Go me bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for
April fifteenth to 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, final Fantasy seven rebirth sales might look a little
disappointing, and everyone is excited about the apocalypse thanks to the Fallout TV show.
But first, please join me and welcoming today's co host of Game Mess
Mornings. It's Emma Fife. Everybody, Emma, how are you doing.
I'm great, but wrestling with the knowledge that if in the event of the
apocalypse, I would absolutely not be one of the select few who get to
go live safely involved. Now, safely involves is one way of putting it
involved. Yeah, No, that's true. That's true. That's very true.
My understanding is might not be so safe. I don't know. No,
it's really not, but yeah, I think that. Yeah, I
mean, we'll talk about the Fallout TV series that's on the docket today,
So yes it is, and I've only watched a little bit, but we've
only watched the first three episodes, so very cool. Yeah, we'll get
into all of it, of course, but you know, how's it been
going since last week? How are you hanging out, or how was your
eclipse and all that. Oh, it was great. It was only a
partial eclipse here in Los Angeles. But the thing that was really great is
that I live on the top floor of my apartment building, and both of
the buildings directly across the street from us are one story shorter than our buildings,
so we have a very clear view of the sky, and we are
on the east side of the building. So this, you know, it
was around probably our eclipse was mostly happening between like ten am and eleven am
Pacific time, So I mean where our balcony is was the perfect place for
an absolutely stellar clear view. So that was great. And I had clips
glasses so I could look directly at the sun. Yes, and I did
a bunch look directly at that m effort, and then the total clips happened.
It was it was amazing. Yeah, it was like I'm like,
yeah, yeah, it was like last week, We're getting ready for it
now, yeah, and it was It worked out great. The thing we
were worried about the clouds. There was haze and we could still see the
sun very clearly through the clouds, and then when totally happened, it basically
all cleared up, so we were able to look without the glasses and it
was like nighttime. Yeah, it was really cool. How about games you've
been playing anything recently that you're excited about that you've been playing that you're happy,
like, Oh, man, I'm glad I have this Gamers, it's
still all like Final Fantasy seven round. Well, you know, man,
it was such a busy work week last week. Mostly I feel like I've
been working on other stuff in the living room while Gabe, my fiance,
plays Bolosh hell yes, the Perfect Life, Yes exactly. So I've been
I've been like playing blatro by Osmosis. Yeah, and then just you know,
occasionally getting back to mostly just playing Queens Blood in in uh seven Rebirths,
which is making me go, maybe I should just play Maybe I should
just pick up a game that is a card game and it's not an accessory
to a larger thing. All right, you know what we should we should
get in he well, actually, real quick, you know who Walton Goggins
is, right, of course, I know who Walton Goggins, And that's
why I figured, Yeah, Okay, it's just a small thing because Mike
doesn't like pay attention to this stuff, so he would he was people talking
about Walton Goggins, He's like that sounds like a made up name. It's
like a yeah, but he's like, he's America sweetheart. He is.
He is. I think he has like his own liquor. Also, I
think that is like a thing they all do. Yeah, because you know
the guys from Breaking Bed have their tequila, is it. Yeah, a
lot of celebrities have, right, And then I think that's actually how like
George Cooney became especially rich. Is he sold his I think it was like
a vodka brand or something. Yes, he sold that, and that made
him way more money than he's ever had before. So yeah, like that's
like the new meta for celebrities is to sell your alcohol brand. Yeah,
it wasn't. I feel like Crystal Skull vodka though, because they see a
lot of people talking about it, and I feel like that was dan Ackroyd.
Maybe I don't know, Like I feel like I had a note in
my phone for the longest time that just said Crystal Skull vodka dan Ackroyd,
And I have no idea why there was no other all I have that note.
We all do. It's so like, yes, honestly, raise your
hand if you have that. I absolutely have that note as well. God
dan Ackroid, Crystal Skull Vodka. Uh yeah, I just love thinking about
dan Akroy. The best part about him ghost Yes in general and Ghostbusters is
yeah, he pretty much leaves all this stuff and that makes it that much
more fun. Yep, yep. All right, Now let's explain what we
do here most weekdays. I, Jeff Grebb, will help peace 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're 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 GiantBomb dot com. You
can also got to show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube.
All right, we have a lot to get into, so let's start
the Morning Mess with Final Fantasy seven Rebirth underperforming, says industry analyst. This
is from Vicky Blake at Eurogamer. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth has reportedly sold about
half the sales of its predecessor, A remake repredecessor, you know, Capital
our remake in the same timeframe. That's according to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad,
who confirmed earlier today that highly anticipated RPG is underperforming sales wise. Not to
be that guy, but Rebirth is underperforming sales wise, Ahmad said, who
is director of Research and Insights at Nico Partners. When asked to justify his
statement, a Mod added, it's selling about half of what remakes sold in
the same time frame and looks like it'll have a weaker tail prior to any
PS plus like release. When then pressed for a source, a Mod confirmed
that the sales data came from Equities Research Reports, who are getting the data
from the usual trackers. I am not too surprised by this, Emma.
There's you know, a couple of things working against a game like this one.
It's on PlayStation it's on PlayStation five exclusively, ye, and there's fewer
PS fives than PS fours at the time that remake came out. Also,
it is a sequel and a serialized work of fiction where it's like, you
know, just by the law of numbers. It's you know, there's going
to be fewer people who played remake, or you know you're selling to people
who played Remake, right, They're not all going to come to Rebirth,
even though squaresofts is like or scare en excuse to squaresoft screen X is gonna
be like, hey, you could play this, you don't need to play
the first game. Most people fully understand you need to play it categorically,
Andrew. So the thing that is interesting about this is that I have had
several friends who had not played Remake now playing Remake and texting me saying,
oh my god, I like Final Fantasy now. So that's great, but
they're not going to play Rebirth until they finish Remake, you know. And
on top of that, as you say, there is the PS five of
it all. And I know a bunch of people who would like to play
this game, but they don't have a PS five. So you're talking about
shelling out the money for a PS five and then a sixty plus dollar game
on top of that. So this is not surprising to me at all.
Yeah, I think it's the kind of thing where where this game and it's
predecessor when you put them together with the third game that will come out eventually,
I think this game will have a chance to like have another life at
that point, and like obviously they needed to do really well right now to
justify all the time and money they put in there. But I just don't
think this is the end of the story for Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. I
think that this is going to be the kind of thing where there's you know,
a lot of games in the last five to tennis years that have come
out and have become evergreen games. So we'll talk about some of the fallout
ones here pretty soon. But like everything Sin's about, like twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, all like the biggest games feel like if you put them out
today, for the most part, they could be sold as is and like
do just fine in the marketplace. And Rebirth is one of those games,
right, Yeah. Absolutely. And on top of that, you know,
the first in the remake series, Final Fantasies having remake also came out in
twenty twenty, right like literally April twenty twenty, so I think in some
ways, and it was on a longest you know, it was the end
of the PS four's life cycle, so tons of people had it already the
console that is, And yeah, I mean you were just in a situation
wherein people had time to sit down and play video games. And I feel
like right now where Final Fantasy seven Rebirth is really thriving is with the hardcore
fans myself included, are the people that are like, oh, I've played
all of this and I can't wait for the next part of the story,
irrespective of the fact that whether they played the original game or not. It's
the people who played remake who are highly anticipating this sequel. But there are
again a lot of people who haven't even played remake yet, or people who
played remake to give it a go and they're like, oh, that was
really fun, don't have a PS five or decided it wasn't for me.
So what I wanted to talk about now with it with the story is like,
let's do two things here. First, let's talk about, then,
was this a good idea to break it into three parts? Should they have
lowered the scope and put it out as one whole game. Would that have
been better for this game overall in the long term? And then like,
then let's play Devil's Advocate. After that, let's start the first part though.
Okay, so I think this can work in the long run. It
might be what's best for like getting a really interesting project. I think it's
pretty cool. I haven't heard complaints from my Final Fantasy friends for the most
part on on this. They all seem pretty happy. But do you think
that this would have been Do you think it would have been better for Final
Fantasy if they could have done a Final Fantasy seven remake with a lower some
smaller scope, put it out as one game, and then had moved on
to something else more quickly. So it's an interesting conundrum because what they're doing
with remake is something that is very ambitious. I think they could have very
easily done a straight remake of the OG game, just with you know,
modern graphics, full voiceover, modern game mechanics, all that kind of stuff,
kept it as one game. It would have probably been twice the length
of the original Final Fantasy seven, which you typically clocked about fifty hours in.
So make a hundred hour game. I mean it reworth easily easily.
It can play for over one hundred hours easily. So but the question is,
do I think it's going to be better for Final Fantasy overall. No,
And more of that has to do with the fact that I find it
very compelling that they're making this extremely ambitious project, which is for me as
a person, for sales, maybe, yes, it would have done better
if it was just a straight remake. And even people who never played the
original game, I have seen them. I've seen commentary saying I really just
wanted to play the original game, but with like a modern with like modern
gaming, quality of life improvements, graphics, et cetera. So do I
think for the overall sales of the game it would have been beneficial. Yes,
for Final Fantasy. Though, what's been interesting about the remake series is
that they've kept the dev team together, which is a really good thing,
and they're being given the opportunity to try things and to expand. Yeah,
it's a complex kind of question, right, hindsight is kind of not even
twenty twenty here, we don't really know what would have been better than this.
I mean, I appreciate the complexity of just the game itself and how
trying to make something that would be worthy of their time but also small enough
to make as one game, How impossible that task would have been. So
we're clearly talking very hypothetical here, but part of me wonders it's like,
should they be pushing like more quickly with trying new things with Final Fantasy so
that they can fail more quickly. So, I mean, I think Final
Fantasy sixteen is. It was an interesting attempt. I don't know, it's
not the future of the series, but it's like, I'm glad they tried
it, but I think they would have been a better situation if they could
try it and then quickly followed up with something else ready to go. But
that's just not where Final fans. It's like the furthest away from where Final
Fantasy is. Because Final Fantasy games, I think it's square Enix's estimation,
have to be the biggest games when they come out, and it's like,
I wonder if that needs to change because we're looking at a world where and
this maybe we can get to the Devil's Advocate part of it, Simon.
Now we're in a world where mijo Yo was just valued at twenty three billion
dollars, worth more than any of these video game publishers that have been around
for a very long time. And what they're doing is they're taking waifus,
and they're putting them into variations of RPGs and action RPGs and action games,
and they are making fuck tons of money, and it makes a Final Fantasy
feel like, oh, that was the before time, that was my time,
that's the ancient times, that's the way games used to be, and
Mijoyo is doing things the way games are gonna be. As for someone who
is our time accepting change, I find that, you know, frightening and
frustrating in a lot of ways. But also I can clearly see where the
money's being spent. And so I mean Final Fantasy does not stack up to
what Gensen Impact is doing. And when I look at it on paper,
now, how do you feel about that? Well, I mean I can
see that very clearly because you know, one of the things one of the
benefits that we have at fandom is that we have access to all of the
wiki user data. And I'm not talking about like your personal information. I'm
talking about like numbers that Genchin Impact Wiki is and hank Starrail is in the
exact same boat. They are so well organized, they are so it is
such an engaged community. I mean, I can't divulge actual numbers but we're
in the multiple hundreds of thousands, let's put it that way, of people
visiting these pages every single day. So it is it's fascinating because I love
a story game. However, we are in a time wherein the games that
are really really thriving from a community perspective are those ones that are receiving constant
updates. And I feel like we've had this conversation before, maybe about the
unknown of the Gotcha game, and like you are absolutely getting your your tether
hooks in with a particular crowd, which is on the younger side, children
to teens and even adults. They just love the unknown, you know,
yeah, oh yeah, I mean it's just a human quality right with yeah,
you can't fight against and that. I mean, obviously the Square Innix
has and can make final Fantasy versions of Gotcha and and and these mobile games,
and I'd like, I don't think the answer is clearly not, well,
don't make final fantasies having rebirth or an equivocally high quality game. It's
just I think what we're saying here is the reality is, yeah, two
and a half million copies in a couple of a couple of weeks. That's
about what these games are gonna do and and if that's not enough going forward,
well, uh okay, well there is no answer there other than I
mean, I suppose you do try to make it appeal to younger audiences,
but what does that even look like? It probably means you're not strictly a
console game going forward. Is there a way to make a big, massive
Final Fantasy game feel important? And also it's playable on phones and it's free
to play. I don't know. I don't and I'm not. Frankly,
I'm not that interested to find out the answer of that personally, because it's
just there's no appeal for me then. But I wonder if that's more and
more worth square, it's going to have to start looking well and go ahead.
I mean, they do have the mobile f F seven Ever Crisis,
which has Gotcha mechanics, and they've done a bunch of these and a shot
points are usually unsuccessfully. That's right, They're they're not very good at this
either. Yeah, it's like, I don't I'm trying to figure out like
what the secret sauce is of the Hoyoverse stuff. I mean, it's it's
very I mean, it's it's what might cause moisturizer games. It's having very
appealing, simple Wi Fu designs. Yeah, I mean right where it's just
like these characters look so so clean and slick, and they have an instant
like you look at it like, Okay, I get this character's whole shtick
very quickly. I don't know. It feels harmless in a lot of ways,
very soft rounded edges. That sort of thing I think is kind of
weird. And you know, and I think for its part, Square Enix
wants to try to say something with these games or they have in their mind,
and that's what they're trying to do, and I think that forces them
into a corner sometime. Yeah, you know, and it's not interesting that
that it does. In even though yes, these games are wildly successful,
they're also as you say, there's they're moisturizer games. They're safe. Yeah,
yes they are. Yeah, they are not challenging is and not I
don't mean that like they don't have a difficulty. I mean they're not like
challenging the player in anywhere. And that's and people want they're entertainment. That's
not really me uh making a qualitative statement one way or the other. I
probably do have qualitative feelings about it, but that's not what I'm trying to
say there. And as I always can't talk about Final Fantasy sales without bringing
up Luigi's Mansion three, we can we can point out that, hey,
there are fewer PS fives than PS fours, and that this is a sequel
and all this stuff. It's like and it's a exclusive to one platform that
does only have that number of consoles sold, but you know, this is
further into the PS five's life cycle. And then the switch was when Luigi's
Manter three came out, and that game has sold fifteen it's approaching like fifteen
million copies sold. And they never really they reduced the price like once a
year to like forty dollars. Most of the time it's sixty dollars. So
I mean, apple st oranges in a lot of ways of family game is
going to just be able to capture that audience. But I think that's that's
besides the point. All the money, the money's all green at the end,
and they're spending a lot of money to make these giant projects. They
got to be looking around me and like there's I think what I'm trying to
say at the interior, is I think Square Innix is going to come out
of Final Fantasy sixteen and Final Fantasy seven rebirth and they're gonna be looking around
like, Okay, we got to shaking things up. No, and like
that's frustrating to me because I feel and I know why they have to do
that, but I feel like, in terms of storytelling and trying new stuff,
did I like everything that they tried? No? Do I think it
was all successful? No? Can I possibly stand to play another second of
minigames that are not Queens Blood or Juggle e Racing in Final Fantasies that mariever?
Absolutely not. But I appreciate that they were taking chances, and so
it is a bummer that the money is saying chances is implying chances bad when
in actuality, I don't think that that's what it is. No way.
Yeah, you know, I mean I think we look around ato enough games
that have come from similar genres or different genres, taking chances usually can work
out. Yes, It just it feels like with Final Fantasy they are taking
chances while also not having full confidence of what they've done before. They wanted
to try new things, and I think they tried new things here, and
you're right. I think that's the thing that they're going to be like pointing
out like, Okay, we tried new things and here's what happened, when
that's clearly that is clearly not the story of what has happened. And with
Final Fantasy seven rebirth, I think that that weak tail probably will be true
for a little bit. I bet it's gonna pick back up and be kind
of similar to similar to Miles Miles Morales, because Miles Morales on the PS
five at launch had a bit of a weak start and then as people came
in to kept coming into this into the system, they just kept buying that
game. And now Spider Man is different. It is the biggest of these
things. But I think Final Fantasy seven reverse word of mouth has been so
strong that I think it's going to have a stronger tail than expected at this
moment when just looking at the numbers initially. But that's just me guess,
maybe a little bit hope hopeful for my Final Fantasy friends out there all right.
Moving along, Amazon Primes Fallout, the show has everyone playing the games.
This is from John Walker at Kotaku. Since Amazon Primes Fallout TV series
premiered, the numbers of people playing various Fallout games has shot up all over
the place because you're all a bunch of sheep doing whatever the meatia tells you
to. Definitely feeling that also when I'm like, I want to play Fallout,
like for instance, like for instance, how I installed Fallout seventy six
on my Xbox last night. It's perhaps to be expected that the surprise,
not shitness of the Fallout TV show has reignited everyone's interest in the game series
on which it's based, But the scale of this interest remains impressive. Across
the franchise, player numbers are near vertical spikes. This is most easily seen
via the internet magics of steam dB, where player numbers can be conveniently graft
by game over different periods of time. So take the most recent mainline entry
in the franchise, twenty fifteen's Fallout four, and look at numbers for the
last month, and you could see that from April tenth air date, the
air date the series of the of the series streaming and Amazon, those numbers
of people playing at one time leapt from peaking at twenty four thousand the previous
Sunday to eighty three, four hundred and ninety one the following Sunday, and
this is we're seeing this across a lot of these games. Fallout seventy six
is having a similar research urgence, and it's I guess, yeah, I
think it's this is the story that we're seeing over and over again with this
sort of thing. I bet I bet Bethesda like was kind of predicting this
recently, which is why they're like, man, we should finish that update,
that next gen update for Fallout four that we said we were going to
make, and we just try to get that out around the time of this
TV show. It's like they could even really get that done. It's still
coming in a matter of weeks, I think. But I bet I bet
they wish they had a Fallout five right now, right, I bet they
do. But that being said to me, the Fallout television series makes me
extremely excited about the future of Fallout because Fallout has always had this fun,
interesting world to play in. Uh, it's got some good writing in it,
but it's got the Bethesda dead eyes, you know, the the moding
of what's going on within the Fallout games. Believe something to be desired.
Yes, that is not in the TV show, and I think that.
I mean, how many episodes have you watched. I've just watched like most
of the first episode, okay, okay, okay, Well in episode three
even there's a thing where you're like, oh, dang, that is a
that's a big part of this whole universe. So I think that the series
is going to have an incredible bearing on the future of the games story wise
and hopefully storytelling wise. It's it's just yeah, I'm really impressed with the
Fallout series. It is so refreshing to look at something that is color graded
with such an incredibly high contrast, like black is black in the Fallout show,
and that is becoming less and less common in television. Watch the Marvel
Cinematic universe. The whole thing is color graded very gray. The color black
doesn't exist, not truly, because they want to give it this like real
feel. And what's so fun about Fallout is that they are embracing the over
the top, the craziness, the violence. It's it's so like tonally correct
for Fallout, and I just yeah, I love it. The and as
you say, like the effect that it's having on people going, oh,
I want to play Fallout now and again, it's like seventy six is kind
of our most recent installment within the Fallout branchise. So as you say,
I'm sure they wish they had a fall Out five right now, but hey,
I mean I've heard that seventy six is playable now. I was,
yeah, but it definitely you know, playing it or watching the show,
I was like, dang, I just want to I want to boot up
some New Vegas. Yes. I think this is like of like how important
it is to just have a game that is an ongoing concern because Fallout seventy
six is there and people can go play it, and that is like their
current business with Fallout in the same way that like Elder Scrolls Online has always
just been there for them for years and years and years and has been growing,
has been a huge part of their business, and so it's like,
Okay, yeah, no, you want Fallout and you want New Fallout,
we have that. You can go play that, and we're updating it constantly.
And so having one of those games has been proven like the beneficial and
serendipitous in this circumstance for sure. At the same time, I think they're
like they're going to look at the surge and sales for the single player games,
and they're gonna be like, man, that would have been real nice
if we had something even just a little bit fresher than for or like,
you know, remasters of New Vegas something like, I mean, these are
these these are not like new ideas. We look at what other companies have
done with their TV shows when they had games sitting on the shelves. This
is what happened with the Last of Us. They had a remaster of Last
of Us Part two, right, put that out. So yeah, like
that, this is the kind of thing where, Okay, we want to
make sure that we have our products positioned in the best place possible in the
market, so that when people turn away from the TV show and they're excited,
they have something to spend money on, and not like Fallouts in any
bad position. For that clearly they're benefiting, and I just I do mostly
I'm like, man, I hope we can get a new Fallout sometime before
I die at this point, that's what it feels like, So I for
real, Yeah, just to give you a little insight again, not going
to divulge actual numbers, but basically the way that wikis are tracked. It's
it's tracked by trending traffic. So basically the games that get the or the
wikis that get the biggest boost of Here's about what we expected numbers wise,
and here is where we actually ended up. Numbers wise, goals above expected,
the big goal above expected. Yes, so Fallout is already a really
healthy wiki community. You know, they're very engaged, very active. So
mind you, we're already talking in the hundreds of thousands on a regular basis
using that Fallout wiki. This is number. This is the number one trending
wiki across all of fandom period end of sentence, not just not just the
game's vertical. It's increase as of today, which would be versus as of
yesterday, so versus a typical sunday is the user base has increased by six
hundred and nineteen percent. WHOA, okay, Holy moly, six hundred and
nineteen percent. Holy moly. Okay, right, And that's that's the kind
I think that's the kind of number that they're going to be seen internally as
well for some of their stuff with products that they're selling. I guess you
know, you know some of it increases, are you know, one hundred
percent increases in active players games that are already healthy in a lot of ways,
exactly. So, yeah, this synergy between television and film and games
has really come into its own in the last five years. It started with
The Witcher on Netflix, and this is going to be something that they returned
to time and time again. Absolutely, the key has been making a show
that is actually good that that has been the real way to unlock this power
and getting people excited about it. It's weird how it works out that way.
It's weird of it works that way and hopefully continues to be good.
The Witcher. No, no, definitely not. Yeah, people, I
know I never watched The Witcher, but I'm my understand this. People.
The season was so good. Everybody needs to stop being babies about the timeline
and uh because once they went like linear and big destiny bullshit, it got
so bad, got so bad. Yeah, I did the new actor what's
his name, the other the Thorn this next season. Yeah, it feels
like that was announced forever ago. It was announced for Okay, weird.
All right, we're gonna take a quick break and we get back. We
have a lot more headlines to get into let's do that right now. All
right, we are back and we are talking about how you be Soft has
started deleting The Crew from digital game libraries. This is from Marcus Person at
Game Reactor. The race is over for Ubisoft's racing game The Crew, because,
according to a report from game Rant, the company has now started deleting
it from people's digital game libraries. The reason is that the game's servers were
shut down on the first of April, which apparently caused Ubisoft to start scrubbing
the game from people's Ubi soft connect accounts as well, something that upset individuals
compared to outright theft that they compared outright theft. However, it should be
noted that The Crew is an online only experience, so without the servers,
there isn't much to do in it either. For those who appreciate the series,
there are still The Crew too, in the latest edition, The Crew
Motorfest to sink your teeth into. Either way, it's all yet another indotion
of what the digital future actually means and all those online only titles that have
increasingly come to dominate. I wonder, personally, Emma, if this is
very illegal in Europe. It seems like the kind of thing that would be
regardless of what's happening with the servers. Yeah, you take down the servers,
but people bought this, this, this, and they have in their
library, and sure it's a license. You can make all those arguments.
Europe has a lot of regulations that would be like, well, yeah,
but you can't, like, they should have access to that even if it
doesn't function. You can't take away their their access that they paid for,
especially because people could We've seen like fan servers went up for law breakers.
We're gonna talk about that in a little bit, for freaking lawbreakers. So
it's like the crew people could do the same thing there as well. I
kind of don't even see the upside here. I mean, I suppose,
as always it's like, okay, if that game is in their library and
it doesn't work, maybe that causes like a one percent uptick in customer service
calls a year, and you can see how that number in a spreadsheet of
like how that costs you money. Beyond that, I kind of can't figure
out why this is even something they would be doing. I don't know,
what do you think? I don't know either. I mean, as you
say, it's like just there's not much to do without the servers, but
fan made servers exist yep. Yeah, and it's just the removing of things
from people's libraries. I wonder if it's a because you know, I remember
there was some one of the various streaming platforms that some you know, you
could have bought things through and they lost their license with them, so you
basically lose your access, Like yeah, So I don't know if it's if
it's that kind of situation, but yeah, it's right, I do.
And this is the kind of thing that's going to keep happening in terms of
the servers going down in these games not functioning. But people are like hopeful
that Okay, sure this kind is gonna stop supporting it whatever. We've accepted
that that really stinks. And they're not even going to do the work to
like make it function mostly offline. There's not like a switch they're going to
flip to do that, even though that would be really nice and maybe there
should be regulation about that as well. But if we want to as a
community do something with this going forward, I think the expectation is we should
be able to allowed and should be able to do that, and so and
that would be true if this game was a digital, physical whatever, because
it's going to require an online connection to function in a lot of ways.
I think what the dangerous thing here is is like they are going to be
begging for regulators to come out of the woodwork for this sort of thing if
they keep doing stuff like this. That's why I really don't understand it,
Emma, because this is going to draw more attention to what they're doing,
and I think that's going to be bad for them in the long run.
I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, and as you say,
there is this feels like it's very illegal in Europe, where they do
have a lot of regulations to mitigate this sort of thing. And I mean,
yeah, you're you're dealing with Number one, there's already places in the
world that have these kind of practices in place, and you are drawing attention
to the fact that you are blatantly going against those things, and that is
going to introduce more regulation, which ultimately is needed, because this is the
way that we're going with everything. Everything is going digital only, and even
when people have the option to buy physical media, most people just buy digital
media. I myself am totally guilty of this. So yeah, man,
the cat just stood up and I thought a ghost was flying up behind them.
And there's two there's two cats roaming around in here. I don't know
they were in their tunnel earlier. And the backup Foam Stars Duck seems to
have made its way to their tunnel. That's not Quackagga is still in the
studio. Thank god. I was worried at fandom. But I will bring
him to our other location for Summer Games Best this year. Yeah, he's
part of the family. I'm very excited. I yeah, I mean this
is an aside. I had a fun like time like tracking down my digital
only elusive thing this weekend because my kids were like, I want to watch
the David s. Pumpkins Halloween special that aired on NBC like several years ago
that you kind of call us about. And it was last year on archive
dot org. It was available on there, and it's disappeared from there.
And this thing is impossible to find on it like they don't have it on
Hulu or maybe not peacock. It's not on peacock, it's not on it's
not on YouTube. But I you know, I found a source and I
got it. I put it on my best server, so now I just
have it and they can't do anything. And that's like, that's what it
requires now, is like people going the extra effort to back things up themselves,
take care of things themselves, and all right, and I've accepted that
that's what I need to do in these situations because these companies are just not
going to save these things for us. So I got a whole hard drive
of Sailorman musicals downloaded from various sources, exactly all Sailorman musicals, all right.
Persona one and two remix are coming, it is claimed. This is
from Jordan Midlery FGC. According to Midori, an ex Twitter user with a
history of publishing information about at list titles before the information is in the public
domain, the games are planned to receive remix. Responding to another Twitter user,
Mardori said yes, Persona one and Persona two are going to receive remix
two. Later, Mirori clarified, saying, to be safe, I will
call them update updated forms for now or for right now. Persona three received
a remake earlier this year. Persona three reload following years of PlayStation exclusivity for
the series' main type. Persona three reload was released on all platforms. It's
probably gonna happen here as well. Obviously they've done a lot to like they've
like Persona four gold In Persona or Persona five Royal. These games are in
pretty good shape. They probably don't feel much of a need to update those
immediately. So what makes sense is Persona one and two? And I thought
they would probably do this eventually, but I'm not someone who pays a lot
of attention to personas. Whenever, like I bring up Persona one and two
to fans of the series, they're like, eh, it's different, Like,
of course we'd want it, but it's different. But I'm not surprised
that they're like, hey, we can maybe get more out of those by
updating them. Yeah, I guess, am, I how familiar are you
with these games? And what are your expectations for Persona one and two updates?
Okay, well I have not played Persona one and two, right,
but I have played But just to your point, I played Persona five and
I went i played Persona five. There's absolutely no reason why I would ever
need to play Persona five or oil. And then I sat with that for
a little while and I went, damn it, I think actually I do
need to play Persona five or Oil. So I literally played both of them
and that was many hundred hours of my life. God, I don't know
what it is that Atlas they got the they got the sauce. You know,
Persona five like skyrocketed that series to a new level of mainstream popularity and
awareness, the same way that say, Fire Emblem Awakening did for the Fire
Emblem series. And you know, Fire Emblem's done the same thing too.
They've reached into their into the past and been like, we're gonna remake this
one, and yeah, it's just that. And I think that Atlas is
being really smart about this, their partnership with Microsoft with game Pass forget it.
Yeah, this this is not surprising to me. This makes perfect sense.
You have two games that the infrastructure already exists for effectively, and you
are in a position wherein you're dealing with a lot of people who have not
actually played these titles because they've never had the kind of popularity that they have
now in the Western market. So this is this is the smart move.
Yeah, you know, Atlas very busy. They got metaphor refen Tasio coming
out later this year. I'm so excited about that game. I'm glad to
hear like Persona but Fantasy is like kind of the pitch there, right,
Yeah, exactly, and that sounds exciting. I think, you know,
again, I'm not only half paying attention to this series. I think they're
doing more stuff with the like spin offs Persona five at all times. Obviously,
there's the Persona five Mobile game, which is like basically their version of
me Joyo game. There's a lot going on over there, so if they
have one and two coming, probably a little bit of waste off. Do
you think it happens before or after a Persona six though? Mmm? You
know, I I sort of think before, and that's only because I don't
feel like I've heard very much about Persona six. Yeah, I mean Persona
six at this moment time seems pretty far away. Still, Yeah, we'll
see. And I agree with Chat that it would be fun if Persona six
had college age protime. I want. I want all Persona games from now
on to just like increasingly go to the next stage of life. So it's
like Persona six college students, Persona seven, everybody working their first jobs and
then eventually you get to like a persona twelve and it's just like a bunch
of like people in their mid forties with children. I got for some in
my head, I'm just like seeing Bubba ho Tep with Elvis in the in
the retirement home fighting off fosters. Yep, all right. EA's Black Panther
game will be open world. A job ad suggests this is also from Jordan
Miller at VGC. A job listing by new EA studio Cliffhanger Games seeks a
principal sandbox designer to work on Marvel's Black Panther. Part of the job description
reads that successful applicants quote will be instrumental designing and populating encounters, systems,
and gameplay within a dynamic and evolving open world. There's more here. They
go on to like describe more about the job. But I think when I
imagine a Black Panther game from EA and it's triple A and it's a big
you know, it's from people who worked on Shadow of Mordor, I like,
yeah, that game is going to be open world. So again another
story today that's like not too surprising, Yeah, but I think it's also
the right call. That's why. That's why it's not too surprising. This
is this is the game. I'm like, I would want this to be.
I want to be able to explore a world as a black panther.
That sounds very cool. What do you think? Yeah, I mean it
should be sandboxy. You should show up, you got your black panther abilities
and you explore the world. Great. I am very tired of Oh sure,
yeah, me too. I have superhero fatigue, Like there's so many
like I kept up with him to you so much, and then I just
missing him and now I'm like, yep, I never even watched Guardians of
the Galaxy three, and I love Guardians of the Galaxy. So that's where
that's like where I'm at. Tell you what though, fucking X Men ninety
seven, Holy smokes, is that good? Holy smokes? Is that just
the best thing anyone's doing right now? Yeah? Yeah, I'm like Far
and Away episode five it is as affecting as everyone said. And that's all.
I'm not gonna spoil it because you even if I did it, like
when you see what happens, it's still going to be so affecting because they
do such a good job in the execution it's all about like setting up all
these great themes and giving every single character an overarching, like like meta narrative
theme and then have a personal reason why all these things are affecting them as
well. That's what always made X Men good good. Yes, Yeah,
so just got to love that show quite a lot. Yeah, so many
friends that worked on that show. I'm so happy that. I'm glad to
hear that. That's really awesome. Yeah, Black Panther, iron Man.
I think Black Panther makes a lot of sense to be open world. Iron
Man maybe a little bit less. So I could see iron Man having like
the open zone stuff, because when you're flying around, when you add that
like you know, uh x y Z access and you can like actually go
up on the y axis way up there, and that can open everything up.
That could be a little bit more challenging I think for designing interesting open
worlds. So I'm like, okay, yeah, Black Panther, open world,
maybe give some open space to iron Man to do his thing, but
maybe can find us a little bit to ensure we're always having a good time
there. I think it's a good spot for both of these to fall into.
And again, just the studios pedigree. This is the direction they were
going to head in anyho. Yep, all right, moving on, fans
have brought back Lawbreakers. This is from Will Nelson at PC Games. In
making a successful multiplayer shooter isn't easy. Not everyone can make an Overwatch,
Fortnite, Call of Duty or Apex. Legends and upcoming hero shooters like Marvel
Rivals are entering an incredibly popular market in twenty twenty four, and we can
easily say the same of the shooter space over the last decade too. Lawbreakers
was one of the unlucky ones, as the low gravity hero shooter never got
the player base it needed to lift off the ground, but thanks to a
fan campaign for new servers, it might just be coming back. Lawbreakers launched
in twenty seventeen as the debut project from boss Key Productions, the studio co
founded by Gears of War veteran Cliff Blazinski. The first person shooter games sadly
never took off, with dwindling player numbers contributing to a server shutdown in twenty
eighteen, with boss Key itself closing down after Radical Heights. A good game
also underperformed, and that was me editorializing shooters and multiplayer releases are a tough
market to crack, with Lawbreakers in boss Key productions by extension one of the
unfortunate losses in the incredibly competitive market this. I mean, listen, there's
two things for me here inm A. One, I'm glad that anything can
come back. This is proof of it. And two, I'm probably never
going to play Lawbreakers again. And I don't think this is a sign that
like people are clamoring to get Lawbreakers back officially. I think there's like kind
of a crew of sickos out there that really like the way it played and
they are going to play it this way, and I'm happy for them,
But this is kind of I think this is also like the right place for
something like this to end up. They don't need Lawbreakers taken out of their
library just because they can't access the official servers anymore, right because someone could
do this and this is great, and now that there is a way for
people to go back and experience Lawbreakers if they want, just leave, leave
the game, don't remove it from people's libraries. And the people who really
want to play it, they'll they're going to find a way to make it
work. If you're not supporting the offline capabilities for it. As the publisher
fans, they're going to find a way. People are smart. Some people
are smart. They got computers and I don't know. To me though,
this also just speaks to there is a community for everything, yes, and
people should be able to support that and enjoy that if that's what they want
to do. There's a lot of there's a lot of first person shooters out
there. You know, it's tough Mark a lot, Yes, a lot.
But I'm happy for these people. Yeah, I was like, as
part of like this news kind of so like one of the stories had a
trailer for the game, a gameplay trailer embedded. And my thing with Lawbreakers
is, and we're going to repeat myself for people listening to me a lot
is you look at the game and there's just no faces to latch onto.
The characters are complex and intricate, and there's just no anchor visually to any
of them, and so in the chaotic action you're completely lost. But even
the looking at key art, there's no there's nothing even close to approaching a
tracer, Like, there's just nothing. It's not the same galaxy as as
that sort of thing, And I think for when you're making a hero shooter,
people kind of need to want to then go take their hero shooter character
and go write some fan fiction or go make some weird videos on the internet.
They kind of you kind of need that to like make one of these
games work. I think overwatches an example of that. But I think it's
true for we're looking at every genre now we're talking about to Mejyo games,
people feel that way about these things, and Lawbreakers was just so far away
from this, and I think that's a good problem. Yeah. I think
part of the Mojoyo secret sauce is the is the wife OU's you know.
Oh yes, people want to collect them. They're recognizable. We get excited
when new ones show up. A lot of the time they do a smart
thing and it's a character that already existed and oh cool. Now they're going
to be in a banner and you can gotcha them and they're going to be
playable. Uh So you gotta you gotta make those characters that people want to
head on over to AO three and expand expand upon their storylines. Yes,
exactly, you gotta be AO three material. That's what we're saying. Here,
all right, Discord is nukei, Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire
servers. This from Sean Hollister at the Verge. I'm going to read a
shortened version of this, but you can go read Sean Hollister's work over at
the Verge. Discord has shut down the Discord servers for the Nintendo Switch emulators
sue You and Sudaci and disabled the accounts of their lead developers. The company
hasn't provided a clear reason for this. The developers claim they weren't sharing infringing
content, and the shutdown appears to violate Discord's own policy on DMCA takedown request.
Nintendo has been targeting switch emulators and related tools with d take DMCA takedowns,
including forks of the SIG patch updater and other software that people kind of
used to make all this stuff possible. It's possible that people were sharing Nintendo's
cryptographic keys or pirated games in the SUEU and Sudachu servers, but this hasn't
been confirmed. The shutdown of these servers is a blow to the switch emulation
community, and it remains to be seen if Discord will provide a more detailed
explanation for its actions. Yeah, so I thig if there's any company that
can get you to go against your own policy on DMCA typ takedowns, it's
Nintendo. Being scared of Nintendo is is something that is common across the entire
industry, especially being scared of their lawyers. So that that doesn't shock me.
I think probably what is happening here is there there are rumors, and
this is rumors, so like, please don't like, you know, take
this as like, oh, I know what I'm talking about. I don't.
But there's rumors that the Yuzoo code might have had something from the Nintendo
Software Development Kit in there, and that would be maybe crossing the line of
the like the way like in general, the spirit of the law that enables
you to make emulators is make it in a clean room by reverse engineering something
that is there, and all the work is your own in that reverse engineering
process. If you were to say, have access to the software development Kit
and be and use that to inform you you have now crossed the line and
you are maybe infringing on copyrighted material or some other protected technology. And so
what seems like might be happening here is anything that might have been a fork
of Uzuo. Anything related to Uzu is kind of toxic and like a third
rail, and no one wants to touch it, which might also explain why
reuginks I think it's the name of the other one of the other emulator continues
to kind of go by unscathed. Now that might not last forever. Either
intended could always be like and now you're boned, But at the moment it
seems like, hey, anything tangentially related to u Zoo, everyone just just
like, get this away from me. I don't want to host it on
my GitHub, I don't want to host it on Clone, I don't want
it on Discord, and we don't care what our policy says. Get this
out of here. And it's that's Nintendo, right, It's I mean that
is Nintendo. Uh. Nintendo famously a very proprietary company, not only when
it comes to their IP but also when it comes to their own to anything
that's you know, published on their platform. Uh. You know, historically,
the original you know, Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges, they there was basically
like a chip in them. Uh that so third parties literally couldn't develop games
that they like all had to go that's right through Nintendo. And you know
there were there were certainly companies that figured out ways to bypass that and they
uh and then you know toys like places like Toys r Us are our ip
mostly were threatened by Nintendo. Okay, well if you carry these third part
titles, then we are not going to give you Mario yep. So that's
you know, people didn't and and all that. What you do is like
the Nintendo of America team between their main business that is the main thing that
they do is protect Nintendo across the board on every front. And that means
like you know, making sure that the marketing is strong and stuff, making
sure people think about it. But really it's about getting in that ass at
the at these other companies and be like, you do not f with us.
We are going to we will make your life hell if if you make
it harder for us. It's to be on top here. And that's been
true of them from the very beginning, from the very beginning. Yeah,
it's it's still true now and so no one, no one wants to risk
it. So yeah, that's where we're at. I hope that we can
kind of find some equilibrium here pretty soon. Because the emulator scene doesn't need
this uh destruction. People that are making these emulators for the vast, vast
majority of them, yes, are doing it as a hobby, So let's
create a space for them to do their thing exactly, all right, let's
see here. Finally, Nintendo has confirmed it won't be at games Com this
year. This is from Ali Reynolds at Nintendo Life. Gamescom will be kicking
off in Cologne, Germany from the twenty first through the twenty fifth of August
later this year, but sadly, Nintendo is confirmed that it will not be
in attendance, as relayed by German publication Games Worst Craft. This is thanks
to VGC and Nintendo spokes person confirmed the following quote. Games Com is a
central event for Nintendo in the event calendar. However, this year, after
careful consideration, we have decided against participating in Cologne. Players could try out
the games for Nintendo Switch instead as part of other Germany wide events. Okay,
so this is like further bringing the Summer game mess folk into focus,
where we are seeing like, okay, yeah they're gonna be they might have
something at Summer Game Fest. We haven't heard one way or the other yet,
but they're definitely not going to be a games com. Does that,
like me say to you, Emma, that they are just kind of going
to stand back and let things happen until they're ready, or maybe do they
have something very quickly after the game's calm timing and they're like kind of saving
all their cards for that. Which way would you lean on that on those
two scenarios? Look, I would say that they're going to sit back and
just kind of let things play out, because what video games are coming out,
Like what video games have confirmed release dates dates for this year? You
know, I feel in general is but there's so much vagueness of well,
this game is maybe going to come out sometime this year. However, I
remember last year that Nintendo suddenly revealed that there was going to be this new
side scrolling Mario game. You're kind of classic platformers. So do I think
it's going to be something absolutely huge? Not necessarily, but I do think
that there is a world wherein Nintendo has something after games Calm, but they
just but they want to again be able to like really keep that focus on
themselves and buy and large. This is something that's happening across the industry,
not just in gaming, but also you know, in film and television.
You know, with these big companies not participating in things like San Diego Comic
Con because they're like, well, we want to have our own proprietary event
and really control the news cycle, which I think Nintendo is maybe setting itself
up to do here. Yep, I think there's really I have no way
of knowing for sure. When I look at it, it's like they could
easily be preparing for something in September to start like talking about things like the
first tease for new hardware. They could have stuff in the summer where like
here is our lineup, and none of those games sort of rise to the
occasion of like and we need to show them off at Gameslam or something like
that. Does this Does this make me more or less confident about like a
Metroid Prime for this year? Makes me a little bit less confident something.
I'm already not that confident at all. I'm kind of like in the hopeful
zone, and I have been for quite some time there, and like not
really expecting it to come out this year from the switch anymore. But that's
like that's this is like, Okay, this is probably another sign that that
isn't happening. That sounds about right, but we'll see again, there's no
way to know for sure. And Nintendo, you know, talk about games
Com. I don't think they've said one way or the other about like Summer
Game Fest, but we are getting close enough to where that's like they'll probably
clear that up one way or the other. And I don't think like that
means that they like have a physical appearance at Summer Game Fest. I don't
think they did that last year. There were switch titles that you could play,
but it was all third party developers, right, But they did have
a June Direct, right, I think they did, so that's what I'm
meaning. Yeah, yeah, we'll see, all right. I think that's
going to do it. There's some reviews coming in for Harold Hallib that we'll
talk about that on the on the the show tomorrow oncast. But it looks
like it's kind of in the high seventies, low eighties right now. All
right, I'm gonna get the pull question set up. Why I do that?
Emma? Why don't you tell people where they can find you on the
Internet and all that good stuff. Well you can find me at Emma,
Fife on most social media. On TikTok, I'm at the Ema Fife.
I don't really make tiktoks, but I sure do watch them. And gosh,
if you if you've finished Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, I got a great
video up on a game spot that's been up there for a while, which
is me doing my darnness to explain the ending. And yeah, I just
you know, I'm out I'm out here working. People find me at Summer
Games Best in June. Yes, I'm working. I'm working on a lot
of stuff for that. Right now, you're working on a lot of stuff
for that. You are making it happen. So yes, the magic is
all flows happening. Yes, and she's responsible for the majority of it.
All. Right. Do we have a poll question from last week? I
think I have the EA play one, but I think that was from Thursday.
So let's we'll get to the new question here. Are you planning to
play a Fallout game soon? That is the poll question I have for tomorrow,
actually for Wednesday. I'll see if I can get that up on the
screen for everybody in the meantime. Yeah, like, how are you feeling?
Are you actually gonna go check Out a Fallout game, Emma, are
you gonna like, Oh, I'm so ready to freaking get load up on
New Vegas. And I love New Vegas is so weird and I just absolutely
love it. So I feel like that's that's the direction. That's a direction
we're going. So let's do a quick and unofficial and non binding poll in
chat right now. If I were to say, do some more Fallout content
on Giant Bomb, would you want us to do a series where we play
Fallout seventy six together? Or and maybe not series, maybe like one Fallout
seventy six together, or do you want me to Finally, I've never played
fall at New Vegas in any real way? Should fall Out New Vegas?
Oh? No, New Vegas? I played. Sorry, I haven't played
seventy six in any real way. Rights, yes, okay, so we'll
make the poll. Uh what? Okay, there we go, someone's already
doing it seventy six together or New Vegas. Oh, New Vegas is pulling
far New Vegas far. Wait, but you were saying you haven't played New
Vegas. I never really played New Vegas. Oh it is awesome. Yeah,
I've so wild. It's like the game I most want to go back
to. So yeah, yeah, okay, right now, it's about to
wrap up here very soon. But as it is a seventy seven to thirteen
in favor of New Vegas, you gotta seventy eight to thirteen there it is.
That's where it's gonna finalize. You know. Yeah, I'm a huge
Josh Sawyer fan. Just from playing a tentiment this, I need to go
back to New Vegas. Okay, maybe we could start that here pretty soon.
That would be fun. I'll hop in there and I will mod it
because I think mods are great. I think New Vegas has a multiplayer MOHD
that could be even more. Yeah, we'll look into it. Nope,
Yeah, Fallout Fridays is a good idea. Jan two that's just a good
name. All right, we'll get that all figured out. I just would,
like I said, non binding, but clearly New Vegas is the winner
there, which I'm happy to hear. Fallout seventy six would have been interesting
for like a stream to check thatryl on and maybe we will still do that.
I think there's still some juice there. But if we had to pick,
New Vegas is in all right, let's see here. I think what
we're gonna do now is we're gonna start wrapping things up. Yeah, anything
else, Yeah, what's happening on giant bomb dot com. We're gonna figure
that out. I'm going to a meeting here very soon to figure out exactly
that. But you could expect the regulars. Wednesday will have Super Dan sixty
four, Black Club will be back. Thursday, we'll voice have voicemail,
Dump truck upf BombCast, Revengeance. You expect most of those things to happen.
I think there's actually is a new Jeff Chef this week. I believe
that's true. But we'll let you know all of that and more on the
website and if you check our socials that all be there. Emma, thank
you so much for spinding today talking with me about video games. I really
appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's always a great way to start
the week. Absolutely, I wouldn't have any other way, all right,
And you're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good
one, take care of yourself and goodbye bye.