You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello, and welcome to
another edition of Video Games to the Max. I am your host, Sean
Garmer, here with me as usual, mister Mark Morrison hid and well we
I didn't purposely delay this show for any reason. Just have a lot of
things going on. But obviously I've been looking forward to having to talk about
this Microsoft treachery, terribleness, whatever you want to call it, closing down
for but does the studios. We're gonna get into all that, the Sarabon
mess of an interview that happened afterwards, which I'm sure was scheduled way before
they were supposed to do that, all of the things that go on with
this whole Xbox thing. Mark, we'll probably talk about some more Stellar Blade
and Nintendo actually has good news, so we'll get into that too, I
guess. So let's get on with it, all right, So just Happy
Mother's Day, everybody. Everybody's mom's out there, your mom, Mark this.
Yeah, we started a little bit later because I had to call my
grandma that left at the Arkansas and all that, and I was like,
oh, let me make a friend's toasts and all that this morning. So
it's like, Okay, well, I guess we're we're doing that right now
because that already given her all the stuff last night, like you know,
when it turned twelve or whatever. So but let's go ahead and get into
the housekeeping really quick, just to get that out of the way. If
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and you know, listen to what are podcasts saying that you like to listen
to. So that being said, we might as well not delay. Let's
just get into the big news of the entire week. Is this has been
the week really and honestly, when you have earth shattering news like this with
the Xbox, it kind of just h that. It made me not want
to really think about playing something else for a while, because to me,
it's just it's absolutely ridiculous. You buy all these studios, then you go
and shut a bunch of them down. It feels like once again you're not
having messaging that you should. You tell us one thing earlier when you have
that big, old, that thing that you weren't supposed to have that everybody
got mad because you were going to do the putting four games on PlayStation,
and then you come out and just do this out of the blue, out
of nowhere. It feels like, obviously y'all had to take time behind closed
doors to make this decision, but you just announced it like that and have
it leaked like that. It's just absolutely terrible for these studios involved. So
let me just break a lot of this stuff down and then we can just
talk about it instead of like going point by point whatever. So the studios
that got shut down Arcane Austin, which is Redfall. Basically that's the last
game that they made. You know, they also made pray Tail Game Works,
which High Fi Rush, the most stellar game that they've had that's not
named four Za in a while. And you know you can throw a Pentamin
or some other ones in there right well, high profile or yeah, it's
the one one that that won all the awards right. The one game that
they've been able to outside of like Force Horizon five maybe winning something Alpha Dog,
which they're the ones that did the the Mighty Doom and that kind of
got Doom into like you know, younger players hands or whatever. It's a
smaller thing, but still they were doing something. And then Roundhouse that was
kind of like a support studio. Roundhouse is actually getting uh they're getting like
assimilated into Zenemax Online. So they're gonna go and do the like but does
the Elder Scrolls Online thing all that. Yeah, so they're not losing their
jobs, but they're can consolidated. Whatever they were doing is is not what
they were going to be doing originally. So still it sucks to to have
to see them, you know, go through that. Uh not to mention,
it's like you just hit it like a ton of bricks. So you
have these figureheads from these studios, like the figurehead from Arcane Leone just being
like, oh, this is just a gut staff because the way you did
this. And then you have Matt Booty. He he's the one that wrote
this whole letter, right, That's that tells them, Okay, well this
is why we're doing it. Oh, the typical bs about, oh,
well, we got to think about growth, and we got to think about
the what's best for business basically, and focus our games on priority games and
invest in other parts of because the and invest in other parts of our studios.
And then he comes on and goes but we need smaller games that win
awards, that's what we need. Uh. Do you guys like not pay
attention to what you say before you say it? Did Matt Booty not run
this through somebody because you just contradicted I mean, and they contradict themselves all
the time, but he contented me Okay. Then Sarabon goes on, Now,
let's be honest. This Bloomberg Tech Summit thing. I'm pretty sure that
originally when this was made for her to show up, or for Microsoft to
be on here and Xbox to be a part of it, originally they weren't
going to talk about this. I imagine that this was made months ago.
Right, But Sarabon, whoever it is that runs the pr like, y'all
got to know this question is gonna get asked, right, it just happened.
Everybody in gaming is talking about it. Anybody that goes on any social
media seeing it, and her response is it's always extraordinarily hard when you have
to make decisions like that, you know, being flat last year, the
whole industry. I'll go back to what I was saying about it. When
we look at those fundamental trends, we feel a deep responsibility to ensure that
the games we make, the advice they build, the services we offer are
there through moments even when the industry isn't growing and you're through a time of
transition, and we gotta do this for the health of the long term.
Says nothing, absolutely, absolutely nothing. And you know she goes on to
talk about other stuff. They're gonna make the Microsoft Store for for and mobile
and it's gonna show up on web at some point. That's all fine and
Danny. Then you have Mike mikey Bara coming in and being like, oh
man, we gotta feel sorry for still Spencer because he's taking this part of
everybody else's thought. And the guy that left before we even had any integration
between the Activision, Blizzard King or whatever, the guy that decided to take
his ball and go home, is the one sitting here talking about how everybody's
gonna feel. I'm gonna feel bad and we should all feel bad for Phil
Spencer. I'm sorry, man, I don't feel bad for Phil Spencer.
I don't feel bad for you. I don't feel bad for any of the
executives at all. We'll talk about them in a second. You know,
they R Kane Austin was apparently going to be doing an offline mode for Redfall,
like this was the next thing along with working on that DLC. Now
that DLC is not happening, the offline mode is not happening. They're supposedly
going to keep it going for the people that are still playing this game,
but who knows how long that's going to happen, because now you still have
to be online online. Yeah, so you don't get the big update that
they wanted. You just close it before you get the final thing. And
the only good thing besides that, I guess maybe the Microsoft Store happening for
the mobile is that Fallout four's next gen update is going to be available as
we're recording this tomorrow. So no, it's already available. But when they
released it originally, they fucked it all up, right, They're like re
releasing it on Monday. So I'll let you go ahead because I'm about to
like go off this whole thing as somebody that's been the big Xbox beforter in
the room. I'm just I'm just pissed. Go on, I think I
think the shows. I mean, I don't. You won't like when I
say this, but kind of an abject failure of Game Pass. No,
you're not wrong. If that was doing well, you know, they'd keep
the studio, you know, some of the studios. I mean, I
could see a case for them shutting down the one Mobile studio. It's like
who cares or you know, that's support studio. But but I mean it
helps. It's still people. They're at least not losing their jobs or whatever.
But the other three were doing stuff and Tengo was already pitching another game.
That's the weird thing to me. Actually the Tango won because okay,
High Fi Rush is good. It is a smaller game, but it's still
good. Shouldn't they have been working on something else? Like they're pitching something.
But it's like that, it's not like, okay, we released we
released Hi Fi Rush. Now we can sit on an answer for the next
year or six months or I mean, you know, they were working on
it for a while maybe they had you know, it's not like they just
go from one thing another. They got to pitch it to the Microsoft people
because that that game they were working on, that was it for the acquisition.
Yeah, so you know, this this was something that Microsoft inherited,
just like Red Fall, and it turned out that this one was actually good.
You know. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, so you know,
uh go, I mean, what do you what do you think about
this whole mess? Like, just is do you there's no point of this,
right, You're Microsoft. You make a bunch of money. Of all
the people that should not be laying off studios and closing studios, it should
be them, right Yeah. But it's like, well why doesn't It's almost
the Micael Borrow quote, like what, yes, they're making a bunch of
money. But then once someone think of the poor Scott, the poor shareholder
because the studio is open, they way to lose lose a point on that.
No, I mean, that's that's the thing. Is his whole thing
about the shareholders, the shareholders. Phil. Look, I'm tired. I'm
tired of Phil at this point. I'm tired of of the figureheads, the
executives coming on and talking all wax poetic about oh, this is the best
place to make games and we let people do what they want, go ahead.
That's the thing is it's only Xbox that does that. Like Sony has
Jim or they had Jim Ryan, but he never really did that like he
did like on occasion, but it was, you know, he wasn't like
the evangelized figure that Phil has you know, has been and Nintendo, Damnfier
doesn't do that like they have the CEO come out like maybe occasionally, but
not, you know, very rarely, let's say. So, you know,
I think Microsoft one they had that like culture personality around you know,
Phil, but they've also done it before like Major Nelson or even disastrously Don
Mattrick and yeah, yeah no, but I mean look Major Nelson that was
because he so the podcast he had that, I mean yeah. But the
thing with Phil and then by extension Matt Booty and Sarah bon Now especially Phil
is he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He says one thing,
it seems like Microsoft, the figureheads at Microsoft telling him one thing,
and then he goes and says something completely different. After he talks to somebody
else from Microsoft has an interview with The Verge and says something completely different there.
It's like, it's never consistent. This is the entire problem with Microsoft.
They are so contradictory. Phil is so contradictory to everything he says,
you know, and this is this is the the fruit of all of it.
It's it's I'm done, I'm done trusting them. I have no trust.
I have no trust in Xbox. I fear. I fear for hell
Blade too, because that game is not going to do Yeah, no offense
indust theory, but within six months they're gonna be toasted. I hope,
you know. I mean, this game could win awards and maybe that break
that, maybe that that now that Matt Booty has set it out in the
open, right because apparently apparently whatever uh Tango game works and High Fri Rush
one doesn't count, right, Yeah he said it. They only won a
Dice Award and a Game Award, and you know, they won an award.
It pretty much everything. Maybe it's not Game of the Year, but
it's an award, damn it. You get you could put that on the
look. I know Xbox doesn't sell game boxes anymore. They want to sell
everything digital, but you can put that on the the front of the when
you go try to find that game on your online store. You could put
it all over the PlayStation store when when you try to find that game.
Now, because that game is a lot PlayStation like, this is stuff that
can get people to play this game. I get it that it's not the
system seller, but you're saying it's one of your smaller games, and you're
contradicting yourself and saying, oh, we need smaller games that win awards.
Bro, that game just won awards. It is your one Japanese studio,
one Japanese studio, and you throw it away. Why would any Japanese If
I'm at liss right now, unless Xbox is just going to continue to back
up the truck, which I guess maybe they will because they can get that
deal for Persona six to come day and date on Xbox. Okay, cool,
whatever. I don't have much money they got to spend for that to
happen. But if I'm atless, if I'm sega, I'm looking at and
going wow, they could have They could have chosen other studios, but they
chose a Japanese right. I don't remember her name right now, but the
person that they chose to be like the person that talks to Japanese studios.
You just lost one of your a pillar that you had to be able to
say, hey, we have a Japanese studio and they made the best game
that we had for a while. So this it makes no sense, no
sense whatsoever to get like, was there not another studio that you could have
chosen? Was there not something that you could have done to keep them along,
even put them in as a support studio while they try to figure out
what game they were gonna do next that you actually approve of, because apparently
they were pitching a game that was gonna take like three or four years to
make. I don't know what it was. They don't they're not probably never
gonna tell us, and they didn't want to deal with that. They want
stuff made like faster, I guess, or I don't like. They want
stuff that they can be made faster, and it doesn't work like that.
We all see that how these big games, even the mid size games,
they take three four years to make, you know, and I don't know
unless you have even high front rush is he it was a modest hit.
But now I'm starting to believe the stuff that Jeff Grubb put out like not
too long ago, where he says, you know, as far as you
I've talked to, High five Rush was a failure, right, And it
sucks to see that because it makes no sense. Hey, Crafty, you
know it's it's it's ridiculous exactly. They are just a tone deaf, solace
company. They honestly ought to just call it the Microsoft Box at this point,
just call it the Microsoft Box. It's no longer Xbox. Phil Spencer
is just somebody that takes orders from Satian Adela and gets told, Okay,
this is what is the big deal now, and that's that's what we're doing.
Everything else. If it ain't gonna make money, we're not doing it.
They've now become just another company inside of Microsoft. This whole thing about
they're so creative and they're so whatever. How long before they start pulling the
plug on the ID at Xbox stuff? How long until until they pull the
plug on game pass? Let me ask you a question, mark, where
where do you stand on the whole call of duty? Because I feel like
they're in a they're in a stuck in a situation where it's you pick one
you pick the other you lose. Do you put it on game Pass?
Do you not what happens? I would say you put it on game pass
because van will show that like, oh everyone's playing it or made from up
some business on game Pass. But you know, game Pass isn't growing or
you know, if it is, it's you know, one percent or whatever,
or you know, very small, like and it'll grow game Pass a
little, but not to what they wanted to and because like they're they have
the insane beliefs that like, oh, one hundred and fifty percent of the
gaming population should be in game pass or you know, you know whatever,
everyone should be in game Pass. It's like that's not feasible for a lot
of people either because they don't want it like me like physical gaming, or
they don't can't afford it, or you know, the game selection isn't there.
And it's not even about cant afford it's it's the same thing that's happening
with all streaming. Do you use it enough to justify paying seventeen dollars more
for something that you do not use if you don't play a game on it
at all, why are you buying? Why are you paying for it.
Yeah. I mean actually I talked with the ends about it because he has
game Pass, but he has it for like Balder's Gate three, which he
already owns. So yeah, but brotherers Kate's not on there. Like it's
like you're whether you have it for like let's say you have it because okay,
hell Blade's coming, right, so you you need the prescripe the description
because okay, hell Blades two is a game that I want to play.
Cool, But that's fine. Then then what after that? All right?
But what if you don't? So here's the thing, Like, let we
know we've talked about this bunch of times. Call of Duty is a game
that people that do not play games by to play with their friends. Okay,
cool, I can now get my friends, I can get more friends
to play without having to pay seventy dollars. But the follow is, now
you're getting a lot of people that are not going to pay the seventy dollars
at all and just play it off game pass, and you lose the one
not one, they have some other ones, but the one game that you
know you can put it out there and it's gonna people are gonna go bite
and droves. So you're gonna get people that are gonna subscribe a game Pass,
right, this is the one game that you have that's gonna get people
to sit there and and and Okay, I'm gonna subscribe, right, But
then, like every other service, they're gonna unsubscribe and then what did you
really gain? You know, right, months of high numbers and that's about
it. Yeah, exactly what press are you gonna get? Is it worth
it for you to lose the number one game that sells every year in all
of gaming to put it on game Pass? Or do you want to have
that one game that you know consistently will sell. And that's the problem is
if you don't put it on game Pass, I'll tell you right now the
doom and gloom that's gonna happen. Because we've all been I as a game
Pass subscriber for the longest time. I've had it for like three years or
more. We've all been told every single first party game goes on game Pass
day one. So if you take that off and you start saying, ah,
but this game's too big, right, Okay, so what what's the
now the barometer of what's too big, what's too small? Like that is
that that's a bad situation. You know that you're gonna put yourself on Uh
yeah, why, I'm gonna tell you why. Because they don't want to.
They do not want Diablo, I think, is one that like,
okay, it's persistent online, like it's it's one that's like made for people
to play co op. You want to revive that game with season that's coming.
The other games, they don't want to put too much stuff on on
on game pass. I feel like until they're completely done with the FTC.
When they're completely done with the FTC, I think we're gonna start seeing a
rollout of Activision stuf U on game Pass. Uh. They don't want to
draw anybody's attention from the FTC at all to be like, hey, look
they're making money off this act division and stuff. Let's start, you know,
trying to actually use our brain and find a reason why they shouldn't have
this deal go through. Because I feel like the FTC is still not using
their brain as to why they're fighting at all. But you know, to
go to go beyond this. I feel like also it's just I get it.
As a figurehead, you're not going to say like, oh, man,
Uh, we really didn't want to do this, but we're we we
closed these studios because, uh, you know whatever the actual real reason was.
You're not going to say that, because that's the first yeah, you
know. Like the funny thing is you're attributing all this like to Phil Spencer,
but it's like he he's like high at the totem pole, but he
ain't the leader of the you know, of Microsoft in general. Like,
well he's not. But the reason why I'm saying is because Phil's one of
the talks right, one that that opens his mouth and says things and then
ends up contradicting himself. And that's why they shouldn't talk. That's why they
should just go be like you said, be luck Nintendo, be like Sony,
stop talking and start doing. And that's the thing. They talk way
too much. They talk and talk and tell you they're gonna do this and
then do this this, and it's like, now this thing that they're gonna
have in June, I'm not that hyped for it anymore because how many of
these games are gonna actually like still be existing, uh in six months or
whatever. Because I'm really worried about what's gonna happen in Ninja theory. I'm
really worried about what's gonna happen to Obsidian because about is probably not gonna light
the world on fire, right, I mean, there's a chance it could,
right, but I don't think it's going to And you know, Indiana
Jones. I'm sure it will get people to maybe give it a give it
pay attention that. Yeah, that's what Sarah Vaughn remembers playing watching as a
kid. So yeah, I mean, it's just like that's the thing is,
like Indiana Jones already, the movie didn't do well, Like that franchise
is not in the best state. It's possible that like Fallout the game could
cause a revival for it maybe but maybe maybe, But it's just there's nothing
coming in that Xbox slate right now, at least for this year. That
makes me go, Okay, I think those studios are secure right now,
right, I mean, I feel like it is fine because you know,
you've probably got the next Doom going on, like whatever that is, You're
you're probably fine. We know that playgrounds fine because they're still in New Fable.
But I think it's like the Mircosoft actually had the balls to shut on
id like the internet would riot because oh yeah, oh yeah, you can
make the argument like Tango. I mean they made High Fight, High Fi
Rush and people within one and two, but they weren't like a story developer
with like you know, essentially starting the first person genre. But it's still
important because it was your one Japanese studio. It was the one studio that
had made anything of note that wasn't a franchise. You already had big things.
Tango a little is also like you know, uh on Akami left,
Yeah, it didn't have that like lineage that it used to or you know
that, right, and so whatever you make afterwards is not going to have
his name attached to it. So if they wanted to make an evil within
three now, you're not going to have that creative force with him there of
saying okay, this is where we're going with that, you know. And
the and the thing too with with Tango, I feel like is they we
we all love the shadow Drop, right, I don't think the shadow Drop
does does it any favors when you're talking about outside of the the box that
we all live in here with with with social media and everything with gaming,
when you're trying to push that out to the people that don't use their console
every day and aren't on the internet constantly looking at gaming stuff. I think
they have no idea that that game exists because there's no marketing behind it.
There's no nothing out there putting commercials for it and stuff like that. It's
just it's just hey, it's there, cool, you know, and and
maybe you find that if you happen to use game pass that day. But
they didn't do that game any favors with that either, you know. Yeah,
I was joking on Twitter about because I think they said they're going to
make good. They have a make make good for the Red Fall, Yeah,
and it's like, what are they gonna do. They're either going to
offer like, oh, you get a month or two game pass for free,
or you know, they'll be like, oh we can give you,
you know, star Field for free or something, you know, some o
the crappy game or you know, something that we already own, as opposed
to actually making you know, just having them finish the DAN. Yeah,
Like I didn't understand that either, Like why not just let them finish out
the DLC at least let that game kind of glow out in a vase of
glory or something. You know, you said you were gonna I mean,
obviously this is Pete Hines before he left, but you know this is him
saying like, hey, we're gonna try to have this game still still last,
you know, and whatever. Yeah, that's that's the thing is.
It's just like, I think a little bit of transparency, a little bit
of honesty would go kind of a certain way in that, Hey, it's
cool that Phil went out and just basically, you know, said what he
needed to say on that that kind of funny s cast or whatever. But
it's like again, every time you get one of them saying something, they
they contradict themselves again because then Microsoft comes and pulls the plug on it or
whatever or says, hey, we're not doing that anymore. And I feel
like this has all come down to that activision Blizzard thing that it took way
too long to close. So gaming was in a different spot in twenty twenty
one, right when this this whole thing happened with this is almost three years
ago. At this point, gaming was in a boom period, right,
So they're thinking about all the money they're gonna make, all the the stuff
they're gonna be able to do with all these studios, and then it takes
them almost three years. They're still dealing with it, three years of trying
to close this fricking deal. Right, they're not even fully integrated. But
that's not even fully integrated with Xbox yet. If they're doing that at all,
you know, it's just I ain't. I ain't that. Besides,
the one is because they didn't want to be or like, yeah, they
could have done it a lot quicker, but they're like, we'll just keep
it hands off for Yeah, well look how look how well that worked out
for you. But it's not even the hands out. It's the whole point
of like, okay, well now we made seventy billion dollars of money.
So somebody in Microsoft goes, oh, okay, uh, you're letting this
company that doesn't really make that much money spend seventy billion dollars on this game
publisher, excuse me, let me start running the numbers. Right, you
start getting attention from other places at Microsoft that you weren't getting attention for,
and so now they start running the numbers and they go, oh my god,
look how much we're spending on this, on this, on this well,
you know, let's start cutting. We're gonna start cutting because this is
not making money. This is not making money. Game Passes is freaking costing
us. I don't know how much money like Bill can go around saying it's
profitable. But there's a reason why they started getting down to the bottom,
bottom bottom of games that they put on that thing. Now you know they
can they can make these deals with these indies, and I'm sure they make
deals with that id at xboss games that they put on there and stuff like
that, and that's great. I love those indies. I love playing I
was playing Animal well before we started. That game is really cool. Like
I love those kind of things. But the problem is those are like nice
things to have on your service. They're like little things that you can go,
Okay, it makes me as a gamer, it makes me want to
keep game pass. You'll you never know when you're gonna get surprised with a
little game like that that you didn't chronicle. Thing. That was great too,
but that's the problem. Like, I mean, I'm sorry Animal was
on PS Plus, but my whole point was that you get games like that,
and those are really outside of the Xbox like Day one stuff. Those
are the only games that are really like making that service worth it for people,
unless you just do not play games at all and you go on there,
like let's say you bought it for your you know, younger kid that's
like getting into gaming and they see this big old library of stuff and then
it's like, oh, yeah, cool, I get to play all this
stuff. It's like that's rare. Most of the people that are buying that
thing already play games that already played a bunch of the big older games.
So when they're looking at the new stuff that comes out, and it's very
like it's very scarce. Now what comes out that's actually new, Like it's
not helping you, it's only showing that there's less and less value for that
thing. And if they go as far as taking the now you're stuck with
the You can't do what PlayStation does right. You can't go decide. It's
like you sink or swim with it. With game Pass, it's either you
completely game pass is gone and it becomes PS plus and it's oh, it's
only old games and maybe we'll throw on one of our games like every six
months or so, and you don't have the day one stuff at all or
you keep going with that. And that's the problem is that is a money
sink that at some point I feel like somebody at Microsoft's gonna go, you
know, we tried. It's a nice idea, but yeah, it's it's
another it's another failed the Windows phone. It's another thing that they they had
that worked. It's the thing that touts them apart. But that's the problem
is that, Like, and then you can say that like our vision was
too forward thinking, and well, I mean that's always their problem, right,
is that they're too forward thinking. They think like way out and I
mean PlayStation was probably the one that did it correctly. They made it as
an additive. They didn't make it as the only way for you to It's
not the only way you can buy your games. But who's gonna buy a
game when you can just subscribe for seventeen dollars and have the same game and
then guess what happens. They'll tell you when it goes off and you can
go buy it on the selle if you really want it. If not,
it's always there. You can just buy it whenever the hell you want.
So, like, that's the problem is you know, you you gave people
too much, and then now when you try to shut the door, you
can't do it, and you put yourself in a hole where it's great that
you can tell people that you have all these numbers about Oh man, look
at all these players on for Diablo four on Xbox game pas. Oh that's
cool, except for does this really do anything for our bottom line at all
outside of just getting to vote the fact that we sold? Because when when
when health divers two gets to talk about all these numbers that they do on
seam and and they and they have everybody get pissed off because they we're gonna
do that PSN integration. I'd be pissed too, because that means I can't
play a game that I bought, that I paid forty bucks for. Right
when Xbox tells you they're just gonna take a game off game pass or whatever,
it's it's not that big a thing, I feel like, and it's
it's it doesn't mean that much to people because you get so used to not
buying your game, and and that's an issue that Microsoft and selfs Microsoft and
Xbox created with this, and so now you're trying to tell people to go
spend the seventy dollars or the fifty dollars or I think he'll play twos fifty
dollars right, because it doesn't have the physical dial, Like, are you
really gonna get those people to spend the fifty dollars now when they can spend
seventeen dollars and just play the game, Like, I don't know how that
is a metric, you know, because Aaron Greenberg talked about how Hi Fi
Rush met all the metrics last year, right, and then somehow they're closing
this studio. But what's gonna happen with Ninja theory is that is help A
two gonna meet all the metrics, and then micro Soft's gonna go, oh,
yeah, but it didn't meet the metric that matters the moment and that
yeah, even if it did, like shifting the goalposts like met it so
far. But exactly on the line is Phil gonna have to come out again
and say, oh, well, you know it didn't. The business is
not you know, gaming is still not growing, so we had to close.
And that's the thing is there's reports for Bloomberg already put it out there
that they're not done. There is gonna be more stuff happening. There's gonna
be more cost cutting hollymore lay. I'll say, already laid off like almost
two thousand people earlier in the year. Then we don't even know how many
people are getting laid off from all these studios that are re enclosed, like
Microsoft and Xbox are just a mess. It's a mess right now. I
had to say it, but I don't think, uh, Double Find it's
long for this world either. Yeah, I was gonna respond to your tweet
that please don't wish that on people, but it's like, you know,
I feel I really don't. I love Double fund Yeah, I don't want
Double Find to go away. Yeah, Like I love the fact, yeah
they haven't made anything since Technods too, and like, but that's the problem
is, like would they green light anything because the psycoats three for them,
right, Like where are we at with this creativity? The you know,
the sad part is like you know, at least maybe not the last generation
per se, but like the three sixty generation, like Double Fine is put
on a game, multiple games every year, right, Like they put out
from twenty eleven to two thousand and fourteen, they put out four to five
games a year, right, that's kind of a lot for like what they
call you know what they would say smallest developer or you know, yeah,
but they also had like funding for like Majesco's no, no, not yet
legend right that's nine yeah, but but yeah, they had a lot of
games right and then. But if you watch that that documentary is amazing.
By the way, if you haven't watched that Psychotasy documentary about how they made
Psychonats, do you definitely should. It's long, but if you really want
to know like how it is for a game dev like that is amazing,
go watch it. But honestly, that's that's my worry too with thela Fine
is like you've already remastered all your old classics, You've you put out Psychonauts
to the game people have been waiting on if you're making it, unless they
already have a game of development, which I'm sure they probably do this,
you know, not announcing it because somebody finally got smart many years ago about
like let's not announce things that are like five years away. But could they
possibly cancel some of this stuff because this is happening right like where they're Titan
to go. Oh wn, we gotta slash here. We've gotta slash here,
we gotta cut here because they gotta they gotta somehow make back that seventy
billion dollars, right, Paul, duty can't do it by itself, So
like where are you called it? You can do a nice chunk of it.
And that's the problem with putting it on game pass is how much of
that chunk is going to go away now because you do so? And like
Crafty said, they're just they're just hoping, like you'd be soft said at
the beginning of the year that people just subscribe and forget about and they just
keep paying. But the problem is people have so many subscriptions now they do
start paying attention, yeah, and they do start going, Okay, I'm
gonna cut this off and cut this off and cut this off. And then
game Pass, I mean, you can't do the thing we're you used to
start stacking up the dollar sugs for game Pass and then have it there for
three years or whatever. I pay out of my pocket out of the seventeen
and then I pay this the seventeen for PS plus premium, which I really
shouldn't because you know, premium is sometimes such a waste of whatever it's two
dollars. But the fact is that's we're we're you know, on the hard
core side of gaming. The people that are not that are just picking it
up for like the one game here and there or whatever. It's not really
doing a lot. And so like when you look forward to like let's say
we're looking at this thing in June, they're probably going to announce stuff that
we don't we haven't seen, right, It's probably there's gonna be new stuff.
I'm sure we'll probably get something Fable. Yeah, I'm sure we'll probably
get something Fable related. Since it's been long enough, I feel like I'll
show another CD tailor. But yeah, like Perfect Dark at some point that
somebody has got to tell you what's going. Like, that's another studio right
there, right like we've seen nothing nothing from Perfect Dark. That thing is
apparently in horrible shape. Yeah that was pretty funny. Yeah, like what
are what are Here's like, Matt Booty, you're talking again, you're talking,
You're sending these letters out? What are you doing? What what's going
on with like all these I feel like Xbox obviously they have other people,
but they centered around these three people. They're the figureheads. And then it's
like they grow, they grew way too big and they don't have enough people
to watch over everything, so like do like mad body's supposed to be in
charge of all this stuff, and it's like that seems like way too much
stuff for one person, Like shouldn't you have like other people at Xbox also
like delineating, like Okay, you're working on this, like you know,
go and go and figure out what's going on with with all these games and
and like what is the process? Like what's the tail light here? What's
what's the like future going on? I mean, okay, we're gonna get
Gear six. But that's what I worry about with with microlfic is like you're
you're so worried about, Oh, all these games are not making what you
need to make, Like how many franchises do you have that are really gonna
outside of Gears and outside of Call of Duty and whatever Blizzard is doing that
really like resonate with people, like the broad spectrum of of gaming that's really
gonna push your your systems and everything else. You know, That's what I
were about, Like these are all cool, Like I love the fact that
a vow exists, you know, maybe anti zones, but like I feel
like a lot of the stuff that gets made by them is this is great
from a gaming perspective, But you're talking about, oh, we want to
consolidate our franchise, we want to focus on the big stuff, like Crafty
mentioned, what big stuff is there really for you to focus on? Yeah,
I mean that's what I'm saying. Like this generation and even the last
one, like the big big stuff quote unquote didn't hit well or you know,
like Halo five or Gears five or Halo Incenter rather Yeah, the uh,
you know, all they got is Forza. Yeah, it's it's Forza.
You gotta hope Fable actually knocks out of the park whenever it does come
out. Now, well, I mean I think that thing's been in development
so long. If that doesn't come out by like twenty twenty five, I
think we've we've hit something here where there's there's a failure on somebody's end.
Like at some point, you got to stop blaming the pandemic. You got
to stop blaming this thing or that thing or we inherited this and it's not
our problem. Like, okay, so you didn't let Tango make the next
game that would have been your problem. Right, you didn't let Arkane Austin
make the next game they wanted to go back into like the immersive sim uh
stuff apparently, so I don't know it. Just this is all a mess.
I have no trust in xbos right now. You can tell me that
thing. In June, you can announce a bunch of awesome shit. I'm
gonna get hiped, but I'm also not gonna get two hipes because I don't
know if any of that shit's coming out. Yeah, I must say,
said, you know, here's Gear six so to be out November fourteenth.
They give an actual firmal ease date. Yeah, that's the only way you
could kind of trust him. Maybe, But right they've shown time and time
again they announce stuff way too early and then they just kind of dilly dally
about, well, it'll eventually come out like that dark thing. I'm also
waiting for the how many more games are gonna win up on PlayStation because I
feel like the end of Deella's words were not him talking about how much he
loved the fact that that that they took over the entire PlayStation store with a
bunch of old games, and then you know, games that they they just
released on there. I feel like that's a bit of foreshadowing, like Starfield
is coming, there's other games coming, Like this is this is not gonna
finish. You know, they took over the PlayStation store for like a month
or for a few weeks, but it's like it's not like a year long
thing. No it's not. But I'm saying that matters to him, right,
yeah, right, Like you're making money somewhere that you weren't making money
before, so let's do it more of it, right, And I don't
think that's gonna I mean maybe PlayStation moves the needle or something on one of
these like live service things that they they could have cooking or whatever. But
other than that, they're not gonna do things the other way. So this
is this is Xbox and only Xbox deciding to go down this route because they
don't have another route to go. If you close up shop on everything that
you've done consumer friendly and you decide, okay, we're gonna be like the
other two guys, or I'm sorry, the other two, the other two
console make I don't think you can do that. I don't think Xbox has
the gravitas to be able to do that. I don't think they have the
franchises the ability to you have Call of Duty, but again, call d
is one game. You could buy Call of Duty and then you don't buy
nothing else the entire year, and you're you're happy, You're good, you
know. Uh That's that's my issue with it, is like Xbox is stuck
and like the only thing they can do is hope to god one of these
games that they make absolutely explodes. Because other than that, I don't know,
man, it just the way things are going. It feels like Microsoft
is just not that interest in like, let's be the cool gaming thing.
Is not it? This is a business then it always was a business,
but they're not this whole like we're going to be mister nice people again,
you know, and be the Hey we're we're you know, all the bad
stuff Sony and Nintendo. Dude, we're not doing that. They're going to
become just like the other two. Go ahead and sorry, uh, this
wasn't an this wasn't a Microsoft thing. But you see that, Like I
think it was Vicarious Visions or whoever all made that. Tony Hank went into
if they pitched twenty Hank three and four as the vision shut them down.
Yeah, they should reverse that as your decision today or as as soon as
they can. They should go back to the studio and go, hey,
get to work on that thing instead, Like not every studio, how many
of those back Carriss business people are actually still there? And then do you
have the ability to unfurl them from Blizzard into Backcara's business again to be able
to do that, right, Like, I don't know how integrated they are
at this point at whatever they do is they do with Blizzard. So have
the fest to just put out Tony Hawk three and four instead? Yeah,
that would be insane, But you have throw all skateboarding along with Tony Hawk.
Yeah. Like, to me, it's just this whole I get the
idea that Phil has always had about we don't want to just tell people you're
gonna make this. We want people to have passion behind whatever it is they're
making. I feel like that's going to start not being the case either.
I mean, you know, you Phil can say that, but that's that's
a lot of crap, you know, because they directly tell people, They
directly tell the studios what they should and shouldn't make, And like that's a
problem that the Coalition ran into with Gears six, Like they were like,
oh, after Gears five, who want to branch off, who want to
do something else? It's like, well that didn't that didn't work out,
right. They can't say, man, look at look at what happened to
look at say to the Gears franchise. Now, yeah, it's been for
a very long time, So you got to hope now that people get hyped
again with Gear six. I feel like there's there's a remasters of whatever coming
for the other games. Uh, you know, one got that remaster a
long time ago, but I feel like the other ones are coming as well.
It's not just gonna be Gear six. You got to get something that
it cannot get out there faster for people to kind of get their hands.
I mean unless Gear six, like you said, it's going to come out
this year or early next year, then maybe you don't need to do that,
but you know, you got to do something. It's like, it's
like the Fallout situation that we've talked about a few times, that whole thing
about Seposley Todd Howard's talking about external studios to do something with Fallout. If
you're Microsoft you got to make that happen. You got to get a Fallout
game out faster than whatever it's like ten years from now because they're doing all
the scrolls. Yeah, that sounds that clearly coming down the pipeline anytime soon.
Like that'll probably be twenty seventeen or something like that'll for twenty twenty seven
rather hopefully, I mean. And that's the thing is like you let Towrs
to Bob go, right, They're gonna do their own thing. Don't know
if what that is quite yet, right, And that's fine. You got
a partnership with them, so I guess you technically don't have to be like
paying underneath them all these employees. I guess to save you some money there
as well. But like that again, everybody wanted them to be working on
a banjo kazuli, right, and now they're probably not. So you have
that franchise sitting around. That's another example of like why wouldn't you get people
what they want? Because according to Phil, they have to win to make
it right. He's he's not gonna just tell them, Okay, you know
how to do this, so you're doing this right? Yeah, I feel
like Microsoft is going to wind up coming around and going, oh, we
have this franchise and they make this and they have this like oh, somebody
better get on that, right, Like, I don't know who's around,
so I mean, we know Bobby Kotek's not there. We know Macki Barr
is not there. Like, are they gonna actually let the activision people that
are there actually like make some decisions and keep doing what they do or are
we like, you know, it's all going to pill in Matt Booty and
Sarabhan and I get that, but it's just like, man, some of
these decisions, all these decisions that they decide to make, have come to
this point where we're at where people are losing their jobs that shouldn't be.
This is a big company, they shouldn't be having to be do that.
But somebody, you know, it's like, oh, we can blame it
on the industry at large, and yes, this is an industry problem.
There's an indie studio that closed, Palette and Studios. You know, they
had forty five people in the Netherlands and they've been operating for twenty years.
They closed. We've had a lot of studios closed. We've had some people
get laid off this is not it's not just a Microsoft thing. But it's
a shock because these are studios that you barely just bought. This is not
I mean, yeah, what it's like five six years at this point.
But still they've released one game, one game from Arcane Austin. Uh,
you know, the one game from Alpha Dog, and you didn't let them
make something else. You just that's it gone, right? And these games
that that I mean, Ninja theory, this is the second Hole Blade.
They spent all this time doing this game. Man, I don't know,
I just you know, maybe they can catch on with the God of War
people or people that that that think it's that kind of game and you can
market it that way or whatever. But it's just like, okay, no,
But I'm just saying, like I'm trying, I'm trying to look at
this in a big picture way of like that game was an indie game that
caught fire within the game industry. It was lauded for all this stuff.
I'm sure help A two will as well, and that might save it somewhat.
But I feel like, are we just looking at that because this is
now a Triple A game studio right, Like, oh, supposedly we only
we made this in the same way that we made the other game. We
just made it like bigger and grander, right with the Microsoft money, It's
still the same kind of game that it was. The first one was how
much is Microsoft looking at that and going, well, it's not hitting that
metric? Like, are we gonna start dropping people from hell Blade? Same
thing when a Vowed comes out? Does a Vowed have any expectations on it?
And how much is Obsidian gonna suffer from that as well? It's like,
I don't have any trust in this company to tell me that these studios
are not going to continue to lose people, that these games that they're making
games that are not going to mistigate canceled. I have no trust, no
belief in anything the xtbox does at this point other than I really love hell
Blade. I might actually go think about just buying it just to support instead
of just playing it off game Pass. I don't have that affinity for ahead.
A point about I fire Rush is I would never get it on game
Pass or digitally because they're eventually going to like remove it. Well, I
mean high Fi Russian until you know, we until Limited Run came out with
their thing, we had no idea that it was going to have a physical
version, So you know, you can't go based on help. LED's not
going to help. LED two is not going to have one at all,
So you know that's the thing is Microsoft's going in that direction. We're we're
trying to do everything digitally, but like no, I meant like High Fi
Rush while having a lot of licensing problems in the future music. That's why
they have the X the tracks that are not they're not licensed right, that
you can just turn on if you're streaming or whatever. So that helps them
where they can just turn those off and they can keep having the game or
whatnot. But yeah, it's just it's one of these things where obviously a
lot to come, but I feel like it's more bad news, more bad
news. You had a great developer direct that people were excited about, and
then after that, once again they just somehow continue to just step in mud
and ruin the pr that they make with these showcases, with this stuff.
When you have the back room decisions the company above them that just decides to
Okay, now we got to start paying attention and making all these acquisitions is
great, but I feel like you're running into the problem of it's too much.
It's too much and you don't know how to like deal with all of
it. And I feel like we're gonna get more of that as time goes
on. But moving on here, Yeah, how do I think the employees
feel? Yeah, if I'm honestly, this industry itself right now is so
volatile, so terrible. Like, but I think it says a lot that
should you Becamedy said he was leaving the industry and then he comes back and
he's going to do something with like I think Kanami or something, and it's
like, Wow, you did all that, you left Xbox. You're not
even thinking about coming back there they have the ips that you work with.
And then yeah, if I'm anybody else at those studios, I'm sitting there
going, uh, do I need to start looking up for myself and start
finding a way out the door before I'm the person next right, And man,
it's like you thought that, Okay, Xbox buying these studios means they
have security, right, Microsoft has this money. They want these studios because
they want to make games. They want to fill game past content, and
it shows you that none of that matters. It's still capitalism at the end
of the day, the number has to continue to go up, even though
at some point it can't go up anymore. They got to make it go
will go up, and that sucks. I feel so terrible for all these
people, the ones that are there and the ones that are gone or will
be gone at some point. It's it's terrible for this entire industry to be
this way. It's gonna keep being this way for a while. It's got
to reset itself. But it's like when Microsoft is doing it, that's that's
yeah, it's not like small company or you know, right, It's like
when Tony announced that the you know, the studios that they closed, It's
like they really hadn't been doing much right. It's like you said, it's
like, okay, Ronhouse was a support studio whatever, Alpha Dog, Okay,
you can say what you want, even ark in Austin, like you
could. You could sort of be like, okay, Redfall was bad for
us, so bad, we can't how can we we resurrect this studio at
all? Like there's not much we can do. But like the Tango game
works, one makes absolutely no sense. I have no idea how this was
the idea, Like this was the other studio that we had to choose to
cancel. Oh, we don't wanna, we don't okay, we don't want
to pitch. We don't wanna green light the next pitch game. Like you
can't tell them go pitch something else so you could do faster. I don't
know, man, It's just like that is the one that leaves a bad
taste of your mouth. They make decisions that are bad all the time,
and then they this happens to them and we're talking bad about Xbox again.
I'm saying, we're talking about an hour. That's enough. We talked about
it for an hour. But you did mention Vicarious Business earlier. You know
what vac Curious Business was also doing. They were making a Donkey Kong game
on Switch, not something else I would have thought of at that point.
So they were at some point making the Donkey Kong game. Then that got
canceled or didn't go forward after a while, and even me and Moto was
working with them on it, and he was giving ideas and everything else.
Would you have wanted to see, like what Vicarious Business does with the Donkey
Kong game, Like that seems interesting, Like have another different studio well,
probably wouldn't have been like traditional two D you know what they've been doing.
Well, it was a three D platformer, suppose, Yeah, it would
have been like Donkey before two or you know, like a a reversion of
that. Yeah, as long as as long as we had yeah, right,
like that's I think that that's cool. I wish we could have seen
like actually, like I guess, see a trailer or see what the concept
would have been for that. That would have been awesome to Finally, well,
even if they were at that stage, I right, or it could
have been something that they were they were kind of thinking of or or like
getting there, but they just weren't there yet, and and then for whatever
reason, it got canceled. But that means to to kind of bring that
in because I guess we're going to move over to Nintendo U. Nintendo finally,
thanks to their president kind of opened the door to like what they're gonna
be doing in the near future. H They also announced some game sales which
were surprising to me, and they also announced like a cool game that they're
releasing on July eighteenth, Nintendo World Championships any s tion Now this exists as
like a prize that they gave the people that were at that nineteen ninety World
Championship actually competing in it. They have that cartridge that you got and it's
like one of the rarest things available. But now they're like, yeah,
go ahead, just a great cartridge, and then the gold cartridge and that's
even the more rare ones. Yeah, so they're actually doing it's going to
cost thirty bucks, but it's like a speed running thing. There's one hundred
and fifty speed running challenges that it's divided across thirteen games, all the Super
Mario Brothers games, both the first two Legend of Zelda's Kirby's Adventure, Metroid,
like a lot of the big hits from the nes era. This is
also you can also consider it like an nes remix three if you call it
that as well. Look, I'm not a speed running guy, but I
like those ns remix games. I actually really think about this. This looks
like it could be a lot of fun, and that's really cool that Nintendo's
doing this. And they're also doing like a special edition that has that gold
cart of replica gold cartridge as well. Yeah, I thought that's funny if
people were that like gives them the pictures. A gold cartridge is not a
functional you know, cartridge, and it's a display piece that it's like,
are you fucking high? Like, of course it's not. You can't put
it in any as in play, you idiots, like like, yeah,
how much money? We were paying way more for that special edition if it
was an actual cartridge that you had to you know buy, yeah and put
in the system or whatever, like no, of course not. It's cool.
I think it's cool that the Japanese verre can get to control that the
two joy cons. Yeah, I rather have that personally, but I'm surprised,
but like how much they they try to make money off the joy Cons.
They're not bringing that like worldwide or whatever. Yeah, but yeah,
I mean it's it's really cool that Nintendo's doing something like this, Like it's
funny how you go, oh man, they don't really have a lot coming
out, like what could they really really and they supposed to have a direct
in June. They release smaller projects like you know, you can see Sony
releasing this or Microsoft obviously, although like a Microsoft one went be kind of
interesting because it's like how fast can you run through the Halo one first level?
You know or something like that. Yeah, but neither of those companies
has like the kind of the lineage of Nintendo. Yeah, that's the thing
is I think about this is like nineteen ninety. I was like three or
four at that point. Like, so you can go back to that far
and be able to put out a game that is taking all of those old
classics and like turning it on their head and let's do a speed run thing
with it, and like that's that's cool that they can do that and just
say, hey, we're just releasing this thing, you can give us another
thing that sells a million copies. Right, It's incredible to me that I
know it's like the only new games really that they put out a note from
Nintendo itself, but it's still it's awesome that Mario versus DK a million copies.
Princess pre Showtime over a million copies as well. Like, it's incredible
the switches like elasticity with games, like the the attached rate with games is
absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention it's they Princes's peach also just it appeals to
kids. It's easy for kids to get into. You know, girls can
can you pick that up for your daughter, and it's something they can play
without much fuss, you know. So yeah, I mean Randy did that
for his daughter to play with play with him. So yeah, man,
I think that's that's cool. But as far as what's coming next for Nintendo,
you know, big picture was I didn't mention they're going with that direct
in June. They're gonna have announcements they did, you know, say,
okay, we still had the two big games. It's the paper Mario on
thousand year Door remake that comes out this month. Actually what next week?
And then uh Luigi's Mansion which comes Luis mantioned two HD which comes out next
month. But yeah, we kind of don't know anything past that. Uh
so, and now I guess they they revealed the I guess they're big ticket
thing for July, which is this Nintendent World Championship thing. But still like
there's the rest of the year that they got to fill out, So I
wonder what that is going to be. Did we finally get the big announcement
of Metro Prime four coming You think that they'll they'll pull that out as like
the last Switch game, or you think that's a long switch to game.
I would say launch Switch two game. That's a big if if it even
ever comes out, And I think they just kind of they could just announce
like, hey, it's going to be canceled or you know, like we
tried but it didn't work out. Yeah, I mean, I definitely see
it as more of like, Okay, this is like the swan song of
the Switch, Like here's Metro Prime fore we promised it to you all these
years ago. Here we go. I'm pretty sure they could have it come
out pretty quick on switch To, like after the launch window if they want.
You know, we still don't know about the is it gonna be backwards
compatible or not, or are they going to be doing all these you know,
ten dollars upgrade kind of things. We'll definitely see about that. But
the Nintendo's president did announce officially now that the Switch will be like a the
switch To will be a next edition of the Switch. It will not you
know, some people were speculating whether they're going to try to make something new.
He did officially say this is sort of like a next edition of what
the Switch is, you know, and it will be at some point announced
by the fiscal year, so between now and March twenty twenty five, we're
going to get the official announcement of the switch to officially they call it the
Switch Next Model, So pretty much like what's all been rumored and speculated about
is that it's a switch to with BF your hardware and the DLSS. You
know they should do. Yeah, they should rebrand this the current switch as
the bottom switch, and then next switch would be the top switch. No,
I'd say the Super Nintendo The Super Nintendo Switch would be cool if they
named it that. I doubt they would, but I still think that that
would be an awesome name if they could go with that. But I feel
like they're they're going to go in the same window as the Switch one,
Like I think we're getting some kind of a trailer drop or announcement in like
October November and then get ready for March April. The Switch too comes out
of next year. I mean, I guess they could wait until March to
announce of next year and then have it come out in the fall. But
I feel like Switch one coming out not in the fall help them right?
Or do you think it needs to come out in that like October November.
No, I don't think it should because it'll create too much of a bottleneck
for production and like sales, you know, I mean they made like the
press of like oh, the Switch Too is told out, but it's like
yeah, but or hey this holiday season, go get your Switched Too,
you know, right, but having you know, the April or release date
or whatever, you give them a lot more runway because it'll sell out that
year anyway, right, So why not have it, you know, so
more if you can. I feel like they need just the Switch ones launch
here is so one of the greatest fricking years. I mean that year in
general was a great year for gaming, but that year for Nintendo was amazing,
and I feel like, if you have the ability to repeat that again,
do that, man, because that sells your system more than anything else.
You tell me you were going to have an awesome game every month to
go buy for that system, I'm buying it, right. You give me
a big launch window of saying, Okay, well here's your launch games,
and then here's like what could be coming in the next six months until the
holiday of twenty twenty five or whenever June, and then you know what they
normally do in June, where they release the rest of it, Like yeah,
I'm there. I'm there day one. Look, I get it.
It's it's Nintendo. I'm pretty sure you don't have to tell anybody anything.
They're gonna buy it. I would buy it anyway. But that helps.
That helps a lot of people that are like thinking about, oh, well,
do we need to buy it right now? There's not really not a
lot. You know, I still got a huge library on my switch.
So look, we still got to find out a lot of things about the
switch too. But the fact that they've already revealed it's gonna be basically a
next gen edition model switch and then that it is going to get announced at
some point between now marsh Place twenty five, that's already a plus. They're
already announcing things. That's good. We can feel that that next Jennifer Nintendo
is coming, and it feels like we really needs to happen because this year's
kind of been like that Bridge year maybe those surprises with a couple of things.
But yeah, man, like this, it's good. It's glad.
It's good that we can finally like start saying, Okay, it's coming,
it's coming for sure. Also interesting that, like it's crazy some of these
numbers for some of these games and how they've sold is absolutely like ridiculous,
like Mario Kart selling close to like sixty two Mario Kart eight Deluxe sixty two
million, Animal Crossing, the New Horizons game like forty five absolutely nuts man
Breath of the While obviously that was the launch Zelda up there at like thirty
one, you know, Smash thirty four like insane, insane numbers. And
the fact that scar on Violid is almost that close to Sword and Shield and
sort of Shield are still kept selling. It tells you a lot about Pokemon
stuff. But still Nintendo has those franchises. That doesn't matter. They just
keep selling. People want to buy the console. Taking out Microsoft that stuff
matters. Don't worry. Once Microsoft releases Links to Time Sweeper three, they'll
be right back on track exactly. That's what everybody is waiting on. But
they want that review. I mean, can you imagine that's revealed it in
June, Like, hey, we brought Blinks to try and Sleeper back,
wait till we hear like Crickets, well, hey, Future Friensidy was good.
Don't be hating on Future Friends you now, I love that game.
But yeah, I mean we kind of already talked about the PlayStation thing,
but it's good that they reverse course on hold ivers to uh them. Yeah,
It's actually kind of funny though, because last week or last weekend,
it was you know, the big Tony screwed up of like announcing this thing
and then Microsoft was like holding my beer. Oh definitely, Micstoft is like
hold my beer. Like it's like, how can we step on a rake?
Even more than PlayStation did. It's like at least PlayStation was able to
reverse course really quickly. Also funny that the devs were like trying to push
for that too. They're like, hey, hey, keep for keeper view
bombing the game so that well not death It was like one community manager for
it. But even like the deaths were happy about it, like they were
happy the diverse course because obviously they're still locked out, Like there's one hundred
fifty countries that are locked out of the game right now because they have to
reput it back on Steam because the they don't have access to PSN. So
I don't know. Yeah, I say what they should have done with this
thing if they should have kept it an optional thing, but they should have
also said like if you sign up, if you sign into a PSN account,
you know, we'll give you a new cape and a new helmet or
you know, some type of branded you know, special helmet or something,
because then that would have got people way more into it. But a lot
of countries just don't have it at all. Yeah, yeah, right,
then they would have gone to some v VPN or you know, they the
sentence dosn't take account. And that's the thing with game Pass as well,
is like people don't realize there are so many countries that do not have game
Pass at all, and they make it seem like game Pass is just everywhere
and available on everything, and it's not. But that going going back to
this for a second, like just it sucks for those people that lost access
to the game. Hopefully they get it back really fast. I'm good to
see that Sony like reverse course on it, because Sony's always been the one
that like they they didn't want to do cross play for a long time because
oh, security reasons and whatever. And this is the reason that they're going
about this as well. It's saying that they need it to be able to
protect you and all this stuff. Like I think they kind of just got
to understand that PC gaming is different, and you're gonna have to just kind
of let that stuff go at least with these, uh with these multiplayer games.
I mean I know that that that also means like Ghoes to Tsushima on
PC is like locked out for people too, which that sucks, But like,
is it worth it to do this if you're gonna limit the amount of
people that can play your game that only want to buy it on PC,
that don't want to go buy the big PlayStation thing to buy it because it
might be triple the cost in their country and they already have a PC to
play the game on. Like, you know, I think Sony needs to
be more aware of those kind of things, right, But even then,
like look at the difference they just have somebody come out and make a pr
statement We're sorry, we change it. We don't have to have Phil or
Aaron Greenberg or Matt Booty come on and do some podcasts where they have to
talk about why they did it and all this stuff, Like we don't need
some big ass explanation, just hey, we changed it. Sorry, we're
not going to do it. Move on. Yeah, Right, And that's
where Xbox needs to get to, is I don't I feature the transparency.
But when when y'all are like lying out your your ass half the time,
I'm not saying they're lying, but I was saying, like, when y'all
are contradicting yourself constantly, I just don't want to hear any But good on,
good on PlayStation UH for for doing that, and hopefully these people that
have have access at one point of the game can get it again. Speaking
of having access to things, Persona five, the Phantom X, which is
the mobile game the Persona spinoff game that's on iOS, Android and PC UH
in selected Asian countries. Uh Sega is considering making that a bit available more
globally going forward. Obviously, the power Persona, especially with you know,
Persona three hitting that million selling number really fast, which is the highest the
quickest any Atless game has ever done. That. Would you play it they
put a Persona game on on you, No, because Atlas is a pretty
bad track record. At least they used to of dicheating their online game pretty
quickly. Like I don't know if you know this, they used to TV,
shouldn't. I'm intense MML like years ago. Really I played it.
It was bad, I mean I played it. I mean it came out
in America. Yeah, it wasn't something like Japanese thing or anything. But
I think it lasted like a year if that. And then they're like this
is not turning out. Well yeah, definitely not. I mean it looks
cool from the the pictures and stuff I've seen, Like, I think a
lot of people it being persona. I think it would get people to play.
Yeah, the MMO is called Intense Imagine. Oh, I guess it
did last a little longer than I thought, but like it barely. It
wasn't good and it was like this is bad and weird, and yeah,
I mean this isn't made by the P five or the PTA. This is
made by the Perfect Ball Games. But they're they're pretty well known for doing
PC stuff. So if they didn't release it, I think it would do
well for them. How much is gonna cost to do all that and the
translation and everything else. Well, see, yeah, if they actually end
up doing it or not. Uh from Software Uh. Miyazaki was was doing
an interview with a Chinese site, UH talking about that there are no plans
for for DLC beyond the Shadow of the R Tree that's you know, coming
out next month actually, but they're not ruling out an Elder Ring two.
Uh, they don't want to like shut the door on doing more with it,
just like he says he didn't want to do with Dark Souls either.
They just kind of wanted to kind of close the chapter on that point and
then leave it open for other stuff. You think we are eventually going to
get an Old Ring two or I mean it's it's one of the most successful
games in the past five years. Yeah, I think we're Elden Ring two,
But I feel like they're gonna make something else and then there's gonna be
an Older Ring two. I don't think they're gonna just go from this expansion
to Elder Ring two or you yeah, they'll finally make Kuan too. I
mean, I guess they could go do Dark Souls for or something maybe,
but then that's sort of like I don't think so, because you know,
I think the Elder Ring far eclipses Dark you know, Dark Souls as the
franchise, or you know, at least it is far as like name recognission
and the gameplay mechanics so well. Plus you got like it's not this thing
where people got to feel like, oh man, I got to play the
other Dark Souls games to be able to understand what's going on with this game,
whereas like elden Ring is like, oh, it's the first one,
so I don't have to just play elden Ring. Yeah, I think you
got that that stigma on it too. I mean, there there's always a
Bloodborne too for those peopul that they don't they don't know that completely, well
they don't, but I'm pretty sure Sony is not gonna you know, Sony
own parts of uh from SAFF so they're not going to say no to that
either, you know, all right, but it'd be good if we if
we see it. But you know, obviously we've got to see how the
shutow of the Red Tree Dead, which I'm sure it will do amazing numbers
just like the original game. Plus it helps that it's like twenty dollars cheaper
or thirty dollars from what games come out now. Oh, plus plus like
once the Tree DLC comes out like later in the year, they can announce
like, well, I don't think it's later. I think they already announced
like the Elder Ring Game of the Year edition or whatever that has the deal
right, So I'm sure they will do that. They will have a bundle
you can buy digitally all that stuff, I'm sure as well, so get
ready for that. And I guess, uh, lastly, just to show
where gaming is at this quarter of the year, New Zoo, who we've
taught out before is you know, likes to do like market tracking and like
tracking like revenue for games and stuff, and they kind of use the United
States and then like Europeans like best you know, top five markets, UK,
Germany, France, Spain, Italy to kind of like show where kind
of what's tracking as like the big things in gaming. No surprise, Fortnite
is number one, with EA Sports being FC twenty four being right there at
number two, but Hell Divers two is number three above everything, Call of
Duty, NBA two, K Madden Dragons Dogma two is number six, so
that's a pretty good indicator like how well Dragon's Dogma two has been received.
Power World right there and Valoriant as well, with like Rainbow six Siege and
stuff like that in there. Surprise that like Dragon's Dogma two is not really
I mean, it's kind of a nice title, but people have been wanting
Dragon's Dogma two for a while now, so yeah, it shows that like
the hype wasn't just even though I mean there was a hype cycle and then
it kind of feels like it it died a bit. People are still playing
it, right, People really got into it very much. It wasn't consistent
like Hell Divers two has been or Power World was for like that month or
so month half, but it shows that it made a big enough impact to
like be up there and those those I mean, it helps that it's on
all the consoles, right, Like I wonder if you know Rebirth had had
been on other places besides PlayStation five, that it'd be on there too.
But it does show hey, again, multiplayer games, games that that draw
on audience, this is what's big. And you can see why all these
companies are chasing that stuff and they want to be you know, the big
trackers, big big number getters. And again that's why Microsoft's being very presentive
of Call of Duty because it's still up there at number four, even though
you know, Hall Diverge two has gotten more press Fortnite obviously, it's just
that's just a game for everyone in EA Sports FC. It is is what
it is. So yeah, you can see why microsofts is guarded about that,
but we'll see what they finally do with it. At the end.
I forgot to mention Sarah Baond did note that that again the whole oh all
these games is gonna go in a game pass game past not going anywhere,
but we'll see, we'll see what ends up actually happening with it. You
know, there's only more months in the year to find out more things marcslf's
gonna wind up doing. But yeah, anything else, I mean, do
you want to, I guess talk about your Adventure with the Knuckles TV show?
No, I only watched it the first two and a half or like
I just got to like the episode that is pretty right widely reviled as like
Knuckles is barely in it where it's a good I haven't watched that yet.
I like the British lady, the evil British lady in the show. He's
pretty cute and it's I guess it's a I don't. The problem is I
don't think that main guy, Adam Palley is like good in large doses.
It's not James Morrison right, like he works as the Sonic movies as like
you know, five minute character or you know if that right, not twenty
long, twenty minutes long, anything like that. I got it funny and
show. I mean, in the Knuckle show, if like ITRI's elbow was
actually in it as like himself, that would have been good to me,
like that surprise that they thought about that. But I wonder how much more
it costs them to hem him physically in it right his voice. That's probably
one of the decisions that got made there. Right. But it's okay,
I mean, I guess it's okay. Yeah, Like it's funny because I
thought that the Tatakutus released a thing out like the top worst to best Sonic
adaptations and like live action in cartoons and knuckles just like numbers like dead Last,
and it's like, no, have you seen that Sonic Boom cartoon,
Like the Sonic Boom cartoon. They ranked that like really high. It was
a baffling because I'm like, what the hell, you guy? What I
know we're watching the I watched that cartoon as a kid, Sonny Boom.
Yeah, that was like that's pretty recent, Like that was like yeah,
I remember like watching watching that and then I remember watching the Sonic X.
Yeah they ranked that they ranked ranked at the best. Really yeah, wow
over the two movies or the old cartoons. They ranked Sonic Boom number three
by the way, Wow yeah says a lot yep. Uh. One thing
I'll mention I beat cele Berlade, so I'm happy about that, and I
got two of the three. I means, what do you think about it
now that you you beat it? Uh? It's good. Uh. The
last two bosses are actually really hard. I had to bump down too,
like easy mode, Like I don't want to keep banging my head against this.
Uh. I wish there are gameplay deficiencies in that game a little because
some of the areas don't have maps, so it really sucks. And then
was made for that, like why do you have maps at certain areas?
And then well, because it's like those areas are more like linear okay,
so it kind of makes sense a little. But also like if you can't
like it's like, oh, I'm trying to find this one document, but
it's like I don't know where this is because I can't it's like fast travel
to the nearest map or whatever. It's like I get I gotta like watch
this dumb video on YouTube and figure out who this thing is and hope hope
I can get there, and then there's no for a game that really does
pride itself on collecting, like collecting shit, it doesn't have a great collection
like system, like tracking system, like it has it for some stuff like
documents and memory sticks and the cans, but it's like, I'm it's like
one of the trophies is like open tundred boxes. Okay, why don't you
tell me how many boxes are in his own and then I can start clicking
this off, or like one of the trophies is like, oh, max
out your health and magic meter basically, but it's like not a good way
to like see even like what it is, or like you know, ware
if any of the collectibles are in a location or not. Yeah, thankfully
I was able to do all that shit in my first run. I drove
myself nuts doing it, but I did it. So the second run and
you have to do a new game plus to get the Yeah, it's not
just continue, which is fine because the second run is a lot easier.
Yeah, you already know how to but you have to go through everything again,
right, but you're not having to like really explore all that because you
already got it, right. Yeah. Yeah, So that's cool, but
I like to get quite a bit. Ah, yeah, I'll get back
do it here. Probably it's not like my game of the year or anything,
but it'll probably make a top ten list so far, at least for
me. Yeah it might for me me too. I'm gonna try to get
back to it more this week. I haven't been playing much again this week,
but next week I will definitely get to that. But speaking of next
week, let's look at what is going to be out in the week.
He said, Hello, Valo, how are you doing? Oh that's key.
Yes, let's get on with what is coming out here. So basically,
if you haven't played gos Tushima yet and you want to get it on
PC and you're not one of the countries that it's locked out in, you
can go by that next week on the sixteenth. I'd be curious playing it
on PC if I could, or you know, like, I'm trying to
look a lot better than I'm like, well a little better than PS five.
I mean it look great on PS five, so but yeah, I
imagine getting all the the nice frame rates and great graphics will look good there.
Uh. The Neptunia game maker of our evolution comes to the PlayStation and
Switch there, so you know, if you we'll see whatle that like these
games, you already know when that's coming. Like you know, we have
assist Scott that's been on here for and he watches the show sometimes live.
He's like the big guy that like reviews it all the time for Outer Haven,
so I'm sure he's already probably like playing this game if I'm right about
that. He also got aside from that the ghostu Shima and I mentioned,
Yeah, really Memories Neurodiver it's also coming out the sixteenth as well. More
Neptunia stuff is coming, I think before we do the show again, like
a bunch a bunch of like all the Hyperdimension games are coming to Switch and
then the Sister Sisters game is also coming to Xbox. So yeah, and
System Shock it's it's not gonna be long we're going to be talking about like
not actually but the week after or uh we'll be getting to play help Blade
too and the System Chack remake. So in Homer three, you think out
now or like out next week or something. Yeah, Paper Mario, the
Paper Mario games out that week too, So I was wrong. It was
that same week that hel Blade two and System Shock Room may come out.
But still some things coming towards the end of the up. We gotta,
you know, let's see if Gosushima wants something. Well, oh the over
Lie and the laser eyes I forgot that comes out the next and a Perna
joint that looks all freaking crazy. It's coming to switch and PC. But
yeah, so that's pretty much it for this week. Thank you everybody that
watched live. Thank you Crafty. He says that you have a cute cat,
yep, mark and oh yeah, he is. I don't have mine
in the room. My dog is over here, but she will not I'd
rather not wake her up. So we'll see you guys next week, yep,
and have Until then, I haven't been a fight.