He'll be go be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for July eleventh, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
Live with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, people are still confused about Nintendo's m
rated teaser and a Pokemon Killer partners up with Sony. But first, please
join me and welcoming today's co host the Game Mess Mornings. It's Jason Finelli.
Everybody, Jason, how are you doing. I am great that the
week, the first week back after vacation is always a bit of a grind
that, uh, it's I'm getting through it. We're getting there. I
got some exciting things coming up, going to hitting that EVO next week.
Very excited to be doing that. Sean will be there. Sean will be
there, so definitely, yeah, we will high five. We will high
five for sure. Covering some stuff out there, some pretty exciting things in
the pipeline for that, but otherwise, just getting back into the swing of
things after a nice week at the beach. How was your vacation like,
sound like exactly how you went? Yes? Exactly, Yes, a week
at the beach. We just kind of hung out up north. It was
a good time, mostly really relaxing. I beat bail to dread on the
steam deck. So yeah, it was well a lot of fun stuff.
It was just great to hang out with people and and now do work for
a little bit. But yeah, yeah, for sure, you're right.
The week back, though, it's like, Okay, how do I do
all this? I forgot? Uh, But it's all coming back to me
now we're getting into it. I got uh two, this will be two
game less mornings under my belt again. The thing I'm really worried about is
everyone else is out basically next week, so I got to run all the
shows next week and make sure nothing catches on fire. But oh no,
we'll figure that out. We'll be okay, Yeah, exactly. It's gonna
be just fine. Say say my name and I'll appear. Oh yeah,
whatever you need, buddy, I'll say your name. Would be like staring
in the mirror, just oh god, please please go do that. Jason
Vanellie, Jason Vonelli, Jason Anellick. Yeah, that's how you get them
to peer everybody. Yeah, how you been otherwise? It's uh, you
know, you've been keeping up with with games you gotta. I mean,
the news is slowed down, So what are you doing these days? Yeah?
Yeah, on vacation, I decided to finally play more of my most
anticipated game of twenty twenty four. So now I have seven hours in Final
Fantasy seven Rebirth. I'm there. At this rate, I will have finished
it by the time my kid graduates high school. Yeah, but it's it's
a long hass game. But I'm still in the in the grasslands. I'm
still trying to find everything. I'm not reviewing it so I could to obviously,
so I'm taking up my own pace and find everything that I need to
find. And I really like it. I guess I'm already. I did
one side quest that I'm already like, is this game setting me up?
What's going on here? Like, I'm more intrigued now that I've done this
extra time, because at first I was only like one or two hours in.
Right, having this extra time, I just maybe want to play more.
But of course, as soon as I got back, I had two
games uh to a review now that I can't talk about yet, So I
don't know when I'll be getting back into the grasslands of Calm. But yeah,
did that always, you know, just just trying to keep up with
as much news as there is. Again, we're in a bit of a
lull. But then you know, Evo hits for the fighting game crowd,
and then uh, San Diego Comic Con is what it's called brain fogs or
maybe we got a games comcome in Tokyo Game show Crime. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, we'll be, we'll be. We'll be right back in the
mess not too long, but we'll enjoy the nice little low while we can.
Yeah, exactly. I'm I'm also like getting pretty antsy to play a
Nintendo World Championship any edition that's seven days from today, I believe, so,
yes it is. I mean glad I got it it. I'm glad
I got in before the Giant Bomb Crew, you know, yes, self
destructs from the competition, fixes itself just in time for Astrobot to come out,
and then you'll tell each other again. Exactly. It is going to
be a massacre and I'm looking forward to it. I'm thinking about They put
out the English version of their overview trailer for that game, and I'm just
like watching that this morning. I like, yeap, yep, yep,
yep. There's a party mode. There's an eight person local party mode.
I'm like, well, we'll do that at something eventually, so yeah,
looking forward to it. I hope, I hope it pulls off everything that's
going for you know. It's, you know, basically the successor to those
in nes Remix games, which I thought were okay. They weren't great,
but they were okay, and I'm like, oh, it could be a
lot better if it was like just a little bit tighter. And then this
looks like exactly that, so I'm hopeful. All right, we should explain
what we do here most weekdays, I Jeff Grub will 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 later on podcast feeds
by searching for Games Mornings, or find therss on gimebomb dot com. You
can also catch the show later with chapters in timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube.
All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's start
the morning mess with Sony has opened up this weekend's Concord Beta to all PlayStation
Plus members. This is from Andy Robinson VGC. Sony has opened its Concord
Beta Early Access weekend to all PlayStation Plus members. Previously, only those who
pre ordered the Live Service shooter were due to get access to this weekend's playtest.
However, Sony said on Thursday it's now opening the beta to all members.
The Concord Beta Early Access weekend on PS five and PC will begin tomorrow,
Friday, July twelfth, at ten am Pacific time, and then PS
five users can pre download the Concord Beta starting today Thursday, July eleventh at
ten am and that specific time as well, and open beta will begin next
week from Thursday July eighteenth through Sunday, July twenty first, available to everyone.
The beta will have three modes. Blah blah blah blah blah. They're
doing this because they didn't get enough pre orders. Is that what you think?
Uh? Probably? But also I feel like the previews I was reading
about this, the general vibe I was getting was that trailer didn't really do
this game justice. Yeah, so they want they want people to check it
out, and the way that you do that she really should have been all
PS plus members anyway, right exactly. This feels like this should have been
the way it was done from the beginning, right and and yeah right,
and if they are struggling to get pre orders, it's like, well,
yeah, god, we wish people could play it. Well, here you
go, this is a good solution. Uh. And then next week's open
beta as a whole other thing. Obviously that was always scheduled, so people
were going to get a chance to play it. But why wait, why
you get more people excited for the open beta by getting more positive but word
of mouth buzz. And the only way you're really going to be able accomplish
that is if you get a certain critical mass of people playing right now this
morning and I are this week, and I should say, and I think
they'll probably be able to uh, to get that to happen. I'm making
this open to everyone in PS plus. Are you going to check out Concord
Jason Pinelli? I hope, so, I mean it depends. I don't
my I don't know what I don't know what games I'm playing until an hour
before I turned the console on. It's just the way that my life works
in this present moment, So I would like to get some time in because
again, reading those previews and people being like, well, maybe there's more
to this game than we thought, it makes me think, hmm, maybe
there is something here more than just you know, this weird Guardians of the
Galaxy vibe that you're going for. Yeah, I'll if I can get an
hour or two in, I would really like to do that. But we'll
see. I mean, I'm not I'm not scheduling my weekend around it,
if that makes sense, but I'm also not against the idea of trying it
completely if I can make time for it. Yeah, we were. We
were planning to stream it for UPF tomorrow and then we were going to talk
about our feelings on BCR. We're still going to do that, but it
was like, oh, yeah, I was trying to track down codes and
Sony was being very helpful with so it was gonna happen. But now it's
like, Okay, well, I guess anyone could jump in. I suppose
though it's yeah, I should double check to make sure I do have PlayStation
plus. Yeah, we'll see. I'm wonder if those codes that they were
going to give out, that's like you could then go go to one of
those sites and shoes whether you want it for the PS five or PC.
I bet it's all just PlayStation five though, and that's fine. But yeah,
so we were gonna play this. I'm I'm out a point with Concord
where I'm not thinking about it too often, but I'm also not like thinking
negative thoughts about it. Yeah, that trailer was whatever. I didn't think
much of it, but the previews were like, like you said, people
seem to be like, there's a lot more here than what excuse me that
what we saw in that trailer, and people shouldn't judge it by that.
But I'm like, at the same time, it's still one of these you
know, multiplayer head to head class based shooters, you know, with hero
characters. And I'm you know, even if you're telling me that's a good
one of those, I'm not necessarily in the mood for one of those.
So it always had kind of an uphill climb. But the good news is
like one of these play sessions can change my mind in an instance, right,
And I think that's what they're hoping for. Uh So, and you
know, I think it's hitting at a decent time. Hell Divers twos players
numbers have, you know, they've dropped quite a bit, and I think
the sort of slow down in the schedule, the release schedule, like a
lot of people will be finishing Shadow of the ar Tree by now. It
feels like the game's hitting at a good time. In terms of this bit
of being able to get some momentum. What do you think Concord's real life
like ambitions should be the I think it goes back to something that we've talked
about before in my time on game mess and it's just how many people are
willing to devote time to a new, open ended, live service style game
like this. It's it really depends on whether or not people are I mean,
if they're willing to give it the time and it is worth their time,
then yes, it will organically build that fan base like Hell Divers two
did and sort of you know, come into its own and become the next
big hit or even if it's like a little I don't want to say like
super fantastic, because I don't think any game should be shooting for that right
now. I think you want to have that ambition, but also thinking that
you're going to go from zero to fifty million users just through one beta is
a little weird too. You have to I think this needs to be a
slow and steady climb for the first beta with psplus, then the open beta,
then whenever they're launching and you slowly get more people into the game,
make sure your servers are stable, and you just build the organic fan base
from there. If they do that and the gameplay is as people are saying,
more fun than that trailer, let's on, then Yeah, I mean,
I like to be optimistic about all these games. I like to think
that there's an audience out there for all of them, but it really the
jury is still out. We don't know. I'm not, I'm not.
I don't have really have a concrete read on it yet. I guess maybe
if I get time to play it, I'll be able to get one.
But right now there's just too many questions. Yeah, really sure. I
think my most optimistic hope for a game, for a game like this would
be like, hey, you have a price, like you're forty dollars,
just you know, sell a few You can probably sell a million copies and
like a really good scenario, maybe even two three million copies if you like
you really catch on with an audience and then clearly clearly it's like okay,
and then hell divers two is I think like the ceiling for something like this.
So that was what like ten million copies of Very Fast. It's probably
not going to do that, but if you can sell a few million copies
to make some of your budget back, and then all of that like sort
of solely transitions into people spending money in the game going forward, and you
could sustain that with I don't know, ten thousand monthly active users or something
like ten thousand daily active users. I should probably say it's okay. Yeah,
I think that is a game that can justify itself and keep a team
going and then be there for people who want to check in on it.
There is definitely that model for that. I just not everything's we know and
not everything's going to be Fortnite like of course we know that. So that
should that even be the goal? I don't think it is. There is
a space, a pocket of success well before that that you could try to
like cone in on, and I think this game should have a decent chance
of getting there, Although a lot of people will just come down to how
sticky is it? How much do people like? People might enjoy playing it,
but are they going to want to come back to it over and over?
And that is such a tough thing to pull off these days. Yeah,
I agreed, All right, let's move ahead. Here from software job
listing suggested new Armored Core content is in development. This is from Kyle Knight
at Dual Shockers. A new job listing on from Software's official recruitment page has
been spotted by some eagle eyed Armored Core fans, leading to speculation that spotted
that either a DLC expansion or a brand new title is in development at the
studio. Armored Core six Fires of Rubicon is now approaching it's one year anniversary
next month, but there has been no official word from Frum Software on a
potential DLC since its release. But with that being said, a data minor
did uncover some potential in game files that point towards a DLC being in the
works. A data minor on Twitter known as Zuli discovered the following in game
files that IgM posted about parts have been deactivated. Our DLC parts have been
deactivated and it's got a number before it, and then another number of DLC
emblems have been deactivated. These are the things that they discovered another number and
then DLAC data has been deactivated, and that another number change in DLC ownership
status has altered AC assembly. The data minor did note that these files could
be in reference to the game's pre order bonuses, but also said since it's
only unlocking equipment early instead of providing unique parts, I'm not sure you can
actually trigger these messages from it. With there already being speculation that a DLC
for Armored corese six is in the works, fans now believe that their evidence
has been discovered in the form of a job listing. Over on the from
Software website. A new recruitment listing states that's the studio is currently searching for
a character modeler. While this might not exactly seem out of the ordinary,
one of the responsibilities listed for the role states that the candidate will be modeling
and texturing characters or robots. The keyword in that sentence is robots of course.
Yes, so, Armored Course six is one of my favorites in recent
history. I think about that game a lot. I kind of want to
replay it. I only got one ending. There's a couple endings you can
get to and kind of get a true ending if you want. I would
love a reason to go back and play more Armored corese six, and if
they want to make more content for it, I would be happy. Also.
I think part of me is like from Software seems like they're in a
place where they want to be making more Armored Core six content. They're going
to do it regardless of sort of like, oh well, if we spent
that time working on something that had the Soul's name on it, we'd make
a lot more money. It's like, I don't think from Software is thinking
that way right now. They have the sort of privilege to not be thinking
that way, and it seems like they're taking advantage of it. Eventually,
maybe one day they will get back to a situation where it's like, no,
we got to work on the thing that one percent will have the biggest
return on investment. Not that Armored Core six was a flop. I think
it did several million copies, might have been like five million copies or something
like that. Yeah, that's really really good, but compared to what some
like, I think Bloodborne was like the lowest selling like Soulsborn game, and
that was seven million copies. So I'm hopeful that this is all kind of
pan out how these people are starting to suggest it where it's like, hey,
no, there's DLC in the works and it's coming and it's going to
be a part of this big push to kind of get Armored Core six back
in the headlines. I'm hopeful. Do you read any of this like that
or does this feel like maybe some reaching I see the argument about the pre
order bonuses, about how it's just maybe deactivating these things. I don't know
if they're going to put them for sale or whatever however that'll work. But
the idea of successful game from from software getting DLC is not that far fetched.
Nope. I've done just about every game, right, and it done
one DLC for all of their games. Yeah, every single game that I
can think of, if they've come out, the main game has come out,
there's been one DLC expansion and then they move on to the next project.
That's what Dark Souls did, That's what Eldon Ring did. I would
expect that if Armored Corps six sole enough for them, they'll do the same
thing. And as you said, five million, that's what it is.
Nothing to sneeze at. No, So more DLC for Armored Core because I
don't. I also don't think they were expecting Armored Core to sell as well
as the Soul's franchise Palace. That was a that was a you know,
a pipe dream, hope, but I don't think it was their actual expectation.
I think if it is five million, if our memory does service correctly,
that's exactly where it should have been. So I don't think that there
is any reason to think that there's not DLC coming. It's just a matter
of when and what that'll entail, and what ending will be canon, if
it's after the ending, or how it'll fit into the story, and it's
I think these I think these folks are onto something here. It's just a
matter of when we'll find out. It'll be. Could be games Calm because
that'll be almost a year since it came out, could be a little bit
later on. Maybe it's a Game Awards thing, who knows, But I
don't think it's a far fetch to say for arm of course six is gonna
get some sort of follow up. I agree, And you know, people
point out in the chat, isn't it weird to be hiring for the DLC?
This long after, and it's like, maybe, I don't know.
It's really hard to say. Sometimes we see these sorts of job listings constantly
and it's like, man, shouldn't they have already had a person doing this
job for this game that's been in the works for this long And I think
the answer is game develops. Game development is more mysterious than we ever let
on, and maybe maybe it's not as close as we're thinking, or maybe
the position as it's described is not doing exactly what we're all imagining, and
maybe it is much more like, yeah, you need to have you know,
artistic ability and come in and help with the model for these characters.
But actually, no, we need someone to make sure that the rigging is
going to work for this very final moment or this final position in the development
cycle. So you're just gonna come in and clean things up. Who knows,
We don't know, So we'll see. Yeah, I'm hopeful. Armor
Core seven seems like something that probably actually will happen one day, And that
is maybe the most encouraging thing here about all this, because boy, I
am all aboard Armored Cores going forward. Cool all right? Power World Dev
and Sony are teaming up. This is from Eddie McCoo at GameSpot. Power
World developer Pocket Pair has announced a new company called power World Entertainment, Incorporated,
a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment to quote expand and develop new businesses
related to the popular Pokemon with Guns game and a press release, the companies
said the aim of the joint venture is to expand the commercial business endeavors of
Power World, including merchandising efforts. Pocket Pair also announced that Power World merchandise
will be sold through the Anaplex online store, with a product lineup to be
announced later. The mertu will debut and be sold for the first time at
Pocket Pair's booth at Billy Billy World twenty twenty four this weekend in Shanghai,
China. Some are saying Power World Entertainment may be similar to the Pokemon Company.
That's kind of what it sounds like, which is the overarching parent company
of the Pokemon series that handles its major franchise extensions from merchandise to movies,
and that is a joint venture between Nintendo Creatures, Inc. And what is
the developer of a game freak. Yes, yes, so this is this
is a little bit strange out of the gate because Power World's still not out
on PlayStation now. A big part of that is that I think the game
is still in early access, and while PS five or PlayStation four maybe have
had a couple of early access games before, they don't have a system open
so that just any early access game can come out to their platform. Right,
once it goes one point oh, probably we'll come to the PlayStation platform.
So yeah, not probably, it's one hundred percent going to do that.
In the meantime, though, Sony's like, hey, we got our
Pokemon Killer, let's get in on this business. Do you think that this
is a move that indicates Power World is here to stay? Because I don't
know. I get the sense that it was a little bit more of a
flash in a pan than all this, But maybe I'm wrong. I haven't
been paying attention. How do you feel about it? I mean, twenty
five million players, even if that many players are not still in the game,
is nothing to sneeze at. You're right, you can't do that,
right, And maybe some of those people were in there for the memes,
right, just Pokemon with guns, and then they dipped out once at what
they realized it wasn't their thing, but I I almost want to say it's
and this is no disrespect to them, but it sounds a little hasty,
yeah, right, like it sounds it sounds like they're getting to the Pokemon
Company part before establish I mean, you've had one game, right, right,
And again, I'm not trying to diminish what they did. It was
one of the biggest stories at the beginning of the year. It's a success
story that and other indie developers should try to emulate. Maybe not exactly,
but the kind of success that indie developers want. But I feel like immediately
getting into merchandise and stuff like this might they may be putting the cart before
the horse a little bit. I mean, if you want to talk about
a potential parallel as far as the merchandising is concerned, you can look at
like Five Nights at Freddy's Right. That was an indie hit that all of
a sudden was in every game stop with figurines and pops and stuffed animals and
all this other stuff. But the difference there is I think it took two
or three games, maybe even four. But then again, I guess that's
not a bad it's not a very good ALLEGORYA because that guy released games like
once a month at sea like he was just turning those things out. But
eventually it took a little more time for that merch to finally hit. I
feel like and I would hate for Powerworld to, you know, or Pocket
Pair to get into this, create this company, make all this merch,
and then just have it sit. Yeah. Do I think there's a Do
I think there's an audience? Yes? Do I think they may be overestimating
that audience or you know, thinking bigger than they should be at this present
time? Also, yes, Could I be wrong and all of a sudden
every Power World piece of merch sells out and there's a Power World too with
fifty million players, and I have a huge amount of egg on my face.
It could happen. But if I'm looking at this, if I can
look at this right now, I'm thinking, I hope that they aren't getting
too big for their bridges too quickly, right, that it's it's the foundations
there, Yes, but let's I don't know, And maybe this is just
me not being as into the world of Power World as other people are.
Maybe I'm just a little bit outside the fringes here, outside looking in.
But from my perspective, it just seems soon. Yeah, it does.
It does seem soon. I get while I get like both sides, why
they are rushing it right or pocket pair get the money while the getting as
good, like right now is the time to strike if you could make it
happen for Sony Music again like the sort of entertainment side of this, And
this is not like new for Sony Music. They've teamed up with some people
in the gaming space before to like do merchandise and stuff for them. It's
like, well, this is the first thing that looks like it has a
chance of threatening Pokemon ever in the history of the world that we have a
chance to really get in on. Of course. I mean Digimon was there
for a while the early days, I know, but Digimon still exists.
Everybody, Please don't yell at me digimont fans. I can't. I can't.
I can't have the Digimon fans yelling at me again, not like last
time. But this is the first one where like Sony's like, hey,
we could get in on the ground floor here and be ready to go if
we like. It would suck to miss this bus, is what I think.
Sony was thinking. So I get the motivation from both sides to make
this a thing. Whether I believe it will be something we ever think about
in five years, I'm a little bit iffy on that, but it's not
impossible, which is why again, it's probably worth it to both companies to
be like, hey, listen, in the best case scenario, we are
in a situation where a new generation of people grow up and don't think about
Pokemon all that much, or don't think of or they think about Power World
as much as they're thinking about Pokemon because things are changing. We talked about
Zenless Zone zero on some of the podcasts earlier this week, and I just
keep thinking about how these games are coming from completely out of the standard way
that we imagine games coming from these certain studios in these certain places, and
it's like nothing is holding these games back, and there is, and people
are jumping on them in the millions. These games make a billion dollars a
year. So there is clearly a world in which people are like, no,
this game has the aesthetic, I like it has the gameplay. I
like it's free, and I could just play it anywhere. You know,
in Power World, it's not necessarily checking all those boxes. But it has
similarity to those kinds of things, and there is a world that we could
be in where that is the normal way of playing games as opposed to going
to Nintendo's platform and buying Nintendo's game. That feels kind of limited maybe in
the world that we're entering right now. So the table is set. Whether
or not this delivers on it, I don't know. We'll to wait and
see. All right, let's take a quick break when we get back.
Plenty of more headlines to get into, including people concerned about that Once Human
game, any s, World Championship, data minds, and all more.
All right, we are back into it, and let's jump right back into
it with Once Human. Net Ease launcher is concerning players, but deb tries
to put them at ease. This is from Georgiang at GameSpot. Once Human
developer net Ease has addressed players concerns about the game's privacy policy through the net
eas launcher. Its statement on the launcher came after players left reviews on Steam
about having ID data taken from them. Net Eas took the Steam to respond
with the statement saying Once Human takes users data privacy very seriously. We would
only use personal data if we have legitimate legal basis, such as providing requests
to services or acting with your express consent. Nettie's continued, we will only
use your data lawfully and reasonably and in accordance with local legal compliance requirements while
practicing the data privacy principles such as data minimization, purpose limitation, and transparency.
We appreciate and welcome any and all feedback given by our players to help
us improve. So what happened here, Jason, is that in the privacy
policy there was a reference to I think it was government ID or something like
that, and people, i think made a leap where they're like, is
this like they're going to automatically associate my player character, my player account with
my real world government ID and then they're going to report my data to their
government or something like that. And really what was happening here is people saw
government idea and stopped reading. And apparently the rest of the phrase was and
this is, we're only doing this because there's some countries in the world that
require us to check a player's government ID to make sure they're a certain age,
and we're only doing this in those countries. So it was always overblown.
But surprise people like see something from some of these Asian countries and they
immediately leap to the worst case scenario. This has happened over and over again,
and it's racism usually usually is what that is. And I don't blame
people for being somewhat skeptical skeptical of some of these companies. Be skeptical of
every company for sure, But this is this is just not out of the
normal ordinary. This is a normal situation, right, Yeah. I mean
they have to comply with local governments just as much as they have to comply
with you know, corporate laws. You see with US players, we always
think US government standards and stuff like that. We don't. We kind of
put ourselves in our little bubble. And yeah, there's a little bit of
ethnocentric thing to it. So if some countries, if they have to make
sure you're the right age, that's all this is that they is. I
understand, not trusting a company, right, like the corporation side of it,
with you know, the Xbox News yesterday, and there's a lot there's
a lot not to trust when it comes to big corporations like Netti's. But
this one, this one I think is built in. There's some built in
you know, racism, as you said, where people think Asian company government
ID spying and then all of a sudden they go down the rabbit hole,
and I think that, Yeah, I agree with you. This is where
a lot of this was overblown by that. Do I think people being concerned
about their privacy is normal? Yes? Do I think people took this a
little over the top because of the source, like you said, yes,
I think that as well. This I will say though, for me,
this is why if I have a choice to play a game one console,
I do it because I don't like dealing with any of these launchers Riot Activision,
none of them just just let me put let me download a game to
my console and play it there. That's just how I deal with my thing
too. But yeah, I mean, it's it's an unfortunate situation just based
on the language that they used. They did come out and address it.
It's not like they just left people hanging, which is always a good thing.
Uh. And hopefully maybe the backlash and miss will die down just a
bit and people can get back to deciding whether they like the game or not.
As opposed to the language in the legal and compliance stuff before they even
start. Yep, we've seen this before. There have been several games,
specifically from China that have had these scary scare MONGERINGE effects around them, very
similar, and it always feels like, well, like that MSG stuff where
it's like the scare MONGERINGE around MSG, it's like, oh, this is
the special a salt that's going to kill you. And it's like, oh,
okay, now you don't care, you're just trying. You're just afraid
of Chinese people for some reason, and and so like, yeah, I'm
always like a little bit frustrated by when these things happen. But again,
like people are right to be skeptical of their own some personal security and privacy
and stuff like that. So this still bothers you a lot of accounts to
cancel, probably because everyone's tracking you and they're keeping keeping your data across the
board. And I don't necessarily know that a private corporation is any better than
a foreign government or personally, but you know that's how I feel about it.
Uh, agree with you, all right? ANS World Championships developer has
been revealed via a data mine. This is from Andy Robinson and VGC.
The developer behind Nintendo's upcoming Nintendo World Championships ANS edition has been revealed, and,
as uncovered by data minor yak Kumono, files for the game's Nintendo E
Shop pre load confirmed that Nintendo created the game in collaboration with Indy Zero.
Indie Zero is a small Tokyo based studio which has collaborated with Nintendo frequently in
the past, notably on the nes Remix games, as well as Big Brand
Academy and Doctor Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch. Yah Kumono also claims that
Nintendo World Championships uses the same emulation software as Switch Online and the NES many
rather than the older we U Sawtona. Nintendo has recently adopted a secretive approach
to the developers behind its video game collaborations, frequently declining to confirm the identity
of the game creators until after release. Recently, the company was secretive about
the developer behind Princess Peach Showtime, declining to confirm if Goodfield was working on
it when asked. It was similarly secretive about the developer of Luigi's Mansion two
HD, and it's currently unclear who's working on the new Mario Luigi game.
Uh yeah. Nintendo has been asked about this, and what they'll say is
like, hey, you'll be able to find out what's the game is out
and the credits role, what the what the why? Just tell us what's
try? Why are you so weird Nintendo? But yeah, okay, yeah,
this is I think this is what people are expecting. The ns remix
team working on this game as well. That makes a lot of sense.
But but yeah, I don't I don't get why Nintendo is like this because
now we know and what has changed. Nothing, this is what we assumed
was true. Uh yeah, And again I know there's some people that speculate
Nintendo does this to keep these studios out of the muck, but I think
it also and I think that is a very like I said, I said
this before, a very generous reading, because what this can also do is
keep the profile of these studios down so that they aren't worth as much on
an open market if someone worked to, say acquire them, it's like,
oh, yeah, that's I recognize that name, that that's the team that
does this, and this is for Nintendo. Every time Nintendo minimizes that or
there's fewer references to these studios made publicly by Nintendo on the record that does
have a monetary effect on the value of these companies. Being mentioned by Nintendo
would be a very beneficial thing saying yeah, that's a studio we work with
and they're great, and they never say anything like that. And I think
it is with the idea of they have this relationship with these companies and they
want to keep things on an even keel and not stir it up so that
maybe the next time they go back, these companies feel like they can renegotiate
and get a better and get better terms that you know, I think that's
cynical, but I think that's what's happening here. What do you think well,
I think also too, by keeping the profile though, it allows them
to keep them close to their chest. Right, these are all independent,
contracted studios. They've been working on these games for a very, very long
time. And while you're talking about, you know, them not wanting these
companies to get acquired by other places. I also think too that it allows
them to negotiate the next game, yes, without anybody trying to step in
and say no, we want them for this. And there also might be
two Nintendo is very you know, mindful of corporate secrets, right that they
want to keep their stuff in house. They don't want anything leaking or getting
out. So by working with these independent companies for so long, they probably
have a treasure trove of maybe source documents or other sort of non giga leaked
Nintendo things that they can by not putting their name out there. Say a
company does acquire them, they also acquire all that stuff. So I in
one sense, yes, they're the cynical part says it keeps the price low
for when they contract these guys and they keep the profits up based on the
games that they're making. But there's also probably some corporate secret protection as well.
All of it's above my perier grade. I don't understand any of it,
and I think that has more to do with it than just you know,
keeping them out of the muck. As you said, there might be
a little bit of that, but I think it's more about keeping their strategic
partners, especially the independent ones, as close to in house as they can
without the getting poached or approached either through acquisition or through signing a contract to
do something else. Right, I'm trying to think it was next level Luigi's
Mansion three developer that was after we Wegis mentioned three. And this was like
in the heart of when everyone was getting acquired, was like, oh,
yeah, we're buying that studio, and that very much felt like the studio
having a lot of leverage and being like, hey, we can get a
lot more from our next game, we can go work with anyone else,
we can go make our own game. And Nintendo's like, no, actually,
you're worth it. We'll pay what we need to pay. And you
know, it was like a decent chunk of change. It was not like
nothing. It wasn't like millions of dollars. But I think it was a
couple hundred million dollars I thought. But maybe maybe I'm remembering sounds right,
I can bring that up while we're talking. Yeah, but yeah, they
definitely, they definitely I'm with you on that they saw the value of what
that team was doing. Let's see January twenty twenty one Next Level Games.
Have they ever announced how much that was for? Maybe maybe they didn't say
how much it was that that could make sense. This article does not have
a number. Yeah, that happens pretty frequently too, with these acquisitions.
They don't actually say either way, it seems like it was for a decent
chunk of change. Sure, yeah, and you know, will we just
mentioned three years, sixteen million selling game or something like that or approaching that
much. So yeah, they were probably able to command quite quite a pretty
penny. I think that for Nintendo, they are just it's not important to
them that people know who make the game, and then it is important for
them to do all the things that we said, Like you said, make
sure that the next deal is you know, not as high as it could
be, and to not have these teams be poached again. As we said,
all right, let's keep moving here. Nintendo releases creepy teaser trailer from
mystery m rated switch game. We talked about this yesterday, but just kind
of wanted to update people on the let's go over the details again. This
is from tom Iban at VGC. Nintendo has released a teaser trailer for what
appears to be a mystery horror game. On Wednesday, the company's social media
channels published links to a to a trailer titled EMEO. It's titled Smiling Man
in Japanese. Gimatsu reports. The trailer, which is viewable below, opens
with a Nintendo Switch Loco and carries an M rating from the US Entertainment Software
Ratings Board and an eighteen rating from European classification Body Peggy. The trailer description
and Nintendo's social media post also include the hashtag who is Emeo. The Japanese
video description contains a link to a teaser website too. Last month, the
platform holder held a Nintendo Direct presentation mainly focused on Switch games set for release
in the second half of twenty twenty four. The event was used to announce
the Legend of Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom, a new two D adventure star
a new two D adventure starring Princesszelda coming in September, and Mario Luigi Brothership
in Island Hopping RPG adventure releasing in November. Email was not at that event,
though, so that's why people are like, well, so what is
this? A couple other things people were speculating, maybe this is the blueber
Team game that Bluebird mentioned previously at some point they were going to partner up
with Nintendo. I think other people are like now saying that doesn't sound right
because this game would be maybe a bit too early to be that, And
I think there were some other people who are finding other ways to to debunk
that theory. So then the question is, once again, who's making this
game? What is it Nintendo developing an m erated horror game for the Switch?
Is that? Because that's what it seems like is happening here. How
are you reading all this? It's Metroc Prime four. Yeah, let's go.
It's it's it's it's the it's the next trailer for a Metroc Prime four.
Yea, you take off the bag and it's Ridley under there. Yes,
no, I don't have I remember seeing like I vividly remember. I
mean it was yesterday, so but in this day and age, you never
know. But I opened this thing up. My first reaction was, the
fuck is going on here? Yeah? This is so not Nintendo. It's
so like just some dude standing there and he's smiling, and then all of
a sudden, he's not smiling. He's super creepy. Got this like ring
vibe to it? I I I don't, I don't know, like I
or could they be going like mature horror in house? What what studio would
do that? Like? Is this a new I have so many questions,
but that's a good thing. I think I feel like with Nintendo, you
get, like we talked about the Nintendo Direct, you got all this stuff,
and for the most part it was you know, pop and colorful and
happy Go Lucky. There might have been a few mature games in there that
I'm forgetting about, but like Mario Party and Marvel versus Capcom Collection. Sorry,
Sean, you're crying again, but hey, I hear you. I
cried too. But on all this other like whimsical stuff, and then all
of a sudden, now we have this Uncle Howdie presentation on Nintendo's YouTube channel
for fifteen seconds, and I'm like, all right, but now what,
Like, are you just gonna give us some smiling man every day every week
until like Tokyo Game Show or whatever your next Nintendo Direct is. Are you
doing a setemperate Nintendo Direct again like you always are? Are we two months
away from this? What are you doing? What's with the smiling guy?
I just have more questions than answers, which I guess for this genre.
If it's a horror game, mystery horror game, that is the way you
ought to market it. More questions than answers, but an answer or two
would be nice, Like what is this and what are we going to be
doing? I wonder too if remind me of the name that they they remade
them for the Switch a couple of years ago. They were old Nintendo investigation
games. Yeah, Detective Yes, fat series, the Famicom to Detective Club,
I think is what it was. Yes. I wonder if that game
sold enough to get its own Yeah, Like I I wonder if it's like
maybe this is uh yeah, it could be a follow up to something like
that, definitely. Yeah, and then they just they put that name on
it or they or they and they just adapted it into a mature horror game.
Yes, not a serial killer hell yeah, yeah, that's the only
logical, like based on Nintendo's you know, internal ip without you know,
without Mario taking a huge heal turn. I don't like, that's the only
thing I could think of that would fit into that, right, unless other
franchises. I'm forgetting. Is this Devil World? Are we going to Devil
World? I don't know. I don't know what this is. Yeah,
I mean, at the very least, it's a Nintendo things. So there's
already a lot of fan art, Like there's the the Ambo here that someone
made and the Emeo showing up in Smash Ultimate, like everyone is here and
Mario and Emeo wait who is he? And where's Luigi? Uh yeah,
Like there's a there's a lot of good stuff here where people are like paying
a lot of attention, which suggested me it's like, well, I bet
there's a lot of people who are like in the scene, like looking at
it, looking into what is this? Can we find anything is? Can
we data mind something about this? Can we go look on the back end
of Nintendo's websites and see what we can uncover about it? And we haven't
heard anything, so uh yeah, at the very very least, the TATO
seems like they know how to tease things right now, which is surprising and
cool. How funny would it be if they if they were like baiting the
data miners. The data miners go in and they find like this one,
they think it's yeah, just a total total gotcha, and then they it's
still a game, but there's just a nothing to data mind. That would
be hysterical. But yeah, hey, uh it's nice to see some a
org but any but there's some some weird teas and stuff from a company that
doesn't normally do it and maybe they realize this is fun. They could do
it again later on with something else. Small part of me hopes it's Miamoto
under the mask. That would be funny. Oh, that'd be great.
Yes, it just takes out there he is and does he announced the Donkey
Kong Ride. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, here, I am.
I don't know why we did this, but I just want to talk to
you about Donkey Kong. All right, I guess, Okay, what do
you think we find out what EMEO is? Like? Do you have any
idea I would if I had to put, I would normally say Tokyo Game
Show. That's too far away, right, I don't think we're waiting months
like this is not a Kojuma like, Oh we have We're gonna have mysteries
all throughout the whole marketing previews a time frame of this game's release, so
that there's months and months and months of stuff to go over. I think
in a couple of weeks we're gonna know what this is, right, Yeah,
maybe one more tea. It was what Tuesday, right, this came
out, so maybe another tees next Tuesday and then the Tuesday after that.
They because they because the Tendo has no problem just randomly dropping details on a
brand new announcement out of the blue, either, like that's how the NS
World Championships were announced. We didn't know about it and then we did,
so maybe that's what this is gonna be. Yep, I am curious.
I'm very curious. I will want to see what this what this is.
At the same time, I'm not expecting it to be like some amazing thing.
It's probably gonna be some tiny little project that they're going to have fun
with, and I'm fine with that as well. Tell Dusk three, let's
go right yeah, Hotel Dusk why not all right by where once fans to
discover if Dragon Age the Veilguard shows hog. This is from Kenny Shepherd to
Kotaka. We already know Dragon Age the Veilguard will have romance and spicy scenes.
That's that's par for the course with a BioWare RPG in a post mass
effect world. But sounds like the upcoming game in the Blob Fantasy series isn't
restricting nudity to protagonist. Rook and their chosen partner are getting it on.
What's still unclear is if it will show everything this time around. But BioWare
isn't shutting down the possibility. Game Informer published an article as part of its
ongoing July cover story confirming there was topless nudity in The Bilguard's character creator,
in a first for the franchise. From a practical standpoint, this is helpful
during the during the character creation process if you want to if you want your
rook's body to look a certain way, it's easier to do when their shirt
is off. Game Informer asked if there would be nudity elsewhere in the game,
to which the director corn Bush responded, this is a mature RPG.
As for whether or not Dragon Age the Bailguard will follow Baldergate Three's example and
include Genitalia, BioWare apparently told Game Informer the studio wants fans to discover that
for themselves. That isn't a resulting yes, but it's a weirdly ad answer
evasive answer if it's a no, yeah, I mean, listen, you
can't like suggest there's gonna be hog and then not delay. Right right,
somebody heard us talking about Wieners. Sorry, so appy, that's right,
that's uh, there's the there's the Wiener everybody, there's there there it is.
There's a winner on gay mess Pinnies. No, they can't. They
can't say this because then, you know, the the let's say conservative news
cycle will get a hold of it all of a sudden. That'll be it'll
be a mass effect one all over again, and we'll have poor Jeff Keely
sitting there on Fox News getting berated by someone that Oh God, if you're
not old enough to remember that, go look that up. What a what
a mess that was. But yeah, I I they can't say it.
And if they have it, good for you people who want that, good
for you. I being a you know, I I adapt a joke from
John Oliver when people ask me what my background is. When it comes to
you know, uh, sexuality and race and ethnicity, I am the equivalent
of a white bread sandwich where the middle of it is more white bread.
So I've had enough female you know parts in my game to last a lifetime.
It's your turn to eat. Yeah, what you want, and if
it's there, great, If not, step up to the tap of the
counter. We're serving everybody now, Maja. But yeah, I mean,
boulterers Gate did it. Why wouldn't Dragon Age do it? Please? Let's
go. Oh god, what there it is? Okay? Yeah, so
there's a there's a screenshot of Jeff Keey getting roasted by someone who was then
I believe completely uh delegitimized, which was pretty fun. But anyhow, now
that to get this trained back on track, Yeah, go for it,
the show, show all the hog you want, Let the let the let
the Hog fans eat. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think they probably
are feeling a little bit more encouraged after a Boulder Skate three. Do you
want like is there a chance that Hog wasn't in the game? And then
Balder Skate three came out and they're like, well, now we gotta have
hog? Did you imagine the concept? Like, look, I just played
Velderskate three, here's something we have to add and just shar against just a
screenshot. So lit'sten. I got I got something. I gotta ask you
something. I can't put it in slack because I don't want to get called
by HR. But should we have winners in our game? Jeff? What
have you done to me? But yeah, I don't. I don't even
know where to go with this. If Boulder Skate did it, that's what
they should do too. I keep saying the same thing is now all I
can think of as a word, hog, brain hog, this is my
this is Kenneth Shepherd's fault. This is all your fault. Can Yeah,
it's your fault, mister Shepherd. You buy away plants. Definitely absolutely masspect
podcast for a long time. But no, no, I mean it's it's
it's people. This is what people. You know, we watch Game of
Thrones that had it, We watched this stuff like that. It's just becoming
more present. I mean, I didn't I don't kill me for this chat,
but which er three is one of my blind spots? Was it in
there? Like I don't even know there was definitely nw to. I don't
know if I don't know if Dick and Bowles was in there, but I
mean he definitely did the display in the hot tub thing exactly. So I
feel like in a in a part of being more inclusive in video games is
catering to everyone's preferences. And some people prefer because they're you know, a
woman who is hetero or a or a female who is or a they them
who is pan or whatever it is. They want to see some hog,
So let him see some Hog. I don't know how else it And I
think that's the difference between like we're on this like curve of like back in
the day, it was just NonStop fan service for young men in games,
and it was like we we would criticize that, and what that sounded like
was no sex and games is what that sounded like. And some people meant
that and some but most people were like, no, look, chill,
we're not we're not saying that. We're just like, why is it always
for the same like set of gazing eyes? Why is it always from this
one perspective? Like could you just have a little bit more diversity and think
about that? And what that we was really saying was we want Hog in
the game as well. Listen, developers, ask not what Hog and games
can do for you, ask what you can do for Hog in video games?
Hog? There it is Hog. Soone in chat was like, are
we talking about object? Came, yeah, hoggies. You know I'm always
playing those hoggies. Oh boy, all right, let's uh, let's hit
this last one. Oh my god, to her, there it is.
We got there. Everybody. Smash Brothers style game in the League of Legends
series has been canceled, According to a report this from Georgiana GameSpot, Riot
Games reportedly shut down a Super Smash Brothers melee style game set in the League
of Legends universe co named Pool Party. According to reader Grev a newsletter by
former Launcher editor Mikhail Klimentoff, uh Pool Party was canceled due to a reassessment
of consumer interest in a Super Smash Brothers competitor. Right executives were reportedly worried
about multi Verses, the Smash Brothers competitor that featured Warner Brothers characters, and
how it didn't seem nearly as nearly as successful, and yeah, well nothing's
going to be nearly as successful as Smash Brothers'sah. My understanding for multiverses was
it when it went away that first time, it was dwindling, But then
it came back and I thought it was doing well again. But I guess
haven't been paying attention either. That said, I wonder if Riot is like,
no, we need to have something that is massive to justify it.
I bet they are like that, like, if it's not something that can
make one hundred million dollars a year in micro transactions, it's not worth our
time. That that said, are you gonna miss miss this too? Is
this what you were craving from your League of Legends gaming? I fully agree
with the fact that if Riot doesn't make it right one hundred million dollars,
they're not going to do it. And Riot Forge says hello. I loved
the idea that they were branching out the League of Legends universe into all those
smaller like adventure games Mage Seeker and Ruined King. I loved that idea,
and then they brushed my dreams. I thought it was awesome, but in
the same vein, I get why they would have been spooked by multi versus
is weird, pull like pull away, and then come back later the game
is good. Now I follow it. They just had their first like Mortal
Kombat combat cast style live stream earlier this week where they went through Agent Smith,
who's being added to the game soon if he's not already there in early
access. I think they hit a little couple of little easter eggs in the
back for season two. I saw that penny Wise doll player first. I
saw it, but yeah, it was it was like yeah, and as
Sean's putting in the chat, multiverses went away rumor is is that the team
player first games was a dozen people and they just couldn't keep up, so
they had build their team up to get where it is. And I do
enjoy it, come back, I do. I think it's I think it's
a I think it's a good game. But at the same time, if
Riots in the process of feeling out the process of making a platform fighter and
Multiverses, which was probably the most like the highest profile smash clone of the
ones that came out, like Nick Allstar Brawl does exist and the sequel is
better, but the first one was not very good. Not launching with voices
is never yes, weird. And then there's other ones that are around too,
like Prohala has been around for a while and Rivals of eight thirty.
If you really want to get into it, no offense to them, that's
a great game. But like they probably saw Multiverses and this weird thing,
not knowing what's going on behind this, if that twelve person team rumor is
true, and thought, oh crap, maybe this isn't as good of an
idea as we think it is, and they pulled out. Do I think
they pulled their hog out? Do I think it would have been good.
Sorry, Do I think it would have been the bathwater? I got a
soak in it? Yeah, I won't say it again. I browns.
Do what you gotta do. But no, do I think a League of
Legends hif one fighter could have worked? Yes? I do, because I
think that they have what one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty champions. Now,
that's a huge pool to choose from, which is sort of what they're
doing. As someone mentioned in chat, they're mentioned they're making two x KO
as well, or Project L as it was called at the time, And
would they? Yeah? Would they? Why would they do both at the
same time? And the answer is because you're catering to two different and you
wouldn't. Really, Yeah, the realities, you wouldn't. If you have
one that seems like it's gonna work, maybe more when that doesn't. Yeah,
And when it doesn't, right exactly, you'd be like, well,
let's pull the band aid off and let's focus on the one we think it's
going to work. Two XKO looks great, and I like the name.
I don't care what anyone says. I think that's a good fun name to
say, two XKO. It definitely pull it like separates itself from the rest
of the fighting game, and it separates itself from League of Legends. Project
l which you know as a as a code name, is good. We
know what it's referring to. So if you want to make its own brand
and its own thing and just have those characters in it, Because someone who
might like fighting games and barely knows anything about League of Legends is going to
see two v two fighting, a genre that until a recent Nintendo direct was
you know, Barren and be like, oh man, I love this.
I think it's a cool, a cool concept. I think anything that they
can do to build out that world that they've been building for over a decade
now is a good eye idea. That's why I loved Riot Forged so much.
Like I said earlier, and I really, I really kind of would
have liked to have seen this platform fighter work. But I get the difference,
But I get, you know, having two projects running concurrently, seeing
the tumultuous development cycle of the one genre and then being like, you know
what, maybe we just focus everything on the on the two v two fighter
because that seems like it's it's got a little more momentum behind it. It
makes sense. So they went that route, and I think that's actually going
to pay off for him. I really do. I think so as well.
Yeah, so no more pool party over there at Riot instead we will
just be getting the two x KO, which I am fine with. All
right, let's get to the poll question. We asked this yesterday on the
show. Are you planning to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass going forward? Thirty
eight percent say yes, sixty two percent say no. Of course, that
would include people who have never subscribed to have no interest in subscribing, though
hanging on strong they still think it's worth it, and I think that's where
game passes at now, Jason, where it is not. Don't. I
don't think I'm gonna go around saying the best deal in gaming like I maybe
once have, and I haven't. I don't think I've said that in a
while. I do think it is a potential good value to certain people sometimes
and is definitely something you could consider. Still, I don't think that Microsoft's
moves were into indicative of they are trying to bury this thing. That is
not what they're doing. They are trying to make it make sense for the
long term. But that does not mean that. What they were indicating is
they are not trying to gather new users anymore. Not really they are.
This is like a maintenance phase of like we got about, or a plateauing.
Maybe if we have thirty to thirty five million subscribers, we are going
to keep it at that level for some time, and maybe if we find
a way to break through eventually we will turn things around. But in the
meantime, we got to make money from who is paying us now, and
that's what this is all about. I don't know stick of a game pass,
yes, just because I feel like in this line of work, I
kind of have to, right, Like, I'll keep game Pass just to
be able to keep up with it. And if there's a game that I
can't purchase or I'm not reviewing, I'll get a day one. So I'll
stick with it for that reason. But yes, I used to tell people
who would come to me, like around Christmas time, I get some parents
who come to me who know that I've grown up with or what to the
high school with or whatever, who know that I am in this in this
industry, and they'll ask me, like my kids asking for a game system,
what should I do And whenever I get like the teenager who's dabbling for
the first time, I always have that Xbox versus PlayStation question. And before
Xbox game Pass was an easy recommendation because you could just get right in,
you get the games on day one. Now it is still enticing. It's
one of your options. Yes, it's one of your options. But to
get the full benefits of it twenty bucks a month is you know, another
subscription service on top of however, many they made already have between Netflix and
you know, all the ones that they're watching YouTube TV if they have that,
and it's I and as much as I want to recommend the standard one,
the standard one doesn't have the day one. So what's the point,
right You can't. You can't. You can no longer say oh, you
want to play that game, just go get game Pass. You have to
be like, oh, okay, oh you want that, Okay, get
game Pass Ultimate. Make sure you get the top tier. And most people
do get game Pass Ultimate. That is by far the most popular tier.
It always was, so most people were doing this. That's why I don't
think it's like just going to evaporate off the face of the planet or something
like that. But correct. It is. It is they are no longer
trying to court that that idea of oh, you just want to play the
game, go get game pass. That the reason they had it in these
lower tiers before is because they wanted everyone just to associate every game with game
passes, Go get game Pass instead of buying the game. That's what they
wanted, because they wanted as many subscribers as possible. And in the last
eighteen months, as it hasn't grown, they have changed their mind. They've
changed their mind and now they're like, okay, well, the people that
want it, let's focus on maximizing the return on them, which means let's
get them all into Game Pass Ultimate, and then let's also raise the price
of Game Pass Ultimate. And then going forward, if people want like Call
of Duty, do we want the people finding ways to work around to like
get Call of Duty and save money. It's like, no, I think
we want people to mostly just buy Call of Duty. And if they're not
buying Call of Duty, they better be in a twenty dollars per month Game
Pass Ultimate subscription. And it's okay, yeah, sure, I get it.
It's cynical, but yeah, that's probably what's going on here, and
the the timing is very indicative of that too. I guess yeah, it's
it's unfortunate, like I want to be able to keep recommending Game passed people,
but they're making it more difficult. Yeh. And like people are like,
you know, you know, thought there would never be a price increase.
It's like, no one I knew there'd be a price. Course,
of course there would be. I'm not like everything goes up in price.
Of course it does, but live life to go up. But the way
the price increases the way the tiers get moved around says something. We don't
have to pretend that we're dumb, Like we don't have to like, oh,
this is the price goes up, So the price goes up. It's
like, no, there's they're The way that they're doing it says how they
feel about this thing. And if you just look at it, and you
look at what the numbers have been saying for quite some time, and how
every industry analyst also is the same thing. We know what's happening here.
Game Pass isn't growing, so they're looking for other ways to increase their growth
and revenue and the return on investment, which we've heard is they've they're feeling
a lot of pressure to do more of that than they felt in quite some
time because they spent seventy billion dollars on activisions. So yeah, yeah,
we'll see. I'm like, not sure if I'll keep Game Pass Ultimate.
I don't use it very often, so I'm kind of think I probably will
cancel it for some time until I need it again. But yeah, I
mean that I'm starting to lean that way too, I think a little bit.
But it is amazing to me how the seventy seventy billion dollars activision deal
has now become this coflection point, yes, in Xbox's history, one hundred
percent, And it's just fascinating to see how that continues to you know,
branch out and web all these different other decisions that come around it. And
I think, as we've talked about before, uh in previous episodes, it's
just the attention that it brought to the department. Yeah, right, yes,
from Yeah, that's that's basically what all this is is it is it
a shot in the foot? I guess we'll find out, all right.
I have a new poll question. We'll get to that in a second.
Before we do that, Jason Finelli, tell people where they can find you
on the internet, what we have going on and all that good stuff.
Uh mine, I am at big Man Finelle on x if you want to
see some video game stuff from me, and wrestling and kids and more and
more of my dog, you know that. That's where my My social media
presence mostly is writing for game Spot, MMORPG a couple other websites. If
you're at Evo, feel free to high five. Maybe don't yell the name
of this website that might make people a little little little sister says, right
in this day and age, do you want to say too? We tend
somehow. We keep planning these things on big days in my family, Like
there was my parents anniversary back in November, first day of my show in
April. Today is my dad's birthday. Birthday, Daddy Finelle, Daddy Pops
Finelle is uh what, let me just a quick math here, sixty three
years old. I leave. He's doing good. I hope. I don't
know if he's going to watch this episode considering the talk two segments ago.
Who knows. Now I'm being called the hogs and dragon age just at but
yeah, so he's uh he's. We saw him last week while we're down
shore. We were staying at their place, so we were talking. You
know, he's, he's, he's awesome. Like I every year after like
Summer games Fest or whatever, I prepare a YouTube playlist of trailers to show
him, uh, because he just has always taken a bested interest in my
nerdy bullshit. Yeah, it's just it's awesome. Like I'll show him magic
cards. Hey, look at this, And I don't know if he knows
what we're talking about or cares, but he still does the when I was
six. Oh that's really cool man, you know, just just and I
love it. I love it also as someone reminds me to go the exact
opposite route. Today is the nine year anniversary of the passing of Storial Wata,
So you know, props to uh, props that for sure. Yeah,
apologies for the massive turn in mood there. But yeah. So so
that's where you can find me and doing all my things. You're into trading
cards like magic at Pokemon and stuff like that. I do have a fledgling
YouTube and TikTok called CG John J A w N where I just opened packs
and talk about the cool things that I'm pulling out of them stuff like that.
But yeah, man, that's what's going on with me, just writing
things and getting paid for it. Hell, and you're podcasting and getting paid
for it. But it's it's a good life we live sometimes. Yeah,
make it happen for sure, all right, new cold question. Are you
curious about Natato's EMEO game? Yes? No? And what is that?
Those are your options? Just kind of wonder if people are even paying attention
to this. I think some people are, and I think a lot of
people are, like, I don't know, Just tell me what it is
and then I'll pay attention. We'll discuss the results of that on Games Mornings
on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of Giant Bomb, later today, we will
have voicemail dumb Truck. On Friday, we will play Concord for UPF and
that's after Games Mornings in the morning, of course, and then we'll have
a BCR quick one where we'll talk about our thoughts about just playing Concord.
So all of that will be happening later this week. Anything else we should
mention, I might fit like a tiny weird stream into stuff today, but
that would be off the cuff, So no promises. We'll see. There's
lots of great stuff on the website. We played a grab bag of just
random games yesterday. That's up on the site. Now up on YouTube,
you can find all of our streams as always by going to YouTube dot com
slash at Giant Bomb and clicking the live tab. Most of our videos are
under that live tab, so that's where you want to look, all right,
Jason, Well, no, thank you so much for hanging out with
me today and talking about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
Always like it, my friend. If you ever need me, I am
here most of the time. I appreciate it. Thank you everybody for watching
and listening. You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
have a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye. Hog Hog