Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Breaking News with Me Jeff Grub,
Speaker 1: your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: tariff chaos, which is making Nintendo bulk on switch to
Speaker 1: pre orders, at least in the United States. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a show. I don't know if it's a good one.
Speaker 1: I got Jane show with me. Jan, how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Nothing nothing bad could happen today or yes, far.
Speaker 3: As I'm aware, nothing bad can ever happen to us.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's that's true. As long as you keep
Speaker 2: smiling Grub, everything's gonna be fine.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. I just want to be stupid and happy, Jan,
Speaker 3: that's all I need.
Speaker 1: It's not working. Uh yeah, we're gonna get into it all,
Speaker 1: but boy, it is. It's hitting the fan today. It's
Speaker 1: really it's gone sideways and it just feels like hopeless
Speaker 1: and it feels like it could get worse in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, you know, And that's just the video games.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, it's gonna be a show, everybody. Let's explain what.
Speaker 2: We Grab your power gloves, grab your Nintendo zappers, call
Speaker 2: your representatives and head to the lighthouse.
Speaker 1: Now do something, somebody do something, Go get you know what. Actually,
Speaker 1: let's just send a Paul record after him. I think
Speaker 1: that's what we do. I think we can get him
Speaker 1: to annoy him just into submission. I think that's possible.
Speaker 1: All right, let's explain what we do here. Let's just
Speaker 1: get into it. Most weekdays, I Jeff Grubb, will help
Speaker 1: piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news
Speaker 1: and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For
Speaker 1: all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona
Speaker 1: fide expert who will make me look smart. If you
Speaker 1: were watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen
Speaker 1: to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for
Speaker 1: game break News or find the RSS on Harss feed
Speaker 1: on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the
Speaker 1: show later on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have
Speaker 1: a lot to get into, so let's start the morning
Speaker 1: mess with Nintendo switch To. Preorders have been delayed due
Speaker 1: to tariffs. Release date is still as of now June fifth.
Speaker 1: This is from Stephen Petite at GameSpot, who got this
Speaker 1: statement from Nintendo. Pre Orders for Nintendo switch To in
Speaker 1: the US will not start on April ninth. In April nine,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, in order for us to assess the
Speaker 1: potential impact of tariffs and the evolving marketing conditions and
Speaker 1: then parentheses in the United States. Nintendo will update timing
Speaker 1: at a later date. The launch date of June fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five is unchanged. So there's obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of sides to this, but just right there. They were
Speaker 1: originally going to begin preorders with retail partners and themselves.
Speaker 3: Nintendo is going to do pre orders through their website
Speaker 3: beginning on a April ninth.
Speaker 1: Some people we are already getting their confirmation emails from
Speaker 1: Nintendo saying exactly that, and the system is going to
Speaker 1: be four hundred and fifty dollars and then five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars bundled with Mario Kart World. That already felt like
Speaker 1: very high prices, and that's jen they were definitely predicting tariffs,
Speaker 1: like they factored tariffs into that price in the United States,
Speaker 1: and of course then that.
Speaker 3: Filters out to the rest of the world. That's just
Speaker 3: how it works.
Speaker 1: They were like, Okay, he's been talking about twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five percent tariffs, especially on China. He has a bone
Speaker 1: to pick with China constantly. Earlier this year, for Akawa
Speaker 1: was talking about how they were going to deal with this.
Speaker 1: They were asked explicitly about the potential of uncertainty and tariffs,
Speaker 1: and they told investors and the people that represent investors that, hey,
Speaker 1: we are diversifying where we produce these things, including Vietnam
Speaker 1: and Cambodia and lo and behold. Hours after the Nintendo
Speaker 1: switched to reveal on Roperation Day itself, Janichoa, Donald Trump announced,
Speaker 1: I think it's forty six percent and forty nine percent
Speaker 1: trade embargoes tariffs on Vietnam and Cambodia.
Speaker 3: Those are they are the ones that actually get hit
Speaker 3: the hardest.
Speaker 1: So that what that just all that really means is
Speaker 1: when Nintendo ships those consoles in from those countries, and
Speaker 1: I suppose like there's always they could get creative and
Speaker 1: try to launder them through some.
Speaker 3: Other country, I guess.
Speaker 1: But all countries across the world had like a baseline
Speaker 1: tariff built in now of like ten percent. Most of
Speaker 1: them have higher than that though, like the UK has
Speaker 1: a ten percent tariff that's new and that's just baseline,
Speaker 1: but most people are higher than that. But if they
Speaker 1: try to ship a console from Cambodia or Vietnam or China,
Speaker 1: which is also going to have high tariffs, obviously they
Speaker 1: will have to basically pay about an extra fifty percent
Speaker 1: on the price of that good. So that's all the
Speaker 1: money now they were expecting twenty twenty five percent, mostly
Speaker 1: just on China, and that like the pricing reflects that.
Speaker 1: The pricing sort of you know, we know what they
Speaker 1: want to charge for this thing, jan or like what
Speaker 1: they like in a perfect world. Yeah, but they would
Speaker 1: have been okay with charging on the low end, which
Speaker 1: is what they charged are charging for the Japanese language
Speaker 1: only region locked version of the switch to in Japan
Speaker 1: that they're going to sell it retail there. That's about
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars three hundred, three hundred and thirty dollars
Speaker 1: in that range. You add you know, twenty five percent
Speaker 1: on top of that, and you get to about what
Speaker 1: the price is here. Uh, and then you have to
Speaker 1: factor in a currency as well. So yeah, like that
Speaker 1: it made sense like they were like, we're going to
Speaker 1: price this same, We're going to go to the high
Speaker 1: end so we can be prepared and be agile, And
Speaker 1: no one was thinking that there would be about fifty
Speaker 1: percent tariffs on Vietnam and Cambodia. Clearly not Nintendo, but
Speaker 1: no one was. It was just it was just completely
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. It is insane. It's bad policy. It
Speaker 1: just straight up is bad policy. No one was expecting this,
Speaker 1: and now Nintendo's in a just unprecedented position of having
Speaker 1: to figure out, like, are they going to raise the
Speaker 1: price on this or what are they going to do?
Speaker 3: I mean, Jim, what like what happens next? I have
Speaker 3: no idea.
Speaker 2: I absolutely have no idea. And it seems insane that
Speaker 2: there are people look trying to look on the positive
Speaker 2: side of this and trying to push forward the ideal of, oh,
Speaker 2: why does Nintendo just make these consoles in America? Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and try and create an infrastructure a
Speaker 2: workforce that is nonexistent. Yeah, let's go make these in Washington,
Speaker 2: where Nintendo's based out of an America. Yeah, where is
Speaker 2: any of these chips going to come from in America?
Speaker 2: It is absolutely insane. It is asinine to think that
Speaker 2: that is something you can do, and to think that
Speaker 2: none of this is targeted, that none of this is
Speaker 2: politically motivated by these tariffs. Being specifically put onto Vietnam, Cambodia, China.
Speaker 2: Is It's insane because Grup like they were already trying
Speaker 2: to build the price in with the four fifty, the
Speaker 2: five hundred, and to see the projected price of how
Speaker 2: the region locked switch to is going to be in Japan,
Speaker 2: the cards are on the table and the cards are shit.
Speaker 2: It is too late the fold now for us in
Speaker 2: the States, I don't know. Nintendo is in a terrible
Speaker 2: spot and it is absolutely wild to me that the
Speaker 2: Nintendo switched to maybe the catalyst or people, I hate
Speaker 2: to say this to finally wake the fuck up.
Speaker 1: It does feel like a moment, you know, in the
Speaker 1: Nintendo's position is bad. Obviously, everyone's relationship to this country
Speaker 1: right now is pretty bad, including the people who live
Speaker 1: here us. It's a you know, do process is now
Speaker 1: a question that's fun.
Speaker 3: So we got a lot of issues. It's bad for everyone.
Speaker 1: I think you're right though, despite you know, this government
Speaker 1: disappearing people. This is the kind of stuff that does
Speaker 1: break out. This is like everyone's like, look, I can't
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do about this country saying
Speaker 1: the Constitution is applicable only in certain circumstances. That's big
Speaker 1: and scary, and I feel the same way. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do about that, but I was really
Speaker 1: looking forward to the switch too. To help me forget
Speaker 1: about all this. I was watching some people play Mario
Speaker 1: Party today and I was getting excited about a Mario
Speaker 1: Party game.
Speaker 3: So That's where I'm at, and I'm I was, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I know for a.
Speaker 1: Fact now that I was so ready to pay the
Speaker 1: price that they had already announced, because I'm like more
Speaker 1: mad now I'm not gonna be able to pre order
Speaker 1: this thing on April ninth. And this is such a weird,
Speaker 1: awkward thing for a very like you know, switch to
Speaker 1: announcements all over mainstream news yesterday. Right, it's a big
Speaker 1: new consumer electronics product that gets headlines from Marketplace on
Speaker 1: him and USA Today and all the nightly news shows
Speaker 1: things like that, this sort of quick reversal and and
Speaker 1: them explicitly stating it's because of tariffs. It's going to
Speaker 1: break through to that that that mainstream news as well,
Speaker 1: and maybe does bring more attention to just how crazy
Speaker 1: this is. Although everyone is well aware of a stock
Speaker 1: market diving and all that stuff, and and cog once
Speaker 1: again over sessions and uh yeah, this it's bad from
Speaker 1: every angle, but it's this kind of lightning rod that
Speaker 1: can cause people to maybe.
Speaker 3: Pay more attention than they would otherwise. I yeah, go
Speaker 3: go no, no, no, go ahead, Sorry it was good, Okay.
Speaker 1: So the other side of this, obviously, is why stop
Speaker 1: pre orders if you know you're gonna end up charging
Speaker 1: the same price? Right, Like, they're stopping pre orders because
Speaker 1: they're like they're not sure if this is the price
Speaker 1: they're going to go with anymore. And really, I don't
Speaker 1: think they would stop pre orders even if they weren't sure.
Speaker 1: I think they're sure they're going to raise the price again.
Speaker 1: So let's uh, let's go with this next story from
Speaker 1: Jessica Cogswell over a game spot switch to price likely
Speaker 1: to increase as Nintendo pulls US preorders over Trump's new
Speaker 1: tariff policies. Following President Trump unveiling the controversial new tariff plan,
Speaker 1: Nintendo has announced that it is delayed US preorders, originally
Speaker 1: scheduled to start on April ninth. A Nintendo representative has
Speaker 1: since confirmed this state has been pushed back indefinitely in
Speaker 1: order for the company to assess at the potential impact
Speaker 1: of tariff's and evolving market conditions. As such, it is
Speaker 1: likely we will see a sizeable increase in the console's
Speaker 1: price before it is relisted. The full statement, which was
Speaker 1: given to GameSpot via Nintendo spokesperson, could.
Speaker 3: Be found below. It's that one we already read.
Speaker 1: Nintendo's latest console has already been the subject of scrutiny
Speaker 1: and more than a few jokes due to its four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars four hundred and fifty dollars price tag and
Speaker 1: the cost of its upcoming first party titles. Following its reveal,
Speaker 1: Mario Kart World made headlines as Nintendo's priceiest game. It
Speaker 1: doesn't include a physical accessory, and yet it seems like
Speaker 1: prices will only go up from here. Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: I mean, let's do a little math. I guess back
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to get a calculator out or
Speaker 1: something like that. But back to the Napkin math. If
Speaker 1: it was twenty five percent on just one of the
Speaker 1: territories in which they were producing this thing, and it
Speaker 1: was you know, three thirty up to four fifty equivalent
Speaker 1: from the Japanese yen over the US dollar from the
Speaker 1: Japanese market to the US market or the global market. Uh,
Speaker 1: make that fifty percent instead, and you know we're talking
Speaker 1: five hundreds five point fifty. I mean at that point,
Speaker 1: maybe six hundred dollars because you don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen next. The reality is they don't know if
Speaker 1: these tariffs are going to go through, but they have
Speaker 1: to operate under the assumption that they will because if
Speaker 1: they do, they're there. They're screwed. They you know, it's Nintendo.
Speaker 1: They hate lose money. We could definitely argue that they
Speaker 1: could just sell these things at a loss. They are
Speaker 1: probably going to have to sell these things at a loss,
Speaker 1: but there's no way they were making a fifty percent
Speaker 1: profit margin on the hardware, not this early on. Even
Speaker 1: though they use our old hardware. Components are still hard
Speaker 1: to come by. Like it's that that that they still
Speaker 1: have to get in line for the you know, for
Speaker 1: the fabricators to actually make these chips, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other smaller chips that you know, they have
Speaker 1: to get in line for. And that stuff has since
Speaker 1: the pandemic, been hard to come by. Now they can
Speaker 1: demand a lot. They it's Nintendo, they have a customer
Speaker 1: or they have vendors that will serve them, but that
Speaker 1: stuff was already going to be expensive. I think that
Speaker 1: the likely scenario whore is they try to just jacket
Speaker 1: up fifty dollars and call it a day, five hundred
Speaker 1: five point fifty, and you know they're not going to
Speaker 1: be alone in this.
Speaker 3: If these teariffs stand. Yeah, clearly PlayStation.
Speaker 1: Is going to go up, Xbox is going to go up,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna make Nintendo not look like the outlier
Speaker 1: the way it did on April second.
Speaker 3: But I'm how much can we really stand? And at
Speaker 3: a certain point it's like, does.
Speaker 1: God to you even release this system? Obviously they're going to,
Speaker 1: but it just feels like, why are we even doing this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Grub, it's not just going to be consoles
Speaker 2: that are going to start increasing prices. It's going to
Speaker 2: be everything that uses chips, every and that's appliance is
Speaker 2: across the board. Now with how are day to day
Speaker 2: has been affected by having smart devices in every little thing,
Speaker 2: your game sets are gonna start rising in prices. But
Speaker 2: the thing that I start worrying Grub is that the
Speaker 2: the government has been able to kind of clamp down
Speaker 2: and take away certain websites from certain states here in America,
Speaker 2: right because that is considered though it messes with their
Speaker 2: agenda and everything and with and those people have been
Speaker 2: able to get by using other means. Now, the fact
Speaker 2: that this console may be priced in a way that
Speaker 2: is out of the realm of possibility for some people
Speaker 2: to get. I know that some people may be budgeting
Speaker 2: for three, four or five hundred dollars, this may be
Speaker 2: going up to six hundred dollars, maybe seven hundred. And
Speaker 2: the price of games also increasing, and that audience, the
Speaker 2: gaming audience, becoming suddenly very vocal and now a very
Speaker 2: important part of the voting demographic or whatever. I could
Speaker 2: see this government starting to clamp down on video games
Speaker 2: in a very hyper specific way that is asinine and
Speaker 2: so fucking backwards in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they could try to implement tariffs
Speaker 1: on digital goods, like they really could. That money is
Speaker 1: going out of the country, let's tax it on its
Speaker 1: way out, like when you make a digital purchase. That
Speaker 1: that's something I think Trump, why would he not want.
Speaker 3: To do that? He would he would want to do that.
Speaker 3: That's money that he would want to capture. And like,
Speaker 3: just like tariffs, are bad policy. Has said that earlier,
Speaker 3: like why does he like them so much?
Speaker 1: It gives like, just imagine you're in a position and
Speaker 1: you are obsessed with people coming to you and bending
Speaker 1: the knee and begging you for stuff and putting you
Speaker 1: in the position where you get to say yes or
Speaker 1: no to the thing that they want most. Trump or
Speaker 1: Trump's for Trump tariffs are that. Every single time, every
Speaker 1: single single time he suggests a tariff, all of the
Speaker 1: leaders of all these businesses come to him and ask
Speaker 1: for exemptions. And so he loves this stuff, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get more of it, not less. It's like
Speaker 1: the one thing that he keeps doing, Like why is
Speaker 1: this the one policy we keep coming back to, because
Speaker 1: it's the one policy that leads directly to the thing
Speaker 1: he needs most, which is people coming there and saying
Speaker 1: how much they love him and.
Speaker 3: How loyal they are to him.
Speaker 1: So yes, imagining ways in which this could expand into
Speaker 1: other aspects of our lives, into other aspects of video
Speaker 1: games is reasonable because it's probably going to happen, like
Speaker 1: it's probably going to happen.
Speaker 3: And then if.
Speaker 1: This does lead to a situation where there is a
Speaker 1: backlash because of this video game company saying they're going
Speaker 1: to delay things or raise a price explicitly because of
Speaker 1: Trump's tariffs. You're right, he could get petty and come
Speaker 1: back and begin regulating the industry and making things more
Speaker 1: expensive in other ways, or prohibiting things from being sold
Speaker 1: here certain games. Yeah, and who's gonna stop them. They
Speaker 1: haven't been able to stop him doing anything else, So yeah,
Speaker 1: this could get really out of hand. And again, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just video games. It's not people disappearing or
Speaker 1: do process being erased from the constitution.
Speaker 3: But it's all part of the same thing. So it's
Speaker 3: worth talking about.
Speaker 2: And I see people saying, well, he might walk it back,
Speaker 2: he might take it back, and it might whatever. But
Speaker 2: the reality is he already put this on paper to
Speaker 2: see if he could get away with it and see
Speaker 2: the outrage that, Okay, if it's not I'm not increasing
Speaker 2: terrorists by this percentage, I'll increase it by this percentage instead,
Speaker 2: and then or he'll delay it.
Speaker 1: For a month and then get bored and do it again,
Speaker 1: which is what he's done over and over exactly.
Speaker 2: So he's just like pushing and pushing and pushing to
Speaker 2: see with what what he can get away with, the
Speaker 2: reality is he's going to keep trying to do that,
Speaker 2: even if he takes his word back on the existing
Speaker 2: tariffs now or whatever else the agenda he's going to
Speaker 2: push forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this price could go up a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think as they will try to, they could even
Speaker 1: raise it globally, although I don't think they will, but
Speaker 1: that could increase arbitrage.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Part of this could be then deciding like, let's allocate
Speaker 1: more systems to other territories while the US sort of
Speaker 1: sorts this whole thing out, So there could be a
Speaker 1: huge supply crunch, worse than it would have been otherwise.
Speaker 3: It's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to go back to the idea of this
Speaker 1: creating domestic industry where these things are manufactured, No, that's
Speaker 1: that won't happen. But even if it did, it would
Speaker 1: take decades. It would take literally decades for that to happen.
Speaker 1: So it wouldn't have any effect on the switch to
Speaker 1: and he if he like, I don't even want to
Speaker 1: like entertain that that's what this is about. It's it's
Speaker 1: never really about that, Like he doesn't give a shit
Speaker 1: about anyone, Like, of course he doesn't, are you joking
Speaker 1: like this idea that why he listened to the news,
Speaker 1: and they're saying the reason he's saying he's doing this
Speaker 1: is because it's going to reindustrialize America, which you know
Speaker 1: some experts disagree with. Like to even credulously and entertain
Speaker 1: that idea is in embarrassment. We shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 1: And but like like if we want to play in
Speaker 1: that space, just like to like pretend for a second.
Speaker 1: Nah No, it's like it's a completely different economy than
Speaker 1: it was one hundred and fifty years ago, and you
Speaker 1: just shouldn't be surprised. And then the people that could
Speaker 1: work those jobs, we don't let them in the country anymore,
Speaker 1: or we kick him out, We round them up, and
Speaker 1: then we send them to our Salvador.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we accident wort them and put them in jail.
Speaker 2: Yesh god. Our friend of the site, Michael mikey O'Leary
Speaker 2: had Blue Sky posted on Blue Sky that you know
Speaker 2: it's worrying when Warrio sixty four has to put a
Speaker 2: price in parentheses. Yes, because the prices may go up
Speaker 2: and up and up.
Speaker 1: Yep, I am I still really want this thing. I
Speaker 1: want I want to switch to you know, I want
Speaker 1: to find a way to get it right. In this moment,
Speaker 1: it feels like, what is that even.
Speaker 3: Going to look like?
Speaker 1: Should I try to pre order one in Windsor and
Speaker 1: go up there and cross the border and try to
Speaker 1: sneak it across without telling customs?
Speaker 3: So then I cause I think I would have to
Speaker 3: pay the tariff if I did that. Like, I don't
Speaker 3: know how that works exactly. I'm I'm no expert, but
Speaker 3: like you have to declare it. I don't know, so
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be a bootlegger. Jan, It's kind of what
Speaker 3: I'm thinking now.
Speaker 2: Dan and I wound up on CBC, the Canadian broadcast channel.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just time to move everyone up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't. Hey, let's do it. You guys were
Speaker 3: big stars there on the CBC. I like to see
Speaker 3: in that. Hey, you did get to see this thing, Jan,
Speaker 3: You got to watch Dan Foy a lot of games,
Speaker 3: you know, while you know a lot of people were
Speaker 3: yelling at Nintendo about, you know, lower the price, lower
Speaker 3: the price.
Speaker 1: What was the vibes like at the event itself? For like, like,
Speaker 1: this is pretty good? Right, That's kind of how you
Speaker 1: guys came away from it.
Speaker 2: Have you ever what's the opposite of being in a
Speaker 2: burning building where everything else around you is burning, but
Speaker 2: sure inside or having fun?
Speaker 3: This is this is actually fine.
Speaker 1: You're the dog this time, actually in a safe split space,
Speaker 1: and the forest across the street is burning this time.
Speaker 3: Okay, I got it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, when I say I got that dog in me,
Speaker 2: that is the dog I'm talking about, politely sipping coffee
Speaker 2: wearing a fedora, saying this is fine. The vibes inside
Speaker 2: were immaculate, grub like. Everything was great. We were all
Speaker 2: having fun, and then we step outside. Okay, Sean a bunker, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: that's what.
Speaker 1: We're talking Yes, yeah, okay, you were in the Nintendo
Speaker 1: The Apocalypse doomsday bunker.
Speaker 3: That sounds great to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The vibes, it's all just one big rumpus room.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, everyone was super excited, grub like. Uh and
Speaker 2: you know, Dan and I will probably talk about this
Speaker 2: later on BCR, but it felt very much like an
Speaker 2: old press event, like an E three.
Speaker 3: Of your uh.
Speaker 2: You got to see you like one peers in media.
Speaker 2: You got to see games journalists grub like people existing
Speaker 2: in this profession all together and like just chatting and
Speaker 2: talking together and sharing the excitement. And sure there was
Speaker 2: the undercurrent of the room of like the price, because
Speaker 2: the price wasn't announced during the direct and then like
Speaker 2: slowly people were learning about what this was supposed to cost,
Speaker 2: but the game cards were supposed to cost. But there
Speaker 2: was still the overall excitement in the room about like, Yo,
Speaker 2: this thing works. This thing is not a wee you,
Speaker 2: this is the switch to This is like the sequel,
Speaker 2: and this is gonna be like the Back to the
Speaker 2: Future two of the original hit movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah I am Yeah, I was watching those videos. You
Speaker 3: guys did a great job. It got me all excited.
Speaker 1: Although I definitely understand the price anxiety, and I and
Speaker 1: the people yelling at Nintendo, it's like, yeah, you got
Speaker 1: to apply pressure where you can so them. Everyone's spamming
Speaker 1: chat for hours, staying over the price. But here we are,
Speaker 1: and this is the exact thing that they were not
Speaker 1: certain about.
Speaker 3: I do. I'm like trying to imagine like what they
Speaker 3: can do here.
Speaker 1: And that's really like people, we do we do this
Speaker 1: show jan and I'll talk about like what these companies
Speaker 1: are thinking. And that's not like some magic formula or
Speaker 1: magic insight. All you have to do is what if
Speaker 1: it was your money, Like, that's all you have to do.
Speaker 1: Imagine this was your money and you had a product
Speaker 1: and you were going to sell it at a price,
Speaker 1: and someone came and told you, now, we need fifty
Speaker 1: percent of those dollars that you just made from selling that.
Speaker 1: That's now ours, and okay, you're left with you were
Speaker 1: going to sell it for now you have two fifty
Speaker 1: Your margins were not two hundred and fifty dollars. They
Speaker 1: were probably closer to something like in Nintendo's case, maybe
Speaker 1: twenty five percent, and that's why they were at the
Speaker 1: price they were at. And so yeah, I think like
Speaker 1: maybe you try to get creative here. You maybe put
Speaker 1: a ticking time bomb on this to see if you
Speaker 1: can be the company that applies pressure and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: we already have about a million systems in the country.
Speaker 1: We will sell those at the original price, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to raise the price on everything following.
Speaker 3: Just to make it very clear that this is about
Speaker 3: the tariffs.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna we have we we were predicting this,
Speaker 1: We're ready for these systems. These are still four fifty
Speaker 1: and five hundred and then everything after that. As soon
Speaker 1: as we have a ship in new stuff, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to raise the price on this because it's
Speaker 1: just the math that's I don't don't I don't think
Speaker 1: they will do that.
Speaker 3: But it's like they are probably gonna have to try to.
Speaker 1: Get a little creative because I think people are only
Speaker 1: gonna have so much sympathy with a corporation.
Speaker 2: That's true, grub. I just knowing and seeing the existing
Speaker 2: landscape and how people behave for something like Pokemon cards
Speaker 2: and how riots break out in front.
Speaker 3: Of you, they probably want to avoid riots. That's a
Speaker 3: good point.
Speaker 2: And think about the riots, Yeah, how riots have started
Speaker 2: outside of Pokemon vending machines. The likelihood that if this
Speaker 2: initial first batch of switches are going to be still
Speaker 2: originally priced at four fifty five hundred, it is going
Speaker 2: to be bedlom outside of these big box retailers, outside
Speaker 2: of game stops, outside of your local mom and pop
Speaker 2: brick and mortars that are going to be selling these.
Speaker 2: It is like Amazon factories, Amazon shipping warehouses may get pillaged.
Speaker 1: Grub Yep, Yeah, I just I'm like trying to like
Speaker 1: struggle think of what it's just gonna have to be
Speaker 1: a massive price increase across the board. And then you know,
Speaker 1: because of arbitrage, selling, because of bootlegging, does the price
Speaker 1: have to go up even more in other countries so
Speaker 1: that we don't try to bring in stuff from Canada
Speaker 1: and you know, in Mexico and all these other places
Speaker 1: where it's now going to be actually much more affordable,
Speaker 1: even though it was looking like Okay, yeah, it's more
Speaker 1: sots in the United States than some of these countries.
Speaker 3: It's even more expensive. Well maybe not for long. I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's an impossible situation.
Speaker 2: I hope it stays cheaper in other countries. I hope
Speaker 2: it does because I don't want the rest of the
Speaker 2: world to suffer for the fucking mess we have.
Speaker 1: They should, and I honestly, I don't know, Like Nintendo
Speaker 1: can't get away with that, right, Like that's like making
Speaker 1: it clear it's about US tariffs.
Speaker 3: They just wouldn't be able to get away with that.
Speaker 3: They have to just sort of ride with it.
Speaker 1: And I know they were worried about arbitrage, but they
Speaker 1: can only use that like that's their problem, right, that's
Speaker 1: not anyone else's. So trying to be like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: going to treat the world differently because of the United States.
Speaker 1: That's a way to be like, we don't It's a
Speaker 1: way to get associated with the United States instead of
Speaker 1: being opposed to it. And you kind of you just
Speaker 1: can't run that risk. I don't think so, yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: and we deserve it. Yes, people and chatter are saying like,
Speaker 1: of course, like this is what we get. We this
Speaker 1: is our dishwashing liquid. We got to soak in it.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, at least maybe things will get
Speaker 3: better in his third term.
Speaker 2: Jean, Uh, I need all the people in the Nintendo
Speaker 2: Treehouse YouTube chat to stop yelling at Nintendo for this,
Speaker 2: because the problem is not at Nintendo. The problem is
Speaker 2: at the core of the United States. And it turns
Speaker 2: out this apple has been rotten for fucking decades. And hey,
Speaker 2: I know on this website, on game break News, on
Speaker 2: the Bomb Cast, we lightly will touch on politics and everything,
Speaker 2: and because people will come to these shows come to
Speaker 2: this website as a distraction in getting politics out of games,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, folks, we can't take politics out of video
Speaker 2: games because politics is actively fucking up video games now.
Speaker 2: Uh so yo, if you were in the States, fucking
Speaker 2: go register to vote, do your fucking research. Actually, go
Speaker 2: call your representatives and use that outrage, use your frustrations,
Speaker 2: and maybe together the gamers can rise up in a
Speaker 2: positive way for once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta get and we gotta do what we
Speaker 1: gotta get on the streets. You gotta get in, and
Speaker 1: you gotta get in your representatives' offices and yell at them.
Speaker 2: Don't only be a freaking the sheets, be a freak
Speaker 2: in the streets.
Speaker 3: That's right, Just go right to their faces. They should
Speaker 3: be scared. I don't know what I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: know what else to say it.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, this is a distraction, really, because the
Speaker 1: real threat to all this is fascism. Like that's what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with, right, And fascism is a cancer and
Speaker 1: and there's only one thing you do to cancer.
Speaker 2: Cut it out.
Speaker 1: I mean cut it out with a knife, burn it, yes,
Speaker 1: so you know, get out there, do something about it.
Speaker 1: That's that's where we're at.
Speaker 3: And uh whatever, I'll play whatever for a fucking switch
Speaker 3: to who cares. Uh, this is just a small little
Speaker 3: symptom of so many worse things. Well, maybe figure it
Speaker 3: out or we won't or yeah, it's really what it is, right,
Speaker 3: either we figure.
Speaker 1: This out or we're done. But we're done. It's either
Speaker 1: we're done or they're done, and so do something.
Speaker 2: The reality is, grub we may be in a fortunate
Speaker 2: and comfortable, comfortable enough position to be able to swing
Speaker 2: it and pay for the switch to a see.
Speaker 1: About four hundred fifty dollars retro tank four k CE
Speaker 1: to make my GameCube look like an old TV on
Speaker 1: a new TV.
Speaker 3: H And you know, I get it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna need to because for the nature of our jobs,
Speaker 2: we need to cover the switch to we're going to
Speaker 2: need to play these games. But there are people out
Speaker 2: there that are like living, not barely living from check
Speaker 2: to check, that are looking for some type of escapism
Speaker 2: to escape this hell whole world that we're living in,
Speaker 2: like you mentioned, Greb. And now that solace, that little
Speaker 2: light at the end of the tunnel has been snuffed
Speaker 2: out for them because they can't financially afford food on
Speaker 2: their plate. That the one thing they were looking forward
Speaker 2: to this year is now ripped away from them.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And it's the yeah, And that's a good point. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not this is not just the terri fun video games.
Speaker 1: A lot of other stuff comes from these countries, including
Speaker 1: the food that we eat, a lot of fruit, vegetables. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so all that stuff you need to live is going
Speaker 1: to get more expensive too. So switch To is going
Speaker 1: to be way, way way away down the list. All right, Jane,
Speaker 1: let's take a break, Let's come back and what we do.
Speaker 1: One more story about the switch to and it's pricing
Speaker 1: in the backlash from the perspective for people who actually
Speaker 1: worked in attend. We'll get into that, and then we'll
Speaker 1: talk about Dusk Blood's.
Speaker 3: That new game from from Software after this one more thing, Grub, Yeah, please,
Speaker 3: I'm already you know, hey, I'm wearing a specific hat
Speaker 3: for a reason today on the show for people watching
Speaker 3: the video.
Speaker 2: I realize it's going to be backwards because of discord,
Speaker 2: but he's an excuse my language here. These fuckers are
Speaker 2: going to increase the price of coffee on me. I'm
Speaker 2: already radicalized, Grub. If these fuckers are going to take
Speaker 2: my caffeine away from me, it's over.
Speaker 1: No, I'm already there, like this is hitting. This is
Speaker 1: my retrotinks and my Chinese handhelds. We're already getting more
Speaker 1: expensive so yeah, coffee and Chinese handhelds. They really picked
Speaker 1: the wrong fight here.
Speaker 2: Grub the United force of you and I. They take
Speaker 2: away your Chinese handhelds, they take away my coffee. Anyway,
Speaker 2: go to hell.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to I want to bray cool. Be
Speaker 1: right back, everybody, all right, let's get back into it.
Speaker 1: As mentioned former Nintendo, this is says pr manager. But
Speaker 1: they were like product managers. They did a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Comment on Switch to pricing backlash, former Nintendo product managers
Speaker 1: Kit Ellis and Christy Yangs have said in a new
Speaker 1: video that Nintendo is facing a true crisis moment over
Speaker 1: the pricing of the Nintendo Switch To games and the
Speaker 1: console in certain countries. They said it was a deliberate
Speaker 1: omission from Nintendo not to reveal the console price in
Speaker 1: the presentation, leading fans to scramble online to find out
Speaker 1: how much the games and the consoles cost. Yesterday, the
Speaker 1: Nintendo treoustream chat was spanned by fans urging Nintendo to
Speaker 1: drop the price. Ellis said, I don't want to blow
Speaker 1: things out of proportion, but this does feel like a
Speaker 1: true crisis moment for Nintendo. I think I think it's
Speaker 1: obviously still a crisis, but I do think that the
Speaker 1: the the tariffs just being explicitly said out loud, do
Speaker 1: shift things a little bit in their favor, where it's
Speaker 1: like they can point to an obvious reason why this
Speaker 1: is happening, and they can even say it's worse than
Speaker 1: what we are expecting, which is what they're saying by
Speaker 1: delaying the pre order thing. But most people, you know,
Speaker 1: we have this show, everyone here understands what's going on.
Speaker 1: Everyone here is does a good job and just kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about these things in a common sense sort
Speaker 1: of way and understanding how these things work. The vast
Speaker 1: majority of people don't care. They see the price for something,
Speaker 1: they see a company charging that price. It is a
Speaker 1: straight line from that company wants my money and they
Speaker 1: want this amount of money for this thing that when
Speaker 1: I compare it to other things like this is no
Speaker 1: PS five.
Speaker 3: It's that simple. And so Nintendo does have to sort
Speaker 3: of deal with that still, and I don't know how
Speaker 3: they get through that specific crisis other than to make
Speaker 3: games that are so good that people can't ignore your thing.
Speaker 3: That's really all they can do.
Speaker 2: Right on grub like it is, it's just a wild world.
Speaker 2: For anyone to try and makes sense or try and
Speaker 2: see a positive in this because it feels like gloom
Speaker 2: and doom. Because it is gloom and doom. Let's call
Speaker 2: a spade a spade. And honestly, I do hope that
Speaker 2: that folks open their eyes and take a look around,
Speaker 2: because the reality is we're all running out of money,
Speaker 2: and money is going to our pockets are going to
Speaker 2: become or our purse strings are going to become tighter
Speaker 2: because we will have to be choosier with how we're
Speaker 2: spending money. And that's not just in regard to entertainment.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen across the board with the movie
Speaker 2: going audience has dwindled significantly over the years. And that's
Speaker 2: not just because of the pandemic grub and people being
Speaker 2: scared to go to the movie theater. That's because watching
Speaker 2: movies as a family has become an expensive experience. So
Speaker 2: if that is something that people are choosing to be
Speaker 2: more selective with their money, that is going to continue
Speaker 2: across the board. And hey, maybe I would prefer my
Speaker 2: family to eat and be comfortable on a day to day,
Speaker 2: week to week basis versus having an hour two hours
Speaker 2: of distraction time with like a new fancy device.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 1: It jen like we are all having a personal crisis
Speaker 1: of the cost of living and Nintendo having to navigate
Speaker 1: this crisis, you know, again their problem. To a certain extent,
Speaker 1: I think it is easy to have like to or
Speaker 1: it helps to have them sort of become this iconographic
Speaker 1: representation of this fight and make it very easy to understand.
Speaker 1: The tariffs are going up in a product they're shipping
Speaker 1: from very specific countries.
Speaker 3: It's going to cost more because of that, and it
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense. So it's just like, why is
Speaker 3: any of this happening.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit easier to understand than like the
Speaker 1: complexities of going grocery shopping, something people just do out
Speaker 1: of habit and don't think about too much. And then
Speaker 1: they just see the price go up and that just hurts.
Speaker 1: It just hurts, and that's all they can really process.
Speaker 1: It's all I can process usually, and everything's going up
Speaker 1: in price. God my, it's so frustrating jam because it's
Speaker 1: like I have less money, even though I'm making more
Speaker 1: money in some ways, but so it's like what does
Speaker 1: that matter if I have less? And then like, oh cool,
Speaker 1: like I bought a house during the pandemic. That was
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and it's gone up in value. Jan that's
Speaker 1: pretty exciting. You know what that means more property taxes.
Speaker 1: My property taxes now are significantly more. So it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: can I even afford this house that up?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's getting like out of hamps, Like I
Speaker 1: should be feeling good because this thing I bought it's
Speaker 1: worth more and it's only hurting. So it's like, how
Speaker 1: does all everything, no matter what angle it comes from,
Speaker 1: just causes more pain? And so that everyone's dealing with this,
Speaker 1: and so to sympathize with Nintendo to an extent, but
Speaker 1: not all that much. Deal with your crisis on your own.
Speaker 1: We can only we can't really help you.
Speaker 2: And you know, the other aspect of this scrub is
Speaker 2: you could tell people to go outside, go for a hike,
Speaker 2: go visit park, go visit a national park, perhaps, but hey,
Speaker 2: even those are being hit.
Speaker 3: Yep, Yeah, everything's being taken away.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's uh, and and yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: we do other than sort of continue to try to
Speaker 1: bring this whole thing down.
Speaker 2: So maybe let's just uh let's just keep the kids
Speaker 2: in school. Maybe, uh, they'll be fine over there. They
Speaker 2: can get their time occupied there at public schools.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah shit, uh huh, Well, at least in Ohio here
Speaker 1: they're gonna subsidize that with Bible study.
Speaker 3: So that's fun. Oh yep, cool country.
Speaker 1: I am, yeah, I'm I'm pissed off at all of this.
Speaker 1: And I so when I see people in chat yelling
Speaker 1: at Nintendo and the you know you're right, the tree
Speaker 1: Offs people having to deal with that, I empathize with
Speaker 1: everybody ize. I empathize with the people at Treehouse having
Speaker 1: to deal with that, And I empathize with the people
Speaker 1: who are who just are like, like, how dare you
Speaker 1: charge me more? Everything else is charging me more? Are
Speaker 1: going to do this as well? Like, look at this
Speaker 1: year as much as a PS five or an Xbox
Speaker 1: Series X and the power doesn't justify that. It's a
Speaker 1: very easy thing to understand for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a crisis that doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: it has an easy solve. So I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to kind of stand back and see what Nintendo
Speaker 1: does next. And I don't think it's going to be
Speaker 1: anything other than more pain.
Speaker 2: And the real unfortunate part, Grub is, like, you know,
Speaker 2: Dan and I did get to go to that event,
Speaker 2: and you got to see the hard work that had
Speaker 2: been like going on for years right at this point
Speaker 2: to gear up for the switch to launch, and video games,
Speaker 2: as we all know at this point, hopefully we know
Speaker 2: at this point, are not an instantaneous turnaround process. They
Speaker 2: take years and years of development to do, and especially
Speaker 2: when you were trying to tackle something like new hardware,
Speaker 2: to see all of that work kind of just get
Speaker 2: thrown away and just now the common consensus or the
Speaker 2: general consensus being like, oh.
Speaker 3: This is too expensive, drop the prices.
Speaker 2: Instead of like you know, being able to celebrate your
Speaker 2: years of hard work finally getting to be out there
Speaker 2: for people is so deflating. Has got to be so
Speaker 2: deflating for like the Nintendo Treehouse team, the Nintendo teams
Speaker 2: out there, and like, now what should have been a
Speaker 2: celebratory moment for the switch to finally being announced and
Speaker 2: coming out so so soon, is now being dominated by
Speaker 2: this idea that like it is incredibly expensive and or
Speaker 2: maybe incredibly expensive because of real life things.
Speaker 1: Yep, and all those people that like work there, They
Speaker 1: like sit down, isolated, siloed off from reactions, and they
Speaker 1: just try to like look at the numbers and figure
Speaker 1: out like what is fair for both them selling a
Speaker 1: product and people buying a product. They want to be
Speaker 1: in that sweet spot that is, you know, just when
Speaker 1: you look at basic economics, that's where you sell the
Speaker 1: most or that's where you make the most money is
Speaker 1: charging the highest price that the market can bear while
Speaker 1: also being able to get the most customers interest in
Speaker 1: actually converting to pay that price. And so they do
Speaker 1: things like and I know no one wants to hear it,
Speaker 1: but they're like, Okay, sixty dollars in twenty seventeen does
Speaker 1: come out to about eighty dollars. Now, that is inflation.
Speaker 1: That's just the raw inflation that we've already had. And
Speaker 1: I like, my response to that is the same as
Speaker 1: everyone else, is like I don't give a shit, I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear it. I don't care everything else
Speaker 1: is more expensive. I'm not making more money. What does
Speaker 1: that have to do with me? So I get that,
Speaker 1: But these people sitting here trying to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're spend.
Speaker 3: A lot of money on this stuff. We want to
Speaker 3: have a new launch.
Speaker 1: We've got to set ourselves up for success for five
Speaker 1: to ten years for this next generation at this price
Speaker 1: is probably fair, right, everything else has gone up, We're
Speaker 1: paying people more. Let's actually you know, set this through.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, it's eighty dollars per game and it's
Speaker 1: all and we see it's like, this is a cash
Speaker 1: grap and again it is.
Speaker 3: This is these company just like again, think of it
Speaker 3: as if it was your money. If you could get
Speaker 3: more money, you would take more money.
Speaker 1: They can get more money, They're going to take more money,
Speaker 1: and so it is a cash grab, but it is
Speaker 1: a cash grab informed by the environment in which we exist.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that the backlash is probably actually
Speaker 1: going to subside here a little bit over the next
Speaker 1: couple of days as the attention does turn specifically onto
Speaker 1: these tariffs. But it's really gonna be it's going to
Speaker 1: determine on how Nintendo navigates the next few days and
Speaker 1: comes back and back.
Speaker 3: And tells us how is this going to work with
Speaker 3: pre orders? All right?
Speaker 1: Other stories, other headlines Why from Soft is all in
Speaker 1: on multiplayer was switched to game The Dusk Bloods.
Speaker 3: This is from Michael mcwherder at Polygon.
Speaker 1: Dark Souls developer From Software surprised fans and perplex some
Speaker 1: with this week's reveal of a new competitive multiplayer game
Speaker 1: for Switch to the Dusk Bloods, alongside elden Ring Night Rain.
Speaker 1: It's the second multiplayer forward game coming from the studio,
Speaker 1: which is best known for its immersive role playing games.
Speaker 1: But there's a reason why The Dust Blood's director Hitataka
Speaker 1: Miyazaki is focusing heavily on competitive multiplayer. In a new
Speaker 1: interview with Nintendo, the game director and From Software president says,
Speaker 1: I've always found the PVPVE structure very interesting. It allows
Speaker 1: for a broad range of game design ideas while also
Speaker 1: letting us leverage our experience of designing challenging enemy encounters.
Speaker 1: Miyazaki impacts those game design ideas in the interviews, saying
Speaker 1: that the playable characters in The Dust Bloods, which are
Speaker 1: known as blood Sworn, have abilities that lend themselves to
Speaker 1: multiplayer action, including dashes, double jumps, and long range attacks.
Speaker 1: The dust Bloods setting, he says, allows for the depiction
Speaker 1: of firearms, such as every character is equipped with some
Speaker 1: means of attacking from a distance. I feel this is
Speaker 1: one of the game's unique aspects when compared with our
Speaker 1: previous titles. I hope these new action elements are one
Speaker 1: area that the players will enjoy. The eight player PVPVE
Speaker 1: structure of The Dust Bloods will follow a last player
Speaker 1: standing rule set for the most part, but the win
Speaker 1: conditions in the game's multiplayer matches vary. Players may need
Speaker 1: to eliminate a specific player or team up with another
Speaker 1: to take down a boss, or they may receive new
Speaker 1: orders from that creepy moon with wings seen in the
Speaker 1: game's revealed trailer. Miyazaki says that like past from software titles,
Speaker 1: we've therefore designed the PvE boss encounters to present a
Speaker 1: tough challenge and a sense of accomplishment upon defeating them.
Speaker 1: He also confesses to be not much of a PvP
Speaker 1: person himself, explaining that the Dust Bloods boss battles should
Speaker 1: satisfy the from software fans who come to their games
Speaker 1: for PvE, regardless of.
Speaker 3: Whether it's PvP or PvE.
Speaker 1: The idea to provide players with an experience that allows
Speaker 1: them to learn and hone their skills as they play
Speaker 1: is the goal.
Speaker 3: Here, according to Miyazaki.
Speaker 1: Jee where are you at with the dust bloods. I
Speaker 1: haven't had a chance to talk about this with you
Speaker 1: too much. I get is still a difficult one to
Speaker 1: pen down about exactly what it's going to be like.
Speaker 1: To me, I'm very interested still, although admittedly less interested
Speaker 1: than if this were to be say, a bloodborn successor,
Speaker 1: you know, in everything but name right.
Speaker 2: I think the the common consensus initially when the trailer
Speaker 2: was dropping was that, oh, is this going to be
Speaker 2: just straight a blood borne a blood born to a
Speaker 2: spiritual successor. And now that we're learning more about it,
Speaker 2: I think I'm still pretty excited because you know, Miyazaki
Speaker 2: has been hard, hard at work. They haven't let him
Speaker 2: out of the Soul's minds for years now, and I
Speaker 2: am interested to see what his take on this genre
Speaker 2: could and would be. And also like, I feel like
Speaker 2: they wouldn't make this a switch to exclusive if they
Speaker 2: didn't believe that folks would get really interested in entangled
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know that they're maybe thinking about
Speaker 1: going after and I know Monster Hunter doesn't have real PvP,
Speaker 1: but I think they're trying to maybe position it that way,
Speaker 1: and that's why the Nintendo switch maybe makes sense to them.
Speaker 1: They're like that audience is on here, so we'll have
Speaker 1: a quest that you can go on, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: is about you teaming up with another person and taking
Speaker 1: down a monster.
Speaker 3: That's what he's saying. That is that could be very
Speaker 3: Monster Hunter.
Speaker 1: And then in some situations it'll be one player has
Speaker 1: something you need and you have to take them down
Speaker 1: and the whole crew has to go after them.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a VIP situation. I think that they
Speaker 3: are like.
Speaker 1: We want this to kind of be the kind of
Speaker 1: game where people are just carrying their switch tos with
Speaker 1: them everywhere and they're playing the game in short bursts
Speaker 1: constantly as a hobby for a very long time, the
Speaker 1: way that Monster Hunter has been in Japan for decades
Speaker 1: now and has become elsewhere at this point.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to see that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm interested in that to a point, but
Speaker 1: I do want the ability to be like, hey, most
Speaker 1: of the time, I'm gonna I want to be playing
Speaker 1: on my own, and then if that means sometimes I
Speaker 1: walk into an area and and something multiplayers begins, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be okay with that.
Speaker 3: But I just I want to play.
Speaker 1: These games sort of on my own, trying to figure
Speaker 1: out these scary, creepy places trying to get my bearings.
Speaker 1: And then if there's multiplayer intersections with that gameplay, that
Speaker 1: sounds okay to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I almost anticipate this kind of being almost emulating
Speaker 2: like a Destiny two or maybe like even a Final
Speaker 2: Fantasy fourteen experience, where like, you can get through a
Speaker 2: good chunk of this game on your own, but there
Speaker 2: will be opportunities and moments where ah, snap, I gotta
Speaker 2: interact with people, or you can kind of just skirt
Speaker 2: by and doing your solo stuff. Because I'm with you, Grub,
Speaker 2: I kind of prefer that. But also I do see
Speaker 2: this and hearing that Monster Hunter is a point of comparison,
Speaker 2: I do kind of maybe see them going for the
Speaker 2: og Monster Hunter freak audience that existed on the Nintendo
Speaker 2: DS or three DS, and the we where they want
Speaker 2: this very niche experience and we're going to put this
Speaker 2: on the niche console and appear to those freaks.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I trust from software to make something that is worth
Speaker 1: our time at the very least, So I'm still very
Speaker 1: curious about this. It's not we're not going to get
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty six. Probably a lot of time for
Speaker 1: us to learn a lot more in various other presentations.
Speaker 1: But yeah, switch to exclusive from Software game TVP is
Speaker 1: a focus. You can just you can see all the
Speaker 1: reasons why people are like I'm interested, I'm not interested,
Speaker 1: Like what is this thing? I can't believe it's switch exclusive,
Speaker 1: but it is, so it's going.
Speaker 3: To be a curious one when it does finally come out.
Speaker 1: Miyazaki did go on to say that he promises switch
Speaker 1: to exclusive dust blood won't distract from Software from their
Speaker 1: single player games. This is from Jordan Midler at VGC.
Speaker 1: Eldering Director hit Ataka me as Zaki has said that
Speaker 1: the recently announced Nintendo switch to Exclusive The dust Bloods
Speaker 1: won't mean that From Software is moving away from a
Speaker 1: traditional single player game development focus. The dust Bloods, a
Speaker 1: brand new multiplayer focus game from From Software, was announced
Speaker 1: during Wednesday's Nintendo Switch to Direct Now. Speaking as part
Speaker 1: of the Nintendo Creators Voice series, hit a talking Miyazaki
Speaker 1: explains how The Dusk Bloods became to be and his
Speaker 1: interest in the PVPVE genre, But really he just kind
Speaker 1: of gets to a point where he's like, we are
Speaker 1: going to we still intend to actively develop single player
Speaker 1: focus games such as Elean Ring that embrace our more
Speaker 1: traditional style. I'm getting the sense jan that Eleandering taking
Speaker 1: as long as it did. I think it was their
Speaker 1: longest development time ever for.
Speaker 3: A game like.
Speaker 1: As they were wrapping that up and looking at like
Speaker 1: other projects to take on, they did want to try
Speaker 1: some other stuff. So we did get Armored Core six,
Speaker 1: and we are getting elean Ring Night Rain, where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we do have a lot of the assets and let's
Speaker 1: find creative ways to reuse that while trying something new.
Speaker 1: And we have this PV stuff in our games already,
Speaker 1: let's expand on that. Or I guess night Ran.
Speaker 3: Is PvE, but then let's take the PvP stuff and
Speaker 3: apply that to this Nintendo game. Nintendo wants to work
Speaker 3: with us, and Miyazaki wants to work with them, apparently
Speaker 3: and make a game specifically for them. He wants to
Speaker 3: explore his game design ideas in this format. It seems
Speaker 3: like they are.
Speaker 1: They're doing these dalliances in the meantime to help them
Speaker 1: refresh for what is almost certainly going to be an
Speaker 1: eventual Elder Ring follow up of whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, They're they're following what RGG has been doing
Speaker 2: for quite a while now, where yeah, could be good example,
Speaker 2: they have this existing tool set, these assets, and instead
Speaker 2: of kind of trying to do like an asset flip
Speaker 2: flip game that is maybe considered as mediocre, they're trying
Speaker 2: to do a spin on it with their existing tool set.
Speaker 2: And hey, you know, like, for as much as the
Speaker 2: prospect of what Dusk Bloods is pushing forward may not
Speaker 2: necessarily be for me, there is a gigantic PvP audience
Speaker 2: in Elden Ring in the Souls games that love messing
Speaker 2: with each other or invading someone's world. So I don't
Speaker 2: see this as like detracting from whatever Frumsoft is hard
Speaker 2: at work doing. I feel like this is the type
Speaker 2: of project that you can kind of maybe have fun with,
Speaker 2: maybe be a little bit lighter with those existing assets,
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, let's try and do this. Like
Speaker 2: I remember from a couple of months ago, sometime last year,
Speaker 2: Miyazaki was interviewed and he was interested about the prospects
Speaker 2: of like, oh, what if I did a turn based game,
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't think you would be building
Speaker 2: something from the ground up. I would have assumed he'd
Speaker 2: be using some existing assets from an Old Soul's game
Speaker 2: or elden Ring or oh a turn based armored corps.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, would I would love that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I exactly, I like, I do want them still
Speaker 1: making their RPGs, and personally I want elder Ring two.
Speaker 1: That's what I want, and I'm by my expectation is
Speaker 1: that's going to take a very very very very long time.
Speaker 1: So if they can spend some time like while, like
Speaker 1: I imagine, while he's making Dusk Bloods, there is another
Speaker 1: larger team getting a bunch of new art assets ready,
Speaker 1: new lore ready, maybe letting George r. R cook just
Speaker 1: for another half an hour worth of notes or whatever,
Speaker 1: and like getting like the land fertilized for that team
Speaker 1: to come back and focus on the next RPG in full.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: It could be a Dark Souls, could be a Sacro
Speaker 1: follow up or whatever. There's a bunch of stuff they
Speaker 1: could do. But you know, the one I want is
Speaker 1: more elden Ring. That's I'll be honest, that's the one
Speaker 1: I want. And all that is is likely what he's going.
Speaker 3: To return to here very quickly.
Speaker 1: And I think that they are almost certainly have a
Speaker 1: lot of people already working on that in this moment,
Speaker 1: even though dust Bloods isn't coming out till twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm I'm just not that concerned here, and
Speaker 1: I think most fans, like when they think about it,
Speaker 1: probably won't be as well. Although for people who don't
Speaker 1: want this, I don't blame them for being like, ah,
Speaker 1: this does feel like a distraction from me personally, because
Speaker 1: this is not something I'm going to play, So.
Speaker 3: I get it all right.
Speaker 1: Last couple of stories here Nintendo explains why Switch two
Speaker 1: doesn't run every original Switch game flawlessly. From Darren Bonteuse
Speaker 1: at game Spot, we mentioned that they were talking about
Speaker 1: having a hybrid of a solution for emulation, where it's
Speaker 1: both hardware and software.
Speaker 3: This is where it comes from.
Speaker 1: But they have they've put out a list that's a
Speaker 1: pretty lengthy list of games that will have some sort
Speaker 1: of issue, and they're saying that they're investigating everything and
Speaker 1: investigating all these problems, and it's mostly going to be
Speaker 1: like the kinds of lists that you see on wikis
Speaker 1: for emulators like the Dolphin emulator, where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: this game has a certain graphical glitch in one area,
Speaker 1: where the colors don't show up right, or an alpha
Speaker 1: layer doesn't display properly, that sort of thing, and they're
Speaker 1: just being completely transparent. So there's you know, it's a
Speaker 1: long list of games, but they're they're said, the reason
Speaker 1: this has happened is because it is mostly a software
Speaker 1: emulation solution. There isn't a switch one in the switch
Speaker 1: to so what hardware is in there. When they're saying
Speaker 1: theyre doing a kind of a combination, My guess what
Speaker 1: they mean by that is Nvidia built them something specific
Speaker 1: to put on the system on a chip to make
Speaker 1: the software run better for emulation, and that's what they're
Speaker 1: getting at. Or I don't know, maybe there's no way
Speaker 1: there's an FPGA chip on there. That's not what's happening
Speaker 1: because that would be way too expensive. So some other
Speaker 1: creative solution. But this is mostly just as software emulator
Speaker 1: running these games. And so yeah, they're going to run
Speaker 1: into graphical issues, which is something that happens when the
Speaker 1: PlayStation and the Xbox emulates these old games as well. Mostly,
Speaker 1: I'm just happy that that backward capatibility is there, and
Speaker 1: if it's a little bit like tricky, I'll be okay.
Speaker 1: There's a certain level where it's like, if the games
Speaker 1: really have a lot of problems, I'm gonna be really
Speaker 1: annoyed because it's like, you guys should have figured this out.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that that doesn't sound like what
Speaker 1: this is. Jan so Us playing old switch games on
Speaker 1: switch to sounds like it's mostly not going to be
Speaker 1: a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course they come after me in Pokemon Grub.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, oh yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Marcus and Chad just said the ANALYT sixty four is
Speaker 1: now going to be six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they keep delaying that thing too. They almost got
Speaker 3: that thing.
Speaker 1: Out before the the tariffs, but nope, now they've delayed
Speaker 1: it so down they are going to be right in
Speaker 1: the heart of them, right in the meat gang by
Speaker 1: three fifty.
Speaker 2: I hope you all enjoy the phone that you have
Speaker 2: right now, and I hope that the phone you have
Speaker 2: right now is operating in confunction at at and the
Speaker 2: batteries aren't quickly dying or whatever, because we all read
Speaker 2: a strap in for this one, folks.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people might remember, like, hey, we me and you
Speaker 1: Jay were talking about how manufacturing isn't happening here like, well,
Speaker 1: what about like the fifty billion dollars that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: signed to get the chips produced here in America. That
Speaker 1: stuff is still in place. The plan was like that
Speaker 1: was going to take literal decades, and even when they
Speaker 1: did get that done, the chips they were producing are
Speaker 1: not going to be the super processors that are being
Speaker 1: produced in Taiwan. So yeah, if you want a phone
Speaker 1: that has a decent ship and you want it in
Speaker 1: the next five years, you're still going to have to
Speaker 1: pay all these tariffs.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, grub all right, you know what, this
Speaker 2: metaphor is going to take way too long. Basically to
Speaker 2: say the TLDR, I'd rather buy a croissant from an
Speaker 2: old woman in France versus someone straight out a culinary
Speaker 2: program that they kind of skated and skirted by here
Speaker 2: in the States.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you're not like, that's literally what we're
Speaker 1: talking about too. Like in the processors that they make
Speaker 1: at the TSMC, the Taiwan Semi Conductor Manufacturer, they have
Speaker 1: the most talented people in the world working there ready
Speaker 1: and they all go there to work on this stuff.
Speaker 3: They aren't here. They literally are not here.
Speaker 1: The people that can do this work, So you would
Speaker 1: have to train them up, and even if you do
Speaker 1: train them up, the expectation that they would be as
Speaker 1: good as the people have been doing this and learned
Speaker 1: the hard way how to do lithography at three nanimeters,
Speaker 1: something that is basically basically impossible.
Speaker 3: It's a joke. It's a joke that we're going to
Speaker 3: get there. And listen.
Speaker 1: I do think that the fifty billion dollars on the
Speaker 1: CHIPEK was a good idea. I love investment in the
Speaker 1: United States manufacturing. Critically, we do need these these chips
Speaker 1: for weapons, Like, if we're going to have a military
Speaker 1: or whatever, you've got to have missiles, and the missiles
Speaker 1: need these. That's what you sunk the USSR was not
Speaker 1: being able to keep up with with semiconductors that were
Speaker 1: going into missiles and so yeah, I get it, but
Speaker 1: that's not going to save us money on our phones,
Speaker 1: and they're kind we're not going to start making Nintendo
Speaker 1: switch twos here. That's not happening, all right, and then
Speaker 1: Nintendo could firm switch to GameCube. Games are going to
Speaker 1: come at launch, and that's going to include the handful
Speaker 1: of launch games which were a win Waker, Soul Caliber two,
Speaker 1: and F zero g X. I think Pokemon's probably coming
Speaker 1: pretty soon after that. That was Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness.
Speaker 1: They were showing off GameCube games on the tree out
Speaker 1: stream yesterday, and I think they had Super Mario Strikers
Speaker 1: as one of us, the fourth game in there. So
Speaker 1: that also seems like maybe that's coming, because later they
Speaker 1: came back and that wasn't there anymore. So they had
Speaker 1: a different version of GameCube ready to go. But other
Speaker 1: games that will come later, Super Mario Sunshine Fire and
Speaker 1: Limp Path of Radiance, Super Mario Strikers, Pokemon NEXTD Gale Darkness,
Speaker 1: Chibi Robo, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon Coliseum.
Speaker 3: Those all don't have a date, but the GameCube itself
Speaker 3: will be there at launch. Uh And I think Jen,
Speaker 3: that's gonna do it. That's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: For the show today, for the headlines, let's get to
Speaker 1: the poll questions from yesterday. Did we actually get that posted?
Speaker 1: I can't remember or if we did or not. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't think we actually got that posted.
Speaker 3: So let's we'll catch up everybody, buddy.
Speaker 1: Let's I'll do one more check in because we got
Speaker 1: more votes on the grade that the switch to direct.
Speaker 1: Forty five percent gave it a B, thirty percent gave
Speaker 1: it an A, seventeen percent C eight percent gave it
Speaker 1: a D or lower.
Speaker 3: We only had like one hour of results yesterday, so
Speaker 3: there you go. I think we asked, are you going
Speaker 3: to get a switch to maybe a good thing? We
Speaker 3: do save that question.
Speaker 1: Let's we'll put that in there and we'll ask that now,
Speaker 1: because who the hell knows side on well? Am I
Speaker 1: going to be able to find one? And will I
Speaker 1: be able to afford it? I have no idea, So
Speaker 1: we'll see from there. Jan what do we have going
Speaker 1: on on the website?
Speaker 2: Later today or right after this, we're going to roll
Speaker 2: into BCR. We're gonna we may just do a fun
Speaker 2: trip report from New York with Dan and I telling
Speaker 2: you and whoever is available to join about the fun
Speaker 2: times we had. We did have good pizza at least
Speaker 2: that's good. That's fun, that's nice. I saw a building
Speaker 2: that said Minati on the side of it, and I
Speaker 2: got scared, rightfully. So but after that, we're going to
Speaker 2: have unprofessional fridays. I believe we're going to be doing
Speaker 2: some hardcore park Core. I forget the specific name of
Speaker 2: the game, but we're going to jump in together and
Speaker 2: jump around, and then we're going to have the Game
Speaker 2: Spot homies finishing off the day with Game Spot after Dark.
Speaker 2: And yeah, if folks, if you missed it yesterday on
Speaker 2: the game Spot YouTube channel, we put out a quick
Speaker 2: hands on impressions video that Dan and I chatted together about.
Speaker 2: We're going to have a try to have a little
Speaker 2: bit of a longer one because Dan and I filmed
Speaker 2: a longer discussion that we had and put that out
Speaker 2: on the GB YouTube sometime if not today, over the weekend. Promise.
Speaker 2: I just want to get that out of there, folks.
Speaker 3: Yep, it was a good work so far. Looking forward
Speaker 3: to talking to y'all on BCR here in a minute.
Speaker 3: All right, let's.
Speaker 1: See here we do have a new poll question as well,
Speaker 1: so maybe we'll run both of these.
Speaker 3: Are you going to get a switch to yes or no?
Speaker 3: And what are we even doing here? Gang? Is the
Speaker 3: new pole question.
Speaker 1: Your options are woolf, a pain, sigh or yeah man
Speaker 1: and then stares you just kind of stare those a
Speaker 1: your options. Vote on that and we'll get the result
Speaker 1: to talk about it on Game breaking news here on
Speaker 1: Giant Bomb on the Power Block on Monday. Speaking of
Speaker 1: the Power Block, look forward to seeing here on the
Speaker 1: BCR here in the next couple of minutes. With all
Speaker 1: that out of the way, Janet Chowa, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for getting me through this today, man, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Somehow we have to start the day.
Speaker 1: Yes, somehow we have to. And in the meantime, again
Speaker 1: the get those un yeahs in chat. All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we can add un yeah to the there.
Speaker 3: We go, un yeah. I added it to one of
Speaker 3: the options there on the poll. All right, thank you
Speaker 3: all for watching.
Speaker 1: You're the best audience of gaming and that's forever reason
Speaker 1: you come in here. You guys are ready to talk
Speaker 1: about this stuff, ready to listen. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of common sense. It's easy to have this conversation when
Speaker 1: I know you all are the ones here on the
Speaker 1: other side, because you already are thinking about the selves.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about these things yourselves. Let's get out of
Speaker 1: here until next time. Have a good one, take care
Speaker 1: of yourself and goodbye.
Speaker 2: Tell a friend about the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah,