You'll be never got me. Bit it's the internet. You're busy. Let's
do this for February twenty six, 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 will help you kill time until Final
Fantasy seven Rebirth is finally out. But first please join me and welcoming today's
co host a Game Mess Mornings. It's Emma Fife. Everybody, Emma,
how are you doing. I'm great. I just finished Final Fantasy seven Rebirth
last night. Fantastic. And you know, I think because when we had
our review podcast about it podcast Revengeance. Everybody up on the field now on
Revengeance. When we were discussing it, I feel like everyone set me up
to hate the ending so much that I was like, I don't know,
I thought it was all right, yep. I think the same thing happened
with Mike because Mike was getting that same you know, not necessarily he wouldn't
have liked it anyhow, or you wouldn't have liked it anyhow. I think
you probably would have. But if it certainly helps when you hear like people
are like not as glowing about the Indian as there about everything else to help
set the towne a little bit. Absolutely, yeah, and and honestly and
still like, even even with the I thought the ending was fine, the
rest of the game is still better. Sure, yes, right, it's
uh. I think that they and I think for most people that they're going
to go in be like worried about the ending. And I think the thing
we ended with on on the on the BombCast Revengeance episode, which was no,
don't go in with that mindset, go and enjoy everything else and then
let the cards fall with it where they're going to fall, right. So
yeah, absolutely absolutely, and if you need more cards, just get in
on some Yeah. That's we were talking before the show started to everyone here
in the live audience about yeah, that's what I've been doing, uh,
to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, including responsibilities in life. And
it was so it's a really really good game, but it is addictive and
once you get going that feeling of having all right, I got I've built
my deck and it's working the way I wanted to work, and clearly I
should be able to get everything there. Here's what's happened to me, I've
played a lot. I've played a probably, I think my steam says I've
played about nine hours or so, ten hours maybe, and I still have
not beaten a run, And I like, part of that skill issue,
let's be clear, part of it is skill issue. Part of its luck
and get into some pretty bad luck where I will like get the exact wrong
possible last blind and the boss will have the thing that can undo my deck
or whatever. But I had this one that had like I would get one
point five x for every king I was holding in my hand, and so
i'd have I changed everything to kings, and then I would play a high
card and it was like getting me seventy thousand every every just one hand would
get me that. And then of course I get to the very last hand
and I'm like I got this. I play and it's just nope, sailed
right there at the very end. And that's that's a tough feeling. That's
not great. So I know I weirdly feel some of that in the Marathon
boss fight. Yes, BIRTH totally feel you. Also, I'm still I
was a little sick. That was also part of it, where it's like
I'm just gonna lay here in this bean bag and play this game. But
I think I'm starting to feel better. Voice is starting to come back to
But we'll see, we'll see how that goes this week. Uh yeah,
I mean, Emma, now that Final Fantasy seven rebirth is behind you,
Yes, I mean, how are you feeling about, like, God,
you got I mean games not out for most people, it is going to
be very frustrating here, But how are you feeling about having to look forward
to like a couple more years to get to that finale? The thing is,
is this a vampire strikes back? You know what I mean? Like
this ends in the middle. Yeah. It h for people to understand Final
Fantasy is your shit, right that this is like totally yeah specific Final Fantasy
seven, which was the first chair PGA I ever played, right Yeah,
I mean I I really need them to be like surprised. Uh. Next,
this is actually coming out next year, which is truly not gonna happen
even Let's just like look at it real quick. So it's twenty twenty four
right now. When did the remake came out in twenty nineteen? Twenty twenty
Yeah, so four years, four years. It's you know what they they
fly by Oh it'll fly by. Yeah, but I'm like wondering, like
if it takes another four years, that's probably PlayStation six, which is weird.
Yeah, I'm seeing that in chat too, Yeah, which is interesting
because like I feel like just now PlayStation five is like starting to take off.
Yeah, it'd be like it's gonna be if it is like four years
and that puts us in twenty twenty eight. It'll be in that you know
that that place between both consoles and like you can't PlayStation six could be there
but still launch on PS five. There's a there's a world in which like
part of making Rebirth was them laying the groundwork to make the next one faster.
I hope that's what happened here. Yeah, well, I mean the
thing is is that they don't have to remake the world map, right exactly.
That's because a lot of Disc two of the original game is retreading areas
you've already been in that you're just able to explore better because now your different
colored joke abouts will take you to other areas exactly. So yeah, I'm
hoping that they could get it out in like maybe like three years. Yeah,
I do think that this one will actually take less. Yeah time,
Yeah, and that that would be beneficial. I think that's what they would
want to be doing when they were putting together Rebirth. Even if they are
going to have, you know, the integrate equivalent for this as well,
that'll problem I have no I have no doubt they will have the Integrade equivalence
equivalent for this. And I also literally know exactly what it's going to be
about. Fantastic Well game will be out. I don't really know, but
you know what I mean? Sure, right, you got a good pulse
on it. Yeah, it's it's out Fridays or is it out before that?
Is it out in the middle of Thursday? Okay, so everyone can
start playing it then and then then we can start having those real conversations.
Everybody looking forward to that? Yeah, me too. All right, let's
explain what we do here most weekdays, I, Jeff Greb, 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 are
watching live on twitch welcome, you can always listen to the show later on
podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings, or find the RSS on giant
bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps
on YouTube Hello YouTube. About halfway through reading that, Emma, my head
twitch to the side really hard, and I was like, oh, so
much so that I like, I have the feed that's a little bit by
behind on the site and I could like see my head like violently twitch to
the side. I'm like, all right, you know what, you need
more sleep? Yeah, it is fun to watch yourself back uh huh on
the feed and go, oh I did that, Yeah exactly. It's like,
okay, that was as violent looking as it felt. Cool. All
right, let's we have a lot to get into. Let's start the morning
mess with yes, reiter reiterating what we already kind of know at this point.
Switch To slated from March twenty twenty five. According to yet another report.
This is from Evan Campbell at GameSpot, Nintendo is reportedly aiming to launch
switch To in March twenty twenty five, while the company still hasn't officially announced
its next system. Apparently, the hardware was internally delayed from this year to
next to avoid any supply issues. As spotted by VGC, NICKK has a
new report in case, a Japanese reporting site has reported detailing has a report
detailing that Nintendo not only wants to beef up the launch lineup with more software,
but also the amount of switch to systems initially available. Earlier this month,
wide spread rumbling suggested the switch too was pushed back to early twenty twenty.
No specific month was mentioned at the time. Basically they said though not
March of next year by the earliest. All of this continues to sound like
wow, I mean, there's a lot of corroborating reports at this point.
We've heard one reason why, which was that previously was like, hey,
they felt the software lineup wasn't going to be ready to go. That probably
means like the big Marquee game they were if that game was coming on the
switch. They probably delaying that that happens all the time with Nintendo games.
Now that the whole system is dependent on it, why not just push everything
back. There's no rush necessary. And at the same time, it's like,
well, this other piece is like, well, they're saying they're doing
it because they want to have enough hardware at launch. Both those things are
probably true. All that adds up to, like, hey, why would
we try to force it out in twenty twenty four when the Switch is making
us a ton of money? Why mess with that? Right? Yeah?
Absolutely? I mean the thing about Nintendo and the advantage of being Nintendo is
that they are these super giant IP holders basically, and so they don't have
to keep step with your PlayStations and your xboxes. That has never been Nintendo's
mission. Nintendo's always just been like, We're gonna be over here doing our
thing. Yes, Mortal Kombat one looks hilarious on the Switch compared to other
systems, but again, like Nintendo's even though Nintendo and I really appreciate this
has a fantastic offering of indie games because there's so many indie games that play
so so well on a handheld console like the Switch. And again, one
of the other strengths of the Switch has always been that it offers both the
handheld experience plus the doct experience. So Nintendo is in this beautiful situation of
wherein they are mostly honestly dedicated to their first party titles like that. That
has always been Nintendo's things since the beginning of time so they don't have to
rush anything. They're gonna wait and put that. I mean, think about
how long we knew there was going to be a sequel to Tears of the
Kingdom and how many times that just kept getting pushed back exactly cause again,
Nintendo is in this really cushy position of being able to Nintendo Yep, yeah,
they are. That they do this when they are in a weaker position
than then what they're in right now, where they're like, now, we're
going to make sure we get these games right, and that this is something
that a lot of other companies are like looking around, like, man,
we wish we had the leeway to do that and intend to sort of manufactures
this slack so to the point where it's like they are holding non games that
are finished for up to a year, if not longer. They you know,
we talked about that fire Emblem game that's been done for a long time.
I mean, they did that with Metro Aid Prime. They do it
with a lot of games, and it's like, well, you know,
that gives them a certain amount of access to like a work with where like
okay, we can our release schedule could be malleable, we can move things
around. We could shift them as needed, We could drop things into a
little slot if if we feel like we need to make a move most of
the time though, if we can push it off in sort of elongate like
what we have in the bullpen, we're going to keep doing that in case
there's a rainy day and now here it is like it's like, okay,
we did this for a reason. This is one of those reasons, and
it's like one of the more important ones where it's like, we want to
make sure the next gen gets off to as strong as start as possible,
because there's a lot of reasons to assume that a switch to is not necessarily
going to be as popular as a switch and because it's like, man,
you won over so many more casual players with the switch, you convince them
to hop aboard. You had like the right game hit at the right time
with something like animal crossing. There's no guarantees that those sort of things will
line up once again, so you need as strong at start as possible,
So why not once again use what your your strengths to create that situation.
And they're doing exactly that. I mean, it probably is. It probably
is like a Mario game that they're like trying to get into the right decision,
right, Yeah, yeah, probably, So, yeah, you want
that to be a Game of the Year contender, you want to want that
to be flawless. Yeah, I could see that that makes a lot of
sea to them, And like I've just got to go on a slight tangent
that Super Mario Brothers Wonder absolutely ripped. Oh yes, So I'm excited to
see what their next Mario offering is. And also ultimately, you know,
with Nintendo, they have the again luxury of being able to learn from Xbox
and PlayStation, both of whom were having horrible supply chain issues in terms of
being able to get enough product out there. Nintendo meanwhile currently making handover fist
in the dollars with the theme parks, that's right, and the movie and
the Mario movie. So why not yep. And it was like it was
it was probably already going to be like a little bit of a down year
for them, even if like the Switch to was going to launch later in
the year, because they were in a tough comparison to the Mario movie coming
out, like you said, and all this other stuff and tiers of the
Kingdom hitting and selling twenty million copies in the blink of an eye, like
you were going to like maybe be able to get ten million Switch twos out,
and then you know, sell a game that maybe sells like five million
to seven million copies. It's like, okay, that's great, but those
systems are more expensive, so you're making less profit. It was already going
to be a tough year, so why not just like say, okay,
well, this year is a little bit of a wash if you're thinking about
it from a financial point of view, where you're explaining to the investors,
you're already going to have a little bit of a hard time with the investors,
and then you say, well, the hardware is coming next year,
and then the comparison start looking really good again. And Nintendo is one of
the few companies we talk about them manufacturing of this ability to adjust their schedule
as needed. Well, they also have this relationship with their investors where they
also are able to make their investors be malleable and say, no, you
need to just understand Nintendo's going to be Nintendo, and very few companies have
that luxury, and Nintendo's, you know, one of the few has figured
it out, So of course I think they're going to take advantage of it
in a moment like this where it's so crucial to get so many things right.
That said, what's this year look like for Nintendo. I mean,
it's it's it probably is. It probably is like going to be that Fireing
One game, maybe coming out, a lot of remasters. We've got to
We'll end with a little well, we have a story much later on Aboutluijis
mantioned two HD three orders going up, Like we know some games that are
coming up, but it probably will just be a really late year, right
Yeah, certainly for first party titles anyway. Right, yeah, I mean,
like you know, third party, like the big third party publishers are
probably already like thinking about moving their games to the Switch too, So then
you kind of hope, well, I mean maybe a Hollow Night comes out,
Silk Song something like that, and it's like, well, one of
those goes a long way on the Switch. People like playing those indie games
on the Switch, and so if they have a couple of those, this
year will be great for a lot of people who still play their Switch pretty
frequently. Yeah. Again, it's you know, Nintendo once again at the
end of the day, they're mostly dedicated to their first party titles. However,
they're incredibly smart to have all those indie titles because, as we discussed,
they play great on the switch mm hmm yep, exactly and it's uh
and I'm I still like playing my Switch a lot. That OLED screen is
very good. Yeah. You have you seen like comparisons like people had like
a PlayStation portal and a Switch O lead and it's like PlayStation portal is great.
That screen that's pretty rough compared to a Switch L E D. Yeah,
the old is real nice looking. Daniel Maud from Who's Shoe gay X,
who works at nco Partners and is on Twitter and as an analyst,
He has a conspiracy theory for why Nintendo is pushing things off. He says
they want to have more time to release a new a Nintendo IP, not
a new Nintendo IP, but an Nintendo IP that also has a movie or
a show coming at the same time. And why not. I'm I would
be surprising Nintendo's like trying to be that synergistic with their movie releases already,
but maybe maybe they're maybe they're trying that. I don't know what do you
think, Look, I have to me, what Nintendo's doing here is very
in line with something that I have felt about like the gaming industry at large,
which is that it's super interesting because brands these days all want a piece
of the gaming pie. And I say this as somebody who works primarily in
branded content. Every advertiser comes to you and they want to do gaming.
Nintendo is gaming, so they're in this nice position wherein they can go,
cool, we're gaming, so we want, you know, movie dollars,
we want TV show hype and money to bring in new eyes, new fans.
So it's certainly possible, yep I and I think they would probably if
that was If that was happening. The only way I could really see it
happening is they talk to their partners in Hollywood who they're you know, they're
working with Sony Pictures, they were working with Illumination, and they're both like,
listen, we're kind of ridging on our timeline, so if you have
any way to be flexible, and Nintendo's like, well, we're pretty flexible
because we control the entire pipeline, so if we wanted to move things,
maybe we could, and we would like that's possible, but I don't know.
It seems like Nintendo probably is just thinking about video games and what's best
for the games, and everything else is going to be like supplemental to that.
But I do think that there is an air of them being aware of
the fact that, like all aspects of pop culture are kind of interwoven.
Oh oh yes, yeah, that was you know, when the WU was
happy. This initiative started when the WU was was clearly a failure. It
was clearly something they were moving on from, and a lot of was like,
hey, we are going to license more stuff more frequently. And coming
out of that, that's like that slowly developed over years to the point where
they made their Hollywood partnerships and all this other stuff, and clearly the theme
parks and all that stuff started working together really well. And then it it's
like the way it popped off like was about us. It went as bout
as well as it could have gone. And I think that's them realizing,
you're right, we need to be everywhere we can because that's how powerful Nintendo
IP is and I think I think they'll they'll appreciate that and they will want
to facilitate that as much as possible, maybe up to the point of not
necessarily delay in the new launch of a new hardware because of it, But
maybe that factors in a little bit, all right, Moving on here,
hell Divers two bucks UK physical game trend as weekly sales rise for the second
time. This is from Chris Scullying at VGC. Hell Divers two has been
bucking sales trends in the UK physical game charts by continuing each week to sell
more copies than in the week before, accordingated to Games Industry dopi is head
Chris Dring on x Slash Twitter. The PS five exclusive is at number four
on the UK physical charts this week, but sold twenty percent more copies than
it did the week before. This is similar to last week, when the
physical sales rose twenty eight percent week on week in the UK and forty percent
across Europe. Man that talk about a game that like clearly just is tracking
on the word of mouth and becoming very popular through social media. I always
see I still see it trending constantly on TikTok and it is paying off in
more and more people showing up to buy this game every single day. Hell
Divers two is clearly the game of the moment. Do you think that it
has the ability to last? And if it doesn't, does that matter?
You Know what was so funny is I was literally just having this conversation on
another podcast the other day where in one of the hosts said, yeah,
I could see myself, you know, ten months from now, just calling
up the bros And dropping into a game of hell Divers, And so one
of the other hosts literally made him a bet that that is not going to
happen. I don't know. I mean, the thing that I appreciate about
hell Divers is the Starship Troopers of it all is it is very heavy satire
and incredibly smart in that respect. It's definitely something that you can pick up
and play and jump into. And I have a lot of friends who are
very addicted to it and playing it quite a lot. I don't know if
it has the longevity or not. Yes, who can say? It's so
hard to predict these things. And even still, even if it's not,
you know, something that is necessarily in the headlines, it always comes back
around. Because this is something that I've noticed with Vampire Survivors specifically, because
again it's like within within fandom, we track all of the wiki traffic,
and Vampire Survivors every every couple of months makes it back into those top trending
twenty wikis. So as long as Hell Divers is smart about occasionally, you
know, introducing new maps and updates and whatever, you know, I think
you're going to see a really dedicated fan base that is coming back to this
again, even if it's not a we all know that it's happening and are
seeing it in the headlines, but on the back end, we'd be seeing
it. Yeah, it's and I think that this game is in a position
where it's like the hard part is getting that attention in the first place,
right, Like, yes, the hard part is becoming a trending game on
TikTok. Very few games actually do that. That is you know, we're
talking elden Ring, We're talking a handful of other things that do that,
that break through to that mainstream audience to the point where it's like, if
you make a reference to one of these games, most people watching will now
understand what you're talking about. And it's like if you got that, well,
you know your live service game Hell Divers too, Like Arrowhead Studios,
go ahead and figure out what you need to do to keep things interesting,
and I think they recognize that that is something that you need to do.
They talked very early on when the game was hitting very good numbers like out
of the gate, like hey, yeah, we are moving up the time
timetable on all of our stuff that we're making. You know, we have
a roadmap out there that is already out of date, Like it's a drastically
out of date because we are just going to be throwing stuff in there.
And I think you know, with that mindset, there's going to be an
audience. It's like, man, I want to feel the way I feel
when I play Hell Divers, So yeah, I'll keep showing up as long
as there's new stuff and if they're able to introduce variations on things that people
are already doing, and then a handful of like all new things, not
maybe not necessarily a third enemy race, because right now there's the there's the
bugs, there's the automatons. That's something that probably will happen eventually, and
it's like that, but that doesn't need to happen immediately, but maybe just
like remix things a little bit here and there, and that most people are
going to be pretty happy with that. You're never going to be able to
maintain seven hundred and fifty thousand concurrent players for you know, endlessly. But
if you get if you're like around one hundred thousand for like the next year
or so, like every single day, that's a massive success, huge success.
Yeah. And as you say, they broke through into the mainstream,
So that means that there are people now who are playing Held Verse two who
otherwise maybe would not have played it, but because of all the buzz it
was getting, they were able, you know, it got their attention and
they jumped into it. So it's not just your like hardcore Hell Divers fans.
You maybe got to people who are passingly interested in that genre, and
some of those people are going to stick around. So the hard part is
done, Yes, exactly. I just keep thinking about Starship Troopers and say,
well, yeah, what if they did start doing like I someone mentioned
that there was like a reference to a false flag event inside of a Hell
Divers too, and I'm like, okay, well then I wonder if like
you can have a situation where it's like, okay, they're doing that to
drum up support for the military, and now they're going to go fight against
like human resistance bands that if they do introduce a third enemy race, it
should be human resistant fighting to be humans. Yeah, for sure, for
sure that behoven exactly, yes, exactly, put them in the mix and
let's make it happen. Yeah, Hell divers do though in a very strong
position. Clearly they're going to be able to write a lot of the success
no matter what. And then if they figure out a few things here or
there, if they could stay on top of what people are happy with the
game, and you do you do that thing when you have something successful and
people want more of it, you give them exactly what they want in a
way that surprises them. And if you could do that, then you're well
ahead of the curve there. All right, let's go to this next story
and then we'll take the break after that. Miyazaki says there's a high possibility
he delegates directing for future Souls games. This comes from Jordan Midler at VGC.
Eldering and Dark Soul's director. Hitataka Miyazaki has said that there's a high
possibility that he would delegate the role of director on future Souls games. Speaking
to IGN, Miyazaki said there is a high possibility that we would delegate that
responsibility. He continued, I think it's very likely that we'll see new directors
going forward, and I think if we do that, I'd like to step
away from that supervisory role and give them full direction and full control over those
projects. I think, really this is the best way and the easiest way
for them to flourish within that environment and with those new projects. So far,
the only original Soul's project that Miyazaki hasn't directed is Dark Souls two.
While Dark Souls two was met with mixed reaction from players, Miyazaki looks back
on it fondly. In regards to Dark Souls too, I actually personally think
this was a really great project for us, and I think without it we
wouldn't have it. Had we would have had a lot of connections and a
lot of the ideas that went forward and carried the rest of the series.
This is something that is, you know, always a challenge when you have
a director that's well known and then you try to expand what your company is
doing. I think a company, you know, to go back to them
that has figured this out. What was Nintendo? Uh? You know?
You know, Miyamoto, you know, he made Mario, he made Zelda
and then very quickly brought in people passed it off very quickly. Now yep,
to the point where you know, we talked about Mario Wonder being an
awesome game. That game was originally Super Mario Brothers was designed by five people,
and four of those five are still working on Mario today. They were
all working at Super Mario Brothers Wonder. And I love that factoid because it's
like, yeah, okay, well yeah, sure he passed it on,
but he passed it on to a group that is still there. It's still
core to making those games now. And then obviously Aunuma Agaunuma over on Zelda
series. He's actually begun passing on now. You got Fujibayashi, who directed
a Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom clearly kind of stepping up
to take over already. So they're already on the third generation for Zelda.
So this is something that has happened. It's possible. And all the while,
Miomoto is there overseeing things and providing insight, but he is not day
to day involved, no, And I mean you see this at Square also
with the Final Fantasy series, and you know, you have somebody like for
example, you have you know, Tasi and Nomura, who is now like
the creative director basically of creative business Unit one. So you know, you
look at again the Final Fantasy seven rebirth project, it's a lot of people
that worked on the original Final Fantasy seven, just a lot of them,
you know, specifically like Numura and Kitase are in these very supervisory roles.
It's like, you know, Kitase was the general game director, now he
is the producer on it. Nomura is the creative director, so he's kind
of like overseeing the creative direction of things. But you have now Kihamaguchi,
you know, working on the actual game. That being said, you still
have you know, the same scenario writers. And so I think that this
is a good thing. And I agree with miyazaki sentiment of the only way
to really let these things and this is true of any creative endeavor and any
business, any job that if you want people to grow, you have to
let them do. And sometimes doing is gonna come with some bumps. It's
in fact always going to come with some bumps in the road. But the
only way that you ensure the future of your franchise, your company whatever it
is is to let people try and sometimes fail. Yeah, and sometimes it
works out really well. And Lexi points out that Sam lay Canda, director
Trip of el Way Too Off to Kyle Rally is fantastic. Clearly that that
worked almost well. I'm sure like internally that would tell you there we are
a million bumps, but externally looking at the game, the result is,
Man, this seems bumpless. It seems completely great top to bottom, so
it can work. But you're right. The typical scenario is, all right,
we're going to put together a team to make something, and whether that's
something, is it's a sequel or it's something new, regardless, usually that
team's going to come in and have to learn the hard way. And if
there's a strict timeline on producing the results of that, if there's a strict
timeline of putting out a product, that those bumps will show up in the
product and you're gonna end up with something for a lack of a better term,
a seventy and eighty out of one hundred on Metacritic, and it's going
to be like, man, we put a lot of money into building this
team, and this is the best we got, and what happens is well,
if you can keep that team together, they've learned those lessons, and
the next game and we say this over and over again where it's like,
oh, the first game is very promised, looks like there's a lot happening
there, and it comes out and it's like it's fine, but so a
lot of it bothered me. And then the sequel comes out and say,
oh, Okay, this is what they were going for all along. This
goes back to Assassin's Create. A million things have shown this this pattern,
and it's something that the industry might be in a situation where it's hard to
justify two games back to back because that could be ten years, eleven years,
twelve years, and five hundred million dollars of investment. Yes, And
that's the thing is the development cycles on games are so long now. I
mean again, it's like you look back on Final Fantasy as a as a
series, and if there was a period of time where we get in a
final new Final Fantasy game ever two years, right, that is simply not
going to happen no way anymore. This just truly not possible. Development cycles
on those TRIPAA titles are way way, way, way way too long,
so it becomes harder, as you say, to justify this money that's being
spent on investing in people, and ultimately that is what needs to happen for
great art to happen. Yep. And this is like, for examples of
this falling apart is all those EA Star Wars games. This is what I
heard repeatedly was this is a big new team or our team with a lot
of new people coming in and they're they're they're gonna try to make a game
like Uncharted with Star Wars. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, and
then everyone involved knows. It's like, yeah, we're gonna do that,
but we expected to like look pretty rough for the first outing and like that.
That could mean like a seventy five out of one hundred. You know,
if that's rough to you, that's up to a matter of opinion.
But internally they'd be like, well that we're not super happy with thatx.
Every point on Metacritic gets you certain percentage more sales, and so they're like,
eh, we'd rather just put that money somewhere else. It's a more
sure bet. And it'd say, okay, well, if you're not willing
to like lay down the groundwork, you're never gonna actually get there. You
kind of with these things, you kind of have to build the plane in
the air. Yes, that's a very very good metaphor. Yes, that's
it. Yeah, that seems like all of game development at this point especially.
Yes, So bring it back to Miyazaki him, like, looking at
this one, I'm sure like that would be nice for him after like what
seems like a career marathon of putting these games back to back to back,
or putting them together back to back to back, establishing something really special with
elden Ring, something that feels like it's going to now be a template that
they have to go go go with going forward, and that could be all
consuming. So from a personal standpoint of course, he's going to want to
find a way to at least make it possible to step back if he were
to choose to do so, and that process needs to start as soon as
possible if he wants to actually be able to enact it. But it sounds
like he also has a good head on his shoulders about this, where it's
like, you know, we should be bringing up new people to get him
in and keep that that, you know, those lessons flowing downward, keep
the ladder like down so people can climb up it. And I think that
that's a good way of thinking about this for him. I wonder if there's
a way, you know, I wonder if maybe the way to get these
new people in is to have them work on the deals sees for existing games.
It feels like then you're given It's almost like uh writing fan fiction,
yeah, where you can just and the thing that's very freeing as a writer
about writing fan fiction is that you're just playing in an existing world. And
so I wonder if there might be some merit to that in terms of game
development. Is basically going okay, hey, new director, we're gonna we're
gonna give you the DLC for this game. Uh, we're gonna all act
in a supervisory capacity, and a lot of you know, the people on
the development team and stuff will be the same. I don't know, just
something to think about. And that's definitely something or something along those lines happens
with like Naughty Dog and all those remasters. Yeah, it's like, oh
no, that's about making sure that one all these people that we have employed
have something to work on. But also we are always hiring new people and
We don't want to wait until, like, you know, their job depends
on fifteen other people doing their job first, and that's gonna be a couple
of years long process. We don't want them just sitting there wondering, Okay,
how am I going to learn? Here's a project to learn the learning
the job and also produce a product that will be out pretty quickly so everyone
could be like, Okay, I shipped a game with Naughty Dog. Now
I'm ready for the you know, the big, big leagues of actually putting
out a brand new game. It's a it's a good way of doing things.
Agreed. All Right, We're gonna take a quick break. We will
be back with more headlines right after this. All right, we're back,
and we are talking final fantasy music legend Nobuo Yumatsu, who says he doesn't
think he'll ever produce or compose excuse me, a whole game again. This
is from Chris Scully and that VGC legendary video game music composer Nuobuo Yumatsu has
said he doesn't think he'll compose an entire game ever. Again. Yumatsu is
most famous for composing the soundtracks for the first nine Final Fantasy games and working
on numerous subsequent entries. Although final Fantasy seven remake If I'm Seven Rebirth contained
soundtracks created by different composers, u Metsu still still composed the main theme for
both games now. In an interview with German publication Zeit Online ahead of an
ahead of a performance of his new orchestral show Maraganon Maranon marenon Heart of Ice
Who Metso said he thinks his days of composing full video game soundtracks are over.
He recently did the soundtrack for Fantasian, that Apple Arcade game, which
I think is supposed to come out to consoles if it hasn't already eventually,
eventually, I think it's supposed to happen. Yeah, but a lot of
people really liked it. A lot of people are like Fantasia, which almost
I'm like, is it supposed to be like Fantasy Asian? Is that?
What is like the Fantasian? Is it like a reference to like Asian fantasy
as Fantasia with an end? Yeah, that's probably it, yes, because
I actually I thought it was like a kind of a medieval fantasy like some
other ones. But I've never really looked into the game too much. It
was like waiting for it to come elsewhere. Yeah, listen, this is
this is gonna keeping happening. People who established this industry in the first place,
like the people who are on the mount rushmore of their jobs in the
industry are going to continue like slowly, either fading out or retiring outright.
And it's it's a shame, but also like they earned their rest right,
they earned a chance to be like, yeah, I'll contribute, I'll contribute
a song here and there, but it's time for someone else to do this
work. Except here's the thing about Uimatsu is that he said this is not
like new news in terms of him saying that he doesn't think he's going to
be He basically said a couple of years ago that the only game he was
going to continue to work on the music of was the Final Fantasies having remake
at large project. But a lot of it is just rearranging music that he's
already composed, which like he doesn't have to do himself. Lumatsu was really
young when he started composing music for the Final Fantasy series in you know,
the eighties. This man is only sixty four years old. He is a
musician and a performer. He has said that he wants to tour and like
perform music on stage, and honestly, good for him. Yeah, I
exactly, Like if you like, if he wants to keep like doing these
concert series and and and that stuff, it's like, uh, to turn
down the back burner of like you know, you got the four burners on
the stove and so you know, you're trying to maintain all these things at
the same time, having the opportunity to like you know, slowly just move
turned down one so you could focus on another and be able to give it
all the energy and then still have time to have like a semi retirement.
That is that that's fantastic. And it's not like you know what, what
are those theater rhythm those the rythm games, Like it's like just hundreds of
songs and all his music his music, but you know, yeah, but
yes, except like a couple hundred are his tracks. And it's like,
Okay, at a certain point, like you've more than earned it, like
you've established a catalog here that is unassailable. Yeah, absolutely, And I
mean you look at something like Final Fantasy sixteen and fourteen, and you have
you know Massa Yoki Sokin while working on those, and he's a fantastic composer
as well. So and again this almost feels like the next level of what
we're talking about with Miyazaki and the Soulsborn series is Miyazaki's like, I'm ready
to start handing it off to other people and just oversee. Ouimatsu's like,
y'all got this, I'm gonna be on the road. Yes, you know
exactly, Yes, and again, totally earned it. Near creator teases a
third game. This is from alex Hopia Game Reactor as well. Near's creator
Yoko Taro reportedly made a surprise appearance at the recent Near Orchestra concert in London
earlier in the month. At this appearance, he requested that fans cheer as
loud as they could so that squirre Nix will get the message and green light
a sequel. A third Near game is so the fans have wanted since wrapping
up Near Automata, and there could be one in the works, or at
least the idea might be there. As fans of the concert also said that
the word repent was repeatedly displayed, with the final showing of the word appearing
as Repent, with a three in place of the second e U, indicating
it could be the subtitle of the third Near game. So rep three nint.
After Near a replicant and Automata's success, it makes sense that fans would
want to see another game. This is a series that Yeah, I played
Near Automata. I thought it was It was okay, wasn't my favorite.
I liked the story. The music was some of the best music I've ever
heard. I think some of the characters are super interesting. I like to
be and all that stuff. I just I thought the combat was a bit
boring. I know people Sean will get mad at me for saying that,
but I did. I just thought the combat was boring. But hey,
there's no reason they shouldn't make another game because a lot of people adore Near
Automata. H Do you think that that is a possibility. You think that's
something Querenix is actually gonna do. Yeah? I do. This is the
thing about Near is it's this weird sweet spot of cult hit but just commercially
successful enough to warrant continuing to make it. And also, you know,
there was a Near Mobile game as well, so there's clearly investment in this
series, and it's got a very, very dedicated fans, right, does
it feel like one of those franchises that will do the thing where it's like,
you know, the third game will be the one where it breaks out
and it becomes a massive hit because of all the swelling of interest that has
happened over time for New Automata. I mean, it definitely could be.
Yeah, It's like, you wonder what the Fire Emblem Awakening of the Near
series is going to be, because you know, with Fire Emblem and that
series, it hardly got any release at all in the West, and then
people started to know what it was because of Smash. And then Fire Emblem
Awakening comes out for the Nintendo DS and suddenly this game is a huge hit
in the West. So to be and Smash just happening, you're saying,
yeah, yeah, exactly to Smash that happened, that would help a lot,
there would there would She didn't so one of Soule caliber titles. That
sounds right, right, Yeah, No, that sounds like a thing that
probably happened. She's definitely been a DALC fighter in some games. Oh,
TB is in Grand Blue, Yes, that's right, She's in like three
fighting games. That sounds right, yes, but none of them are Smash
you got you gotta get into Smash to get the one, Yes, exactly.
Uh yeah. It's the kind of thing where I think, you know,
it doesn't even just go back to Near. This is a nearest part
of the larger franchise. I think someone chats a dragon guard. I never
touched those games, never even thought about them, but I know it's all
like one big lore. Whether or not how connected they are is like people
could tell me. I know some of them are less connected than others,
but it's like those games are obscure. Near Replicant was a game that,
like, I mostly remember because Justin McElroy didn't know how to do the fishing
in it, and he gave it a review and it was like, hey,
I hate this game because I can't figure out the fishing, and a
bunch of nerds got mad at him. That's what I know that game for.
And then I know Nei Automata because it's like, hey, that's a
game that people adore and they talk about all the great It's like, Okay,
there's a trend here, and I think there's reasons to expect if they
were to put out. If they were to announce a new year, people
would act, I think, be ecstatic and the first and they would come
out. It would be like a Persona thing where we see each Persona selling
much more than the one before, right, yep, yep, Yeah,
I think Persona is a good comparison. It's like, you know, Persona
five and look, Persona has had also an incredibly dedicated fan base in the
way that Near has for a really long time. But you know, Persona
five comes out and gets its hooks and people, and so that really justifies
them doing things like Persona four Golden or a full ass remake of Persona three
with person three reload. So there's there is definitely still room for Near and
potentially the third game to be the one that does that. Yeah, I
do remember why, Like I remember like the dragon Guard connection, and the
cospot points out that Near is an offshoot of one of the multiple possible endings
of one of the Dragon Guard games, and then I think it takes play
to take a thousand years later some that shit. It's really stupid and I
love it. That's the kind of stuff I love. That's like a meshka
looking at these tracking Guard games. I know I won't like them, but
I should look into them anyhow. Yeah, whole Raid and Final Fantasy fourteen.
Yeah oh yeah, that's right. Yeah they had that. Yeah,
yeah, god, yeah exactly. Once you get the Final Fantasy fourteen freaks,
you should make another game because they'll show up exactly. Yeah right.
And also fall guys, so they brought up but there was like a two
B fall guy's skin. So it's like, you've done all this work to
canvas the ground with two make another game. I think it's probably happening.
Yeah, I agree. Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster tech analysis, including frame
rate and resolution comes out of Digital Foundry. I just threw this in there
because I'm excited about this mostly, but Nintendo Everything rounded up some stuff here.
Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster is it's coming out, I think tomorrow the
day after. It's coming out this week, and the roundup of the tidbits
from the video make it sound like it's a very good remaster. They did
a lot of work. They used the text engine with the original game source
code. There's new assets across the board. The artwork has been touched up
in several spots. The cut cut scenes have been remade in high resolution,
although I believe you could toggle between the two, so if you like the
look of the old cut scenes, you can go back to that. It
has a ten ADP max resolution on the switch and then runs as good on
this WIT, which it does anywhere else. It has a tick rate of
one hundred and forty four hurts I believe, so like it's tracking your movements
one hundred and forty four times per second. They said this can sometimes cause
jutter, but I guess maybe that's something they hopefully can fix in an update.
And then performance does occasionally dip on the switch in certain scenarios, but
otherwise it's pretty stable. I looked at this video, I watched it,
and I got pretty excited. Even though there was that recent community driven mod
for Dark Forces that basically does a lot of these things, it's great to
get an official release and have it available on the Switch. I love this
game. I love the idea of a Doom clone. Star Wars Shooter loved
it back then. I'm glad this is going to get another chance at life,
and I hope it inspires like Disney to like be like man, we
should do more stuff like that. Because that was like a part of the
golden era of Star Wars games for me, where it's like you would just
you're gonna play as like a guy who's like in a Stormtrooper suit with a
gun going around the desk. Star That sounds fantastic. So it's funny.
I have not played the particular game, but I do have a place in
my heart for it because the protagonist, Kyle Katarn, the ship that he
flies is an HWUK two ninety light Frader. Hell yeah, and so when
I did, I was on a live play tabletop Star Wars RPG for almost
two years. Cool. I didn't know that was my ship. Oh really,
that's awesome. Yeah. I also had the hiv K two ninety light
Raider. His it's called the Mouldi Chrome. Mine was called the Go Jimbo.
So I love that ship. That's fun. That's really cool. Yes,
and I like that ship as well. I was always more of a
dasherind our guy, but I love Kyle Gatarn as well and both their ships
the Outrider and yeah, god, that's that's very cool. I'm gonna play
this. I'm very excited about it. Then the Jedi games, I know
people really like those. I was always more of a Dark Forces guy.
But I'm probably gonna like, I'll come back and play the Jedi games who
after this because those those have recently received remasters as well. So that's fantastic,
all right. Luigi's Mansion two HD is up for pre order at game
Stop and it's sixty dollars and that people are pointing out, Hey, that
seems like a lot of money, especially after you know, just last year
and Nintendo put Metroit Prime out with a remaster that was fantastic, and that
was forty dollars. This is a three DS game, one that people don't
like necessarily love in terms of the Luigi's Mansion series, But hey, Natana's
gonna charge sixty dollars for it. May maybe this hasn't been confirmed right now,
This could be placeholder, but as it stands at sixty dollars, I
bet it probably will end up being sixty dollars. How do you feel about
that? Because people are gonna buy it, and I am people? Yes,
I think I might be people too, Yes, yeah, I mean,
gosh, who doesn't love Luigi's Well, and it's you know, Luigi's
Mansion is more popular than ever before. And so I think they're like,
man, we don't want to suggest that Luigi's Mansion is somehow budget tier series
or something, because we have big plans for that in the future. I
bet that informs although you know, again, well, I say, why
then, why does Metro Prime get a forty dollars remaster? What's because nint
Nintendo does not hold Metrod in that same esteem because it doesn't sell as well,
you know, globally, and it doesn't sell as well in Japan.
So Luigi's having a moment and the Nintendo is capitalizing on that, and they
will be getting my money. So yeah, I also think of Metro Prime
came out this year, it could very easily be fifty or sixty dollars.
So because it's I think, you know, even since last year, the
reality has changed quite significantly in terms of inflation. I think they'd be like,
man, that stuff stuck. People would pay sixty dollars for that Metro
Prime game. Uh. And then let's see here last story. Microsoft hasn't
all digital white Xbox Series X in the works. According to Exputer, this
is their They been an exclusive on this, although we saw a lot of
this stuff leak in the FTC documentation, Phil Spitzer said, a lot of
that's the plans changed, but as it stands, extriutors claiming that Microsoft is
planning to release a digital Xbox Series X somewhere between June and July of this
year. The black color of the existing console will be swapped for white,
and it will be all digital, all digital, adorably all digital. The
price of the digital Xbox Series X is unknown, but it could be lower
than the current model. They based this on some promotional materials that they saw,
and it's hard to know if hey, maybe those are recent promotional materials
or maybe they're outdated sort of mock promotional materials from around the time that this
was planned to maybe happen. And now we kind of have a pretty good
idea that this stuff was at the very least delayed. It may be completely
derailed for some other ideas instead. Microsoft just told us in that business update
last week, so that last week last week, that they are going to
have hardware stuff to announce at the end of this year. So like they
said around the holiday season, that seems that seems to me to say nothing's
gonna happen in terms of hardware before that, especially not in June or July.
But what do you think, Emma, It's interesting that this would happen
now. I mean again, we already discussed earlier when we were talking about
the switch to the supply chain issues blah blah blah. So case in point
I, when I was getting a PlayStation five, I was like, I
will get whichever PlayStation five I can get, and I was very fortunate to
be in that first kind of round of people who managed to get a PS
five. But PS five from the Jump was offering an all digital version which
was less expensive than the version that had a disk drive, so it does
make sense that it would potentially be less expensive. I'm a little bit like
why. But at the same time, I guess if people are willing to
pay the money for it and make the jump from say the Series S to
an all digital Series X because they have a Series S and it's just a
game pass machine, which is exactly what it is for me. I personally
don't see the benefit in this because I think that your people who are using
it as a game pass machine are still going to stick to the Series S,
and this is only going to appeal to your hardcore Xbox fans, and
who are those people? You know, Like, I think you have a
lot of hardcore game pass people. Yeah. I mean even if there are
a lot of hardcore Xbox fans, I think they would look and be LIKEY
have the series X right, and this is not It is fundamentally no different
exactly, they have the one that they're gonna want. Now. I think
you are completely right to point out who who needs this or who would who's
looking for this? Uh? And that's like one reason why these things happen
a lot of times. These things happen because the companies are just like in
a situation where they're like, hey, we want to redesign the console because
it'll save us money if we use We've got a new chip that is the
same chip but smaller, so we can get more every time we make them.
They come on these big wafers and get we can fit more on the
wafers, so we could save money that way. And because they're smaller,
maybe we should think about redesigning it because we could save a lot of money
on the cooling chassis, which can now be shrunked down, and so that
enables us to shrink down the entire motherboard and then we can shrink down the
device itself, or you know, we just shrink what's inside of there and
that'll save us money and then the outside could still look exactly the same whatever.
There are reasons why they would want to do it. As a company,
especially a company that is looking to you know, nip, nip and
tuck here and there to make as much money as possible. I could see
them wanting to do this to get to re establish This is the one of
the premiere xboxes, so that they sell a lot this holiday, because we'll
make more money selling each one of these than we do from selling the disc
version. Also, they recently talked about how, you know, putting disk
drives in these things is actually not just some like nominal thing where it's not
just like, oh, we can go get those from anywhere. Because they're
so cheap, Fewer and fewer companies are buying disk drives for their devices,
and so there are fewer and fewer companies actually producing them producing them in the
first place, and they're starting to charge just a little bit more, or
they know that they have, you know, Microsoft in a certain situation where
Microsoft can't go like find someone else, it's going to make the exact drive
they need, so it's like not like it's going to go down in price.
So this is Microsoft also trying to get themselves in a situation where digital
looks very normal, so that when they do get to a next gen,
it's just like, well, of course they're doing that. They've spent half
this last generation selling us mostly all digital systems. So now that we're here
in the next gen and it's all digital with maybe an optional disk drive on
the side, that just looks like par for the course at that point.
So a lot of stuff is just about positioning and saving money here and there.
I think you're still right to point out, like, like most people
are going to want that disk drive if they want a Series X in the
first place. And then and then if it's I guess if it's four hundred
dollars, because what is this Series S, it's like three hundred two fifty
Sometimes Series almost always get it on sale for less than that, right,
And then I think there's that the one terabyte a Series S, which is
fifty, right, So that's like a little bit more so what do you
make one that is four fifty without a disk drive? Or or do you
actually put more storage in there and keep it at five hundred and just be
like, well, you can either get to one to disk drive or you
can get one with two terabytes of storage, and that is still five hundred
dollars, and it's white. It's cool. They have some room to maneuver
here. I just wonder if if that's gonna look a little bit weird,
if, especially if it doesn't come out now, if it comes out later
this year and the PS five Pro is coming out the same time, it's
gonna look a little bit out of place because the PS five Pro is going
to be, you know, significantly more powerful or whatever. So you know,
we'll see. But you're right, I'm not gonna be rushing out the
story to get that. I probably I'm like still on the fence about the
PlayStation five Pro. I probably will get it once the hype starts up,
because that's just who I am. But for an adorably all digital DISCLSS system,
I'm good. I'm probably not gonna get that. I got mine.
It's a it's an Xbox series S. It works great to run my indie
games on game pass. YEP. I got my I got my x Seer.
I got my s upstairs. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, And
and we all have gaming pieces. I mean, not everybody has gaming pieces.
But the thing that Xbox said that was really smart smart was the Series.
That's because it was an affordable price point and it got the console in
the home. The Series X disc drive. Is that a Ultra four K
Blu ray drive, Chad, I can't remember, do you know, Emma,
Well we have one in the office, and I like, truly,
yeah it is, okay, it is yes, okay, yeah, I
was like I would assume yes, yeah, well those so those are like
those never even really had the benefit of the economy of scale of something like
a even a Blu ray drive, a standard Blu ray drive. So it's
like, I bet those are you know, they're not fifty dollars. Those
things don't cost fifty dollars to put in the system. But it's not like
when we were buying PS fours when they first launched, and they were one
of the more affordable Blu rays playing right exactly, and the Blu ray drives
we're still getting several manufacturers making those millions of those. Yeah, it's just
not like that anymore. Yep. All right, let's get to the poll.
Well, get that set up, Emma. Why do't you tell people
what you have going on where they could find you on the internet all that
good stuff? Oh man, Well listen, I am working on all Final
Fantasy seven Rebirth all the time over at game Spot. Right now, I
have got a video up that is about best boy zact Fair in case you
don't know who he is. You really really really really really need to know
who he is up for Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. And then I've got something
coming out on launch day that I hope you will all look forward to.
Is a very very fun project that we actually did with squar Nicks that you
might have seen pictures of me on my Instagram holding a full scale buster sword
that was very very heavy. So that'll also be on GameSpot's YouTube channel.
And then yeah, I'm going to be spending the rest of the week writing
the thesis for my doctorate on Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, which is attempting to
explain the ending. Can I ask you something, Does the studio still have
that revolve bar sign in it or do we have to give that back?
No, we had to give it back, man, No grub We drilled
a hole in the wall. We're like, this is staying here forever.
We're gonna get the cords out of the way. We're gonna make it look
so nice. And then Sega was like, hey, can we have that
back? And I was like, I guess I can't really say that.
We don't know what happened to it. If it's blatantly on the wall in
our studio, it's annoying because it's like when it was up on the wall,
it was like, oh yeah, that thing looks cool. But I
have no affinity even for this. I haven't really I played a little bit
of these games, but I'm like, I don't care about the Revolve bar.
I haven't played Like a Dragon Infinite Wealthy yet. And now it's like
I played that game, I'm like, oh my god, I would die
ahead of that sign. So it's like, oh, man, now that
I really care, of course they're taking it away from me. Devastated.
Uh so, yeah, we're in the market chat for a new Neon sign
to put on that wall of our studio. So if you have any suggestions,
you know, drop them in the in the Giant Bomb Discord or something.
Hell yeah, I love that. People saying You're like, if you
make like a craft brew and your your craft book company has a big knee
on sign, we'll put that on the wall. We don't care put that
on the wall. Yeah, Nick mccons just says Coke, not even Coca
Cola. It's just a big sign that says Coke. Oh it is La
after all. Lariously, we have done a bunch of projects for Coca Cola
in that very studio. Of course. All right, we'll get one of
those signs there we go. Yep, all right. The poll question from
Friday, are you ready for Mark Wahlberg's Mustache and uncharted too? Only sixty
seven percent. Well, because only thirty percent say yes they're ready, sixty
seven percent say they'll never be ready for Mark Wahlberg's mustache and the chart it
too? And how could you? I think it'd be impossible to be ready
for that. You think they're actually gonna make that movie? No, she
said it, everybody, I think, probably right. I don't know.
I know he said he's like, oh, he talked to his people and
they said, start growing the mustache. I think, start growing the metaphorical
mustache Mark Wahlberg. I think I think that's what they meant otherwise, Yeah,
I don't. I don't think so. And then the new pole question
we'll get to on Wednesday on Game mess Mornings here on Giant Bomb. Have
you ever played Star Wars Dark Forces? Yes or no? We'll talk about
that on Wednesday. Like I said, speaking of Giant Bomb, we have
BombCast happening tomorrow. I will probably sneak in some of that Mario Maker stuff
before stuff like BombCast on Tuesdays after I get the news put together. I
might maybe I'll stream some of that here and there throughout these next couple of
weeks. I played a little bit more of the level that we said I
could like look at and it was it was infuriating. So I would like
to beat one of those for shoot. So we'll see what we can make
happen. Beyond that, we're gonna figure out what's going on this week.
Probably probably a lot more stuff with Final Fantasy all that. We'll play that
on the website at some point this week if we can. Until then,
though, everybody, Emma thank you so much for hanging out with me.
I really appreciate you talking about video games with me. Hek YEA happy to
be here. And until next time, everybody, you are the best audience
in gaming. Have a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.