Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Games Mornings 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: a big update launching early for Nintendo and communicating with
Speaker 1: sea creatures in the return of a classic. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a good one because we have jan at Choa
Speaker 1: on the show. Jan how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm ready to flip and do tricks for fish small fish,
Speaker 2: jump through hula hoops and do the cool thing where
Speaker 2: you're like you're clapping and you're going back and skating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, or or or or seals. Right, okay, but
Speaker 1: you're not I know what you mean. I know what
Speaker 1: you mean. E e yes, yeah, absolutely. We'll explain all
Speaker 1: that here in a second. But if you're a Star
Speaker 1: Trek four fan, you already know what to expect, everybody.
Speaker 3: So just hang in.
Speaker 1: Wow, that was how I humpback whales, But don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. How you doing?
Speaker 2: I think still at a good seven? A good seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh okay, listen, if we dial in this year
Speaker 1: at a seven, I wouldn't trade that.
Speaker 3: I would take that in an instant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, not at all. I was the thing that
Speaker 2: no one ever tells you grub about having a short
Speaker 2: dog is their tummies will just constantly get wet and ms.
Speaker 2: It's a little dryer now here in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: Somehow this little dog's tummy just gets wet whenever we
Speaker 2: go out on a walk. I'm just curious. It's to like,
Speaker 2: how how is this happening? Why why do you constantly
Speaker 2: need a towel on your tummy?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So yeah, like one of them like truffle pigs,
Speaker 1: like or those like wires you use that to find
Speaker 1: water or whatever. It's like one of them dogs. They
Speaker 1: just have the magic power to find wetness wherever it is.
Speaker 1: My my cat is bad. It has a drinking problem.
Speaker 1: H He goes in to get to the fountain with
Speaker 1: a little fountain for the catch. It's like running water
Speaker 1: and he just puts his whole head or sheet as it's.
Speaker 3: The girl puts her whole.
Speaker 1: Head under the water and every day, basically the whole
Speaker 1: day or head is just wet, just constantly. Hand say, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean she knows she didn't goes and like licks
Speaker 1: the water like she's supposed to, but she just likes
Speaker 1: having a wet head, it's it's a weird cat. I
Speaker 1: like it.
Speaker 2: I seen people drink things weird, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: blame it on the pets. Yeah, I think it's just
Speaker 2: drinking things.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I try to drink things weird every once in a while,
Speaker 1: just you know, put the straw in, put your finger
Speaker 1: on the end of the straw, take the straw out.
Speaker 3: Drink the water out of the straw.
Speaker 1: Still do that, Yeah, exactly, all right. We should explain ourselves.
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Speaker 1: By going to giant bomb dot com slash join, we
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Speaker 1: out on the forums, find cool stuff on the site,
Speaker 1: and find reviews. I mean, we've been working like crazy,
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Speaker 1: grub Snacks Premium new version of grub Snacks, hanging out
Speaker 1: answering questions from people. There's a premium forum on in
Speaker 1: the message boards as well where you can ask a
Speaker 1: question and I will try to address most of those.
Speaker 1: There's also a discord channel that I'll take questions from
Speaker 1: as well. But yeah, that episode went up yesterday. There
Speaker 1: should be one a week going forward from now on. Everybody,
Speaker 1: so looking forward to all of that. As far as
Speaker 1: this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Greb 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
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Speaker 1: Games Mornings, or find the RSS feed on giant bomb
Speaker 1: dot com. Got You can also catch the show later
Speaker 1: with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
Speaker 1: we have a lot to get into. So let's start
Speaker 1: the morning mess with multiple Echo the Dolphin games officially
Speaker 1: in development. Somebody wake up, Mike Manati. This is from
Speaker 1: Salamano Akamatsu, starting off with a quote. Here, several new
Speaker 1: Echo the Dolphin products and games are officially in development.
Speaker 1: Developer A and R Itelier announced an Rlier is a
Speaker 1: studio founded in half Moon Bay, California by veteran game developers,
Speaker 1: including the original of the creators of Echo the Dolphin
Speaker 1: that includes Ed ann Ziada Annunziata. I think it's how
Speaker 1: you say it.
Speaker 3: Who was the Yeah.
Speaker 1: The chief creative officer at A and R previously announced
Speaker 1: plans to release remastered versions of the Genesis games Echo
Speaker 1: the Dolphin and Echo the Tides of Time, as well
Speaker 1: as develop a third Echo the Dolphin game. So that
Speaker 1: seems to be the plan here is, let's remaster these
Speaker 1: old Genesis games and then also make a whole new
Speaker 1: two D game. I'm assuing because they're same, third, because
Speaker 1: there was some other Echo the Dolphin games later, I don't.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to see exactly what this all ends.
Speaker 3: Up looking like.
Speaker 1: But okay, cool, I mean, first of all, why not
Speaker 1: the way Sega's been operating where they're like, hey, we
Speaker 1: will We're gonna remake a bunch of our stuff. We're
Speaker 1: gonna make new entries in Crazy Taxi and all these
Speaker 1: other like Shanobi, all this other stuff, and then the
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't do well, they've worked with partners
Speaker 1: to get like Streets of Rage four made and that
Speaker 1: went really well. So Sega just seems to have those
Speaker 1: stuff kind of like in a position where they can
Speaker 1: easily just hand stuff off to someone who does want
Speaker 1: to do something with it. So why not do that
Speaker 1: with Echo the Dolphin. My question, do you jen is
Speaker 1: does Echo the Dolphin play in twenty twenty six and beyond.
Speaker 2: Uh, well grub everything old is new again, And I
Speaker 2: can't say that there's a lot of competition in terms
Speaker 2: of dolphin, let alone aquatic games. So for sheer novelty's
Speaker 2: sake and nostalgia, I feel like this could do well.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned it at the beginning of this story,
Speaker 2: but the Shanobi game really popped off. A lot of
Speaker 2: us really liked it. It wound up on our top
Speaker 2: ten of the year. So I definitely see a world
Speaker 2: where an Echo the Dolphin game, Whether it's a remaker,
Speaker 2: A brand new game could be absolutely banging. It's interesting
Speaker 2: that it's in half Moon Bay because that's like twenty
Speaker 2: minutes away from me. Let me in, Let me, let
Speaker 2: let me let me. I want to see the dolphins.
Speaker 2: I want to see the Yeah, the dolphins.
Speaker 3: Show us the dolphins.
Speaker 1: I was trying to like remember, like what other dolphin
Speaker 1: games have I played Dolphin Olympics too, the flash game
Speaker 1: is that? Is that still mine? Anybody? I want to know.
Speaker 1: I was able to get like that my dolphin to
Speaker 1: like Pluto or whatever, get it way onto outer space.
Speaker 3: That was good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, if this is like a bigger game, I
Speaker 1: guess you know it's a two D versus three D.
Speaker 1: If it's a big three D game, people in chat say,
Speaker 1: man Eater, but with Echo the Dolphin, Like clearly not
Speaker 1: exactly that, but they made that like a fun swimming
Speaker 1: around upgrading your your Shark game. You could probably do
Speaker 1: something similar with Echo here. I would like it to
Speaker 1: be a three D Metroidvania with the dolphin underwater.
Speaker 3: That's what I want.
Speaker 1: I think that would be really fun to get upgrades
Speaker 1: through your Dolphin and that unlocks ocean doors or something
Speaker 1: I don't know, temples under under the water. I think
Speaker 1: that'd be fun. You just do an.
Speaker 2: At a certain tone that it resonates that it moves rocks.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah you war foos row dolphin there, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you go. Yeah ah ah, there is. Of course, there
Speaker 1: was a time when I thought this was happening before
Speaker 1: yuh yeah, me and I heard some chittering noises from
Speaker 1: Sega that they were teasing something with and we put
Speaker 1: that under well, we put it. We pretended to put
Speaker 1: it underwater by slowing it down in premiere and playing
Speaker 1: it on our podcast. We're like, well that clearly those
Speaker 1: are dolphins sounds. And that turned out to be Hyenas,
Speaker 1: which is that game that never came out and Sega canceled.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I distinctly remember when you brought up that
Speaker 2: recording on an episode of Game As Mornings from a
Speaker 2: while back now. And this just proves how patient and
Speaker 2: polite Lucy James is, because she politely was like, uh
Speaker 2: huh okay, yeah, sure, okay, yeah, I go to the dolphin.
Speaker 1: Uh It's like, okay, well, thank you for humoring me, Lucy.
Speaker 1: I think that we made this happen, though. I think
Speaker 1: they saw that clip and the lad look clearly the
Speaker 1: children crave Echo, and well here we are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no word yet on win for any of this stuff.
Speaker 2: Grub My pitch for an Echo the Dolphin game in
Speaker 2: addition to a remake is just make a space game
Speaker 2: but underwater. I want to do barrel rolls, surf and
Speaker 2: shoot echo sonar beams.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a star Fox sixty four. But Echo the
Speaker 1: Dolphin is not a bad idea that could go. There,
Speaker 1: you go, cut the check sega, we're over here. Well
Speaker 1: we'll see at some point. I don't know. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they plan to show up anywhere like a GDC
Speaker 1: or Summer game fest with anything.
Speaker 3: We'll have to wait and see. But it's like, I
Speaker 3: don't I don't know. They could also.
Speaker 2: I know that this is tied to an r aelier,
Speaker 2: but just give some assets over to the RGG guys,
Speaker 2: make them. Let them make a Yakuza Echo the Dolphin game.
Speaker 3: At least have them put Echo in a Yaku's game.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, there should be a whole dolphin subplot in
Speaker 1: one of those games.
Speaker 2: Why was there not an Echo the Dolphin summon in
Speaker 2: Yakuza Like a dragon in Hawaii?
Speaker 1: There should be there should be a new one that
Speaker 1: what they should do is basically a one to one
Speaker 1: retelling of Acevantera Pet Detective. Make that a like a thing,
Speaker 1: and then they just fix all the problematic stuff. So
Speaker 1: we get our generation, our generations as if it's not
Speaker 1: my generation, our generation's acepinter a Pet Detective without the bullshit.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right.
Speaker 1: The Disney Afternoon Collection seems to be coming to Nintendo
Speaker 1: Switch to and Switch. This is from Nintendo Everything. The
Speaker 1: Disney Afternoon Collection appears to be coming to Nintendo Switch
Speaker 1: to and Switch one loose. New listings for the game
Speaker 1: have just appeared on the ESRB website. Interestingly, Atari appears
Speaker 1: to be publishing. Captom originally released the Disney Afternoon Collection
Speaker 1: in partnership with Digital Eclipse in twenty seventeen. Fans were
Speaker 1: disappointed with the package, or that that the package never
Speaker 1: came to Nintendo Switch, but it looks like that's finally
Speaker 1: being rectified yeah again with Atari handling the publishing on this.
Speaker 1: For the Switch version, the collection always included Chipindale Rescue Rangers.
Speaker 1: Chippindale Rescue Rangers Too, which is a really Latens game
Speaker 1: that's surprisingly very good Ducktails, Ducktails Too, Darkwing Duck and Tailspin.
Speaker 3: All those are.
Speaker 1: Actually pretty goods. They're all Capcom games. They're like really solid.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, they have like stuff like some of
Speaker 1: the new features got added, like a boss rush mode
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Cool that this is finally happening.
Speaker 1: Interesting that, like Atari are the ones making it happen
Speaker 1: kind of a wonder. It's like, oh, I wonder how
Speaker 1: that went down, Like they just noticed this and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want us to come handle that for you?
Speaker 1: Or Disney sought them out? It's or I guess Capcom
Speaker 1: was probably the one that published it originally Capcom and
Speaker 1: or Disney. Yeah, did they seek out help and Atari's
Speaker 1: handling that? I mean, Atari probably does have a lot
Speaker 1: of specific experience and stuff like this now after like
Speaker 1: making like releasing retro games their whole thing by like
Speaker 1: with like purchasing night Dive and all that stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is a new side of that
Speaker 1: business for them. And at the very least, it's nice
Speaker 1: to see this game that we were kind of always
Speaker 1: hoping would come to the Switch finally come to the Switch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't say that I ever checked out these
Speaker 2: games grub because I think playing Lion King on the
Speaker 2: Genesis really traumatized me because of how difficult it was
Speaker 2: for a child to play that. I wound up not
Speaker 2: checking any other additional Disney games out around that generation.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm always down for some Chip and Dale. Yes, Ducktails,
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear a midi or very garbled up
Speaker 2: version of that theme theme song. It should be a banger.
Speaker 2: And also I think the world needs more or dark
Speaker 2: Wing Duck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't gotten more dark Wing Duck.
Speaker 1: Did we? And I didn't notice? I suppose I know that.
Speaker 2: We had a new Duck Tails seat cartoon. I swear
Speaker 2: we did because like David Tennant was Scrooge right, and
Speaker 2: we had the Chippendale's movie right that came out recently.
Speaker 2: But yeah, nothing nothing with dark Wing Duck.
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, we should get more dark Wing Duck that
Speaker 1: and again I'm surprised that hasn't happened that and like
Speaker 1: Gargoyles should also return. People pointed out like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Digital Eclipse, which handled this is now also Atari.
Speaker 3: So that's how that went down. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: I was like getting my hopes of like man Atari
Speaker 1: is just out there, like making these deals happen.
Speaker 3: Maybe they can finally get.
Speaker 1: Me Castlevania Symphony of the Night on the Switch, which
Speaker 1: somehow still hasn't happened. It probably still won't happen, though,
Speaker 1: all right, this is its great to see. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, between this and there was that like really
Speaker 1: lightweight metrode Vania, Mickey Mouse Game, Mickey Illusion, Illusion Island.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, neat, that took.
Speaker 1: A while to get from Switch to the other consoles,
Speaker 1: but that happened, and it was like, I wonder if
Speaker 1: they're going to go the other way with this that
Speaker 1: finally did happen. I don't know, just these like Mickey
Speaker 1: Mouse games and like their cartoon adaptation games. I kind
Speaker 1: of was wondering if they would do even more after
Speaker 1: Illusion Island. Doesn't seem like that's necessarily going, like it's
Speaker 1: not a gold rush at the very least, but they
Speaker 1: should probably just keep plugging away at that stuff, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, one hundred percent. I think Illusion Island was
Speaker 2: it's high it had an exclusive deal to be on
Speaker 2: the Switch for a while, and I think that might
Speaker 2: have hampered its performance initially yes, you know, if that
Speaker 2: was able to come out on all platforms. I know
Speaker 2: that the switch is often targeted as like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is a family console, this is a kid console.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe it would have just been easier for some people
Speaker 2: to just play on a PlayStation or an Xbox in
Speaker 2: the living room. Yep, we we should have a Batman
Speaker 2: style dark Wing Duck game, crub, I can't get over it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there should be a There should be an Arkham
Speaker 1: dark Wing duck or just a dark Wing duck that
Speaker 1: place exactly like the Batman for nes. But like so,
Speaker 1: just like a modern retro game or something like that.
Speaker 1: I would love that as well.
Speaker 2: Give me bonkers. Does anyone remember Bonkers out there?
Speaker 3: I don't know if I remember bonkers? Is that with
Speaker 3: a Z?
Speaker 2: I don't bonkers? I don't remember if it was a Z.
Speaker 2: But I think that's where I first learned about the
Speaker 2: word marsupial.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, there was a video game called Marsupialami or
Speaker 1: something like that that I was like, and I took
Speaker 1: me forever to decode that it was trying to say
Speaker 1: marsupial and the character was a marsupial. But I was
Speaker 1: very stupid and couldn't understand it all right, let's see here.
Speaker 1: Going on to the next story, Nintendo's the share price
Speaker 1: drops are dropped to thirty three percent in the last
Speaker 1: five months in Japan. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC.
Speaker 1: As noted by game Spark, Nintendo's share price dropped to
Speaker 1: nine hundred and fifty en, which is about sixty two
Speaker 1: dollars and seventy cents on Tuesday, the first time the
Speaker 1: price has dropped below ten thousand end since April twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. Back in August twenty twenty five, the share
Speaker 1: price reached a high point of fourteen thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five yen, and that's about ninety three dollars,
Speaker 1: the highest share price ever recorded for the company, but
Speaker 1: has dropped notably since then. It's worth pointing out August
Speaker 1: kind of right there, that first batch of switch twos launching,
Speaker 1: and the kind of the first report from Nintendo about
Speaker 1: how well the system was doing in that moment. While
Speaker 1: the reasons for the company's rise and fall in share
Speaker 1: price can only ever be speculated, it appears likely that
Speaker 1: the record high in August twenty twenty five was due
Speaker 1: to the switch to. The subsequent dropped then can likely
Speaker 1: be attributed to such factors as a slowing of switch
Speaker 1: to sales over Christmas, albeit still comfortably outselling its predecessor
Speaker 1: at this stage, and a lack of Killer app six
Speaker 1: months into the consul's life. I know that Circin Toto,
Speaker 1: friend of the site, he had a blog post about this,
Speaker 1: or that he speculated those two points that there is
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a slow down during the
Speaker 1: holiday season, or at the very least, there was some
Speaker 1: sales on the switch to at retailers in the United
Speaker 1: States and Europe, and investors are like, what's going on
Speaker 1: there that shouldn't happen. And then also there is, you know,
Speaker 1: there's the lack of big marquee first party titles, specifically
Speaker 1: Mario and Zelda. I think I would throw in like
Speaker 1: Smash Brothers and Animal Crossing and a few others into that,
Speaker 1: but Mario and Zelda seemed to be the ones that
Speaker 1: the investors are asking about. And then finally, the third
Speaker 1: thing that Cercin Toto mentioned that was not mentioned in
Speaker 1: the story yet is component prices. The everyone's worried to
Speaker 1: price increases. So those three factors seem to be dragging
Speaker 1: Nintendo's share price back down. If you look at it,
Speaker 1: there's a chart out there. This is a sharp decline
Speaker 1: after a really sharp increase in price. So it kind
Speaker 1: of feels like a little bit of a correction and
Speaker 1: that Nintendo will have to like sort of chip away
Speaker 1: at if it wants to stock price to go back
Speaker 1: up by making big games and making big game announcements.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of.
Speaker 1: That feels like where we're at right where the next
Speaker 1: time we hear from Nintendo, like that next Nintendo Direct
Speaker 1: is probably going to have a big twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: game in it.
Speaker 3: That's how I feel. Do you share that?
Speaker 2: I feel like it has to grub. I don't think
Speaker 2: they can get away with not teasing something at least
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty six, whatever that winds up being. But
Speaker 2: then again, I feel like it's impossible to really predict
Speaker 2: Nintendo's moves when it comes to anything predictable or pattern wise,
Speaker 2: just because they just operate at their own frequency. It
Speaker 2: seems like a no brainer that we should expect a
Speaker 2: new three D Mario game, especially with the release of
Speaker 2: the Mario Galaxy movie this year, But who knows. They
Speaker 2: could perhaps be going back to the well and teasing
Speaker 2: kid Iicris.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the right.
Speaker 1: They could have any number of like lower profile games
Speaker 1: in an Nintendo Direct and they're just not ready for Mario.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about Donkey Kung Binanza just came
Speaker 1: and it'd be hard for them to have a new game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's still true. Regardless of their need to have
Speaker 1: a title release like that to address these issues, they
Speaker 1: just might not be ready for it. That's the biggest
Speaker 1: reason I think those things have not happened up to
Speaker 1: this point. Of course, a news Zelda, it's not ready.
Speaker 1: They just had Tears of the Kingdom a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. So yeah, we just might be stuck in
Speaker 1: linear time here. And in the meantime, the Switch two
Speaker 1: is gonna probably continue to sell just fun. The other
Speaker 1: side of this is that price issue components really are
Speaker 1: at in a rough spot. I know that Daniel Ahmad
Speaker 1: kind of had an analysis of this, pointing out that
Speaker 1: Nintendo was already riding the line of profitability on hardware,
Speaker 1: kind of maxing out their margins a little bit because
Speaker 1: of the tariffs, because of component prices, and now we're
Speaker 1: past that and component prices are going up even more
Speaker 1: specifically as always, as we said on every episode of
Speaker 1: this show for the last month, RAM prices memory store
Speaker 1: or memory and at this point storage as well are
Speaker 1: both seeing huge increases in prices, and Nintendo's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we have looked into this. We're always looking to procure
Speaker 1: stuff at you know, in the most affordable way. But
Speaker 1: people believe they might be running out of road, and
Speaker 1: Nintendo doesn't like to take a loss on hardware. I
Speaker 1: think that if they're like worried about all this stuff, though,
Speaker 1: they probably might have to because raising I think raising
Speaker 1: the price might be worse in public perception and in
Speaker 1: the perception of their investors then eating the costs and
Speaker 1: maybe losing a little money per console and not having
Speaker 1: as big of a number in your financial report. I
Speaker 1: just think that that raising the price is a more
Speaker 1: noticeable flag to everybody. But I don't know, Maybe that's
Speaker 1: me doing some copium and hoping that this price won't
Speaker 1: go up. What do you think now?
Speaker 2: I think I'm with you, Grub because I feel like, ultimately, overall,
Speaker 2: when PlayStation has had to announce a price increase as
Speaker 2: well as Xbox, public perception has like kind of plummeted.
Speaker 2: But then again, we did see the PlayStation have like
Speaker 2: a boost in sales when there was a sale on
Speaker 2: the PlayStation over right kind of back.
Speaker 1: Down to the original price even Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if Nintendo wants to do that
Speaker 2: level of calculus to kind of like, Okay, we'll raise
Speaker 2: the price now in expectations to low back to its
Speaker 2: launch price during the summer or during like a big sale.
Speaker 2: My question in terms of like big tent pole release
Speaker 2: grub is, I know that Splatoon has a gigantic audience,
Speaker 2: but is it big enough to be considered one of
Speaker 2: like Nintendo's pillars if they were to make a new
Speaker 2: Splatoon game.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I mean they're like, it's there's tiers of
Speaker 1: pillars for Nintendo, and it's it's you know, really Smash
Speaker 1: Brothers and Zelda and Pokemon at the top and a
Speaker 1: few others Mario and it's I would say that Splatoon
Speaker 1: is just one step down. Now. The thing that Splatoon
Speaker 1: would have going for it is it has always delivered
Speaker 1: in Japan. The other thing there is Nintendo's not having
Speaker 1: any problems in Japan. The switch to has not missed
Speaker 1: a beat there, everywhere else, it's like, oh maybe it
Speaker 1: had it's stumbled through the holidays a little bit, and
Speaker 1: you're a and the United States.
Speaker 3: It did not have that problem in Japan. It is
Speaker 3: like just chugging along.
Speaker 1: At an equivalent or faster rate than the Switch one. Now,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that they'll make a decision on
Speaker 1: Splatoon based on that. Splatoon Raiders is coming, I just don't.
Speaker 1: We just don't know what that is, at least does
Speaker 1: anyone know what that is? And they haven't talked about it.
Speaker 1: I think that'll be maybe be a big part of
Speaker 1: the next Nintendo Direct. And either way, having a new
Speaker 1: Splatoon thing will help them, especially in their home territory.
Speaker 1: But that game is done really well globally, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in that next tier. It's not the Mario or
Speaker 1: Zelda though that the investors would pop up for. That's
Speaker 1: the stuff like and at this point with that Mario
Speaker 1: movie coming, especially if a new three D Mario gets announced,
Speaker 1: which is you know, one of the many rumors about
Speaker 1: the next Nintendo Direct is a three D Mario. Whitt
Speaker 1: Nintendo Direct doesn't have that rumor at this point, but
Speaker 1: if that happened, I think that would directly address, like
Speaker 1: things would change instantly, like we would see this doc
Speaker 1: price probably rebound a good a fair amount, although that's
Speaker 1: always me going in a logical, asane, rational world, and
Speaker 1: investors are never those things. So what I know, right, surprise,
Speaker 1: And it's always frustrating to be like, oh, that thing happened,
Speaker 1: or though that company just announced their earnings and look
Speaker 1: at that they beat expectations. Let's go check. Oh it's
Speaker 1: it's down four percent. Well, oh, you guys were expecting
Speaker 1: some It's crazy. It's always so weird to try to
Speaker 1: understand how investors are thinking, because they're usually not.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, we're going to continue with Nintendo news.
Speaker 1: After a break, we're going to talk about oh, surprise
Speaker 1: or an update launched early. We'll get to that after
Speaker 1: these messages. If you want to skip out on this,
Speaker 1: you go to gimebomb dot com slash join become a
Speaker 1: premium member. There you can find ad free versions of
Speaker 1: the audio show and ad free versions of the video show.
Speaker 3: We will be right back.
Speaker 1: It's Game mess Mornings, Janichoa, Jeff gru We are continuing
Speaker 1: right along here with the Animal Crossing New Horizons three
Speaker 1: point zero update is out early. This is from Devin
Speaker 1: McClure at Polygon. The three point update for Animal Crossing
Speaker 1: New Horizons has released earlier than expected for most users
Speaker 1: and is available for download now. However, the Nintendo Switch
Speaker 1: to upgrade, which is separate costs money, and its associated
Speaker 1: update are still locked behind the release date of January fifteenth.
Speaker 1: So this is the free update that's happening before both
Speaker 1: the Switch one and the Switch to switch. Do I
Speaker 1: have extra content that is likely still going to launch
Speaker 1: probably tonight. I'm guessing this is only a little bit early.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I earlier this week I forgot that this
Speaker 1: was even happening, and then in the last couple of days,
Speaker 1: like yesterday, really it's like, oh yeah, later this week
Speaker 1: that new animal crossing stuff is going to pop off.
Speaker 1: That's why I've seen so many like Animal Crossing creators online,
Speaker 1: like getting their towns ready, cleaning them up, making sure
Speaker 1: that they're ready for this stuff. I don't know jan
Speaker 1: how I'm feeling about this. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to Animal Crossing. I do not want to start a
Speaker 1: new town, but I also do not want to face
Speaker 1: down all of those villagers telling me how sad they
Speaker 1: were that I wasn't there for one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part seems very intimidating. Grub this was I
Speaker 2: think I just learned about this this week from you,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious if, like the casual audience out there
Speaker 2: is aware that a big animal crossing update is coming.
Speaker 2: Like other friends in the industry, I see them prepping
Speaker 2: their islands as well. But for like the I guess
Speaker 2: regular person out there that may have picked up animal
Speaker 2: Crossing and a switch during the pandemic, is this news
Speaker 2: being surfaced to them outside of the Nintendo app, because this,
Speaker 2: you know, could be another significant wave for animal crossing
Speaker 2: if Nintendo alignes plays their cards right.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I don't know. I would guess that the
Speaker 1: people that consider themselves animal crossing people, which there are
Speaker 1: a lot of, they probably know people right, barely people,
Speaker 1: But You're right, there is a huge part of that
Speaker 1: of that player base that is just normal people who
Speaker 1: played Animal Crossing and have probably put it down and
Speaker 1: haven't thought about.
Speaker 3: It too much.
Speaker 1: Are they aware? I really don't know. I wonder how
Speaker 1: Nintendo would even think about communicating that to them. It
Speaker 1: is it on Instagram? Do they? They probably do that
Speaker 1: on Instagram or whatever. I have no idea, at the
Speaker 1: very least, like I do. I do think this could
Speaker 1: be a small, little inflection point for this game.
Speaker 3: Again, I hope really though.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, we get this, it's fun, it's great,
Speaker 1: let's go back place them at new horizons. And then
Speaker 1: in a few months we get like word from Nintendo
Speaker 1: and by the way, Animal the next Animal Crossing four
Speaker 1: switch to is in the works and it's coming out
Speaker 1: in like twenty twenty seven or something like that. I'm
Speaker 1: ready for the new one. It's great, this is getting
Speaker 1: an update, but it's it is one of the weirdest
Speaker 1: franchises for Nintendo to do the thing of hey, it's
Speaker 1: been six years, let's go back and again. It's specifically
Speaker 1: about that that going back to your town comes with
Speaker 1: a lot of emotional baggage. So I like, had they
Speaker 1: been updating this thing regularly this whole time, that's one thing, sure,
Speaker 1: But to do nothing for six years, which I never
Speaker 1: had a problem with. There's always people being like, hey,
Speaker 1: why'd you just let this game languish? And so well,
Speaker 1: they made a game, and they put a price on it,
Speaker 1: and they sold it to you and you played it,
Speaker 1: and okay, what's the problem.
Speaker 3: I don't see it.
Speaker 1: But for them to then shift from that back to
Speaker 1: and now here's some new content, It's such a weird
Speaker 1: game to.
Speaker 3: Do that with.
Speaker 2: It's so bizarre because I've seen people in chatter are
Speaker 2: echoing the sentiment. But a lot of folks have moved
Speaker 2: on from Animal Crossing new horizons. I actually see a
Speaker 2: lot of my friends that were super into Animal Crossing
Speaker 2: have now actually picked up Hello Kitty's Island. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: like now that it's off of iOS and now out
Speaker 2: on other platforms, right, And you know, san Rio is
Speaker 2: an ip that a lot of people are familiar with.
Speaker 2: People love Hello Kitty. She's only five apples tall, but
Speaker 2: you have all the other hooligans from that universe, and
Speaker 2: that has that familiarity. I've seen friends go flock to that,
Speaker 2: And I don't know, maybe it's just how my algorithm
Speaker 2: on social media is configured or whatever, but I've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of like casual cozy gamers talk about Hello Kitty.
Speaker 1: I Heiland Adventure. I know Alex on the recent podcast
Speaker 1: was saying that his girlfriend put it down and has
Speaker 1: now moved on too. Fantasy Life I and does not
Speaker 1: need this game anymore. So, oh yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of alternatives. I bet this was a gateway to
Speaker 1: like start You Valley for a lot of people. In
Speaker 1: that game has been getting constant updates for forever. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, what is that that just recently became the
Speaker 1: best reviewed game on Steam, finally beating Portal two or whatever,
Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, yeah, that thing is a beast
Speaker 1: into itself. And even Nintendo doesn't know how to do
Speaker 1: that sort of thing of keeping the game relevant like
Speaker 1: that for years and years with updates. So yeah, again,
Speaker 1: I just think this is a weird one to do
Speaker 1: this with. I kind of wish they just went I
Speaker 1: really wish they would have just made a new game.
Speaker 1: All that said, though, I like Animal Crossing. I could
Speaker 1: see myself spending some time the spring playing through this
Speaker 1: game and catching some fish and filling out the museum
Speaker 1: some more.
Speaker 3: But we'll see Bobby Kottick.
Speaker 1: Oh it's Bobby Cottic time. Unfortunately, we thought we were
Speaker 1: done with him because he was out of this industry.
Speaker 3: He has inserted himself.
Speaker 1: He's alleging the lawsuit against Microsoft's Activision acquisition was secretly
Speaker 1: aimed at helping Embracer Group. This is some Chris Scully
Speaker 1: and of Vicci. Former Activision CEO Bobby Kottick has alleged
Speaker 1: that an ongoing lawsuit objecting to objecting to Microsoft's acquisition
Speaker 1: of Activision Blizzard was secretly designed to help rival publisher
Speaker 1: Embracer Group.
Speaker 3: As reported by Game.
Speaker 1: File, Steven Tatilo's thing worth getting if you guys have
Speaker 1: never read that before, he does great work over there.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit was filed back in twenty twenty two by
Speaker 1: a Swedish pension fund called Sujunde ap Fonden Jude I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not gonna how to say that, also
Speaker 1: known as AP seven, though, and alleged that Kotik rushed
Speaker 1: the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft so he could
Speaker 1: avoid the consequences of the sexual misconduct claims at the time.
Speaker 1: In a recently filed answer to the lawsuit, Kotick and
Speaker 1: his lawyers not only denied that claim, but has made
Speaker 1: a counterclaim that AP seven had ulterior motives in filing
Speaker 1: the suit, including to exert collateral harm on Activision and
Speaker 1: to help Embracer. Basically, as his reasoning there is one
Speaker 1: of the people on the board of AP seven was
Speaker 1: also like an executive of sorts at Embracer. But that
Speaker 1: is the only thing that really he has, because I
Speaker 1: mean he's saying like, by doing this activision, Blizzard's reputation
Speaker 1: would be tarnished. And then people in like California, when
Speaker 1: faced with like, hey, where am I gonna go work?
Speaker 1: Instead of going to work on call of duty, they'll
Speaker 1: go work at Embracer group. Jan tell me that sounds insane, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's coming. Any thing coming out of
Speaker 2: that man's mouth is insane. But this one.
Speaker 1: Why are all the billionaires so dumb?
Speaker 3: Insane?
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.
Speaker 2: If I had an obscene amount of money, I think
Speaker 2: I would just shut up.
Speaker 1: I think if you don't shut up, it's this clear
Speaker 1: sign of something wrong with the big old brain up there.
Speaker 1: If you get that much money, you could just shut
Speaker 1: up and go away, and if you don't, there's something wrong.
Speaker 2: He got the bag and then some he had like
Speaker 2: four golden parachutes grub to just peace out, never hear
Speaker 2: from him again. And also like he can just skirt
Speaker 2: past all these allegations that he's had skirt, but this
Speaker 2: man can't shut.
Speaker 1: The fuck up. It's uh, I mean, he's responding to
Speaker 1: this this thing. I guess said. This is probably his
Speaker 1: lawyer's strategy or something. It sounds real dumb. He didn't
Speaker 1: stop there, though he did. At least at the very least,
Speaker 1: This one's not as bad because he's just kind of
Speaker 1: dunking on Microsoft. He's like, basically, yeah, outrate it. Bobby
Speaker 1: Kottick alleges a lawsuit against Microsoft. That's the last one.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Bobby Kottik claims Activision call of duty and consoles are
Speaker 1: doing so poorly it proves he was right to sell
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard to Microsoft for sixty nine billion dollars, basically
Speaker 1: saying I dumped that shit while it was high and
Speaker 1: now it ain't worth nothing and it's and Microsoft's caught
Speaker 1: holding the bag. It's a crazy thing to say, like,
Speaker 1: even if it's all true, which kind of looks like
Speaker 1: it is a little bit, it's a crazy thing to say,
Speaker 1: to be like, Yeah, I pulled one over on those
Speaker 1: fucking suckers over there, and I got my money. Former
Speaker 1: Activision boss Bobby Kottak has made a number of claims
Speaker 1: about the state of his former company, A Kottak, who
Speaker 1: left Activision Blizzard at the end of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: having sold the company to Xbox Maker for sixty nine
Speaker 1: billion dollars, is battling investors who claim you rigged the
Speaker 1: sale to keep his job in four hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: in change of control benefits and to insulate himself from
Speaker 1: claims he knew about widespread sexual harassment at Activision. Kodak
Speaker 1: has denied any wrongdoing. I don't believe you, Bobby. I
Speaker 1: don't believe you. I think you knew about all that shit.
Speaker 1: And that's why. One of the reasons you're so weird.
Speaker 1: It's because you're, like, I'm a normal guy, and you
Speaker 1: don't seem like it. You were covering this stuff up.
Speaker 1: That's my opinion though. But yes, he goes on to
Speaker 1: sort of ramble about this stuff and says, yeah, I
Speaker 1: dump this onto Microsoft, and Microsoft's got to be going
Speaker 1: around like, oh my god, we got to fix this
Speaker 1: call of duty thing. So this guy will shut up forever.
Speaker 2: Like he's he's not wrong, but also I feel like
Speaker 2: call of duty was heading this direction because of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, definitely, Like yeah, I think that's yeah,
Speaker 1: like he that's basically also what he's saying, Jane, You're right,
Speaker 1: like I did, I said I had I sold them
Speaker 1: a lemon, I sold them something that was careening off
Speaker 1: the road, and I got paid. So clearly I'm the
Speaker 1: winner here. So well, you you kind of set this
Speaker 1: whole thing up for failure or you could not fix it,
Speaker 1: and instead of taking into responsibility for the situation you
Speaker 1: created and then profited from, you just profited from it.
Speaker 1: And of course he thinks that's him just that winning,
Speaker 1: because that's the game, getting as much money as possible
Speaker 1: as the game to these people. And if he'd got
Speaker 1: the most money, clearly he was right. That's what defines right.
Speaker 1: So of course he's bragging about it. That's where we
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, that's where we are as a
Speaker 1: society right now, at least in the United States.
Speaker 2: It sucks. He's absolutely insane that.
Speaker 3: Just shut up, Just shut up, yeah.
Speaker 2: And grub like, you know, I'm not a legal person
Speaker 2: at all, but like I feel like maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be saying as much in case something backfires or other
Speaker 2: litigation gets brought up. So Bobby, I don't know, shut up.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, Microsoft could assume him for not providing like,
Speaker 1: for oh, you knew this thing wasn't worth as much
Speaker 1: as you said? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you misrepresent the value of the thing that
Speaker 1: we spent sixty nine billion dollars on? Yeah? Why is
Speaker 1: he out there talking? Yeah? Mostly shut up for your
Speaker 1: own sake, But shut up so we do not have
Speaker 1: to talk about you ever again. If it really wanted
Speaker 1: to believe in that world.
Speaker 2: If this leads to mutually assured destruct for Microsoft and
Speaker 2: Bobby Cottick, I'll warm up the blackcorn exactly.
Speaker 1: Let him fight, and yeah, we'll see who wins. It
Speaker 1: won't it won't be any of us, but hopefully it'll
Speaker 1: be neither of them as well. Yeah. Call of duty.
Speaker 1: One of the things that to come out of this
Speaker 1: is he claims call of duty for this year is
Speaker 1: down sixty percent compared to last year. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: big decline. Now, Battlefield six is the biggest reason for that.
Speaker 1: It does seem like Battlefield six made like a huge dent.
Speaker 1: That is another thing he said where it's like, look,
Speaker 1: this proves that competition in the first person space is real.
Speaker 1: So we were never in a monopoly position. And it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, please just take your stupid money and go home.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Mike, Mike, Call of Duty return next year
Speaker 1: to form Or is this actually the beginning of consistent
Speaker 1: declines going forward. I really don't know at this point.
Speaker 2: I don't know either, grub and I feel for the
Speaker 2: developers over there that are probably just being grinded into
Speaker 2: dust because of stupid, boneheaded decisions from people up top
Speaker 2: and or inclusions. We got an email to the BombCast,
Speaker 2: I think during the break where someone got disconnected from
Speaker 2: the Black Ops seven campaign for being idle even though
Speaker 2: it is a single player campaign, but you have to
Speaker 2: be online. There are also multiple, so many other multiple factors, Bobby,
Speaker 2: that factor into Black Ops seven performing poorly outside of
Speaker 2: your direct competition, You fucking jackass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I guess if I had to put
Speaker 1: money on it, I would guess that Call of Duty
Speaker 1: bounces back yet again. It's done it every time so far.
Speaker 1: Whether it bounces back to new heights ever, maybe not,
Speaker 1: but at the very least kind of equivalent heights, I
Speaker 1: would imagine that. And that's a good podcast with us
Speaker 1: Kelsey Brothers. All right, Prince of Persia, The Sands of
Speaker 1: Time remake rated by ESRB. This is from Alex Hopley
Speaker 1: at Game Reactor. While we've known for a while that
Speaker 1: Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time remake was aiming
Speaker 1: for a release relatively soon, as you be self apparently
Speaker 1: still wants it out this financial year, the hope seemed
Speaker 1: to dwindled day by day without any proper gameplay shown
Speaker 1: or anything akin to it.
Speaker 3: Fans were beginning to lose hope.
Speaker 1: Fans were a specifically losing hope jam because the word
Speaker 1: was excuse me, this game could launch anytime in January
Speaker 1: and at this point, unless it's a shadow drop, which
Speaker 1: I suppose it could be, but don't think it will be.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, well, maybe they'll announce it at some
Speaker 1: point in the next couple of weeks and then it
Speaker 1: launches before the end of the fiscal so before the
Speaker 1: end of March. But I got a tea for team
Speaker 1: from the SRB website. As always, we say, like, okay,
Speaker 1: something get being rated by the ESRB, which is still
Speaker 1: done by these companies putting together a reel of all
Speaker 1: the most you know, violent and sexualized moments and drug
Speaker 1: use all this stuff into a video file and send
Speaker 1: it over to the SRB, but that has to be
Speaker 1: done when the game is content complete. Usually these things
Speaker 1: get rated about six weeks out on average from their
Speaker 1: release date. That shifts, that's not always consistent, but about
Speaker 1: six weeks and on the other side of it, like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: the end of March is justin a you know, a
Speaker 1: few weeks after that, maybe another six yeah, another four
Speaker 1: or five weeks after that, so I think we could
Speaker 1: probably expect to see this thing sometime between six to
Speaker 1: ten weeks from now, and I'm ready for I love
Speaker 1: the sense of time, and it sounds like they are
Speaker 1: going to make some really smart updates to this game,
Speaker 1: including making the princess that you're working with more capable
Speaker 1: on our own so you could just focus doing the
Speaker 1: fun prints stuff. It's like, oh, yeah, that sounds great,
Speaker 1: So I'm looking forward to this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah me too. Grub I can't help but have not
Speaker 2: the strongest belief in ub Soft, just because it's ub Soft,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, Prince of Persia just seems like
Speaker 2: one of those slam dunk ips, especially after Lost Crown
Speaker 2: from two years ago was our game of the year.
Speaker 2: I would love more Prince of Persia. There you know,
Speaker 2: Blinks of Time Sweeper never did it for me, Greb
Speaker 2: this was my favorite time rewind game.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, this was a great time rewind game. Yeah
Speaker 1: there's this. There's also yeah, that Assassin Screed four remake
Speaker 1: that you'd be so well, remake or remaster or something
Speaker 1: that Ubi Selft apparently is going to have very soon
Speaker 1: as well. Does that also come before the end of
Speaker 1: the fiscal And why haven't they talked about these games?
Speaker 1: Really are? Did Assassin Screed four pop up at the
Speaker 1: Game Awards? There was a lot of stuff there. I
Speaker 1: kind of can't remember now, I don't remember. I feel
Speaker 1: like it would have been a big deal if it did. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would exactly I don't remember it. Chet's saying no, okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah they got to talk about either of these things. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're right, Ubisoft a weird company, kind of a complete mess. Uh.
Speaker 1: When we are talking about them on this show, it
Speaker 1: is usually what's going on with the one of these games,
Speaker 1: or there are more cost cutting, job cutting, studio closures
Speaker 1: happening at any of those studios. They have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Far Cry, Ghosts Recon or Assassin's Creed.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the folks are mentioning that this ESRB rating
Speaker 2: is front maybe from a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 2: is not may not be for this current Okay, the remaster.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, so updated information. Yeah so this Startain
Speaker 1: game reactor doesn't say that. But okay, if people are
Speaker 1: just finding this old one and then assuming, then that
Speaker 1: would completely reset everything. Now, Ubisoft does still seem like
Speaker 1: they want to get out before the end of the
Speaker 1: fiscal and the rumors I was hearing late last year
Speaker 1: was something would happen in January. Uh, but we're in January.
Speaker 1: It's getting kind of late already, or halfway through the month.
Speaker 1: We haven't heard anything.
Speaker 2: Or grub This could be some viral marketing with time
Speaker 2: travel involved.
Speaker 1: Okay, I like it. Yeah, I don't like if it's
Speaker 1: Yeves Gimo have it holding a knife and submitting things
Speaker 1: in the past. That's upsetting. Actually, oh god.
Speaker 3: Alright, let's see here.
Speaker 1: Season two of Battlefield six has been delayed so it
Speaker 1: can be further polished and refined. This is from Chris
Speaker 1: Scullion at VGC. Battlefield Studios is confirmed that the upcoming
Speaker 1: second season of Battlefield six has been delayed by around
Speaker 1: a month. Season one was set to end on January twentieth,
Speaker 1: but has now been confirmed that it will be extended
Speaker 1: by four weeks until February seventeenth, at which point season
Speaker 1: two will finally begin, and an update posted on the
Speaker 1: game's official website, the team explained that season two wasn't
Speaker 1: quite ready to launch at an acceptable standard, so it
Speaker 1: was being held back until it was ready. During our
Speaker 1: ongoing development, We've continued to review community community feed and
Speaker 1: in order to keep our promise, determined that our best
Speaker 1: path forward is to extend season one and give our
Speaker 1: extra time to further polish and refine Season two. The
Speaker 1: team also added that because the game's launch included a
Speaker 1: commitment to providing monthly content wrench updates for our players,
Speaker 1: it would be adding an extension update to season one
Speaker 1: to ensure that it has new content during its extended periods,
Speaker 1: So they're not going to miss out on that promise,
Speaker 1: at least not yet. Yeah, Battlefield six already feels like
Speaker 1: it's lost its way a little bit. The sort of
Speaker 1: word from the community is they want more stuff, and
Speaker 1: they want especially new maps, and they're not It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like they're ready to deliver that and even if
Speaker 1: they do, is that even going to be enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It feels like the sentiment on Battlefield six has cooled
Speaker 1: dramatically since it released, where it was at a very
Speaker 1: high point. I don't know these games that are live
Speaker 1: service games at this point, jan they can run hot
Speaker 1: and cold. I think we've seen it happen over and
Speaker 1: over again where it's like, oh, the community loves that game,
Speaker 1: now they hate it, now they love it, now they're
Speaker 1: kind of bored with it, and now they've come back.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Destiny too, but it's happened to a
Speaker 1: lot of games. Is that going to be the relationship
Speaker 1: between game and players for Battlefield six? Do you think? I? Yes, Greb.
Speaker 2: But I also feel like a part of that is
Speaker 2: on EA for kind of like fumbling the bag and
Speaker 2: kind of not having like a clear roadmap ahead of them, especially,
Speaker 2: and I feel like the defined path for updates and
Speaker 2: keeping players invested is so crucial when all these other
Speaker 2: games that you were competing with, and I'm talking about
Speaker 2: like your Warzone, your Fortnite, your PUBG specifically the Fortnite
Speaker 2: of it all, but also you will have something be
Speaker 2: a runaway success like in Arc Raiders, and that will
Speaker 2: definitely fluts around with your player base and pull them
Speaker 2: away from you. Or you could have something random pop
Speaker 2: up like Held two being a gigantic phenomenon for like
Speaker 2: a definite what was it maybe like two three months
Speaker 2: and that flets is around with your player base. But
Speaker 2: you also have other games like Overwatch two is picking
Speaker 2: Steam picking up Steam again. Marvel Rivals has had a
Speaker 2: constant player base just going on in the background, along
Speaker 2: with Valorant counter Strike. So if you have the success
Speaker 2: of Battlefield six and you managed to eat Call of
Speaker 2: Duty's lunch, you need to be prepared to keep keep
Speaker 2: the slap, keep the food coming to those people eat
Speaker 2: eaten at the table.
Speaker 1: M hmm, absolutely. Uh let me ask you a question, well,
Speaker 1: pop quiz chat hold off on helping him, uh, because
Speaker 1: I would. I had to look it up. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the name of the free to play battlefield battle
Speaker 1: Royal that launched on October twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: What that's not real?
Speaker 3: Uh huh?
Speaker 2: A battle Field Ageddon.
Speaker 1: Pretty close? Battlefield red sec red sex fuck. This launched
Speaker 1: on October twenty eight five. It has fewer than ten
Speaker 1: thousand reviews on Steam. Red sec red Sec and it
Speaker 1: has mixed reviews. Except for the four hundred recent reviews,
Speaker 1: it's mostly negative. This thing, yes dead on arrival, and
Speaker 1: it just seems like this has nothing going on. Honestly,
Speaker 1: let me look it up real quick. I just want
Speaker 1: to see concurrent players for red Seck Battlefield Red Sec
Speaker 1: steam dB. Let's see if it has it there, Let's
Speaker 1: go there. Okay, I don't have the exact number, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it does not seem like a lot of people are
Speaker 1: playing this game. It's yeah, that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: the thing that would take them to one hundred million
Speaker 1: players if you remember that jan Yeah, that was the
Speaker 1: talking point and Battlefield six, the premium price game, launched
Speaker 1: and gave it this huge head start.
Speaker 3: It did outsell Call of Duty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like it's well on its way now
Speaker 1: it's capitalized on it with the free to play thing
Speaker 1: and that went nowhere, and now Battlefield six proper is
Speaker 1: having problems. Yeah, this is gonna be something they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to put a lot of effort into fixing.
Speaker 2: I question for the audience, and you, Greb, is arc
Speaker 2: graders still popping off? Is that still have a gigantic audience?
Speaker 2: I know it's probably waned since the initial release, but
Speaker 2: I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Uh yees, yes, it is that they just did their
Speaker 1: first season reset where the first season ended, so then
Speaker 1: everyone could like, do you want to reset your characters
Speaker 1: so you can go through and do all these missions
Speaker 1: again and do some new missions. And apparently a million
Speaker 1: people reset and and are now going back into the game.
Speaker 3: So that's that's doing. That seems to be.
Speaker 1: Pretty That indicates a pretty healthy player base there.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think it's doing just fine.
Speaker 2: Two hundred and over two hundred thousand players on Steam
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 3: Okay, that ain't bad. That's nothing.
Speaker 1: Sees that that's incredibly huge. Anything over like twenty thousand
Speaker 1: is huge. That's ten times. Then we should circle back
Speaker 1: to arc Graders, specifically with Kayla. Yes, oh for sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's make that happen. Okay, last story here. Forts the
Speaker 1: Horizon six's release date may have been revealed early by
Speaker 1: an in game ad. I'm sorry this is the second
Speaker 1: last story, but this is from Chris Scullion at VEGC.
Speaker 1: The release date for Forts the Horizon six may have been
Speaker 1: revealed early by an alleged in game ad. The ad
Speaker 1: is saying May nineteenth with early access where you can
Speaker 1: play four days early on May fifteenth, and then they're
Speaker 1: gonna have a bunch of other other stuff. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: date's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's correct.
Speaker 1: This is this is right. So yeah, I guess that
Speaker 1: begs the question of, like, Okay, if this is coming
Speaker 1: May nineteenth, May fifteenth, if you have early early access,
Speaker 1: and then who knows when that game free game is coming.
Speaker 1: But the other big announced game that's gonna be part
Speaker 1: of that Xbox delivered direct is Playground Games, same studio,
Speaker 1: their Fable game. When does that come out? I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say sometime in like late summer, uh maybe maybe even
Speaker 1: like yeah, no, late summer because I think Halo is
Speaker 1: gonna Halo and Gears are going to be their holiday games,
Speaker 1: so I think they'll probably want to get that out
Speaker 1: before that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll see forts Rise at six taking place in Japan.
Speaker 1: Any excitement from you a jan about that game, I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing is I just am not I
Speaker 2: have not been interested in anything coming out of Microsoft
Speaker 2: quite a while. And on top of you know, their
Speaker 2: current practices and Satinadella not being able to wipe his
Speaker 2: own ass without.
Speaker 1: AI YEP agents for ass wiping.
Speaker 2: Yeah cool. I hope that people that are excited for
Speaker 2: more for it to are excited for this. A driving
Speaker 2: game set in Japan could be very sick, could be
Speaker 2: very cool. The only thing this makes me want to
Speaker 2: do personally is just watch Tokyo Drift again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I uh man.
Speaker 1: The drifting is the thing where it's like, I want
Speaker 1: to see how they handle that. But you're right, I'll
Speaker 1: just watch Tokyo Drift, which is my religion. All right.
Speaker 1: Last story, games Workshop bans Ai from Creative Process.
Speaker 3: Let's see here. I have a story over.
Speaker 1: Here from the Times dot Com. The maker of waramb
Speaker 1: Or tabletop miniatures, which said profit beat expectations in a
Speaker 1: record first half, has a very cautious internal policy on
Speaker 1: the technology. Basically, they're saying that they're very cautious. They
Speaker 1: want to protect human creativity. I bet they also got
Speaker 1: a talking too from their lawyers, which seems to be
Speaker 1: a thing that is growing, who are saying that the
Speaker 1: company is concerned about data compliance, security and governance as
Speaker 1: AI tools become embedded in everyday devices. Basically, they're just
Speaker 1: they want to own the stuff that they're making, and
Speaker 1: they're not sure that they use a if they own
Speaker 1: the stuff they're making. I've said before there are conservative
Speaker 1: companies in Japan who have felt this way for a
Speaker 1: long time, and multiple ones. Many of these companies have
Speaker 1: blanket bans on using AI for making games. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm a little surprised till that this is spreading
Speaker 1: to someone like the Game's Workshop. But this is also
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that that community wants to hear.
Speaker 1: They want to hear that, yes, make the stuff the
Speaker 1: way you've been making it. There's a reason we've been
Speaker 1: showing up. Despite hating you Games Workshop, despite like having
Speaker 1: a terrible relationship with you, we're still happy to buy
Speaker 1: your stuff because we like the stuff that you make,
Speaker 1: So don't mess that up. Does this spread it even further? Jan?
Speaker 1: I hope so right.
Speaker 2: I hope that this is the slow beginning of the
Speaker 2: sentiment of banning AI content, because Jesus Christ grib going
Speaker 2: onto any form of social media are just casually trying
Speaker 2: to just do whatever. There is just so much AI garbage,
Speaker 2: and it is unfortunate the folks that eat it up,
Speaker 2: and especially within our space here. Greb in games media
Speaker 2: and also video game development. It's just you know, get
Speaker 2: it out, please kick it to the curb with Bobby Kottick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the kind of thing where it's like
Speaker 1: you just say this and you're gonna get a little
Speaker 1: bit of bonus points if it's If it's actually true,
Speaker 1: So good.
Speaker 3: For games Workshop. I don't know, I'm one of there.
Speaker 1: I always wonder like is there more to the story
Speaker 1: where we find out what's really going on? But hopefully
Speaker 1: this is just the whole thing. All right, let's see
Speaker 1: here that does it for the headlines. We have the
Speaker 1: poll question from Monday. We'll get that up here and
Speaker 1: respond to that. Let me get it, let me go,
Speaker 1: We'll take a look at it right here, YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash at giant bomb. If you go to posts,
Speaker 1: you can see the pole question each and every time
Speaker 1: we post. One. Most one was what is your childhood
Speaker 1: final Fantasy game? I gave you the options of Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy six, Final Fantasy seven, and Final Fantasy thirteen, as.
Speaker 3: Well as other.
Speaker 1: The most popular one was Final Fantasy seven with forty
Speaker 1: three percent, then other and Jane, I'm sure we got
Speaker 1: a bunch of like I'm guessing a lot of Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy tens. I wouldn't be surprised. We got a lot
Speaker 1: of tens, got some tens, got some eight. Yes, eight
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, I'm surprised the people that said Final
Speaker 1: Fantasy eight had enough time when they're so busy posting
Speaker 1: on Tumblr that they're final. Final Fantasy six was sixteen percent,
Speaker 1: and then Final Fantasy thirteen was five percent. Worth pointing
Speaker 1: out we did this because one of the producers over
Speaker 1: at Square Enix is saying, when we hire young people
Speaker 1: now and ask them about their favorite Final Fantasy, they
Speaker 1: stopped saying six, and now they say Final Fantasy thirteen. Well,
Speaker 1: those developers are not in our audience. Apparently, apparently we
Speaker 1: don't have enough young people.
Speaker 2: Thankfully, there's at least one more comment that commented the
Speaker 2: same joke I made. Does Kingdom Hearts count?
Speaker 1: Oh boy? Yes?
Speaker 3: Why not? Who cares?
Speaker 1: Early on, that was the thing. It's like, it's it's
Speaker 1: Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. That was the idea.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a new poll question. We'll get
Speaker 1: to it in a second. In fact, we're gonna.
Speaker 3: Get to it right now. Have you ever played an
Speaker 3: Echo the Dolphin game?
Speaker 1: Yes? Or no, I lead with that echo the dolphin story.
Speaker 1: Have you even played these games before? Chat as anyone
Speaker 1: actually touched this? We'll find out.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about on tomorrow's show.
Speaker 1: Here on Giant Bomb speaking a Giant Bomb, Jan, what
Speaker 1: do we have going on?
Speaker 2: Well, Grub, hopefully today Mike Minatti can end our national
Speaker 2: nightmare by finishing leisure Suit Larry, please.
Speaker 3: Please please.
Speaker 1: I barely slept last night, like I was not. Steph
Speaker 1: was sick and I wasn't feeling great, and then I
Speaker 1: was up late, and then Emmy wasn't feeling good and
Speaker 1: she got in bed with us and I got like
Speaker 1: two hours of sleep. And so I need this game
Speaker 1: to end because I'm gonna be so miserable today and
Speaker 1: I don't even have to play it. But really it'd
Speaker 1: be better if I was playing, because I would finish
Speaker 1: it faster. I don't know. The Mike just likes to
Speaker 1: luxuriate in this game for some reason.
Speaker 3: It's the right.
Speaker 2: I know that that man just loves to dilly dally
Speaker 2: tilly dally favorite things being a fuddy duddy. Uh yeah, Grub,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest. I fell asleep last week.
Speaker 1: Dude, I don't blame you. I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: is the worst game we've done. It's the worst game
Speaker 1: we've played.
Speaker 2: It's just like so cosmically bad. I feel like we're
Speaker 2: opening like a portal to negativity because of this game.
Speaker 2: With how bad the jokes are.
Speaker 1: We are, Uh, we're doing black Club today, everybody, so
Speaker 1: tune in for that. You get to enjoy our misery
Speaker 1: and I do. But I do believe the community, as
Speaker 1: they've said, this is the one where they've been the
Speaker 1: most miserable because the jokes are just not jokes. They're
Speaker 1: so painful. But hey, this could be the last episode too,
Speaker 1: might as we'll get a taste of it. Come watch
Speaker 1: the grand finale with us today.
Speaker 2: Like I feel like to spite everyone, Minati is gonna
Speaker 2: just be like no, we're gonna I'm going one hundred
Speaker 2: percent of this and get all the trophies.
Speaker 1: Yeah I want to. I want to go do some
Speaker 1: more of these dating mini games.
Speaker 3: I want to be weird to women until they have
Speaker 3: sex with me.
Speaker 2: I'm just also every time we fire up this game,
Speaker 2: I think this is going to be the time we
Speaker 2: get banned on Twitch or YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's not on the band list, but I. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have the same concern I did. I did want
Speaker 1: to like talk to Minati about these stories this end,
Speaker 1: because he cares about Echo in the Disney Afternoon Collection,
Speaker 1: and now we have a lot of questions about his
Speaker 1: play style. I was gonna call man, but I'm looking
Speaker 1: to the clock. We should wrap things up, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, we did the new poll question, We
Speaker 1: talked about the upcoming schedule. People should go to giant
Speaker 1: bomb dot com slash join become a part of our
Speaker 1: whole thing over there. Other than that, Jan, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for hanging out with me today and talking
Speaker 1: about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's the only way to start a Wednesday, Grub.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: We'll be back tomorrow, or at least I will.
Speaker 1: Jan.
Speaker 3: You're out on assignment, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm out on assignment, Grub. I'm going to see
Speaker 2: some things, all.
Speaker 1: Right, He's gonna go see some things in the meantime.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching today's episode. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
Speaker 1: have a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye.