Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Gays Mornings with Me Jeff Grub
Speaker 1: your host from giant bomb dot com, which is this
Speaker 1: episode's brought to you by ms I. Thank you for tuning.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to be talking about the
Speaker 1: best selling games of July and what is possibly Nintendo's
Speaker 1: best switch to upgrade yet. It's gonna be a good
Speaker 1: one because we have Matt Piscatella on the show. Matt,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Okay? Hey, Jeff, do you know
Speaker 1: what time it is?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: What time is?
Speaker 2: It's it's business time. Yeah, business is video games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unfortunately the business is still video games. So it's
Speaker 1: let's see what that means for all of us. Love
Speaker 1: to have you back on the show. It's always like
Speaker 1: a real great chance to be like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we be and the community in the chat, we'll like
Speaker 1: throw out ideas about what we think is happening. There's
Speaker 1: a chance occasionally you might know what's happening, and it's
Speaker 1: always good to get that insight. So looking forward to
Speaker 1: talking to you about everything that's happened. You did put
Speaker 1: out the Circana Report earlier this morning. Of course, what
Speaker 1: we'll lead off with that, but I want to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: how's like gaming been for you recently? I know, I
Speaker 1: know you got a couple of favorite franchise you always
Speaker 1: love to check in you playing anything new? How's it going?
Speaker 2: It's going well, MLB. This show is still like my
Speaker 2: second job in a lot of ways. But other than that, like,
Speaker 2: we've had so many great smaller games come out this
Speaker 2: year in particular, it's been a great year for that,
Speaker 2: so I've been diving into a lot of those and
Speaker 2: having a good time. But really, like MLB, the show Man,
Speaker 2: like the engagementclaw has me.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, that's Do you do any of the equivalent
Speaker 1: of like ultimate team in that game or what do
Speaker 1: you do? You kind of just go through the seasons?
Speaker 2: No, I do. I'm in their Ultimate Team, own their
Speaker 2: Diamond Dynasty, playing people twenty years younger than me that
Speaker 2: are obviously far better at everything gaming than I am
Speaker 2: in anymore. But I try to hold my own.
Speaker 1: When you're on there, do you ever do the voice
Speaker 1: chat thing of like ah, yeah, got me and then
Speaker 1: make a young person feel bad? Which is that meme?
Speaker 2: I've turned off every means of communicating with me via
Speaker 2: a console device. I don't, I know, No, it's the.
Speaker 1: Only way to live. Yeah, it's absolutely the only way
Speaker 1: to do any of this is just shut all that
Speaker 1: stuff down. Honestly, unplug your phone all that stuff for sure.
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Speaker 1: I Jeff Grubb, will help piec your gaming life back together.
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Speaker 1: Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into,
Speaker 1: so let's start the Morning Mess with July twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five US video game market highlights from Matt Piscatelo over
Speaker 1: at Sircana. Matt, let's jump right into it here. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we'll just kind of like ask you some questions,
Speaker 1: Like right off the top here, you know, we're looking
Speaker 1: at total video games sales up five percent. That's you know,
Speaker 1: that's for the month, and then down kind of even
Speaker 1: for the year to date. When you're looking at this
Speaker 1: stuff and you're making a year over your comparisons, and
Speaker 1: we're looking at you know, the top selling games of
Speaker 1: the month, which will fully get into but the top
Speaker 1: selling game was EA Sports College Football twenty six when
Speaker 1: when we look at the numbers, is like the quick
Speaker 1: way to understand this, like EA Sports College Football on
Speaker 1: the console side of things was massive last year and
Speaker 1: we're just down slightly from that huge at reintroduction. And
Speaker 1: then what other color would you add to like what's
Speaker 1: going on in gaming right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's very interesting month for reasons that I
Speaker 2: even I wasn't expecting. You know, we did have spending
Speaker 2: up like five percent, like you said, year to date
Speaker 2: down slightly. It's about where we expected the market to
Speaker 2: be at this point, right and you know, you could
Speaker 2: get We can get into the weeds about why we're
Speaker 2: seeing all the churn around developers and studios, considering that
Speaker 2: spending has been relatively flat, we can dig into all that.
Speaker 2: I think at the top level though, consumer spending is okay.
Speaker 2: The winners are winning bigger and we continue to have
Speaker 2: more and more games being introduced, meaning the average game
Speaker 2: is selling a little bit less. But from a top
Speaker 2: line perspective, consumer demand has been holding relatively well. There
Speaker 2: are a couple of areas that are performing better than others,
Speaker 2: particularly the non mobile subscription space. Think like Game Pass,
Speaker 2: Nintendo Switch Online, PS plus World of Warcraft, Star Wars.
Speaker 2: The Old Republic even has had a little bit of
Speaker 2: a surge. But in July, you know, the big surprise
Speaker 2: to me at least was free Fire on the mobile side. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we partner with our friends over at Censor Tower who
Speaker 2: provide the mobile outlook for us, and what they saw
Speaker 2: in July was a seven percent increase in mobile spending,
Speaker 2: which is incredible because mobile is the biggest segment in content.
Speaker 2: What mobile does drives the overall content number, and free
Speaker 2: Fire in particular had a great July. They did some
Speaker 2: partnerships that helped them. Yeah, and then we have the
Speaker 2: Nintendo Switch to continuing to do very well. But that's
Speaker 2: there's some issues there with the older devices falling off
Speaker 2: a little bit more than perhaps would have been expected.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the gaming market is a big, convoluted, chaotic
Speaker 2: mess and the best of times and right now it's
Speaker 2: not the best of times. But yeah, let's let's dig
Speaker 2: into all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's dig in. Let's start with with free Fire
Speaker 1: a little bit at least the mobile space and what
Speaker 1: I always think of when I look at the you know,
Speaker 1: mobile charts or whatever, when I glanced at them every
Speaker 1: couple of months or so, I guess it's usually, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's still the same games.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Free Fire is like a little bit of surprise and
Speaker 1: that it's kind of been consistently climbing here in the
Speaker 1: United States. It is, it has I'm assuming it's one
Speaker 1: of these games it's been around for a long time globally,
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of warming its way into into
Speaker 1: US devices in a really impressive way. Is that the
Speaker 1: story there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been picking up a lot of momentum in
Speaker 2: recent months. I mean, yeah, like you mentioned, you look
Speaker 2: at the mobile charts, and it's a lot like the
Speaker 2: console charts these days. The biggest games continuing to be
Speaker 2: the biggest games month after month, year after year. It's
Speaker 2: a problem in the market. It's a very big challenge
Speaker 2: for anyone trying to bring a new mobile game, or
Speaker 2: a new console game, or a new PC game to
Speaker 2: the market. This incredibly crowded marketplace that's dominated by some
Speaker 2: of the biggest franchises that continue to be there forever.
Speaker 2: And so when a game breaks through, like a free fire,
Speaker 2: I mean, it can make a big difference to what
Speaker 2: we're seeing in the spending.
Speaker 1: When it comes to these top selling games of the
Speaker 1: month E Sports College Football twenty six and EA Sports
Speaker 1: MVP MVP Bundle which bundles it up with Matt and
Speaker 1: I believe those are one in two and that includes
Speaker 1: both physical and digital. I'm assuming there's digital version of
Speaker 1: that Sports MVP bundle as well. And the number three
Speaker 1: was Donkey Kong Bonanza and that's physical only, so pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: It's able to get up there with like being limited
Speaker 1: to one system and physical only, and then right behind
Speaker 1: that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater three plus four rounding out
Speaker 1: the top ten. A lot of familiar faces as usual.
Speaker 1: Call of Duty Black Ops six, Minecraft Forts Horizon five
Speaker 1: Grounded two is the other new game in the chart.
Speaker 1: It's at number eight. That's an early access release, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a little bit of a lower price, and
Speaker 1: also it's on Game Pass, so I think that's also
Speaker 1: pretty impressive for that game. And number nine is Red
Speaker 1: Dead Redemption two and number ten is Grand Theft Auto five.
Speaker 1: When's the last time Red Dead Redemption two outsold Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto five? What did it get? An update somewhere?
Speaker 1: What happened there?
Speaker 2: It's been a minute. So in July we had all
Speaker 2: of the various summer sales happening across like the PlayStation
Speaker 2: platform Steam, and it was discounted as much as up
Speaker 2: to seventy five percent, So that discounting really helped give
Speaker 2: it a boost and get it back, you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit higher than Grand Theft Auto five, which, you
Speaker 2: know twelve years now running that.
Speaker 1: Game is just forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, what are you gonna do but to
Speaker 2: go to EA Sports College football. You mentioned it earlier
Speaker 2: about how last year it was such a massive jugger. Now,
Speaker 2: of course it had been over a decade since we
Speaker 2: had the last game, and yeah, this year's game did
Speaker 2: not live up to last year course initial sales, but
Speaker 2: how could it. I mean, last year's game was so massive.
Speaker 2: So when you look at the results and you see,
Speaker 2: you know, we did have growth and content spending, but
Speaker 2: that was really driven by mobile, right, and the subscription
Speaker 2: segment console was actually down about nine percent, And the
Speaker 2: big reason for that was the comparison between this year's
Speaker 2: and last year's college football games. So, you know, it's
Speaker 2: still doing great, but last year's game was just it
Speaker 2: was ridiculous how well it did. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: the game everyone was talking about whether they're a sports
Speaker 2: gamer or like an enthusiast gamer, Like, you know, folks
Speaker 2: watching this are probably more in that camp. But this year,
Speaker 2: like it's performing as a really well performing sports game,
Speaker 2: which is great, but I mean it's hard to compete
Speaker 2: with the phenomenon that was the game last.
Speaker 1: Year, right, And I mean obviously EA's probably was kind
Speaker 1: of always expecting this, of course, so this is this
Speaker 1: is probably like falling in line with what they expected
Speaker 1: the long term for EA Sports college football to be,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they're extremely happy with that, which is
Speaker 1: why in a little bit, we'll be talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the return of EA college basketball. Maybe you know they've
Speaker 1: at least teased that. We'll get into that here in
Speaker 1: a little bit. So console games spending down, it really
Speaker 1: EA sports is going to be the huge part. There
Speaker 1: not much else to read in there, at least with
Speaker 1: too much noise in that signal. But the hardware side
Speaker 1: of things, so, yeah, switch to is now the best
Speaker 1: selling console in terms of units and dollars for the year.
Speaker 1: So took it a couple months to do that, but
Speaker 1: that's also expected, especially when we see just how hard
Speaker 1: the PS five and especially the Xbox series are falling.
Speaker 1: But both are massive double digits. PS five hardware down
Speaker 1: forty seven percent, Xbox Series spending down sixty nine percent.
Speaker 1: Both of these should be before the most recent price
Speaker 1: hikes for both these consoles, or is that right when
Speaker 1: the Xbox price hike happened.
Speaker 2: It should include the Xbox hike, not so much the
Speaker 2: PlayStation hike yet, so we'll see the impact of that
Speaker 2: on the longer term. Yeah, switch tow is done amazing.
Speaker 2: It's still the fastest selling console after two months all time.
Speaker 2: It's slightly ahead of the PlayStation four now of course
Speaker 2: different times of the year that these two devices launched,
Speaker 2: So on a comp basis, switch To is still ahead.
Speaker 2: It's seventy five percent ahead of the pace of the
Speaker 2: original Nintendo Switch, so it's doing phenomenally well. Exceeded two
Speaker 2: million units sold, so it's still very much in its infancy.
Speaker 2: And so a game like Donkey Kong Bonanza, like you mentioned,
Speaker 2: physical only being third overall phenomenal result, that result likely
Speaker 2: very likely does not change even if you did include
Speaker 2: the digital just because the scale of EA Sports College
Speaker 2: Football is so much bigger with a far bigger installed
Speaker 2: base to sell to, but doesn't take anything away from
Speaker 2: the success of Donkey Kong Bonanza or Mariurt World or
Speaker 2: any of the other games really we're seeing perform on
Speaker 2: Switch To phenomenal start. But again the question is going
Speaker 2: to be you know, of course that day one enthusiast
Speaker 2: Nintendo fan in particular is going to be there early.
Speaker 2: Are the family is going to come in and buy
Speaker 2: during the holiday in an environment where costs and things
Speaker 2: like grocery, insurance and housing are climbing rather rapidly and
Speaker 2: people are really kind of feeling the pinch in these prices.
Speaker 2: Another everyday spending categories, and of course all of the
Speaker 2: other chaos we have in the market overall. Right now,
Speaker 2: that's that's going to be the real test.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like, you know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: consumer spending, we continue to be surprised overall at how
Speaker 1: resilient it's been. It's been weirdly resilient. In some cases.
Speaker 1: That does feel like it's got to break at some point.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I guess, why would we assume
Speaker 1: it would be this holiday with a switch to but
Speaker 1: why would we assume it's going to escape by unscathed
Speaker 1: by all these reasons people might want to start saving money, right?
Speaker 1: Is that a fair feeling?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And if you look at some of the other
Speaker 2: metrics about what's happening with the consumer, increase credit card debt,
Speaker 2: people leaning more on their things like four to oh
Speaker 2: one k is just to pay for every day things
Speaker 2: like groceries, the younger consumer really leaning into buy now,
Speaker 2: pay later programs, like they're really leaning into those. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of signs of strain and stress on the consumer.
Speaker 2: And hey, maybe maybe it's fine. Maybe people will go,
Speaker 2: you know what, I need to have something to bring
Speaker 2: me joy so I'm going to sacrifice other areas to
Speaker 2: buy video game stuff. But when you look at things
Speaker 2: like what's happening with subscription spending and the growth we're
Speaker 2: seeing there, there could be something about video game consumers
Speaker 2: looking for value, trying to find ways to extend their dollar,
Speaker 2: leaning more into things like free to play and the
Speaker 2: subscription services, maybe pulling back a little bit on premium spending.
Speaker 2: We'll have to see. Right now, though, the switch to
Speaker 2: his launch is kind of booing the entire console market,
Speaker 2: and you know, if we didn't have that, it would
Speaker 2: be a much less rosy picture right now, particularly on
Speaker 2: the console side. It's yeah, like things are going well,
Speaker 2: but there are signs that, you know, of some concern
Speaker 2: and we'll have to see how it goes over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think last time we had you on, we
Speaker 1: were talking about the sort of the arch, the arch
Speaker 1: that the UH or the arc that PlayStation five and
Speaker 1: Xbox series were following. They are on the other side
Speaker 1: of the tippy top dizenith of their bell curve. That's normal.
Speaker 1: But then I think we also talked about maybe the
Speaker 1: rate of decline was a little bit more than we
Speaker 1: were expecting. It did seem to like kind of bounce
Speaker 1: around a little bit between now and then, but this
Speaker 1: number does kind of go back to oh geez, and
Speaker 1: now we're also getting price increases right alongside these things,
Speaker 1: whether it was this month or the following month, so
Speaker 1: it's like no reason to assume it's gonna get better.
Speaker 1: And then of course the next phrase is well until
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto six is is that like does that
Speaker 1: feel like the kind of thing that is that explains
Speaker 1: a lot of these things where it's like, sure, it's
Speaker 1: down now because people are winning for Grand Theft Auto
Speaker 1: six and prices are going up because the companies know
Speaker 1: once Grand Theft Auto six is here, if they'll get
Speaker 1: a lot of those people who are waiting on the sidelines.
Speaker 2: It could I mean, you need something to really drive
Speaker 2: the folks that haven't bought into the current generation to
Speaker 2: buy in, you know, if they haven't already invested there
Speaker 2: waiting for that thing to come along that will get
Speaker 2: them to make that investment in Grand Theft Auto six.
Speaker 2: Could certainly be that thing, but it is a question
Speaker 2: of momentum. Like we have a cyclical market in the
Speaker 2: console space. It's been that way forever. This cycle has
Speaker 2: been particularly wild because of course it's started in the
Speaker 2: middle of the pandemic, with all the supply shortages early on.
Speaker 2: Trying to benchmark this generation off of prior generations is
Speaker 2: a is a disaster just because of the way the
Speaker 2: curves have worked in terms of the demand. And now
Speaker 2: we have these price increases happening very late in the
Speaker 2: cycle that we've never seen before, and so we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to see what the impact of that is. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, the the hope is that you know, Grand
Speaker 2: Theft Auto six does revitalize and get people back into
Speaker 2: buying these systems. I mean they're not doing I mean,
Speaker 2: the PlayStation five in particular, still ahead of the PlayStation
Speaker 2: four on a momentum basis life to date, still doing
Speaker 2: phenomenally well, still doing great worldwide, but the tail, uh,
Speaker 2: maybe a little shorter than one would expect, especially considering uh,
Speaker 2: these potential price increases. But you know, forecasting the gaming
Speaker 2: market's always the most difficult category that we track, and
Speaker 2: right now it's even more difficult. It's not quite dartboard territory, right,
Speaker 2: but the dart boards on the wall kind of thing, right,
Speaker 2: We'll see, Well, sometimes it's more accurate than than the
Speaker 2: human beings can be just occasionally just okay, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: down whatever, great, let's do let's roll with that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I know, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that here in a couple of stories.
Speaker 1: Is wh when we get to a need for speeds
Speaker 1: future in regards to criterion getting renamed or getting rebranded
Speaker 1: a little bit where it's where I think, you know
Speaker 1: that inability to predict or or like what game is
Speaker 1: going to work and what won't it explains a lot
Speaker 1: of this the decisions that these companies are making. Like
Speaker 1: I said, we'll get into that here in a moment.
Speaker 1: Let's continue to go through what we have here in
Speaker 1: front of us though. So, yeah, the PS five xbox
Speaker 1: hardware down a lot, We'll see. You know, you're right cyclical,
Speaker 1: we are, I guess getting clos ish to like when
Speaker 1: we could start talking about next gen systems. Maybe that
Speaker 1: makes these companies more comfortable. Maybe they're already looking so
Speaker 1: far ahead that to that that they're like, hey, we
Speaker 1: want to establish a good price space now for when
Speaker 1: we have to introduce those things that even higher prices.
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of what they're probably thinking
Speaker 1: a little bit as well as just hey, things are expensive.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure we can get every dollar
Speaker 1: that we can. But I how interested are these companies
Speaker 1: in selling consoles, because all of the sort of circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence surrounding it makes it sound like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: not their primary concern. I think we know that's the
Speaker 1: case with Xbox at this point, but what does it
Speaker 1: seem like it's kind of I'm getting that sense off
Speaker 1: a PlayStation.
Speaker 2: As well, so I think there's a lot of things there.
Speaker 2: Of course, people want to sell the boxes. I think
Speaker 2: what we're seeing in terms of consumer behavior, particularly among
Speaker 2: younger audiences, is a desire to have their content they
Speaker 2: want to play available on whatever device they want to
Speaker 2: play it on. And for younger audiences more and more
Speaker 2: that's going to be mobile PC type devices that they
Speaker 2: already have access to. So with that play behavior change,
Speaker 2: we're seeing people really trying to expand the reach of
Speaker 2: their content. Now. Xbox, of course invested heavily early in
Speaker 2: cloud that hasn't really developed in the US market, although
Speaker 2: it has developed more in areas like South Korea and
Speaker 2: Brazil and other territories that could continue to evolve, they're
Speaker 2: going to be leaning on that quite a bit more
Speaker 2: as they diversify their hardware reach around, you know, their
Speaker 2: OEM strategy with things like the Asis rog, Xbox ally
Speaker 2: or whatever it's called. I think I got that right,
Speaker 2: of course, but yeah, PlayStations, yeah, PlayStations also diversifying where
Speaker 2: it's putting its content because you know, the name of
Speaker 2: the game is reaching as many people as possible, and
Speaker 2: right now that's not necessarily through the box, although the
Speaker 2: box remains the best way to play and the way
Speaker 2: that the enthusiast audience most likes to play. So it's
Speaker 2: not going to go anywhere. But in terms of trying
Speaker 2: to grow an audience that let's be honest, hit a
Speaker 2: peek in twenty twenty one, because of course it did,
Speaker 2: and we no longer have that organic audience growth that
Speaker 2: we had for decades because everyone who wanted to play
Speaker 2: games for as long as they wanted to play them
Speaker 2: and did so in twenty twenty one. So now it's
Speaker 2: an audience share game. It's grabbing audience grabbing hours would
Speaker 2: before it was let's just grow the audience. So it's
Speaker 2: it's been a pretty massive mind shift away from a
Speaker 2: growth mindset to a share mindset, and I think that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why we're seeing so much diversification
Speaker 2: around portfolio strategies. It's a fascinating time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think maybe the other thing there is
Speaker 1: when they look around to like what the next growth
Speaker 1: opportunity could be, it's not and they're not seeing the
Speaker 1: obvious answer for what that would mean for the console business, right.
Speaker 2: Right, And I mean you look at what's going on
Speaker 2: with things like roadblocks in Fortnite and Minecraft and to
Speaker 2: reach those massive not even games anymore, they're their own ecosystems.
Speaker 2: The reach they have, I mean, the competition to grab
Speaker 2: audience from those monstrosities, it's it's a it's a significant challenge.
Speaker 2: And so you have to be where the players are,
Speaker 2: and right now, the players are on all types of
Speaker 2: devices at all types of times.
Speaker 1: Some other things here when to ask you about let's
Speaker 1: see here we talked about these games a little bit,
Speaker 1: but Donkey Kong Bonanza's physical sales were high enough to
Speaker 1: place it. Third, do you have a sense of how
Speaker 1: that compares to other like launch window games or you know,
Speaker 1: first six month games on let's say PlayStation five or
Speaker 1: anything else or the switch one like, how does this
Speaker 1: compare to ratchet and clank? If you have that off
Speaker 1: the top of your head.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, Nintendo First Party game is published on Nintendo hardware,
Speaker 2: are always going to have a higher attach right, I
Speaker 2: mean a higher percentage of people who buy the hardware
Speaker 2: are going to buy the Nintendo First Party game then
Speaker 2: on Sony or Microsoft devices for example, because on those
Speaker 2: on those devices it's the big sports games, it's the
Speaker 2: big shooters that tend to have more audience pull, whereas
Speaker 2: on Nintendo, I mean, people still buy Nintendo consoles to
Speaker 2: play Nintendo games. You've mentioned that, I don't know how
Speaker 2: many times. So those those attached they're always going to
Speaker 2: be higher. And so you know, when you look at
Speaker 2: something like World, which of course is closer to one
Speaker 2: hundred percent than not, Banans is not there, but it's
Speaker 2: it's pretty darn good in terms of the percentage of
Speaker 2: folks that are buying it. So they they just do
Speaker 2: a phenomenal job of connecting with their audience with their content,
Speaker 2: and you know, people get people have gotten mad at
Speaker 2: me before for saying that Nintendo's their own thing. Yep,
Speaker 2: but Nintendo's their own thing. Like they do things differently
Speaker 2: and it's worked out really well for them, and other
Speaker 2: folks have tried to copy that strategy in it. It
Speaker 2: just hasn't worked so well because the audiences are different.
Speaker 1: And that's fine, yep, exactly. Yeah, And it like that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I think these company should even stop trying
Speaker 1: to like figure out what their Nintendo like strategy would be.
Speaker 1: But it doing it exactly like Nintendo's just not going
Speaker 1: to work. Tony Ook's pro Skater three plus four was
Speaker 1: number four. Any idea how that compares to one plus two?
Speaker 1: Is it kind of like maintaining that momentum at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it has been tained the momentum, and in fact,
Speaker 2: it was a top four bestseller across PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo,
Speaker 2: and PC. So this was a game that had pretty
Speaker 2: wide appeal. We'll have to see how long the legs are.
Speaker 2: These games tend to be like these more nostalgia driven games,
Speaker 2: not that it's you know, I'm not saying it's not
Speaker 2: a modern game. I'm not saying that modern people can't
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 1: It's old shit, it is, I get it.
Speaker 2: So like these games tend to do really well launch
Speaker 2: and we'll have to see how the legs are over time.
Speaker 2: But what a great start, and you'd have to believe
Speaker 2: that they look at these results and go, okay, like
Speaker 2: what else can we do here? There is an audience
Speaker 2: that very much wants this type of content. Of course,
Speaker 2: skates on the way later this year, so you know,
Speaker 2: we're having a little bit of a skateboard revival, which
Speaker 2: is cool. But yeah, really great start, Really great to
Speaker 2: see it have wide ranging appeal on all the platforms,
Speaker 2: so you can't ask for much more than that.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing, it's popping on the top
Speaker 1: of my head here. The accessory spending fell eight percent.
Speaker 1: I would assume a big part of that is a
Speaker 1: lot of people bought second controllers to play college football
Speaker 1: with their buddies last year. Does that sound right or
Speaker 1: what do you think is happening here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a bit of that. But the game
Speaker 2: pad spending is still down. We had a pretty significant
Speaker 2: dip in remote play devices like the PlayStation portal. Oh sure,
Speaker 2: off year on year because it was a much you know,
Speaker 2: it was a much newer, hotter product a year ago,
Speaker 2: and because of the hardware declines we're seeing on PlayStation
Speaker 2: and Xbox. You know that that tends to correlate to
Speaker 2: change it there, and you know, the Nintendo switch to
Speaker 2: Pro controller is has done a phenomenal job. Over thirty
Speaker 2: percent of people who have a switch to have a
Speaker 2: pro controller, which is pretty remarkable when you think about
Speaker 2: the audience, right, this isn't an audience that you would
Speaker 2: assume would would be there with a more expensive controller
Speaker 2: day one, but they sure have been. And that's been
Speaker 2: the best selling accessory in both units and dollars this year,
Speaker 2: So that's doing a lot of heavy lifting kind of
Speaker 2: holding up that market. Yeah, we're looking at a down
Speaker 2: accessories market right now, especially from particularly from the performance
Speaker 2: of game pads and headsets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really seems like Nintendo's strategy theyre raising the
Speaker 1: prices on all the accessories, keeping the prices the same
Speaker 1: on the switch to is worked out for them.
Speaker 2: It has worked out. We haven't seen a significant negative
Speaker 2: impact of those changes yet. We'll see what happens with
Speaker 2: going forward.
Speaker 1: Right people. I mean, I'll speak for myself. When I'm
Speaker 1: looking at buying something, I look at the price of
Speaker 1: the thing. I don't really often look at the knock
Speaker 1: on purchases, and then once I have the thing, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I do need that and that, and the price is
Speaker 1: sort of like, what's not as big as the big,
Speaker 1: big purchase I just made. So I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: get this thing. That's how I do it. So I
Speaker 1: bet that's kind of what Nintendo was hoping for here.
Speaker 2: Well, and you have a price insensitive early adopter audience,
Speaker 2: needing that the people who buy early don't really care
Speaker 2: how much cost, they just need to have it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But just like with the switch to hardware, the real
Speaker 2: test will come in holiday. How many families, how many
Speaker 2: gifts of switch to consoles or accessories or even software,
Speaker 2: how much of that will come into the holiday because
Speaker 2: that's where you know the whole thing is made or broken.
Speaker 1: So we'll see, And you know, I get the sense
Speaker 1: Nintendo well aware of this, definitely knows this, and that's
Speaker 1: what you know. If we get this rumored direct in September,
Speaker 1: it'll be all about explaining the story of why now
Speaker 1: is an urgent time to get a switch to So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, day one showed up big time. The question is like,
Speaker 2: how do you move from the enthusiast audience to the
Speaker 2: mass market. That's like that's always the biggest challenge with
Speaker 2: the console, and this time it's it's it has additional
Speaker 2: challenges that prior generations and devices didn't excellent.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we have plenty of more to get into,
Speaker 1: but we should take a quick break here from our
Speaker 1: MSI sponsor. If you want to skip out on these,
Speaker 1: you go to giant bomb dot com Last Joint become
Speaker 1: a premium member. You can get the ad free version
Speaker 1: of the show. Will be right back after this jam.
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Speaker 1: we are back. It's Game Mess Mornings. That's miss map Piscatella.
Speaker 1: I'm Jeff Grub. Let's get back into the headlines here
Speaker 1: with Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo switch to Edition
Speaker 1: plus Starcross World. That's the full name. Reviews are in
Speaker 1: for it, and it's apparently that name is not hurting it.
Speaker 1: It's doing a ninety on Open Critic with seven reviews.
Speaker 1: That's no you know, early in the review process, who
Speaker 1: knows how many reviews something like this actually ends up getting.
Speaker 1: But it's switched to so things like this are pretty exciting,
Speaker 1: But ninety on seven reviews still very impressive. Nine out
Speaker 1: of ten from PJ O'Reilly at Nintendo Life, who says
Speaker 1: Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo switch To Edition plus
Speaker 1: Starcross world gives you the base Forgotten Land experience at
Speaker 1: a delicious sixty frames per second, with a whole big
Speaker 1: bunch of new content thrown in for good measure. The
Speaker 1: twelve remixed areas that make up the DLC are uniformly delightful,
Speaker 1: The new transformations are excellent, and there's even new challenges
Speaker 1: for hardcore Kirby fans to get stuck into or to
Speaker 1: get sucked into. One of the best games on Switch
Speaker 1: and one of my favorite three D platformers in years,
Speaker 1: Polished to a sparkly sheen and packing some meaningful new content,
Speaker 1: that's a very easy recommendation and a truly excellent addition
Speaker 1: to the Switch two's early lineup. I got a ten
Speaker 1: out of ten from Christa Hogue at CG Magazine, who
Speaker 1: said it is the best paid upgrade yet for the
Speaker 1: Switch to and a worthy addition to one of the
Speaker 1: Switch's finest platforms. And then it got an eight out
Speaker 1: of ten from Bobby Passion. Dealis Yeah, Pachial Dyllis at
Speaker 1: Console Creatures. Kirby and the Forgotten Land Antenna Switch To
Speaker 1: Edition plus Starcross Worlds should not be missed. Not only
Speaker 1: does it upgrade the base game for the Switch to
Speaker 1: which is one of the best Kirby games already, but
Speaker 1: it also adds a fun and out of this world
Speaker 1: expansion filled with fun powers and tons of Kirby charm.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited about this one. I was a huge
Speaker 1: Kirby in the Forgotten Land fan. Matt, Uh, how about you?
Speaker 1: Is this something you're interested in? And then how have
Speaker 1: these you know, up these paid up grades been doing
Speaker 1: for the Switch. As far as you can tell, Kirby
Speaker 1: is a menace. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: The most powerful character and video games.
Speaker 1: I mean it's also true.
Speaker 2: He uh he scares me in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But I kind of like it now. I've been a
Speaker 2: big Kirby guy for for a very long time. I
Speaker 2: played this game. I was off put by the frame right,
Speaker 2: so I'm excited to get the sixty frames. I am
Speaker 2: a sixty frames a gooner. Anything six thirty I can't play. Uh,
Speaker 2: so I'm really looking forward to it. And these reviews
Speaker 2: are great, So that's cool. Yeah, the the the paid
Speaker 2: up grades have done pretty well. Actually, of course, it's
Speaker 2: very early and it's been on a couple of games
Speaker 2: and there's so many different ways to access them.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was having.
Speaker 2: A conversation yesterday with some folks who, you know, business
Speaker 2: e folks who who aren't really into gaming at all,
Speaker 2: haven't played anything really since the NES trying to explain
Speaker 2: how people upgrade.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, that that sounds very fun.
Speaker 2: I was like, so you could do it this way,
Speaker 2: or you could do it this way, or you could
Speaker 2: and they were just looking at me like, what the
Speaker 2: hell is what is this business? And I'm like, you
Speaker 2: know what, You're right this business as well. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty well so far. Of course, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of consternation from some folks about the different
Speaker 2: practices around things like forsy cards and all that. But
Speaker 2: so far, so good. I'm looking forward to this one,
Speaker 2: looking forward to see how it does, being a little
Speaker 2: bit later than the initial early releases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, at least with Nintendo games, they do
Speaker 1: put all theirs on the cards. So far. I don't
Speaker 1: think they've had not for Ney their big games anyhow,
Speaker 1: the game card situations, so they've been able to avoid
Speaker 1: that for their stuff. You know, I guess real quick
Speaker 1: on that, like when you look at your data, did
Speaker 1: you notice something there, like, is is this something that
Speaker 1: we talk about on shows like this and on forums
Speaker 1: and on social media, And it's not really filtering filtering
Speaker 1: into the data, or do game card game key cards
Speaker 1: like hold any game sales back in any noticeable way.
Speaker 2: I think the sample is probably too small to have
Speaker 2: any really wild takeaways. And we're seeing, you know, some
Speaker 2: games underperforms, some do pretty well, But it's so early
Speaker 2: that I think the jury is still out on it.
Speaker 2: I mean, the it's not good when your most enthusiastic
Speaker 2: customers are are or a segment of them or this
Speaker 2: unhappy about something like that's generally not a good thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, we'll have to see people like to
Speaker 2: play what they want to play, and they'll do what
Speaker 2: they have to do to play it for the most part,
Speaker 2: but you generally want your customers happier and satisfied. So yeah,
Speaker 2: early days, we're gonna keep watching it. I think for
Speaker 2: some games it may have had an impact, but it's
Speaker 2: kind of hard to strip out the impact of one
Speaker 2: particular thing when it comes to a game's performance, whether
Speaker 2: that's review scores or social conversation or things like the
Speaker 2: medium it's delivered on. It's really hard to parse out
Speaker 2: the individual drivers. So yeah, it's a jury still out.
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep moving here. Need for Speed future is
Speaker 1: in doubt. Its future, that's not the name of a game.
Speaker 1: Need for Speed's future is in doubt as Criterion has
Speaker 1: been rebranded to a Battlefield studio. This is from Hayley
Speaker 1: Williams at GameSpot in case you needed any more confirmation
Speaker 1: that Criterion is now all in on Battlefield. The Burnout
Speaker 1: creator and longtime Need for Speed Custodian is now officially
Speaker 1: branded as a Battlefield studio, as in it like the
Speaker 1: team is now called Criterion Colon a Battlefield studio, leaving
Speaker 1: the future of the Need for Speed franchise in question,
Speaker 1: and as spotted by The Gamer, a user for the
Speaker 1: Need for Speed for subreddit excuse Me spotted criterions new
Speaker 1: official subtitle on EA's website, where a Battlefield studio now
Speaker 1: appears under the usual studio logo. So, Matt, when I
Speaker 1: was mentioning this earlier, it's like, this just feels like
Speaker 1: part and parcel with what like a trend that's been
Speaker 1: going on for a while now, and you kind of
Speaker 1: opened up with it earlier on where it's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the overall spending number looking pretty hot the or
Speaker 1: at least at least fine. And when we like look
Speaker 1: at how that, you know segments out the big games
Speaker 1: are still huge, and some of them are bigger than
Speaker 1: ever and selling better than ever. It is the games
Speaker 1: in the in the in between that continue, like the
Speaker 1: money is coming from them. That's why why these games
Speaker 1: are bigger than ever. It's because fewer people are spending
Speaker 1: or they're spending less money on these games somewhere in
Speaker 1: between the tiny things over here, the indie games and
Speaker 1: the biggest games, and that's why, like Burnout was never
Speaker 1: we're way past. Is Burnout gonna come back? Like Criterion
Speaker 1: is not going to go back to Burnout, but maybe
Speaker 1: Need for Speed they can keep doing that because those
Speaker 1: games tend to sell. And now they're like, actually, your
Speaker 1: time and your efforts are better spent working on a
Speaker 1: big shooter than even Need for Speed. And this feels like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just you. Okay, we went from Burnout to Need
Speaker 1: for Speed and now Need for Speed to a battlefield.
Speaker 1: To me, it's like I could just see that direct
Speaker 1: line of what is happening here of these companies just
Speaker 1: think every second spent working on this bigger game is
Speaker 1: going to get them a bigger return. Is that what's happening?
Speaker 2: And this is what keeps me up at night as
Speaker 2: a video game fan. Yeah, when a franchise like Need
Speaker 2: for Speed, you know, is in question, that's that's kind
Speaker 2: of shocking. Right. If you would have told someone this
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, they would have said no way.
Speaker 1: I mean even like five years ago, it seems like
Speaker 1: such a resilient series where it just keep like they
Speaker 1: kept making them and they kept doing all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just when you look at the play stats,
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of shocking. Like I've shared these a
Speaker 2: few times out there. Our player Engagement Tracker, we you know,
Speaker 2: track what people people are doing on their consoles. What
Speaker 2: we find in our data is just shy of eight
Speaker 2: out of every ten people that turn on their PlayStation
Speaker 2: or Xbox every month will play at least one of
Speaker 2: the top ten live service games, whether that's Holy Minecraft
Speaker 2: or Rowblocks or whatever. And the top ten live service
Speaker 2: games alone, just taking out all of the other ones,
Speaker 2: just the top ten account for just shy of half
Speaker 2: of all hours spent on the consoles. So these games
Speaker 2: these these biggest live service games are taking all of
Speaker 2: the hours and dollars from the market. And because we
Speaker 2: still have growth in the number of games coming out,
Speaker 2: you know, the rest of the games have a smaller
Speaker 2: and smaller share of the pie they're chasing, which is
Speaker 2: why we're seeing the crunch around developers and studios that
Speaker 2: we are the pie is getting smaller, although the top
Speaker 2: line numbers dang really relatively same. So when you're when
Speaker 2: you're a big publisher, you have to try to get
Speaker 2: into that even though the risk level is so high.
Speaker 2: The risk is so high, and we see it over
Speaker 2: and over again with the games that are failing, like
Speaker 2: your concre Is is the most primary example. But this
Speaker 2: is this is the market, this is where people are,
Speaker 2: and it's exceptionally you have to go over that space
Speaker 2: even though the risk factors is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you said it. I mean it's obvious.
Speaker 1: Like these companies like look around and they look at
Speaker 1: that data of where people are spending their time, and
Speaker 1: they look at the data of where people are spending
Speaker 1: their money. You know, Like the way people are thinking
Speaker 1: about games is changing. They're not thinking about the next
Speaker 1: new release, They're going to get they're thinking about the
Speaker 1: next new event or user generated content that they're going
Speaker 1: to play in the game they're already playing, and so
Speaker 1: we need to have one of these platforms, and like
Speaker 1: otherwise we're gonna have to start making our stuff inside
Speaker 1: of those platforms. We're gonna have to make our stuff
Speaker 1: for Fortnite or make our stuff for Minecraft, and that
Speaker 1: is like those companies that control those platforms will be
Speaker 1: able to dictate terms in a huge way. That is
Speaker 1: very scary. So we have to get out ahead of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at all of the big third
Speaker 2: party IP holders, the Disneys of the world, for example,
Speaker 2: where are they putting their content. They're putting it in Fortnite,
Speaker 2: They're putting it in Roadblocks. Roadblocks wants to take ten
Speaker 2: percent of all gaming spend, like that's their goal, and
Speaker 2: they have IP partnership programs in place to try to
Speaker 2: attract more IP into those those ecosystems. So yeah, like
Speaker 2: it's absolutely changing now this audience, Like the folks here
Speaker 2: watching this, they're like, what are you talking about double?
Speaker 2: Like I played Expedition thirty three. That game was a
Speaker 2: huge hit. Yes, it's a hit for a game of
Speaker 2: its scale, and it's done phenomenally well, no question about
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that it hasn't, but the number of
Speaker 2: games that can break out is quite small, and the
Speaker 2: number of games that are in that competitive pool continue
Speaker 2: to increase, So it's that's even becoming harder and harder.
Speaker 2: So it's not really easy to say, hey, like the
Speaker 2: service market is a disaster zone, and you know ninety
Speaker 2: nine percent of games are going to fail, so you
Speaker 2: should make more double a size games. It's not quite
Speaker 2: that simple, although it sure would be cool if it were, because,
Speaker 2: like you said, a lot of the audience isn't thinking
Speaker 2: about what's next. They're thinking about just, hey, I have
Speaker 2: some time to game. There's Fortnite. I'm just going to
Speaker 2: click on that. And it's unfortunate that discovery has been
Speaker 2: very difficult that trying to find new games, that people
Speaker 2: can't hear about new games online like they used to
Speaker 2: because of what's happened in the media landscape. Like it's
Speaker 2: very difficult and tough to try to make a new
Speaker 2: game these days. So yeah, I get why this is happening,
Speaker 2: even though there are all kinds of red flags around
Speaker 2: this approach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think that just speaks to these companies
Speaker 1: really are like lost for any other way to go,
Speaker 1: the fact that they keep hitting this brick wall, but
Speaker 1: they feel like, I got to get on the other
Speaker 1: side of this brick wall. I gotta because ground and
Speaker 1: everything else is avoid Yeah.
Speaker 2: You look, it's like like you're in Vegas, man, and
Speaker 2: you're at the craps table, and you know, you had
Speaker 2: a bunch of money and now you're down of it.
Speaker 2: You're like, well, like I gotta keep going, I guess,
Speaker 2: because what else are we gonna do? And it's that's that's
Speaker 2: scary that that's what keeps me up at night when
Speaker 2: it comes to the gaming market.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's just the timing on of it.
Speaker 1: Timing on is like such a it's evilly poetic that
Speaker 1: it's like games are getting easier than ever to make,
Speaker 1: and that's been a trend for a long time. But
Speaker 1: it's easier today than it was yesterday, and it will
Speaker 1: be easier tomorrow than it is today, and so we
Speaker 1: are getting more games than ever and it just is
Speaker 1: that's eating away. At the other side of that, the
Speaker 1: the spending is not growing commiserate with that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and you look at like some of the
Speaker 2: conversation around there like well, AI is gonna help because
Speaker 2: it's gonna be able to make let people make games faster,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, making games faster isn't the problem. The
Speaker 2: problem is the number of games we have coming out
Speaker 2: and an audience that isn't growing, Like it's only going
Speaker 2: to cause more problems having games come out even more
Speaker 2: frequently than they are now. It's it's completely backwards the
Speaker 2: conversation around getting games out faster and cheaper. That's the
Speaker 2: quantity of games in the market is not the problem.
Speaker 1: Right, We're talking about is AI is going to be
Speaker 1: able to help create more content and things to put
Speaker 1: in the game. And it's like when we just we
Speaker 1: look at it as one big blob, there is more
Speaker 1: content than any human being could possibly play in fifty
Speaker 1: thousand years, Like, so what are we talking about? Really?
Speaker 1: What we're if you're looking for the problem to like
Speaker 1: to spark a new fire, it's new ideas and you're
Speaker 1: not going to get that from AI.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's new ideas. Discovery is so hard now
Speaker 2: trying to get your game notice, even if you get
Speaker 2: ninety review scores, Like trying to get your smaller game,
Speaker 2: notice is nearly impossible unless you get absolutely lucky some
Speaker 2: something happens or some magic in terms of what happens
Speaker 2: on on social or somewhere, it gets picked up somewhere.
Speaker 2: But like trying to break through, like Hurdling just came out, Yeah,
Speaker 2: phenomenally rated game, who knows, like who's talked about it
Speaker 2: very Like you see a couple of people posting about it.
Speaker 2: You look at oh, sort of the Stars just came out, right,
Speaker 2: and they just did layoffs because that game didn't really
Speaker 2: break through even though that's been highly rated, right, So
Speaker 2: to discovery is the problem the number of games, sure
Speaker 2: as hell, and the problem.
Speaker 1: And that and that's like there's a perfect comparison to
Speaker 1: the alternative there of the Sky, the game from the
Speaker 1: other people that made Journey Genova Chen His game is
Speaker 1: a free to play mobile thing and apparently has tons
Speaker 1: and tons and tons of players, But it's not my thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm more excited about sort of the Sea. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, yeah, but that's just not where the
Speaker 1: business is at right now. It's it's a cautionary tiling,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it keeps me up as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's just it's anyways. It's a shame.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the number of games coming out is not
Speaker 2: the problem. But you know they're gonna do it anyway.
Speaker 1: So I'll see. I get all these companies like thinking that, like, well,
Speaker 1: we need to get our games out faster because when
Speaker 1: the longer it takes, the more expensive it gets. That's
Speaker 1: all they're that's as far as they're thinking about it.
Speaker 1: If they were to look at it on it just
Speaker 1: a slightly more macro level, it's like, Okay, that's not
Speaker 1: an answer. It's a way to save some money right now.
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna do the thing that you think
Speaker 1: everyone else is gonna do, you're gonna have to continue
Speaker 1: to spend more time and money to make your game
Speaker 1: stand apart from everyone else's. So you're still gonna need
Speaker 1: all those people you just fired back to actually set
Speaker 1: your game apart. And I'm looking forward to you realizing
Speaker 1: that in two years and in the meantime, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a game that, look that is just not going
Speaker 1: to stand out compared to everyone else's.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, man, if you have Coke, PEPSI, Doctor Pepper,
Speaker 2: and seven up on the soda shelf, the way to
Speaker 2: compete in that market isn't to come out with two
Speaker 2: thousand others, so it try to throw months, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Like it's a bad analogy, but it
Speaker 2: kind of works. Like it's how do you break through?
Speaker 2: How do you provide a really quality product and communicate
Speaker 2: it to the audience? And right now the conversations like
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's just throw more products out there?
Speaker 2: What the hell? Well that's that's just gonna make everything worse, man,
Speaker 2: But you know, what the hell do I know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also like at a certain point, does this
Speaker 1: industry just turn into one of those that has it's
Speaker 1: four or five. I mean it's happening, obviously, the four
Speaker 1: or five it's happening. But it's like, my in my heart,
Speaker 1: it was like always thinking this industry, the one thing
Speaker 1: that's consistent is it always changes. Something new comes along
Speaker 1: and disrupts everything. But that's not a true that's not
Speaker 1: true because it's true. It was true because it had
Speaker 1: happened up until this point. There's no reason it has
Speaker 1: to keep happening that way. Right, these things could really
Speaker 1: solidify in a permanent way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you bring a game out ten years ago, your
Speaker 2: biggest competition at the other new games launching in your
Speaker 2: window now. No matter when you bring out a game,
Speaker 2: your biggest competitions for an I, Minecraft roadblocks like it's
Speaker 2: a different world. It's not the way it was ten
Speaker 2: years ago, fifteen years ago. It's an absolutely different world.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's so let's get to these next couple
Speaker 1: of stories. Atari is re releasing some of Ubisaft's best
Speaker 1: and forgotten games. This is from Darren bonf Use at GameSpot.
Speaker 1: When you think Ubisoft, you usually think about its ten
Speaker 1: pole franchises like Assassin's Creed in Rainbow six Siege, but
Speaker 1: the company has also released several great small scale games
Speaker 1: across PC, console, and mobile. Some of these ips have
Speaker 1: been dormant for years, but Atari has inked a new
Speaker 1: deal to acquire five Ubisoft classics and bring them to
Speaker 1: modern platforms. As part of the deal, Atari has purchased
Speaker 1: the IP for Cold Fear, I Am Alive, Grow Home,
Speaker 1: Grow Up, and Child of Eden. These were all one
Speaker 1: off games, save for Grow Home and Grow Up, which
Speaker 1: are related to one another, published by Ubisoft and developed
Speaker 1: by numerous teams, but in terms of console releases, most
Speaker 1: of them remain locked to Xbox three sixty and PS
Speaker 1: three maybe with the occasional PS four port or something
Speaker 1: like that. Millions of players have experienced these worlds over
Speaker 1: the years, and this will open the door for longtime
Speaker 1: players to revisit those memories while inviting new audiences to
Speaker 1: discover them for the first time. Ubisoft VP of Business
Speaker 1: of New Business Deborah Papernik said in a press Atari
Speaker 1: has a rich gaming legacy and deep appreciate appreciation for
Speaker 1: these classic titles, and we're excited to see how they'll
Speaker 1: evolve and connect with players in fresh and meaningful ways.
Speaker 1: What is the business like for kind of plucking some
Speaker 1: games out from like the Xbox three sixty era and
Speaker 1: reintroducing them today. I mean, we talk about young people
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily buying a ton of games or even consoles,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily about like really introducing this to
Speaker 1: whole new audiences. It's probably people who maybe missed out
Speaker 1: on these things and giving them an opportunity to act
Speaker 1: on these Now. Is this a trend do you expect
Speaker 1: to see more of? Do you think it makes sense
Speaker 1: for Atari? What do you think this is a weird one? Yeah?
Speaker 2: My thoughts immediately go to how it's highly unusual for
Speaker 2: companies to sell off IP. Like usually, no matter the
Speaker 2: size of the IP, you sit on it because IP
Speaker 2: is the most valuable asset, even though you don't think
Speaker 2: it's worth much now, it could be in the future,
Speaker 2: and there's no reason to sell it if you.
Speaker 1: Don't have to. So conversations like that, yes, recently, I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: it's for sure, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's it's why why now? Why these IP Why are
Speaker 2: you selling them? What's the driver of that?
Speaker 1: It's got to come? Do you think it's got to
Speaker 1: relate back and circle back to you know? Ubi Soft
Speaker 1: has this new spinoff you be Soft, funded by ten
Speaker 1: Cent with that is focused on three games, uh A
Speaker 1: far Cry, Rainbow six, and Assassin's Creed And so anything
Speaker 1: not in that Holy Trinity is is getting reassessed and
Speaker 1: they're looking for any way to like make some money
Speaker 1: from it, and this led them here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but even then, like you don't see IP like
Speaker 2: that's just not something you do now Atari they they
Speaker 2: buy I P that's kind of their their jam, right,
Speaker 2: So this is right up their alley and what they do.
Speaker 2: But I look at this and go, huh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, like the individual games I think
Speaker 2: aren't as interesting a story as the strategic shift of
Speaker 2: now we're now we're selling I p okay interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is a UBI soft that
Speaker 1: just a couple of years ago made that Werewolf within movie,
Speaker 1: a movie based on a VR game that they made
Speaker 1: years and years ago. It's a very good movie apparently.
Speaker 1: I've not seen it, but people love it apparently. But
Speaker 1: this is like they were trading on their IP even
Speaker 1: to that degree. So yes, selling it off is very strange.
Speaker 1: It could just be like a weird anomaly. If we
Speaker 1: see this again, I will be like, Okay, what is
Speaker 1: happening here? What is going on?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Like you know, they're doing all their restructuring, they're
Speaker 2: splitting teams out and everything else. Okay, you know they're
Speaker 2: making a lot of decisions about their future. Is this
Speaker 2: is this a one off? Or are we like in
Speaker 2: clearance mode?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The implications of either of those things happening are different
Speaker 2: and meaningful, So we'll see, all right.
Speaker 1: The new EA college basketball game is nowhere near released.
Speaker 1: This is from Eddie McCoo at game Spot when eatased
Speaker 1: in June that it was bringing back its popular college
Speaker 1: basketball franchise. Some wondered where they might actually get something
Speaker 1: to play or win. I should say, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be anytime soon, which is not
Speaker 1: much of a surprise. EA Sports executive Sean O'Brien told
Speaker 1: USA Today that EA is up for the challenge of
Speaker 1: building a new college basketball game. Currently, the company is
Speaker 1: quote in the process of trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: that could come together, and Sean O'Brien explains why that
Speaker 1: is challenging by saying he hopes for the new game
Speaker 1: to include every D one men's and women's basketball team,
Speaker 1: and he admitted getting this done is a quote daunting task.
Speaker 1: O'Brien said the success of relaunching the college football series
Speaker 1: helped pave the way for bringing back college basketball. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we felt that we really captured lightning in a bottle
Speaker 1: with college football. I think we would love to try
Speaker 1: to do the same thing for college basketball. O'Brien said,
Speaker 1: there was a time where we got like multiple college
Speaker 1: basketball games in a year. We're far removed from that
Speaker 1: much to This is the thing that has turned me
Speaker 1: into a boomer Matt of things used to be better,
Speaker 1: Things used to be better when we got multiple sports
Speaker 1: games from different companies every year. That's just better than
Speaker 1: what we have now. You're never gonna change my mind
Speaker 1: on that, but whatever, this is the world we live in.
Speaker 1: Clearly that they just drew a line from. Can we
Speaker 1: try to replicate what happened with college football in any
Speaker 1: other way? This does feel like one that should work
Speaker 1: as long as EA can actually make a basketball game,
Speaker 1: something they've not been able to do in a very
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me tell you about a little game called
Speaker 2: MLB Power Pros two thousand and eight on the Nintendo
Speaker 2: week damn it, or the Bigs bring back the baseball. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean you'd assume this would be a
Speaker 2: great opportunity. I would love to see them be able
Speaker 2: to do it. Some competition in the sports space right now,
Speaker 2: in particular, would not be the worst thing for consumers
Speaker 2: in my opinion. Right now, we are very siloed and
Speaker 2: do just a handful of franchises, and so it would
Speaker 2: be great. I think two K probably wouldn't agree with
Speaker 2: me on that one when it comes to the basketball market,
Speaker 2: but whatever, But yeah, I wish them the best. I
Speaker 2: hope this comes out great. I hope it provides an
Speaker 2: their opportunity to deliver some numbers like college football does.
Speaker 2: That would be that would be amazing for fans and
Speaker 2: for the market.
Speaker 1: And you know that they did figure out the football
Speaker 1: situation and being able to get teams and players. So
Speaker 1: they've built this infrastructure and at a certain point, I
Speaker 1: bet running that is its own cost, and you can
Speaker 1: probably offset that a little bit by replica repeating that
Speaker 1: process now with other sports.
Speaker 2: Oh man, the people working in licensing on these on
Speaker 2: these games in particular, like hats.
Speaker 1: Off, Like, yes, that's a job. Yeah, so hard.
Speaker 2: Wow, Like we did Lego dimensions when I was at
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers back in the day, our licensing group that
Speaker 2: got things like Back to the Future and all these
Speaker 2: other things into it. Like I just remember how their
Speaker 2: hair was falling out. I can only imagine what it
Speaker 2: would be for something like this.
Speaker 1: Yes, this has got very challenging, all right. It is
Speaker 1: now easier than ever to refund PS five games. The
Speaker 1: story has been going around like it's a different it's
Speaker 1: different in method, not necessarily in you know, the how
Speaker 1: you know forgiving they are that's pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: But let's go through it. The refund process is now
Speaker 1: much more automated. If you go to the PlayStation store,
Speaker 1: click on the three dots in the top right corner,
Speaker 1: select the option that reads transaction history. You could select
Speaker 1: one of your purchase purchases and choose the request refund option.
Speaker 1: This will automatically consider your refund if you do what
Speaker 1: has always been the case on PlayStation, if you have
Speaker 1: purchased the game within the last fourteen days and you
Speaker 1: have not booted it up. Actually, if you haven't even
Speaker 1: you have to have not downloaded it, so it's if
Speaker 1: it's just sitting in your transaction history. So that hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: But so how it worked before is apparently it had
Speaker 1: like a chatbot you had to like convince to let
Speaker 1: you get a refund. So that's better to not have
Speaker 1: to deal with that, But it's still not like where
Speaker 1: it needs to be where you know, on on Steam,
Speaker 1: it's like you could have played the game for two hours.
Speaker 1: I think that's been pretty fair. Not a lot of
Speaker 1: complaints about the way the refund works on Steam. I
Speaker 1: think Conan will have to eventually get there, probably due
Speaker 1: to regulation, maybe one day. I don't know, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about this?
Speaker 2: They absolutely should I mean the Steam process has been
Speaker 2: beneficial to players and developers. It gives players a chance
Speaker 2: to try a game out, and it gives developers a
Speaker 2: chance to sell some games to people that want to try.
Speaker 1: Some games out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why that isn't the case across all platforms is bad.
Speaker 2: I think it should be implemented across because it would
Speaker 2: give up. It would give more opportunity to sell. But
Speaker 2: the worry is always like, oh, no, we're gonna lose
Speaker 2: money on this.
Speaker 1: Now you're not.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be able to grow your potential audience. But
Speaker 2: people are stubborn. But yeah, the consumers should have far
Speaker 2: more options to refund games.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, let's get to these last couple of stories. Here,
Speaker 1: were we set up to fail? Was a question that
Speaker 1: they're being asked or they're asking themselves right now at
Speaker 1: the Candy Crush studio King as they reportedly fear more
Speaker 1: layoffs to come. This is from Chris Going at VGC.
Speaker 1: Last month, King cut around two hundred staff as part
Speaker 1: of Microsoft's sweeping layoffs, which saw games canceled and studios
Speaker 1: slashed across its game business. It was claimed at the
Speaker 1: time that some level designers and copywriters were told that
Speaker 1: their jobs were at risk because they were set to
Speaker 1: be replaced by the AI tools that they themselves helped
Speaker 1: to build. Now, a new report by Mobile gamer dot
Speaker 1: is suggests that morale continues to be low at the company,
Speaker 1: with some staff taking legal action over their severance packages
Speaker 1: and allegations that cuts were made with no consideration of
Speaker 1: staff performance. So, according to the people that have been
Speaker 1: talked to here are like everyone who got a severance
Speaker 1: package went to their lawyer, and every lawyer was like,
Speaker 1: this is illegal, and you probably shouldn't fight it because
Speaker 1: it's Microsoft. And that is incredibly frustrating to hear that
Speaker 1: a company is using its weight to get away with
Speaker 1: something that shouldn't be able to get away with and
Speaker 1: is violating laws and doing so allegedly. And then as
Speaker 1: far as the cuts being made with no staff consideration
Speaker 1: or of performance not taken into consideration, people are alleging
Speaker 1: once again that they just sorted by who is getting
Speaker 1: paid the most and then just fired people in order
Speaker 1: until they got to a name that they recognized and
Speaker 1: trust and kept that person. That's what's being alleged by
Speaker 1: these people. Microsoft, I don't think has commented on this
Speaker 1: as a reminder, Microsoft, the Xbox brand is under the
Speaker 1: bds A boycott call for their help and for making
Speaker 1: money off of the ethnic cleansing and gaza and now
Speaker 1: they're doing this as well. Candy Crush is a weird one,
Speaker 1: mat because it is a game that just does is
Speaker 1: going to run on getting more content, just more levels
Speaker 1: that are like the levels before it. So you could
Speaker 1: see why they would be wanting to go, let's save
Speaker 1: money by just doing this in AI. And yet I
Speaker 1: just feel like they are setting themselves themselves. Microsoft is
Speaker 1: setting themselves up to fail by not being prepared for
Speaker 1: a change that might be necessary to keep this game
Speaker 1: feeling fresh at some point. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe
Speaker 1: this game never has to feel fresh. It can just
Speaker 1: be the same thing forever and continue to print money
Speaker 1: for them the way it has been. I don't know,
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, so that's one of those games and Soda
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, that just throw always on those mobile
Speaker 2: charts looking at you know, having worked at Activision before
Speaker 2: looking at the AOP plan, being aggressive doesn't surprise me
Speaker 2: at all with dealing with that my entire time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the you know when you're when you're not hitting your budget.
Speaker 2: When you're not hitting your sales target, you in order
Speaker 2: to make the bottom line number, you gotta cut costs.
Speaker 2: Perhaps allegedly, this is one of the ways they're trying
Speaker 2: to do it. Yeah, Like AI man such a good
Speaker 2: tool that you have to force people to use.
Speaker 1: It, right, that's story as well as they are monitoring
Speaker 1: people's usage of AI and they are demanding one usage
Speaker 1: from everyone. Everyone has to use AI in some way.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, I can still write an email.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I guess we have
Speaker 2: the computer's here it for us anyways. Side note, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, when you have targets that are aggressively set,
Speaker 2: then decisions start getting made that sometimes are questionable at best.
Speaker 2: I guess I'll leave my comments there.
Speaker 1: That's there last thing here, not gaming news, but I
Speaker 1: did want to get your opinion on it. K Pop
Speaker 1: Demon Hunter SEQL officially going ahead at Netflix. Of course
Speaker 1: they're going to make another one of these things. It's
Speaker 1: probably it probably is Netflix's most successful thing ever at
Speaker 1: this point, or at least close to. So this is
Speaker 1: this is a movie that to the traffics in a
Speaker 1: lot of familiar tropes of K dramas and Korean animation
Speaker 1: and brings that over here and it's doing really well.
Speaker 1: It's caught on in a massive way. What do you think,
Speaker 1: what are the lessons that maybe gaming could learn from
Speaker 1: something like k Pop Demon Hunters if anything comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we're seeing not just Netflix, but like
Speaker 2: studios like Amazon really trying to lean into the video
Speaker 2: game IP. I mean, we had that whole like trans
Speaker 2: media movement for a while there, but you know, this
Speaker 2: is kind of going continue down that road of trying
Speaker 2: to maximize the value of the IP across all types
Speaker 2: of avenues. Nintendo is doing it its own way through
Speaker 2: its films and through theme parks. Everyone else is trying
Speaker 2: to go through whoever can produce content to try to
Speaker 2: grow the brand strength. So I think this is just
Speaker 2: another in a series of this type of expansion of
Speaker 2: the IP reach to try to maximize the value and return.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if there's.
Speaker 2: Anything particularly new shocking here. I'm not super in tune
Speaker 2: with what's going on on this one, but it's not
Speaker 2: surprising to see video game companies really trying to continue
Speaker 2: to maximize that value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, this is a one that it's just kind
Speaker 1: of popped up out of nowhere. I heard people talk
Speaker 1: about it. My kids have now watched it like ten times, Matt,
Speaker 1: So it's it's God, it's great, and you know what,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic what I've seen of it. I've kind of
Speaker 1: watched over their shoulders a bunch of times now and
Speaker 1: it's it's been pretty entertaining. All Right, we check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's fantastic. I think you'll enjoy it. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the poll question. This is from Monday. Actually,
Speaker 1: may frame it up here for you all. There we go,
Speaker 1: This is from Monday. Which nin ninja game are you
Speaker 1: going to play? Your options were Shanoby Art a Vengeance,
Speaker 1: Ninja Guiden, Rage Bound, Ninja Guide in four or all
Speaker 1: of them, and all of them won with forty one
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. Ninja Guide in four was number
Speaker 1: two at twenty four percent, but right behind it was
Speaker 1: Shanoby's Art a Vengeance at twenty three percent, and then
Speaker 1: n Ninja Gaiden Rage Bound at thirteen percent. I have
Speaker 1: loved Ninja Gaiden Rage Bound. I beat that game, really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Kind of want to go back to it
Speaker 1: because there's some other more difficult stuff in there that
Speaker 1: they put in there to keep the game feeling fresh
Speaker 1: for a long time. I'm playing Shanoby right now, though,
Speaker 1: and I've been really enjoying that. That's also excellent game.
Speaker 1: And I will definitely check out Ninja guid In four
Speaker 1: when it gets here later this year. Is this is
Speaker 1: this the year of the Ninja?
Speaker 2: Mat?
Speaker 1: Is that what happened?
Speaker 2: I mean we had the Year of the bow?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, raise the forecast, pump it up. Those are
Speaker 2: rookie numbers.
Speaker 1: We need more more ninjas. God good, Hey, you know
Speaker 1: what I think? Ninja five oh got rereleased earlier this
Speaker 1: year as well.
Speaker 2: Everybody, So there's that, oh man, Lego Ninjago remake.
Speaker 1: Let's do it there. It is that that will actually,
Speaker 1: that'll get the kids buying games again.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 1: All right, we got a new pole question. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that here in a second. Before we do that, though, Matt,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell people where they can find you
Speaker 1: on the internet and if that's something you even want,
Speaker 1: and tell them what else you got going on and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on, I'm on the blue sky at Matt
Speaker 2: Piscatella with one tea because my mother was drugged up
Speaker 2: when she popped me out and forgot to put the
Speaker 2: other tea in need it, that's fine, And then LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: Don't don't be on LinkedIn, just stop it. But if
Speaker 2: you are, I'm there because I have to be and
Speaker 2: so you if you have to be there too, we
Speaker 2: can be there together. So yeah, and you know I'm
Speaker 2: on the Giant Bomb community, but I'm incognito. You'll never
Speaker 2: know who I am. Shot out to the love the
Speaker 2: Giant Bomb community. Been a member date since day one.
Speaker 2: Love you guys, love this community in particular, and you know,
Speaker 2: love you, Jeff, and thank you for everything you guys
Speaker 2: are doing to build that community here. It's and all
Speaker 2: the past people too like like this this place means
Speaker 2: a lot to me and really happy to see you
Speaker 2: guys thrive.
Speaker 1: That's it's very nice. Matt. Yeah, we love you too.
Speaker 1: And like we were telling you during the break, the
Speaker 1: community always asking back on. So we'll definitely continue to
Speaker 1: make a regular thing of it, get you back on
Speaker 1: here frequently. Love talking to you. In the meantime. Here
Speaker 1: is the new pole question. We'll get the results of
Speaker 1: this tomorrow. Are you going to get Kirby in the
Speaker 1: Forgotten Land switch to edition. I'm not putting the full
Speaker 1: name in there. I'm not sure if there's enough characters
Speaker 1: on the YouTube poll question thing to fit the whole name.
Speaker 1: Your options are or no, we'll get the results. Four
Speaker 1: Game mess Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of
Speaker 1: Giant Bomb, I should go click on this calendar here.
Speaker 1: All right, I have a meeting. You guys don't need
Speaker 1: to know about that. I have Blight Club at two
Speaker 1: pm Eastern today. That's when we're gonna be on next
Speaker 1: I'm going to be finishing up Jurassic Park Trustpasser. That's right,
Speaker 1: Antonio Morales? Are you the one that sent me this?
Speaker 1: I've been I'm playing a packaged up version of this
Speaker 1: game that actually is meant to run on Windows eleven.
Speaker 1: So I didn't get a physical version, so I just
Speaker 1: threw it out my computer computer. The community set this
Speaker 1: to me instead, and it's fun to have. I actually
Speaker 1: have the full instruction manual. Now, Matt, this is a
Speaker 1: hell of a game. Have you seen any of any
Speaker 1: of this Trust Passer? Were you around the first time
Speaker 1: when it came out? Were you playing it? Then?
Speaker 2: I have some research to do. And I remember the
Speaker 2: Sega Genesis version out of JP, but that's about it.
Speaker 1: This is this is one made by what's what chat?
Speaker 1: What's his name? The guy that made the Xbox Seamus Blackley,
Speaker 1: his his team, his team before that made this game,
Speaker 1: which is a physics simulator first person shooter from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. Is it Chat And it is bizarre because
Speaker 1: there's no animation system. They like have these like tree
Speaker 1: tree system that like each animal gets to decide how
Speaker 1: it moves on its own on its own, and the
Speaker 1: animals also have like hunger and anger systems, and you
Speaker 1: can pick up everything in the world. There was a
Speaker 1: section where I'm like looking for a key card and
Speaker 1: I went up to a trailer that they had set
Speaker 1: up in the park, and when I tried to open
Speaker 1: the door, the trailer tipped over because of the physics system,
Speaker 1: and that looked like I broke it, but that was
Speaker 1: actually part of a jumping puzzle that they had created.
Speaker 1: It is a weird game, and I'm kind of into it.
Speaker 1: I'm tuning in, Yes, make it happen, all right, that's Trespasser.
Speaker 1: Later today, everybody on Blake Club, all right, I think
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do now is say thank you to
Speaker 1: Matt Piscatella for hanging out with us and talking about
Speaker 1: video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate and thank you so much for having me
Speaker 2: on again.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we'll make it happen again. Thank you everybody for
Speaker 1: watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming.
Speaker 1: Until next time, have a good one, take care of
Speaker 1: yourself and goodbye.