Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Greb,
your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be talking
about Xbox backward compatibility on PC that just happened. It's
gonna be a good one because we have John Martin
on the show. John, how are you doing, grub?
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay. I you know, Uh, there's a lot
of things happening in this world. Yeah, I really just
want to start out the show with a big fuck Ice.
It's still happening, people. I feel like it's there's so
many things on fire right now that is very easy
to think about multiple different things. But yeah, still happening.
Happened to a friend of a friend, so this is
the closest to whom that's happened to me, really, So
I'm feeling fever pitch. Yeah, It'sice.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, it's just it's so popular what
they're doing, so of course they got to do it
for the elections.
Speaker 3: I don't get it.
Speaker 1: What, like, what is the political point of like doing
any of this other than just hatred? Yeah? Fuck Ice, absolutely, John.
There's a whole list of things to say fuck too
at the beginning of this show. But yeah, well we'll
save it for now. Yeah, how are you doing otherwise?
You've been playing any games? You've been hanging in there
and you enjoying the summer weather.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, playing games when I kind of had the time,
have been focusing on really kind of just cleaning shop,
working on a couple different projects. I went to Vermont
over the weekend, so that was really fun. I love hiking,
so Vermont was got some one of the perfect place
for that. And then yeah, I kind of just playing
some classic retro games and a lot of reading. Caught
up on a lot of comics, a lot of books. So, yeah,
hanging in there, how about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, busy, still doing a lot of projects. Got the
van fixed, that was nice. That was totally fee It
was like a huge saving.
Speaker 3: They just they wolded apart back together, that's all they
had to do. It was great. So that was a relief.
You know.
Speaker 1: I did leave immediately leave the sunroof open on the
van for a second while it rained, so then I
had to deal with that. That was a good time.
That was just a good old Jeff Greb classic right there.
But got that all cleaned up. So now now I'm
doing pretty good and thinking about this trip. This time
tomorrow I will be on a plane to San Francisco
so that I can then get into a van immediately
and then start driving. So it's gonna be a big
travel day tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to it. It's
gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna have our
road trip. We're gonna do a meetup in Portland. Everybody.
We'll tell you exactly where, but it will be not
far from the Mysterium Misted Convention, so look out for that.
But we'll also do some streaming from the road and
some fun stuff. It'll be a good time, all right,
Let's get into things and explain ourselves.
Speaker 3: We're Giant Bomb.
Speaker 1: Go to giant bomb dot com slash joined to become
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gianbob dot com, slash join, and thank you to everybody
who has and who is supporting us. It really makes
the world go round for us. As far as this
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You can also catch the show later with chapters and
timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
let's start the morning mess with play more of the
games you love wherever you play with Xbox Backward Compatibility
on PC. That is the blog post headline from Jason Ronald,
who works on Xbox. If you know that name, you
probably remember it, maybe most vividly for being part of
the Xbox Backward Compatibility program. He's done other stuff over
there been quiet for a little bit, probably because he's
been working on this. Today we're introducing an Xbox backward
compatibility on PC, making it easier to play classic Xbox
games from the past across PC and handhelds, including the rog,
Xbox Ally, and Xbox Alli X Your library is more
than just a collection of games. It is your personal
history of epic stories and treasured memories from the past,
and as players, we don't want to leave our.
Speaker 3: Gaming legacy behind.
Speaker 1: Even as technology continues to evolve and advance, we expect
our library of games to move forward with us and
to be able to play them in entirely new ways.
Rolling out today, Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC launches in
early release, starting with four classic original Xbox games now
playing on PC and handhelds for the first time ever.
This marks the beginning of a broader effort to preserve
Xbox games from the past and bring them to PC.
Over time, and we are not just enabling you to
play them on PC. We are also adding new features
to make your gaming experience better than ever. Players can
jump into the following games on PC and supported handheld
devices beginning today in supported regions. That list includes these
four games Blinks, The Time Sweeper, Hell Yeah, Conquer Live
and reloaded, Crimson Skies, High Road to Revenge. That's a
hell of a one to actually to preserve. That's really cool,
and Fusion Frenzy Let's Go. Each of these games is
now available for purchase on PC and also included with
all Xbox Game Pass plans. If you already own a
digital license for these games on console, that license now
carries over to your PC or handheld through the power
of Xbox Play Anywhere in Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can
now play these classic games from the past on your
Xbox Console, Cloud, PC, and handheld. Then they talk a
little bit about it being available on the rock and
stuff like that, other's minimum requirements, But any relatively recent
PC is going to be able to handle this stuff.
This is this is interesting. I feel like John, we
knew something like this was going to have to come,
right because they're the whole idea of the next Xbox project.
Speaker 3: He looks being kind of just a PC.
Speaker 1: You know, we still don't know exactly what that looks
like or if those plans have changed, how they've solidified,
but whatever, that was the rumor, and if that's something
that they were considering, they were going to need a way,
especially if it's a Windows Base machine. They're just going
to need to weigh for their games, the past games
to work on this new device, because backward compatibility has
been a big thing that they have sold Xbox on. So, yeah,
they're getting started with these four games. Do you expect
this to expand rapidly or is this going to be
kind of a slow going process.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, right because they're starting obviously with the original
Xbox console with some kind of near launch titles, some
just actually straight up launch titles yet. But yeah, I
mean I think this is kind of the bare minimum
of what you want what you want classic Xbox representation
to be. This makes a lot of sense here, and
I think it is going to start steamrolling. I think
we there is like also like a job listing or
something with the backwards compatibility department somewhat recently, but yeah,
as soon as we found out the Project Helix was
a PC console hybrid. This has always been the kind
of thing of like the biggest question are we going
to be able to bring our games forward? And I
think starting with these games is a big representation and
will be a nice test bed of finding out. Yeah,
I think this will happen. Kind of key points for
me is whether they'll implement I don't know if they
implemented any online for Crimson Skies or Fusion Frenzy in
the current backwards compatibility version. That's interesting. One thing that
we didn't mention that is important because it means that
they're actually working on these games. Some of these games
that they're going to be bringing from the original Xbox
will have achievements, So they are doing something. They're creating
some sort of like compatibility layer on there. I'm hoping
over time. Yeah, this greatly expands obviously three sixty big system.
I want a lot of games coming from there. I
honestly like maybe not the I forget that because the
Halos aren't available. The Gears games I don't think are available,
but like like a like a Blue Dragon, or like
some of the weird RPGs or so there's so many
different games you can play from the three sixty on
your Xbox, and bringing that forward is pretty pretty cool.
Definitely another instance of Xbox dangling keys kind of distract
from everything else. But I mean, yeah, I mean this
is really cool. It's just making games more available for
more people. I'm hoping if you already own it, you
already got it. But it's a play anywhere thing, right,
so you kind of to assume that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the thing is like, yeah, clearly,
obviously this is they're they're scoring easy wins.
Speaker 3: I think we can probably figure that out because.
Speaker 1: They are launching this in sort of a limited capacity
with just these four games, and it's like, oh, let's
just get this out the door and have something nice
to say. But it does answer a question that was
going to have to be answered, like what does the
future look like for these games that people own as
we shift away from the way that they were playing
them to a new system that might not work the
exact same way. You know, I do have questions like, Okay,
I know what all the four of these games have
in common, and it is Microsoft Xbox owns and controls them,
and what happens to the long list of backward compatibility
supporting Xbox and Xbox three sixty games that they did
like the groundwork on the legal side to get approvals
to like, all right, now this game that was only
ever licensed for one system, now it's going to run
on another system. Do we have legal approvals to do that?
Are they got to do that process all over again
for the PC? And yes, I was kind of expecting
them to roll out an answer to the backward compatibility
on PC question in like one fell swoop of like,
all right, here is like the rapper that just makes
everything that was working on Xbox now work on PC.
Speaker 3: But it's sent to me.
Speaker 1: This indicates it's going to be a much more slow
going and arduous process to actually make that happen. And
it makes me a little bit less excited. But I
guess it's early. Maybe things could change pretty fast here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Modern console gaming loves drip feeding classic games to
you that you can already play on other systems and
just over time, especially ones that are tied to subscription services.
So you know, PlayStation's doing it, Xbox is doing it,
Nintendo's doing it. It's you know, kind of the bell
of the ball right now.
Speaker 1: Did they Did they announce the disc the digital thing
while I was on vacation.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I think that's still a rumor, but you know, could
lead into it, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, It's it's almost weird that they did not
have this to pair that with, like you know, because
this is the kind of thing where it's like, Okay, yeah,
if you own Blinks the Time Sweeper on disc, which
I don't think that that actually would support it because
that's an Xbox original Xbox game that's not going to
be supported by dist the digital anda and that's the
reporting makes sense, But like you would be like, okay,
and adventure. I guess maybe that's what they're going to
do here, is they'll wait till they start talking about
some of the later games that would support disk the
digital and then they can wrap those together. But none
of these games would support that. Again, the reason for
that seems to be that there's like hard coded unique
identifiers on a discs starting with Xbox One and continuing
to Xbox Series x NS, so they can do that.
Speaker 3: Dis disc digit to digital.
Speaker 1: It's a hard thing to say, but they won't be
able to do it with these older games, So yeah,
they'll probably just wait till they get to the Xbox.
Speaker 3: One and go from there.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, this is definitely like Xbox going for
the ezpr Wins. I don't think this most a needle
all that much for like the average person though. This
this is just like, Hey, we did have some unanswered
questions about what the future is gonna look like, and
now we have a new sort of answer to that,
and we can put that alongside the helix when the
time comes in the meantime, are you gonna play any
of these?
Speaker 2: I'm definitely gonna at least pop into Crimson Skies. That's
one of my favorite dog fighting games ever.
Speaker 3: It's a good one.
Speaker 2: And Fusion Frenzy. My friend and I play that all
the time growing up and into high school, even college,
So there's gonna be at least one night at Fusion Frenzy. Yeah,
and I haven't actually really given Blinks a shot, so
maybe this will be the opportunity and I need to
jump in. But yeah, I mean, I already have the
the uncensored original version of Conquer, so I don't really
have a reason to revisit it other than to look
at how blushy his tail is I guess.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly if I'm if I'm gonna play Conquer in
the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty six, I'm going
to be playing it on an on an N sixty
four and analog three D or something like that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go back to the original. All right,
Let's let's keep going here.
Speaker 1: June twenty twenty six US video game market highlights. This
is a thread from Matt Piscatella over at sircana has
the result from June. US video game spending felt twenty
one percent in June year over year, driven by Nintendo
Switch tows record June twenty twenty five launch comparable. Basically,
Switch To came out last June. This month was never
going to be able to compare it to that because
that was a massive, massive month for the Switch.
Speaker 3: But some numbers here.
Speaker 1: US video game spending total spending, Yeah, the market projected
something along the lines of, yeah, four point five billion dollars.
There we go during June twenty twenty six, a decrease
of twenty one percent when compared to a year ago.
First half spending finished one percent behind twenty twenty five space,
So through the first six months of the year, the
industry has projected to make around twenty seven point five
billion dollars in the United States. June twenty twenty five
featured the launch of switch To, which set an all
time US video game hardware lunch launch month sales record
of one point six million units Intito switch Tos June
twenty twenty five debut also drove the highest hardware and
accessory spending totals for a June month in US tracked history.
So with all that in mind, here's the top ten
games from the month. UFC six was number one. It
was a new debut and immediately went to the top
of the chart, and I haven't heard anyone talk about it.
So that's one that's like, we're like, I'm super detached
from that space. I guess now the kind of people
that would be interested in UFC six. Number two though,
MITCHI Chameleon. That's a good game. Number three is Double
seven First Light after being number one the previous month.
And then number four another new game, Star Fox, which
number one on on Switch systems things like.
Speaker 3: That, but yeah, pretty good for that one.
Speaker 1: And then routing out the top ten, Lego Batman Legacy
Legacy of the Dark Knight at number five. Number six
is Tomadaci Life Living the Dream Still that's selling very well.
Number seven Sports the Horizon six, number eight MLB The
Show twenty six, number nine Minecraft, and number ten NBA
two K twenty six.
Speaker 3: Any thoughts on that list, John.
Speaker 2: Not really, I mean, I Mecha Chameleon obviously is like
a really cool thing to see blow up in that way.
I've played a little bit of it and watched my
brother play even more of that. It seems like a
very very fun time, but nothing too crazy. I'm happy
star Fox did well that. That's with only like a
little over a week, I think like nine days. Sure
it came out, so seeing it do well, it's great.
Hopefully there's a future for that there. Again, this is
just physical. Oh no, this is also digital.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I always forget how Sarkana works nowadays. It's always been
kind of different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's so it's like a change from even how
it was. He was like getting digital from certain outline
out certain publishers. Now he's projecting. He's got any basical
an algorithm he's using for for all these they have
a lot of data, so their stuff's still very accurate. Man, Yeah,
I'm just checking. UFC six got an eighty one on
Open Critic. The reviews seem to like it. There's quite
a few reviews. Just a game I didn't even realize
came out, honestly, all right, hardware for hardware spending, let's
see here. Of June twenty twenty six, video game hardware
spending declined sixty two percent when compared to a year ago,
to three hundred and eighty three million dollars, driven by
the Nintendo Switch.
Speaker 3: To comparable once.
Speaker 1: Again, the three hundred and eighty three million in June
of this year compares to one billion a year ago.
Speaker 3: So again, that was always going to be tough.
Speaker 1: But June twenty twenty four was two hundred and eighty
nine million, so up from that year, and then it's
down from June twenty twenty three's four hundred and fifty
six million, which would have had like that's the middle
of the panda that's still part of the pandemic time
right where people are still buying consoles and Xbox and PlayStation.
We're still doing pretty well at that point, I think.
So that's that was always going to be a bigger
month as well. Let's see here, Nintendo switched to hardware.
Spending was seventy nine percent below the platform's total during
its June twenty twenty five launch month. PlayStation five spending
fell by nineteen percent year on year. Well, Xbox Series
was up more than more than doubled. John, we'll talk
about that here a little bit. Matt Piscatela did add
some more information. Xbox Series had a good month month
in June in the US, units up eighty six percent
versus last June. Average price was up as well. Highest
US Xbox Series units this year. Last June Xbox Series
was see an impact of the May price increase and
the switch to launch, So big percentage growth on a
smaller base last year. Still good month for Xbox Series.
And he goes on to say, folks are talking about FORTSA,
pending price increases, GTA, recent strategic shifts, some relative discounting
that happened. Sure, throw that all in the mix too,
but we are still talking about a relatively low base. Anyway,
Positive momentum is positive momentum, and I think that's probably
the fair assessment here.
Speaker 3: It is positive momentum.
Speaker 1: But like I would not write home to Mama about this, John,
This is the kind of thing where like we know
that the Xbox sales were in the absolute dog water
ditch last June, and they've been down year over year
pretty much every month consistently for a long time now.
So popping up in the month where you can pre
order Grand theft Auto and price increases are on the rise,
and again those are the kinds of things that do
motivate people and and relate.
Speaker 3: It didn't even double.
Speaker 1: The you know, the dog water sales of last year.
It's just up eighty six percent. Yeah, I think I
don't think that we're seeing a resurgence of Xbox that's
anything real beyond this month.
Speaker 3: What do you think, John?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously, yeah, we're comparing like, what was
it even last year, it was like fifty thousand or
something copies in the month of June or something. I
don't actually really remember that, but like, yeah, like it
is definitely a small thing. Obviously for Zo was super big.
It was on PlayStation as well, or no, it wasn't,
so it was an exclusive right for the Horizon six.
Speaker 1: Forts Arrested six is console exclusive for now.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, so yeah, so that's obviously a big Big
Franchi one of.
Speaker 3: The husually successful game. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: And then obviously, like with the word of mouth being
more Sony just because that platform is so much bigger,
with their price increases kind of going into effect and
might have had like a trickle down effect of like, well,
Xbox is kind of the place to play, Like they're
discounting game Pass, they're doing this, that and the other.
They're carrying about the consumer at least for part of
the month, and then it kind of just went downhill.
I'm not expecting July to keep up this trend now
that people are a lot more hip to what's been
going on on this new regime at Xbox. But you know,
I mean that's kind of the status quo for Microsoft, right,
Like I'm like, oh, wonder why they're keeping the Xbox right,
my biggest focus.
Speaker 1: People are gonna want to play Grand Theft Auto, and
they're gonna buy a console to do that, and most
of most of those people will buy a PlayStation. That
does not mean no one's going to buy an Xbox.
People are going to buy an Xbox to play Grand
Theft Auto. That has happened. And then yes, throwing forts
to throw in the discounting that. People were pointing out
that like Walmart had it for one hundred dollars off,
it's increased price. So when you compare that to the price,
it's gonna go up to. Yeah, all that stuff lines
up to sell a few more xboxes, but a temporary
bump in my opinion.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 1: And then oh, a couple other things they had here. Yeah,
Matt has some info here about some of the content.
Video game content spending fell by twelve percent in June
when compared to a year ago to three point nine
billion dollars. Year to date content dollars sales were flat
in twenty two or yeah, flat compared to twenty twenty
five at twenty four point three billion. Subscription was the
only content segment to experience growth in June, plus seven
percent versus a year ago. It's like, you know, you
have to pay to play online, so any games of
forts some might have contributed to that as well. There
also could have been discounts on that stuff, but yes,
up seven percent versus a year ago. All other categories
of spending declined, with the mobile and console content six
segments driven driving the overall DIP Censor tower did mention
that like mobile's very stagnant once again, Like it's the
same top ten as it was a month ago, and
I think even a year ago, maybe some changes compared
to a year ago. UFC six was the US market's
best selling video game for June in full game spending.
It also led titles on PlayStation platforms during the month.
Metri Chameleon was number two best selling game of the
month and projected full dollar game sales, and then star
Fox was the other new release to appear on the
June Top ten best sellers chart, ranking fourth overall. It
placed first on Nintendo platforms in June, ahead of Tombadaci Life,
Living the Dream, and Mario Kart World Let's See from
Kotaku Sircanas. Matt Piscatela also said that The Adventures of
Elliott the Millennium Tales debuted at number fifteen overall, which
was a great start according to Matt. Final Fantasy seven
Rebirth jumped to number twelve for the month, up from
up from one forty two in May thanks to its
release on Xbox and switched to versions. We saw that
in the Bomb twelve John a lot of people are
playing that game now and the remake and rebirth twin
packs also did well for the same reason, jumping from
number number two seventy seven in May to number thirty
six in June. And then finally, accessory spending was down
twenty one percent. That's switched to as well. People bought
a ton of pro controllers last year, and you know
that's gonna that's gonna dip off pretty quickly, because even
if people are buying new switch toos, it's not the
audience that is then going to buy two to four
pro controllers or whatever it is. Game pads spending specifically
declined thirty one percent compared to a year ago. All right, yeah,
we kind of know where the industry's at. John, We
don't have to talk too much more about this, but
like it was always going to be a tough comparison
to switch to, and now it feels like we, okay,
we're past that comparison point. Things should level out here
pretty soon, and it's going to come down to what
does this fall look like for Grand Theft Auto six
on PlayStation and Xbox. We can imagine the Switch two
is gonna get a bump with Zelda and all that
that's baked in it's like, just how big.
Speaker 3: Is Grand Theft Auto going to be?
Speaker 1: And you know, you get those crazy predictions from analysts
that we talked about of fifty million copies in a
week or something like that, and that just that that
feels like so pie in the sky insanity. That's like, oh, okay,
people are really getting out out over their skis. But
it should it should be like a billion dollars worth
of sales in a couple of weeks for this game, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm assuming a billion just like kind of
in the span of a week, if not like opening day.
But yeah, it's very interesting because I feel like a
lot has been hedging their bets on GTA six, But
I don't necessarily feel like it's worth betting the house on,
like I bet all on Black for sure, like that's
going to make a ton of money, But I don't
think it's going to be this grand transformation of people
have this new game and are going to be playing
on their consoles all of a sudden. The same distractions
are still out there, and you know, money is even
tighter than it was like a year ago, So I'm
I'm curious to see how much more limited it will
be compared to seeing how high the total is going
to go. That's I think the bigger question of how
much is it going to give back to gaming? And
I just don't know at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and really are any of us going to have
time for it when we're all playing UFC six, John.
Speaker 2: I'm just all sure, Yeah, we got to catch up.
Speaker 3: We're crazy about.
Speaker 1: It, all right, We're going to take a break when
we come back. Plenty of more headlines to get into.
If you want to skip out on these ad messages,
you can do so. Go to giant bomb dot com,
slash join, become a premium member. You could find ad
free versions of the shows there. We will be right back.
It's Game as Mornings. I'm Jeff Grubb. That's John Martin.
We're getting back into things with Warner Brothers acquisition is
now stuck in legal limbo again.
Speaker 3: This is from Darren Bontius at GameSpot.
Speaker 1: Paramount Skydance's plan to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery and with it,
all of the Warner Brothers studios, has hit yet another
snag as a judge has issued a two week pause
on its planned acquisition. After a coalition of twelve state
attorneys led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Yeah Bonta
argued that the merger would violate federal antitrust law and
potentially lead to higher film and TV prices. Judge Racelli
Martinez Algowan placed a temporary pause on the merger. The
offer could be extended from fourteen days, the order excuse
me could be extended from fourteen to twenty eight days,
and paramounts skuy Dance was originally expecting to close the
deal on July twenty second. That's today, plaintiff states, showing
at least demonstrates that serious questioning going on is going
on about the merits, and that's what the judge had
to say. Paramount and Warner Brothers will continue to operate
as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they
wait for the court to adjudicate this case. Want to
label the ruling as a critical first win in the
coalition's case, while Paramount Suidances continued to insist that lawsuit
represents a fundamentally flawed application of antitrust law. With our lawsuit,
we're fighting for a free and fair market and a
thriving film and TV industry that serves creative and creatives
and audiences alike. We have a full tank of gas,
the law on our side, and look forward to continuing
to make our case.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we we know all of the like
what this means, like media consolidation across the board has
not led to good things. It's not like Warner Brothers
is in a situation where it would be where either
either of these companies are not in like at risk
of crumbling without the other one. So there's not like
an argument of like, well, you know it's gonna die
anyhow if it doesn't have these that that's not even here, Like,
these are just two big companies that want again even bigger.
And Yeah, I think that the antitrust law almost exactly
applies in this case.
Speaker 3: The idea that the the you.
Speaker 1: Know, the company would own CNN that is in cahoots
with the administration and now we'll move CNN to the
right exactly the way that they've done with CBS.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm happy about this personally. Anytime
we can say fuck the y Ellisons in any compactity city,
it's a big win for me. Yeah, and it's not
like either company again, yeah, it's not. Neither are suffering
right now. It's just a way to more aggressively push
your products and push their agenda on the people on
the media. And it's you know, it's it's good. It's
good that people are still fighting this because even like
even at the time, I was like, oh, yeah, the
X Men are coming to Marvel, back to Disney, but
still Fox and Disney. That should never have happened. And
the fact that this is in danger of not happening
is a huge win. And I hope it is more
of a legal precedent going forward, because yeah, these are
two of the biggest company, two of like the five
original studios back in the day. So yeah, this is
an absolute win. Both are still making games on their own.
I don't know if it was on people talked about it,
but Warner Brothers announced Dicko the other day. That's pretty cool.
Is a DC mobile game. Yeah, man, I'm just happy
that CEOs are losing.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly, and we hope that like it could be
seen through and there actually is like a block here
that I mean, this acquisition does not mean great things.
And I'm not even going to flinch at DICKO. No way,
this acquisition would not mean great things for those studios
under Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3: It is different.
Speaker 1: They would be They're already an afterthought. They would be
an extreme afterthought in the plans for this conglomerate coming together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if it's going to be able
to like succeed.
Speaker 1: It will come down to these states attorneys general like
really seeing it through because the federal government is not
going to stop the Ellisons from doing whatever they want.
But you know, there's still rules, there's still laws, and
hopefully this stuff can be applied that would be ideal.
Peggy's new age ratings will restrict Football Club twenty seven
to kids over sixteen. This from Jess Weatherbed at The Verge.
The pan European Game Information Body, which is PEGGY, previously
assigned its age ratings based on the presence of sex, drugs, violence,
bad language, and fear. Now it's adding four new options
that tie age suitability to interactive features, like rating games
that contain loot boxes as unsuitable for children under sixteen.
Games like EA's Football Club series, which typically carries a
Peggy three age rating, will be among the most impacted,
with the virtual card packs included in the franchise's Ultimate
Team mode, expected to bump future Football Club releases to
a Peggy sixteen. The changes will only apply to new
games that are submitted for classification from June, or when
new features tied to these classifications are introduced by existing games.
The New Age rating categories include games that include paid
random items like loot boxes and gotcha systems, games that
allow players to purchase in game content, addictive game designs
that reward players for returning frequently, such as daily quests
and battle passes, and games that contain entirely unrestricted communication
features those that leave players unable to block, report or
otherwise restrict chat or text to voice, voice and video
chats that will be Peggy eighteen. In fact, my question, John,
do you think this really changes anything? I guess I
don't know what it looks like to go into a
store anywhere in Europe that is under the Peggy ratings board,
or the games that are Peggy sixteen in a different
place than the games that are Peggy three, or are
they just thrown together by category but by genre or
whatever and be like, oh no, that's you know, it's
a sports game that goes right here and no one
is really paying attention to Peggy sixteen. Well, like, if
someone tries to give gift a game to someone with
a kid's account on Xbox or PlayStation, will this no
longer work if the parental controls are there. There's some questions.
I think there's some friction here. I don't think it's
much friction, though, what do you think?
Speaker 2: No, and like, obviously like bodies constructing things oftentimes is
not good. I don't really believe that's the case with this.
I think it is good to have some of that
limitation there for people under the ages of you know, whatever,
whatever happens. I mean to the point where it's like
even that last that last bull of Point games that
contained entirely unrestricted communication features, I feel like that should
be a Peggy never like give people the power to
turn all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Off, that there should be rules about that. That's crazy,
you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going back to it.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think this is good. I don't think it's going
to cause friction because the people who want to play
the games will get their parents to get them to
play the games anyway. Case in point is like all
the times that I have asked my parents to get hey,
you should buy me Double Make Cry three because it's funny,
and they just say a couple of curse words, and
my dad's like, Okay, I don't really know about this game,
and it is great. He loved that game too, so
that was a double positive. But yeah, I mean, like
Call of Duty, these games have always succeeded with those
younger demographics because it is that autimate thing. I think
having that protection there in place, though, is good, and
it spreads awareness about these things, maybe, you know, maybe
giving parents a bigger understanding of like what's actually going
on there and what they do and do not want
their kids to be playing. I think this is good.
I don't think it's too restrictive either. I think it's
just updating the guidelines for like a modern age, Like
it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's definitely better than nothing, you know,
more information. It's always better for parents whatever, for any consumer.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think it's like probably too little, too late to
do anything about the what what has happened to micro
transactions and and loot boxes in these sports games? That
ship has already sailed, and even if there are these
frictions that prevent some customers that are below a certain
age from getting access to these games, that is not
going to factor into such EA being like, all right,
we got to shift things around so we could still
reach that audience.
Speaker 3: They've made the calculation.
Speaker 1: They know where the money's coming from, and it probably
is mostly coming from older teenagers. But you know people
in their twenties and thirties with disposable income that play
these games kind of like they know life. That's where
the money's made and that they won't be affected by this.
So I bet that they've already done the calculation of
this is we'll just accept this and we'll keep going
and doing things the same way. So yeah, a little
bit too little, too late, I think. All right, Marathons
pv E Moode just tripled the game's player count.
Speaker 3: That's something.
Speaker 1: This is from Grant Taylor Hill at Insider Gaming from yesterday.
Marathon's new Vault Breaker pv E Moode opened up for.
Speaker 3: Players to explore.
Speaker 1: It'll be online until August fourth, allowing Bunshie to flesh
out the experiment, gather data, and move forward with with
whatever comes next. This is something of a test for
the extraction shooter, and it has already proven to be
a productive one on Steam. The game's peak player account
tripled within a day as vault Breaker went live on
the platform. It also helps that players have banded together
to stage a revival week for the game, a social
effort that was coincidentally timed with the arrival of vault Breaker.
It's another feather in the cap of player versus environment gaming,
further in the argument that it's almost a necessary inclusion
in the extraction world. Last week I pinned the feature
of blah blah. They basically just go, hey, this this
should happen, And nowadays, yeah, okay, you know, tripling from
a pretty low number. I think Marathon's kind of dipped
quite a bit recently, but it still feels like one
of those games that if it gets the snowball rolling,
if it gets the momentum going, I feel like we
could look back two years from now and be like, oh,
do you remember when Marathon was in the dumper? And
now look that's the that's the everyone's playing that game,
or you know, there's that huge audience that's always playing
that game. I feel like it can build. Does it
start here though, John, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious also to see the PlayStation numbers, right,
because like a big part of that, like game's demographic
is how it's been exclusively funneled towards those PlayStation shows.
But yeah, no, I think this is good. Having more options,
having more ways to engage with a game that is
more accommodating to people's you know, likes, tastes, or even
accessibility options. Being able to lean on a friend and
not have to worry about other players, I think is
just going to make the game more accessible to a
lot of different people. I'm really hoping this game is
going to like reach a new audience. Having only played
it like once or twice with a friend who's really
into extraction shooters, it was a lot of fun. It
was pretty interesting. It's not the kind of game that
would make me come back, but I mean a PvE
mode is kind of the exact excuse someone like me
would want of just like having a game to I
don't know if chill out is the kind of term
in this kind of game, but like, you know, it's
just like a way to it basically breaks the ice,
breaks the barrier down a little bit, so I can
engage with it a lot more active. And I really,
I really hope this is a success story because I
I don't want to see Bungee just gone someday, Like
they're too important of a studio to just be gone.
And yeah, I mean this is kind of the best
chance they have right now, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I think this is a really good jumping off point
for them to kind of get things back, the momentum
swinging back in their direction.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: I think that this could be the start of something
if they can then like parlay this experiment into something
where they come back and like, here's a big PvE event.
Now PvE is permanent, it stands alongside all the other features,
you know. I guess it's kind of a shame, say,
could you not have predicted that this would have been
a mode that was successful? But they were making the
game they were making, which was, Hey, no, the PvP
aspect of the PVPVE is important, and that's you know,
how we've tuned everything and we believe in that. It's like, yeah,
but you kind of have to look around and see
what happened to something like a CF Thieves where it's
like eventually it gave in and did PvE and it
really benefited that game maybe kind of jump out, But
that is such the lesson of live service games, John,
It's that you don't learn lessons from other companies. That's
the one lesson, and you have to sort of do
it yourself. Even Bungie, the company that's been through it
more times than anyone else, it seems in terms of
launching live service games or big live service games, they
never look around and learn the lessons from other ones.
They kind of have to go through it themselves. The
good news for them is they've often been able to
figure it out. The bad news for them is they've
been decimated by layoffs, so and that you know, it's
not necessarily it doesn't it's not retaining the institutional knowledge
it once.
Speaker 3: Had because it just has hit so many rocky shores.
Speaker 1: Namco's weirdest racing game is finally coming to councils after
almost thirty years. Why is this here? From willow Row
at Polygon. Arcade Archives developer Hamster Corporation has anounced the
latest Arcade oddity it's bringing to modern hardware, Armadillo Racing
what the hell?
Speaker 3: No, I'm not the arm of Dello guy ah band
released the game.
Speaker 2: Yo, go ahead please no, I mean Cyberdillo is around
the corner right Like Mike already brought d K sixty
four back from the brink, It's gonna yeah happen. I
hope you know this Cyberdilla troll Western that's coming back.
All the Armadillo games, all three of them that I know.
Speaker 1: I would really like a night dive to bring back Cyberdillo.
I want to see what they would do to that thing.
That would be actually kind of fun to see. Armadillo
Racing was released in nineteen ninety seven. It has never
seen a home released until now. As the name suggests,
it's the game about racing Armadillo's. I did get excited
and played this game when we were at that What's
the Chicago Galloping Ghost The Galloping Ghost arcade playing game rules.
Speaker 2: This game slaps.
Speaker 3: This game is a lot of fun. It's it's it
hurts your hands. Yeah, it's a track ball game, right, Sean.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's like a basketball sized track ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2: I saw that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, we got to play this, guys. I think
it might be in the video when we went to
Galloping Ghost. I think it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very funny.
Speaker 3: I love this game.
Speaker 4: I don't know how they're gonna do this on consoles,
probably just an analog stick, which is not the same experience, right,
they're not the Armadillo racing experience. Is that your hands
need to be red and swollen when you're done with
a single round of that game.
Speaker 1: Yes, you should be in pain. Pay your pain price
to the Armadillo. That's what I've been doing. So hey,
Hamster's cool. Yeah, these arcade archives are getting very neat.
This is another really cool one that they'll sprinkle in there.
Very very cool to see. I'm glad Namco continues to
work with them and getting cool stuff out that I
never thought we would see at home. Try to see
if they do have any details like control and Armadillo that.
Speaker 2: You can use. You can attach a USB trackball, which
I didn't know existed, but that opens the door for
so many different games. I know, like a Jeff was
talking about having a trackball and it's like Maine Machine
yesterday on the BombCast. But yeah, man, that's sick, super fun.
Speaker 1: It's fifteen dollars it's coming to Switch and PlayStation four
and then Yeah, as well as an Arcade Archives two
release on Switch to PlayStation five and Xbox Series XIT
and US for seventeen dollars. Players who buy the Arcade
Archives version can upgrade to the Arcade Archives two version
for three dollars.
Speaker 3: I don't know what the difference is.
Speaker 1: Maybe, I guess maybe just performance or something like that. Interesting, okay,
very cool though, I love to see stuff like that happening.
Splatoon Raiders reviews are in eighty three on Open Critic,
three point five stars from Mick McNulty at Giant Bomb.
After rolling credits, Splatoon Raiders made it clear that there
is still a good amount of post game content to
check out. I just don't feel much of a drive
to play more. I had fun drowning all those Salmanids
in ink, but just like them, I've had my phill
oh mikey nine out of ten from Stefan L at
The Sixth Axis, Splatoon Raiders is great. Putting more of
a focus on solo and co op for this game
has led to an event sure with a really satisfying
progression as you level up grind stages for experiencing gear
and build up your load load out to tackle the.
Speaker 3: Next big challenge.
Speaker 1: That's one thing Mike say is like, oh yeah, people
who are into this game are the people who are
really into the progression side of things, and so if
that's something that like clicks for you often, this game's
probably going to win you over. Meanwhile, six out of
ten from Steve Wright at Survivor. By removing Turf four
and transitioning to something pretty close to a first person shooter,
Nintendo is taking what makes the franchise unique and discarded
it with Splatoon Raiders. So, I mean, yeah, I could
see that, but it's kind of like, yeah, that's so.
I knew that's what it was going to be. So
but if people still just want Splatoon to be Splatoon,
this is not that necessarily. I don't know any any
interest from you in Splatoon Raiders, John, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, even going back to Marathon, just pv EMO
like me being able to work with other people to
like play a game, work together, like Outriders, a game
that most people dismissed. One of my favorite multiplayer experience
is of all time, not let alone the Pandemic. Yeah no,
this game is straight to my heart. I have a
lot of friends into Splatoon four player co op through
a campaign. I think I still I meant to ask
you guys last night on the other show last night,
But yeah, if I can play co op through an
entire campaign with my friends in a Splatoon skin with
Splatoon music, my face keeps getting fuzzy and I'm trying
to fix it while I'm talking. Yeah, this is you know,
this is my shit right here. Like, I'm really excited.
It doesn't matter if it's particularly like I don't I mean,
it's Splatoon. I don't think it's gonna be blank because
there's gonna be a lot of pointing and groaning and
just like laughing at the puns and all that stuff.
It's gonna be a good time. I'm excited for it.
Whether I play it super long term like I have
for other Splatoon games, don't know. But I'm excited to
check it out whenever my cop becomes hopefully this Thursday
slash Friday.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'll I'll be picking up this game to
play some on the plan or whatever. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 3: Let's see here.
Speaker 1: The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume two reveals Nintendo
switched to and Switch frame rates actually did so for everything,
but only the Nintendo blugs were covering this one, so
they all just made about Nintendo.
Speaker 3: But here's some information.
Speaker 1: The PlayStation five and Xbox Series X and all these
are running basically somewhere between twenty five sixty by fourteen
forty and full four K at sixty frames per second.
But the yes, that's right, even for the internal resolution.
On switch one it's going to be seven to twenty
at thirty frames per second, and then switch to it'll
be ten eighty at sixty frames per second. And then
I think that's pretty similar for the other game as well.
What it was like They have a midle Gear four
Solid four and then the handheld one. I can never
remember the name of Peacewalker there it is Peacewalker has
very similar stats. So yeah, I kind of forgot that
this was happening, and say, oh, yeah, this collection it
was announced, it's coming, It has middle Gears Solid four
and it's gonna probably it's gonna look pretty yes, and
ghost Babbell of course, yes, what a great game. But
middle Gear Solid four and peace Walker are probably gonna
look fantastic in this thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very said and more people get to see it,
it is going to have that weird out of body
experience when they're talking about the PlayStation one, PlayStation four,
all that stuff on a Nintendo Xboxer PC like platform.
But yeah, more people should be able to play the
entire legacy. Those games are still great, they still hold up.
And yeah, like peace Walker, I if it's based on that,
like Xbox three sixty HD collection, I don't know if
it'll have the multiplayer. There are ways to play the
multiplayer on PCs nowadays with friends, so that is something
people should be looking into. That stuff is really fun,
really great MgO as well, also really fun to play.
But yeah, more people should get their hands on this.
And it's it's all out of it's out of cell
processor hell right now. So that's pretty sweet.
Speaker 1: A couple other really quick things here. Zach Craiger, who
is doing the Residenteval movie, did barbarian I guess just
very recently he was an appearance on Sam Brown University
TV discussed his upcoming Residubal adaptation. He said that there
is a pretty great goat simulator movie script that exists.
Speaker 3: Was it not a joke? Maybe he was joking. I
don't know, but yeah, I happen.
Speaker 1: To know there's a yeah, there's supposedly Areat Got Simulator
script out there, and I'm not joking. Were his next words, Okay, incredible,
So I want to see that for sure. My kids
are huge Goat Simulator fans. That's been on in my
house a lot. We had a really good time with
that game. And then there was yes, the Nintendo and
mostly Hasbro revealed the Zelda toys right for the movie,
and they look a lot like Breath of the Wild characters,
so maybe I I guess they're probably both for just
the legend zelbait generally speaking, but I do think it's
related to the movie. But yes, yeah, yeah, okay, know
these characters are just straight up from Breath of the Wild.
Yeah that's just uh and Tiers of the Kingdom. I
should say that's uh Gannendorf and Zelda and they just
are straight up from those Okay, So yeah, I wonder
if that's if that signifies the Hasbro is just like
thinking about this more long term than the movie and
thinks that like being related to the video games is
way better.
Speaker 3: And like it's not like people will go watch the.
Speaker 1: Zelda movie and then when they go to if they
like they're like, all right, let's get some toys for
the family for the kids. If they're based on the game,
I don't think I think people are going to reject them.
Let's be like, oh, yeah, that looks like the game,
which I'm also very familiar with because those games have
sold twenty thirty forty billion copies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that and is very interesting that like Link
is in his Breath of the Wild outfit, Gannonson his
Tears of the Kingdom outfit. But like in the movie,
isn't Zelda wearing her Breath of the Wild outfit and
she's gonna got your Kingdom hit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's got some stuff that it's like clearly from that.
And yeah, like that from what we've seen so far,
and who knows, she could have several fits from all
the kinds of different games.
Speaker 3: And we'll just have to wait and see.
Speaker 1: All right, Today and tomorrow updates Today, applications opened for
the Dusk Bloods Network test. That test again runs from
August twenty first through twenty fourth. Go sign up now
if you want to try that out. They did mention
something along the lines of first come, first serve, so
don't wait tomorrow. Final Fantasy ten and ten two HD
remaster launches for Switch to Arcade Archives, Armadillo Racing once again.
That is out tomorrow on all platforms, and then hell
Is Us joins Game Pass for Cloud, Xbox Series and PC.
All right, that does it for the headlines. Let's get
to the poll question from Monday.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Here it is have you played disco Elysium?
Speaker 3: Yes or no?
Speaker 1: Nearly six thousand of you responded and forty eight percent
said yes, fifty two percent said no. So that is
that's like pretty saturated. A lot of people have played
disco Elysium, and I think it kind of goes to
sh show. And the reason we brought this up, John
was that that new game from that studio, from zach
Oom Zero Parades, it just did not like have the
immediate out of the gate success that you would expect
from everyone playing and loving Disco Elysium.
Speaker 3: And I think think that does go back to people
are just.
Speaker 1: Unsure about who are the real people working on the
real successor to disco Elysium, right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, And that's always been that kind of hazy
thing because it's like it is way more of a
niche game. So it's for a niche game for a
niche gamers who know quality, like people know the history
behind that studio and how it all kind of blew
up after that game came out. So yeah, I guess
not super surprising, but there's so many different options for
that kind of game nowadays. So what was the very
I think we even talked about it last time I
was on the show, but that very colorful kind of
disco elysium like tabletop video game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean, but I can't remember
its name. Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, we have
a new poll question. We'll get to here in a second.
Before we do that, job, Martin, tell people where they
can find you on the internet, what you have going
on and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I chat real quick.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I knew it started with you. I just
can't remember. Yeah, you can find me on Blue Sky,
Jem Martin ut Blue Sky. That's social. I kind of
hang out there and make occasional posts. At some point
this weekend, I need to figure out timing. I'm going
to be streaming the TOCN beta marveltcon Fighting Souls. That's
going to be sweet. Very excited for that game to
come out. Yeah, yeah, all the updates look super cool.
I'm very excited to mess with a lot of those characters.
But yeah, besides that, I kind of just tweet whenever
I'm streaming or I have a video out, So yeah,
just follow me there and I hope to be on
the show again. It's always a good time.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely make it happen again sometime very soon.
In the meantime, here is your pole question that we'll
get to at some point. Which backward compatible Xbox game
are you going to play play on PC? First Blinks
the Time, sweep Er Content Live and reloaded, Crimson Skies,
High Road to Revenge, and Fusion Frenzy. And if you
are not going to play any of these games, obviously
just vote for Fusion Frenzy then all right. Of course,
of course we'll get the results of that, talk about
it here on on Game mess Mornings. In some way,
while I'm on the road, I think, well, if we
have to do a short version, we'll do that. There's
a chance, like Mike and I might just like do
a live one from the car while we're driving around.
But we'll see no promises because we've got to get
in there, get into the van and see what that's
all gonna work like. So looking forward to seeing you
all from the road as the Great Giant Bomb road
Trip commences tomorrow. I'm gonna, like I said, fly right
to SF and we're gonna go start heading north that moment.
I'm gonna go get the vand right away. So looking
forward to that. It's gonna be a lot of fun
when we go. When we do our live stream, we'll
have some ways for you to interact with us in
the van and especially on on the Twitch version. So
maybe do that, maybe mess with us, maybe mess with
me while I'm driving. Well, i'll give you more details
on that as as we get closer. Don't worry, it
won't be dangerous.
Speaker 3: All right, let's see here. I think we got everything
out of the way.
Speaker 1: So I gotta say now is John Martin, thank you
so much for hanging out with me today and talking
about video games.
Speaker 3: Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks job, It's always a pleasure. Thanks again, love everyone here.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching and listening. You're the best
audience in gaming. Until next time, Oh my god, the
game sent. Until next time, I have a good one,
take care of yourself and goodbye.