potential for
PC game Pass to sort of keep growing for Microsoft. But again it's like,
does it have that ongoing network effect of what you get if like,
you get someone to subscribe to game Pass on console or so like, hey,
well we're playing games every night on console and we're playing with friends,
and then when we want to go buy another game, well, we're all
going to go buy it on Xbox, and so well on PC if the
PC game Pass, if it's not on there and you're playing with friends every
night, you're definitely going to go to Steam to get the game or maybe
some other like maybe Epic even like I don't think the Microsoft game stories like
registering so for them to like get the knock on effects that you get from
console game Pass on PC, that just doesn't seem like it's there. So
hey, they might be able to grow it, but will be as effective
for them growing overall? I don't know. Do you think like as we
get more of these portable PCs like Rock Allies, more people kind of go
to PC game Pass from that as a way to get access to games on
those machines, you think. I think it has a you know, not
a massive impact, but it will be a noticeable impact. And I think
that was a big thing with the with the Asus when that launched, A
lot of people are like that seems like the one for me because getting Xbox
Game Pass games running on the Steam Deck is this huge pain and I have
I'm subscribed to this and I want to have it on there, So I'm
gonna use this thing. And then people might see that like oh yeah,
that I can have this handheld and just have all these games and just go
And I think that will move a significant number of people, just not massive
numbers. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, everybody. We got
a lot more news to talk about on this episode. We'll get to all
of it right after this. We're back and we're talking more news. Mike,
as I teased, Xbox Leadership has called Blizzard the Pixar of games.
This comes from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. Recently, Xbox Boss Phil Spencer
headed down to Blizzard HQ in Irvine, California to address employees following the acquisition
in Act of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft Studio. Boss Matt Booty and Sarah Bond
also appeared, filling out the rest of the Xbox Leadership team. According to
Windows Central, the meetings saw Spencer gave a short statement to employees where he
said Microsoft is striving to be a source of trust for Blizzard and wants to
enable Blizzard to achieve its visions and dreams. Also, Blizzard was reportedly referred
to as the Pixar of gaming. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like there was
much of an Activision presence at the event, apart from a few images of
the logo, as posted online by Activision's EVP for corporate Affairs, Lulu Ching
Mercervey Mercervy Mercervy. Yeah. Okay, so Mike, I get the comparison,
and of course I get why if you're Microsoft leadership you say this sort
of thing. But the reason I include this story is because you are the
most Blizzard pilled person I've known, like closely. And then you're also like,
you're also in the Pixar and Disney Like, does that comparison make sense
to you? What do you what do you see is the future for a
Blizzard? I mean, it does make some sense, because it is that
there is almost something of a walled garden there right like your part. Pixar
is part of this larger organization at Disney obviously, but it's very much its
own thing, with its own stable of properties and recognizable characters. Yes,
I get the comparison there. But just like a Pixar has been in a
decline and has you know, been struggling a little bit and clearly not in
their golden age. Blizzard is in a pretty weird spot right now. Overwatch
too, seems like in general that has not gone well. They have lost
a lot of players. Obviously, it still makes money, and I don't
know if it can rebound. It seemed like them canceling the initial plans for
that co op mode was sort of a point of no return at least for
a while in terms of what that game can be. Harpstone is just old
gosh. Just yesterday I was like, oh, I remember I liked the
song for the reveal trailer for that. Carazan said in Heartstone, I want
to listen to that again. I went on YouTube to look it up.
Seven years ago. That was wowka party for that one. They had like
some weird party for that. I was like, seven, hold is Hartstone?
Oh no, that's my stuff? Actually yeah, it's messed up.
Heartstone Stope again makes money, has fans, but it's not this giant thing
that at once was. I mean, like even the like the most successful
live service games, like there's going to be exceptions, very few exceptions,
but the most successful ones. Five six years after that, there's going to
be a significant tale and it's going to trail off. So yeah, that's
not too surprising, but that's like question is like, does Blizzard have the
capacities to sort of do what it's done in the past, and so you
know, after a five to six year period, it's got something new and
or it has a sequel that is going to push everything forward and get everyone
excited again. I got well, Dabo four is like I like, mostly
success, but kind of still a little bit of a question mark. I
don't know. It had like that really good first week and then the first
patch the fans didn't like, and then season one I think happened too fast
and just wasn't what people were looking for. Maybe I'm not sure how what
season two is like how people are feeling about that. But the vibe seemed
a bit off within the Diebo community about Diabo four back. Yeah, the
vibes were really offered Diablo three and then that game did more than fine.
Right Dialbo four, I think, at least for me, it struggles from
being a twenty twenty three thing where like yeah, sure. Normally I played
just Diablo every day. This year, I was playing Season one for a
bit and after a while, you know, part of it was like,
okay, yeah, look I got a million other things to play, and
this isn't This was fun for like fifty hours or whatever I play it was
a lot and now I'm not going to do that anymore. But we have
Blizz coming up in like a week. We are certainly getting a World of
Warkcout expansion announced there, and the last Workout expansion was something of a turnaround
there, at least in terms of player feelings. People like Dragonflight a good
deal more than they like shadow Lands, So we'll see what this next expansion
is going to be about if you can carry things on over there. I
don't know what the future of Classic is because they're at the end of Raft
of the lich King. Next expansion of that Cataclysm is when people do not
look back fondly on right, I'm not sure what you do then. No
point the Classic was to kind of like get you to the raft with the
lich King and then yeah, I think it was always going to be a
question mark what happens after that point? Do you think that they try to
like make subtle changes to improve categorism. Is that even possible? I mean,
I guess you might just do it anyways, because they and then you
know, people like even though like it was something of a sales downward slope
afterwards and at the time a lot of people we're weird about Missipandaria. Everybody
looks back on Missi Pandaria fondly. Now, so Maody, you go through
catecalism so that you can get to Missi Pandora. If you get to Legion
again. Everyone really likes Legion. A Legion classic would do well. Yeah,
I think listen, I think even the ones that people don't look back
back on fondly, having another chance to go through that with like knowing that
there's stuff that you do like still coming, I think that can change the
perspective. Right, There is still something novel about just playing through these because
you know you can always go back to that content, but it's never the
same as when it's new content, and you know the game is designed and
balanced around that. So even if it is like lesser expansions, there is
something inherently fun to that, and there will be an audience for that.
They could probably just keep classic going at this cadence where you know, whatever
spitch it comes out is like the one from like five expansions ago, and
people will have some reason to hop in there they are, Oh yeah,
go ahead. I was gonna say, like other question marks, we have
ARC Light or not not arc. Like they choose the name Warcraft Rumble mobile
game coming out, which will probably a good revenue stream. I don't know
if it's gonna set the world on fire like a Heartstone did, but we'll
see. And uh, I would have be shocked that they have one big
announcement of something down the road and that could be a StarCraft three or something
like that, something to get people excited. Yeah, I think they're almost
certainly going to do that sort of thing. Hey, there is a new
entry in our established franchises, and even the ones that have been a little
bit dormant for here for a little bit, that those will return. StarCraft
three seems inevitable. Microsoft has a soft spot for rts's, They've done several
Halo rts's, and yeah, I think that that's likely. But yeah,
that's gonna be tough to recapture the magic. I suppose, what do you
do with the StarCraft three. You just make a really good campaign. You
make the multiplayer what it was and call it a day. Right, don't
try to force it into something it's not right. Don't try to make the
next Dota. Yeah at an extrap should shoot her mode? Yeah, I
joke, and now that will be the star Just make a really good one
of those, basically as all you really need to do, I would imagine.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not like you said earlier. I'm very blizzard
pilled. StarCraft was like the one I was never super much into, So
I'm maybe not the person to say what I think a StarCraft three should look
like. But yeah, I don't know. I make bank another one those
people like StarCraft. Yeah, I would prefer if you brought back StarCraft ghosts.
I think that'd be cool, but probably not on the bocket. Yeah,
they that one. I remember being excited about the ding a someone who
didn't care about StarCraft. So when it because you thought it was just going
to be uh uh uh jeff, my my power flickered over there. Okay,
Poulter Craft, my whole, my whole power flicker. You're still You're
still here. We're good? Oh good, Okay Okay, I'm back.
We didn't see that. We did see the lights flash though, that was
pretty wild. Yeah they don't, did they not like me talking about StarCraft
Ghosting? Did you say my name? No, it's a different ghost.
Sorry, you only were just a because it was basically just supposed to be
splinter so right, oh yeah, yeah it definitely looked a lot, but
with a sexy blond lady. Right, yeah, so a real video game.
Let's go there, you yeah, ghost did a leak? Ever happen
for Ghosts? Can they you play any version of that game? Probably not
yet because there are multiple versions of it. It'd be weird and like there
were blizz condemnas of it. It'd be right, that's not out there.
Actually, yeah, I like to come on. Yeah, all right,
let's move along here to another studio that you know considered itself big and its
breitches. But that's a considered itself infallible. Ahead of Fallout seventy six launch,
former death says from Eddie McCoo at game Spot. While it's in a
much better place today the online focus, Fallout seventy six did not have the
most successful of launches back in twenty eighteen. Fuck that's five years ago.
Designer Bruce Nesmith, who has since left the company, set in an interview
with min Max, but I believe itself to be infallible at the time,
given the track record of the company's past games, and wasn't as focused as
it should have been. Followed seventy six was one I difinently that I definitely
struggled with. I think the company's aim was not as focused as it probably
should have been, and you could see the result in that in the way
that it entered the marketplace. To a certain extent, our own huber is
caught up with us. We had so many not just successes, but literal
games of the year industry wide, industry wide, accepted games of the year,
not just in our own heads or in these two little magazines over there,
but everybody is saying this is the game of the year. We started
to talk ourselves into the fact that we were infallible, that there was nothing
we couldn't do clearly that was wrong. Nesmith worked themselves into a shoot.
Nesmith went on to say that although but this, the higher ups kept pushing
studio director Todd Howard to add multiplayer and online elements to its games. The
idea to make Fallout seventy six an online game actually came from the fans who
were asking for it, Nesmith said, But as the higher ups would ask
to you know, I'm just repeating the thing that I must have paced its
white. Yeah. Okay, so Mike, Yeah, this this is a
lesson. This studio seemed like it needed to learn the hard way. Uh.
Like, I get it that you felt infallible games of the year,
but there was a lot of criticism out there of your games as well.
I like your games the way that they are, at least I did back
then. But how are you not also hearing the people going like, I
can't play this because of all the bugs and stuff, and Bethesda always launches
broken games and along those lines, and it's like, well, you're you
had to be ignoring that if you're like, well, we can't do anything
wrong going in the follow at seventy six, because all the stuff that went
wrong is the stuff that's like, oh, we could see this coming as
people who play your games, I could see this happening, and it's pretty
I think it's pretty easy to like, especially these days with the way we
get criticism on the internet, which is often very unkind. It can seem
very loud and personal. It's easy to be like, well, what's just
completely ignore everything about that, yes, even though there are there is truth
to it, like yeah, your games are too ugly and hey you did
you did you did make the RPG elements kind of worse than Fallout four and
stuff like that. It's easier to say, like, well, those people
were just that there's something wrong with them and the way they talked to us.
Yeah, Fall seventy six, I was like, yeah, how did
you not see that like that coming? That people? It almost was like
they got away, but they're kind of lucky a little bit right that the
acquisition happened right after that, because Fall seventy six was real bad. That
was really rough in terms of just the game not working and the game that
was there being feeling incredibly half baked, yes, and ugly and lots of
problems with Fall seventy six. Incredible that that game is in anything resembling a
decent state right now. Yeah, And it's uh kind of like hope though,
Okay, well okay, you had that and you had Starfield, and
Starfield much better a position than Fallot seventy six ever was, but even still,
it's like a lot of criticism out there. Can you take that forward
and for the next game, really think about that, you know? I
have my hopes, like the rumors about them using Unreal Engine for their visuals
while still using game Brio. I can't remember what they call it, game
Creation Infinite Engine Infinity is like the old one that was missed filled like original
Balder's Gate engine and stuff, but like they were still gonna use that their
personal engine for the systems and all those things in the background. I'm like,
okay, yeah, one of the biggest problems with a something like a
Starfield is the game feels very sterile and then the world feels kind of bland
and there's not a lot of variety in the visuals. And if Unreal Engine
can help with that, that would be a big step forward, and maybe
you should apply that to your next game and not just a remake of Oblivion.
But who knows if that's how that's actually going to play out. Do
they do they realize that that's important and they're going to carry that forward,
or are they going to be like, well, that's just for the remake
and for our next game. No, we're sticking with our own engine.
We'll make some more improvements on what we did with Starfield. That game sold
all these copies. We're doing just fine. And it's like, well,
I hope, I hope you're listening, because I still like, hold hold
out hope that some of your games can really hit in the future. But
come out at Starfield, it's say, oh, you're trending downward I think
overall, and are you going to bounce back from that? Not if you
continue to consider continue to like maybe ignore some of these criticisms. Not right,
And I mean you're right, though, pointed out that very hard to
pick out those criticisms that are actually valuable to you, right, it is
you basically have to have a person dedicated to that to kind of parsing through
the garbage and finding the actual player sentiment. Sometimes, like you know,
hey, for Starfield Imagined, it's very easy to be like, well,
hey, well we're selling a million copies, and you know, we had
a lot of very good reviews, and it's it's easy to be like,
oh and now, oh here's what a fanboy said, right blah right,
or this is bad faith no, like you know, and I get that
sometimes and of course people are going to pick up there is going to be
somebody out there who's just worried about scoring points for their PlayStation team, and
they're going to pick up on something as criticism and just repost me like,
yeah, Starfield does suck. See, but there are kernels of truth there
always about that and so little bit of a topic change. I've seen multiple
people over the last couple of weeks say that the the console warring is worse
than it's ever been. And I think I've noticed that, and i think
I've felt that, But I'm like, it's always, you know, things
are always better than they ever were, and they're always worse than they ever
were. Whenever you like start thinking about stuff, I'm like, I can
see maybe a lineage of of like at one point it was just idiots arguing
online because they're they're feelings. They were up in their feelings. Now it
is like fully, it's a full cottage industry. Like it's a full business
now, and there's money on the line for people who can like whip up
enough you know, vitriol and get enough people behind them watching all their stuff.
Every time they're screaming about the competitor that maybe that turning it into this
like business has made it worse, and I think that's probably what's happened here.
But do you feel that do you agree with that? It's hard because
it has always been there, that we didn't feel like we were at a
point where it was getting quieter again, which is I think why it feels
so bad now, Like we had like a game of I remember, with
the three people standing there and everything was kind of coomed bay off for a
moment. It's stupider than ever because yeah, like Xbox and PlayStation are so
similar. It's just very funny to me to see how upset they get what
they're nearly identical boxes and similar games and all that stuff. It's easy,
it's relatively easy, I think, for me to ignore it for the most
part. Jeff, the people, because again it's so silly now that people
who do do this are so obviously stupid and look so dumb to me.
You know, don't waste your breath engaging with them, don't waste your breath
trying to appeal to their better nature anything like that. They're yeah, they're
just idiots. Yep, sounds right to me, all right, Here's here's
a favorite of ours. One of Star Wars's best first person shooter games is
getting remastered in February. This from Andy Robinson oft VGC. We'd heard about
this, but we got dates now, night Dives. Star Wars Dark Forces
remaster has been given a February twenty eighth, twenty twenty four release date.
The remaster, which was announced earlier this year for consoles and PC, will
support up the four K resolution and one hundred and twenty frames per second depending
on the platform it's running on. It will also feature advanced three D ren
during modern game pad, support, trophies and achievements, and more. According
to Nightdive, hey, I was I'm very glad we're not gonna have to
wait till deep into twenty twenty four to get that remaster. I was like,
we'll probably get that in summer, so here we're getting it in February.
Very exciting to me. I know you just replayed this game, but
how are you feeling about this? Right? There was a fan project called
the Force Engine, which made it playable on monar Py Season and that was
really good, really good. I didn't play through the whole thing, but
I tried it out and it's really good, so I'm kind of curious to
see how it stacks to that. I guess, you know, if it
feels as good as somehow feels better, maybe it doesn't. You know,
it'll be bad if it doesn't feel as good, right, But no,
I'm excited for this. I like of all the games that were just Doom
clones, and there were a lot of them, I think Dark Forces is
the best one of those. It is a fun Star Wars adventure. It
has all the good Star Wars music, everything you want there. The one
thing I'll sketchy about on the remaster was the Redone cut scenes. I hope
you can just kind of turn that off. They sort of smoothed out the
cut scenes and made them look like coloring book pages or something like that.
Man. Yeah, not really for me, but otherwise, very excited for
this. Yeah. I wonder if usually when they do that, I always
hate that, And I guess the desire there is to replicate sort of what
the image would look like on a CRT, but just use the original art
and put on a CRT or give me the option for a CRT filter.
That's what a digital clips does a lot of a lot of times these days
when it does its remakes and remasters, Nightdive hasn't worked a ton in games
that necessarily need that because you could always those games, You could always turn
up the resolution those PC games and mess around with that stuff. And it's
like, so you can just, you know, continue to increase the look
of a game until it makes sense on a modern display. But the artwork
that was static that they're but you're talking about, Sure it does. It
does look a little bit not my favorite. I agree. I don't hate
it, though, to be clear, like I'm not not a deal breaker
exactly, but I definitely agree. I hope there's an option to see that
original artwork. Yeah, I hope that they get to Dark Forces to Jedi
Knight, and then Dark Forces three Jedi Ight, two Jedi Outcasts, and
then Dark Forces for Jedi Night, three Jedi Outcasts two Jedi Academy. Those
are all four very good games. Mike, Who's cooler Kyle Katar and or
dash Rendar? Oh? Interesting? That render might be cool, but I
like Catar and more. That's a fair answer. I'm like, I actually
I am pretty split on them. Of great, I like them both a
ton, but They're like that those are the two right like and even in
Jedi Survivor you could get there's like two outfits you can make that just basically
one looks like the dash red doar outfit and one looks like the guitar and
outfit. They know, ye all right? Moving along here. Former PlayStation
Boss sounds the alarm after Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard. This from Hailey Williams at
GameSpot. The former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sean Leyden, has
had a lot to say about the state of the industry since he left Sony
in twenty nineteen, and a recent interview, Leyden explained on some of those
expanded on some of those points, warning against studio consolidation and advocating for game
preservation in the wake of Microsoft's massive acquisition of Activision Blizzard finally going through.
In an interview with the Land Parties podcast last week, as picked up by
Kotaku, Leyden excuse me, reiterated some of the biggest issues as he sees
it in today's gaming industry, including consolidation, which has been a major talking
point during Microsoft's battle to acquire gaming giant Activision Blizzard King. My concern around
consolidation is that often is it often impacts creativity? Leyden explained, for instance,
it takes some kind of small, independent wildhorse studios and brings them into
a larger conglomerate, and essentially time slows down the bigger you are. And
then he repeats, time slows down. While Leyden says the practice can be
positive in cases where a smaller studio otherwise would have shut down, he's still
concerned about the impact of consolidation on the industry as a whole. I'm just
concerned about what it does to to create, to the creativity urges inside of
studios, and can they keep that sort of independent creativity alive or do they
just get absorbed into the larger hole. Time will tell, but it's a
bit concerning. When you go from hundreds of voices to dozens of voices,
you lose some voices, clearly. I think this is a fair point,
especially when it comes to like when you look at Embracer, like this is
what has been happening, and then like, obviously the other side of it
is and then if Embracer experiences problems that get that affects everyone down the line
and It's not like studios aren't closing down. Outside of Embracer, We've had
a lot of several studios, but hey, we released the game this year
and now we're shutting down. It's oh shit, Okay, that sucks,
right, And they're independent and that's like, so the risks are to me,
is that, Yeah, that's one of them. I think there's a
hand a couple others that had something similar happen, But it's it's just like
the status quo. When it comes to Activision Blizzard, it was already kind
of not the creative urgentes have already been killed everyone along the lens. I
mean, we were witnessing it be killed at Blizzard. So I continue to
be like, eh, when it goes going from Activision to Microsoft, I
don't think suddenly you're gonna get like a bunch of independent voices being able to
speak up and make whatever they want. But it's slightly more likely at Microsoft.
And really the actual hope here is that the people making money from this
sale that I have stock can leave this and go on and make their own
studios, and that's where the creativity sort of psychoes back into the industry.
And that's not necessarily going to be hurt. Honestly, it might be benefited
from something from a deal like this, but overall, like, how do
you feel like about his view here? No, I mean, I think
he's right. But Activision Blizzard was a very special case. Right. They
were the ones who were kind of destroying studio creativity by just putting everybody on
call of duty. Now we're not you know again, I don't know,
Microsoft's going to come in and suddenly like toys for both and you're gonna make
a new Spiro instead of that, and right, and yeah, things like
Vicarious Visions. You're gonna make Tony Hawk. You don't have to work on
Diabolo anymore. Probably not, But that was already where Activision Blizzard was with
a ton of other problems, so that you know, it was a very
big acquisition, but it was, you know, an example. We're just
looking at it. It felt okay. Similar acquisitions, though going forward,
it's going to become harder to justify. Yep, yeah, definitely, And
it's I think right now today, if you are part of Activision Blizzard King
and you're going into Microsoft and you do have your stock options and you're waiting
for them, to vest, and you're like looking at like, Okay,
yeah, no, we can work here and feel like somewhat secure at Microsoft
for a couple of years and maybe ride things out while you wait for the
macroeconomic situation to calm down where you know, interest that situation macroeconomic, Yes,
that the best, Yeah, totally like, but it's like really hard
to get investment right now because interest rates are so high. So it's like
if you wanted to start your studio and like leave Activision, like you know,
earlier this year, that would have been really tough, and that would
have been a problem. Even though companies are like to play. Some big
entities are still investing in new studios. That is still happening entities, But
hey, it's going to take a couple of years for your stock to vest,
So just ride this out and then hopefully things calm down, and then
when you come out on the other side, there's going to be a bunch
of money waiting for you from from investment entities, uh to kind of catch
you in and it's set you up again, or at very least you also
have a ton of money coming out of this this deal and you can maybe
fund some of it yourself. That's always an option as well, all right.
The new PS five's optional disk drive requires an Internet connection to connect,
and that's just a single time, not like not a constant connection. But
this comes from Jordan Midler at VGC. The upcoming optional dis drive for the
PlayStation five will require an Internet connection to pair it to a console for the
first time, as spotted on the back of the box for the upcoming Call
of Duty Modern Warfare three PS five slim bundle small print confirms that players who
purchase the new model with the optional drive will be required to connect to the
Internet when pairing it to a machine for the first time. It's likely that
this is a security measure in order to ensure that the disk drive is a
legitimate one and not a third party one. Obviously that was a huge point
of vulnerability for piracy in the past. However, it has raised some preservation
concerns. Because the accessory will require an Internet connection for verification, there will
potentially come a time when the servers needed to verify the license will no longer
be operational. Does that concern you? Is this like a trend that worries
you, I'll say. The story goes on to explain this is likely due
to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which says it's illegal to circumvent a device
that is part of the copyright chain on these devices, and so a company
like Sony can get away with having like this, uh, this little device
inside it's called a daughterboard inside the PS five that shakes hands with the motherboard
and then they get it. Yeah, yeah, exactly cute huh, and
that that like says, hey, I'm a legitimate one and I'm the only
one that can ever work in this PS five, to the point where if
you were to take an identical drive out of another PS five and put it
in your current one, it wouldn't work. It just straight up that doesn't
work. You'd have to get that renew the handshake. It's like kind of
it goes against the idea of modular descent design. I guess it's not really
the point of the disk drive. It really is. Hey, we think
a lot of people don't even want one of these things. And if you
really want one, I guess you can buy one, but you get themologist
has it right? Uh? Are you good there? I don't think so.
I think I think it still has to get like paired. I think
it's still going to get the thing. Yeah, because this the this fine
print is on the back of the modern Warfare three PS five slim bundle,
and that's the one that has the disdriver food, So I think the first
time that you boot it up. Now, I think if you were to
go out and buy an official dis drive, there's probably gonna be some system
involved to be like, okay, let's unpair that last one, pair this
new one. But that's still going to have to reach out to a server.
So people are saying, hey, eventually we're gonna get to a point
where someone tries to get a PS five working in the future one of these
slim PS fives and they go to use their disk drive and I'm going to
put a disc in and it's like, well, this one was never paired
and the servers down, so now the discs are useless and this PS five
is hampered because of it. And I don't like the sound of that,
but it's like, uh, you know, this is this is the kind
of thing where like, hey, hey, regulation is helpful for these companies
for copyright, and they don't think about the long term support for these that
it's like not even like a top ten concern. It's like not even in
the top one hundred. They're like, hey, no, we got to
protect the profits now. And if the if the hardware is damaged in terms
of its usability fifteen years from now, oh well that they've moved on,
they're selling something else. It's like, that's a real bummer that that's kind
of where we're at. No, yeah, that is definitely a legitimate concern,
And yeah, I guess I am a little worried about how that's all
gonna shake out. Yeah, well, I hope that we can kind of
get to a point where like regulation is able to carve out exceptions for us
to be like, no, it's just like you have to make sure that
their device, if it includes a disk drive or can connect with a disk
drive, that's just gonna work. But I think these companies are too powerful
and be trying to protect their copyrighted material is going to be their priority,
and they're gonna keep going with that. At the same time, I watch
a lot of MVG's videos, These things usually get solved. These sure people
figure it out. Yeah, the homebrew community usually figures these problems out,
and it probably won't involve like, hey, someone's setting up like a fake
server that you ping to. It'll probably be a lot simpler than that,
but we'll see. We'll see, all right. Mario Party three is coming
to Switch Online Plus Expansion Pack this week. This is from my Nintendo News,
and Nintendo has been very active with the Nintendo Switch Online Plus Expansion Pack
retro libraries lately. Although it varies which retro library gets updated, Nintendo's schedule
with the new edition has reached a point where it is now guaranteed to guaranteed
to see at least one retro game added a month. Man, that's just
so active, minkee with that retro game per month. They're so generous.
Yeah, well tonight is no exception. You've see. Nintendo's announced that Mario
Party three will be coming to Nintendo Switch Online Plus Expansion Packs Nintendo sixty four
library later this week, on October twenty seventh. How do we hide this
from Dan h He was in chat earlier. God, because I said when
I when I when I went after Pixar. He was shocked. Yes,
he said, Oh, Mitch's shooting on Disney. Yeah, on Disney,
So God, can't we just can't we play Mario Party Superstars. I'm not
Mario Party three. I guess it'll be fun still, it'll be fine,
but I don't know. We could probably talk him in the Superstars instead.
Although maybe I want to play here. I don't know. I don't even
know what. I don't know what I want. Like I said, I
want to play the one with the microphone. I've never played that. So
the one of one of the three with the microphone. Yeah, so that
would multiple microphones. I think you pass it like we just passed down the
line. I think it's aid. You passed the germ stick, insert it
into the throat, and then you pass it to the next person. Yes.
Uh. CEO of warframe developer Digital Extremes is stepping down. This is
from Steven Mills at Destructoid. Founder of Digital Extremes, James Schmalls, announced
today he intends to step down as CEO of the company. The current Chief
creative officer, Steven Steve Sinclair, will assume the CEO duties, effective immediately.
Sinclair's a twenty four year veteran at a Digital Extremes. Uh. Basically,
the Schmaals just said, hey, I've been I've been doing this for
a long time. I feel mentally privileged to have been able to play a
part of shaping our industry. Building our stellar team has been a fulfilling life
work. I feel in I feel in Steve, we have the ideal leader
to take us on, and he's just like, I'm just moving on.
It sounds a little bit like a retirement. How long before rev FD just
runs that entire company though, Yeah, there you go, that'd be good
man freaking Warframe. Man. It's funny because to me, that's still that
PlayStation four launch title that we all kind of dilated totally free and like,
yeah, it is still going very strong. Digital Extremes is working on their
fantasy game. Yeah, soul Frame, right, that's what it is.
Is that what that's called? Yes, sir, that is correct, So
yeah, they are. You know, he's leaving the company what seems like
a very good position, right with at least a map of how to run
a game like that, and Warframe obviously not going to run forever forever,
But it is hit a point where for years there, long long after that
launch that you and I both where we both downloaded that game and tried it
for a couple of days maybe, and then never played it again. Every
time they released an expansion for that game. It was getting bigger, getting
bigger, getting bigger every single time. And it's like, and people love
the modization how that worked, where it's just like, now there's not all
this this horseshit. It's all kind of super fair and it's okay. So
they have something that works, and if they could replicate that with a second
game and kind of carry it from there, that would be very good.
It seems like they should be able to pull that off with something like a
Soul's a Soul frame all right. Finally, metal Gear Solid Master Collection on
PC has already been modded for ten ADP and four K support. This comes
from Chris Sculling at VGC. An unofficial mod has already been released for middle
Gear Solid Master Collection Volume one, which lets players change the resolution from middle
Gear Solid two and three such a novel concept. Players have been expressing the
disappointment that the new version of the second and third game in the middle Gear
Solid series renders at seven to twenty P on PC, meaning the image can
look blurry on high resolution monitors. However, as spotted by PC Gamer,
the new mod, which is called MGS Resolution Patch is an experimental plugin for
the Steam version of the collection. The patch involves copying a few files to
the game's directory, but basically a fucking mon and then you once you do
it, you can edit the I and I file and change the resolutions.
Uh it's uh's yes, you can work at ten ADP up to twenty twenty
one sixty P, which is four k uh. And then it doesn't guarantee
that everything is going to work right now, because, like you said,
experimental, Uh, this is what I was waiting for, Mike. I'm
like, I know monitors are going to get there. I'm glad it happened
so quickly. I suppose we could be like, why can't Konami do this?
But we know why they're fucking Konami, right. Yeah, man,
I don't know. It's a bummer. Like even when like there's early reports
of like this collection not looking great, I was like, ah, it's
gonna be fine. I just need to play the old games. It's fine.
And now it's here, and seeing what everyone's saying and all these problems,
like I just you know, I got a lot of games to play
right now. I'll just not I wanted to play Metal your solid again.
Maybe I just won't right now. Maybe I'll wait to see if patches or
whatever puts a samp the snuff for you know what, I still have like
the originals, not the original originals, Like I have substance, subsistence.
I'm good to go with those. Maybe. Yeah, I don't want to
like scare off people who've never played it before. Mike. I think that
they can come to this thing still and get the metal gear stylet experience.
It's not the ideal experience, but it's gonna be good enough. I think
that, Hey, if you've never played these games before, go ahead find
this this, find a copy of Volue one maybe when it's on sale or
something. That's totally fine. But if you want to play these games,
you could play them and you're gonna get that experience. For everyone who has
like played them before or has the HD collections from previous releases, Yeah,
this is a bad release for them, for sure. It's disappointing because these
games are I don't need like a lot of extras, Jeff like that,
Like that doesn't bother me, Like, oh there's where's like the video documentaries
and you know, why can't I play the you know, MGS version and
that stuff is in there, but ms EX excuse me, but I just
want the games will run really well. Like the fact that it's not sixty
fps on switch really blue my mind because that's why I thought I was going
to get these. Yeah, I just want to metal gear solid on switch.
And now, like that's not an ideal way to play these games.
What these PlayStation two placeation one games. It's weird. Yeah, you would
think that a minor company these days can realize just a little extra effort goes
a long way and would be rewarded with excitement and sales. But Konami doesn't
know. They don't know. But like they did good with that Pennsylvania Advanced
collection like that. Who did that collection? Wasn't really Yeah, but we
were just talking about like Super Nintendo games on our show yesterday and that was
like good. Konami was like the best developer in the world. YEP.
So you know, obviously they've been like non existent for a long time.
They're slowly inching back into games. But maybe that's why you don't leave games
even when it's a little rough for a bit, because it's hard to just
suddenly decide to get back into it and get the ground running. You can
announce fifty Solid Hill games, whatever you wanna do. It's difficult to spin
everything up again. Yeah, real quick, Colonel Sanders, and Chet says
M two did meddle gear Solid one for this and that version seems okay,
big surprise, big surprise. Just go to go to M two, go
to Digital Eclips, Konami. Stop sucking up, all right, we have
a poll from my quiz. Well, yeah, we'll get we'll get to
it. Yeah, don't worry. We're gonna pop here. We're gonna attach
you here to the end. Don't worry. Okay, I swear you're forgetting
because I'm not good things sometimes. Well gay you you were supposed to remind
me. But we'll get to it here in a second, very aggressively in
your defense. Hey, hey, I would expect nothing less. All right.
The poll question from when was it was a fucking Monday from Monday.
What do you want Insomniac to make after Wolverine? Ten percent say they want
a Venom game, eleven percent say a different Marvel Hero, twelve percent say
Spider Man three and a whopping sixty seven percent say a new IP there's no
ratchet in clank option here. There is no ratchet in clank option. You're
right, is that what you would have voted for? Or yeah, iratch
it and clink? I get it? Yeah, I I I uh,
yes, I get it, and I think I probably, once I really
think about it, probably would also want to do Ratchet and clink next after
Wolverine. But we'll see. I listened that or a new ip. But
also I wouldn't here. I'm not gonna I'm gonna be mad if Spider Man
three comes quick, because I really enjoyed Spider Man don't come relatively quick,
and I wouldn't be surprised that we had a Venom game kind of in that.
Miles Morales slot, I totally agree. Yes, absolutely, all right,
we have a new poll question going up here in a second, But
first let's talk about real quick, what's happening on Giant Bomb. Uh after
this at one pm Eastern time, so an hour after Games Mornings ends,
we will be reacting to the Xbox Partner showcase. They're the third party thing.
It's gonna be thirty minutes, no idea if there's gonna be big news,
but we're gonna hang out and talk about that, so please join us
over here on YouTube and Twitch. Then at two thirty pm. Uh,
it's I think I'm gonna be playing a bad video game, but apparently I'm
gonna be spending most of it getting into whatever outfit Dan has picked out stuff.
Keeps saying like, you're gonna need a lot of time. I'm like,
what are what could what could this possibly be? Is it? I'm
like, I'm worried that there actually are prosthetics. So, uh, we'll
sell be fine, cap, We'll see what happens. Yeah, you and
you and damn weage you have the vamp for a minute while I get suited
up, I suppose, so definitely tune in for that as well. Uh
all right, Mike, Uh real quick, while I get this quiz,
I want to tell people where they can find you. We'll do that and
then we'll wrap up the show. Go to GamesBeat dot com check out our
coverage there. And my staff actually just came back from our games Beat next
conference. I was managing the store while they were all there. Some of
them are traveling today. Some of them are even doing with delayed fights.
That's fun. Isn't that the best? But yeah, that and uh yeah,
Jeff and I do our shows over on the game Mess YouTube channel past
and ten Dogs, which just went out yesterday. Uh Game Mess Decides,
which was Thursday. We must have a Columbo pod guess now, Columbros,
we are going through every Columbo episode together, which is fun. I've been
enjoying that. That's been a good time, all right. The new poll
is who is cooler Kyle katarn dash Rendar or who the hell are these people?
So you can vote for that on YouTube dot com slash at giant bomb
under the community tab there, find that and vote for it. We'll discuss
it on the show tomorrow. First though, Mike, I have a list
of the top ten most streamed Disney songs I want, I want you to
and I think they're like are you just like think about it, like what
would be streaming now? Like what's gonna be popular? So from like this
year, like most streamed all time all time? Okay, and I think
it probably comes from Spotify. I would assume, yes, okay, Uh,
let it Go has got to be on there. Let it Go is
number one, yes, and I bet Into the Unknown also it's got to
be on there. That is number six, so so far, so good.
Uh, we don't talk about Bruno is number five and surface pressure from
that one it does not make the top ten. Yeah, that's one.
That's one bad one. That's a bad like we want to do like three
strikes. Okay, we'll do three strikes. I like that. I'm like
afraid to go too much older yet there's definitely I want to I want to
give you a hint about like that. There are two older ones. What's
older to you? Like nineties late late nineties, and I think there's gonna
They're gonna be tough. But I'll say that at least one of them is
a radio hit. All right, Okay, but we still have to do
You're Welcome from Moana. That is number four. Yeah, and how far
I wonder if how Far I'll Go is also on there. I'm scared now
how far I'll go? Number three? Hey? Well, well, yes,
okay, shocked, Okay, a little surprised. I think that's huge
one with little girls. My kids listen to that constantly. Yeah, it's
a very good song. Okay, good, good for all. Okay,
you know what number two one is tough because it's act that's an old song
that got re released for one of these and is like, yeah, sure,
like in the live action version. No, it's like a song that
existed before the movie and then got used in the movie. Oh that's a
pretty good hint. And now I'm scared. And uh, I'm not sure.
It's a guess a Pixar movie. It's a Pixar movie. What is
it? Life as a Highway? Number two? Is Life is a Highway
for cars? Incrediblefully does predate cars? Right? Like? I didn't like
that, okay version of it for cars? I think that's the Rascal Flats
or whatever that gets played on the radio. Now, yes, okay,
so you've got all a Disney song. I think you got all Top six
so far, so let me check make sure yes, you got the top
It's gonna get harder from here. And I got to figure out what the
nineties ones are. You said late nineties, but you don't know what you're
talking about. Must be might just be be our guest. No, there
is no Lion King, no Little Mermaid, no Beauty in the Beast.
You did say Aladdin though, No Aladdin, No Aladdin? Yes, what
yep? Okay, is it some Phil calling stuff? Yeah, it's a
Phil calling stuff in there. You'll be in my heart. You'll be in
my Heart's Number seven from Tarzan. Okay, that's the radio hit. That's
the radio hit, right, because I've never hearing the radio hit. Yeah,
it's Phil Commins course, the radio hit. Is there another nineties one?
Uh? Yeah, listen, we're talking late nineties, early two thousands.
Uh is it what a little Hercules? No, it's not Hercules early
two thousands or I don't want to talk about, but it's it's definitely like
I think it's post Tarzan. Okay, man post Tarzan. Where's that many
musicals there? So this one is very musical. This one is uh,
I kind of like just I don't know, it sounds like a Broadway show
tune. This is not helping. There's so many Disney movies that are like
that interesting three D animated, No to D animated animated? Post? Is
it Mulan? Oh? Oh, it's Mulan. It's I'll Make a Man
out of You. Number nine is I'll Make a Man out of You?
Yeah? It is all right? And then the last two are from a
very very big movie that you've already mentioned a couple of times. Is there
there more Frozen ones. Yep, there's more Frozen ones. Okay, for
the first time in forever? No, no, strike wow ship, not
for the first you gotta go more like more broad than that, more broad
than Okay, I did into the unknown, and I did let it go
to people like the Snowman song that much in summer, because I don't think
I don't like that song that much. It's fine, Probably not in summer.
Nope, nope, nope, I've done. Then it's number eight.
Is you want to guess more frozen? No, well, if it's not
in summer, it's not the one that they sing together, the song first
time forever. It's one where the two people sing, uh, you know,
it's crazy, we finish each other sandwiches. That's what I was going
to say. I never met someone. If you think so much, that
is that love is an open door. Yeah, okay, yes, okay
that then yes, that's number eight, Love is open. And then number
ten is do you want to build a Snowman? Oh right, yes,
right, that's the broad like that's a catchy song on the movie's kind of
weird, listen to it on its own, because then I like, in
the middle of that song, their parents fucking die. Yeah, yeah,
just like kids turning on the Frozen soundtrack and just listening to the whole thing.
I think is what that is. But you're trying to help. Yeah,
you want to build a snowman. You want to build a snowman.
Pretty good, you did really good. That's what I was expecting is he
had to get a lot of that, So that was fun. I saw
that. I'm like, I should just save this image. I saw it
on TikTok and so I'll just save that and we'll talk about it on the
show sometime. All right, Mike, thank you so much for spending today
talking about video games and Disney music. Thank you for having me, Thank
you everybody for listening. You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
have a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye.