Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Breaking News with me Jeff Grub,
Speaker 1: your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: two new massive RPGs and switch To pre orders starting
Speaker 1: up tonight. It's gonna be a good one because we
Speaker 1: have Jake Randall on the episode. Jake, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm doing great.
Speaker 1: How are you doing, Jeff, I'm doing excellence. Yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of stood up stay stayed up late to catch the
Speaker 1: new episodes of and Or and they were very good,
Speaker 1: so I was very happy with that.
Speaker 2: He staying up late again tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be staying up late again tonight. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be trying to get those pre orders for the
Speaker 1: switch To, and I'm gonna be relying on you. We'll
Speaker 1: definitely talk about that here in a second, but I
Speaker 1: know you've been doing a lot of prep on that.
Speaker 1: I guess how are you feeling about this lead up
Speaker 1: to us here in this country finally getting the chance
Speaker 1: to uh a pre order a switch To.
Speaker 3: Well, we were just talking about this on the pre
Speaker 3: show a little bit, but we're getting a lot of
Speaker 3: mixed messages because there's certain parts of the world where
Speaker 3: it seems like the stock has been great, pre orders
Speaker 3: aren't too challenging, definitely not PS five level. And then
Speaker 3: there's news, you know, like what came out today about
Speaker 3: how much demand there is for the sign ups in
Speaker 3: Japan and Nintendo. It's pretty bizarre for Nintendo to actually
Speaker 3: make a statement saying they can't meet the demand. Yes,
Speaker 3: so it's it goes both ways. But to be honest,
Speaker 3: I think this is definitely going to be easier than
Speaker 3: the PS five Series X launch seems that way because
Speaker 3: it's Nintendo and it's a new product. It is probably
Speaker 3: going to sell out here. But I think if you're
Speaker 3: on top of it, I think if you get on
Speaker 3: preorders right away, you should be okay. And I do
Speaker 3: think there'll be multiple pre orders before launch date. So
Speaker 3: if you don't necessarily get it to don't freak out.
Speaker 3: This is, you know, the big hype. Everyone's going to
Speaker 3: be going for it. Just don't freak out. It'll be
Speaker 3: okay everyone. You know, if you preorder it now or
Speaker 3: pre order it in a few weeks, we'll all get
Speaker 3: it the same day.
Speaker 1: And for those that don't know that this is Jake's
Speaker 1: specially speciality, like this is where your butty or bread
Speaker 1: right where you help people figure this stuff out. Show
Speaker 1: people the notes you were showing me a little bit
Speaker 1: ago you got. He's got pages of notes about understanding
Speaker 1: the best way to get these preorders.
Speaker 3: Making a pre ordered guide video on YouTube to answer
Speaker 3: everyone's questions. So I wrote down every question I've gotten,
Speaker 3: my YouTube comments and on Twitter, I put them all
Speaker 3: in there, and I put a little guide for each
Speaker 3: retailer too. But I take it really seriously because as
Speaker 3: soon as I accept, Okay, I'm going to help people
Speaker 3: try to pre order this thing, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I have a responsibility. I don't feel responsible to do it,
Speaker 3: you know, just every time, But as soon as I
Speaker 3: say yes, I'll help you, I feel pressure to give
Speaker 3: people accurate information and to help as much as I can.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, let's actually let's get into it.
Speaker 1: So let's explain what we do here most weekdays, I,
Speaker 1: Jeff Grebb, will help piece your gaming life back together.
Speaker 1: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
Speaker 1: own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
Speaker 1: input of a bona fide expert who will make me
Speaker 1: look smart. If you were watching live on twitch welcome.
Speaker 1: You can always listen to the show later on podcast
Speaker 1: feeds by searching for game breaking news, or find the
Speaker 1: RSS feed on giant bomb dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: catch the show later on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
Speaker 1: we have a lot to get into, so let's start
Speaker 1: the show with those switch to preorders begin tonight. So
Speaker 1: if you if you're Eastern time, it's midnight. If you're
Speaker 1: on the West coast, it will actually be nine pm.
Speaker 1: It's all gonna line up that way. I can't help
Speaker 1: you right now with Minecraft Kit. I'll help you in
Speaker 1: a little bit, okay. And then so with the pre
Speaker 1: orders tonight, it is going to be all major retailers,
Speaker 1: but not like the Nintendo store, right that's going to
Speaker 1: be later. So do you have like a preference, Jake,
Speaker 1: for where people should try to focus their energy or
Speaker 1: is it kind of like a like a shotgun approach
Speaker 1: just kind.
Speaker 2: Of go Yeah, that was one of the biggest questions
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 3: So the only exception is game Stop is not going
Speaker 3: live at midnight. Their online orders will be tomorrow morning
Speaker 3: at eleven am Eastern eight am Pacific. And then when
Speaker 3: their store is open, which is typically noon whenever your
Speaker 3: local store opens. They have a separate allotment to pre
Speaker 3: order in person in the store. But yeah, they're the
Speaker 3: only one that their online pre orders are not going
Speaker 3: live at midnight. So it's kind of nice because game
Speaker 3: Stop is automatically your backup plan, right if you don't
Speaker 3: get one at Target, Best buyer, Walmart, or the three
Speaker 3: that will go at midnight, then at least you have
Speaker 3: one other to try, in addition to possibly the my
Speaker 3: Nintendo store. But Amazon's not doing them.
Speaker 1: And they broke up again. Yeah, Nintendo and Amazon broke
Speaker 1: up again. They're on again, off again all the time exactly.
Speaker 3: So Amazon's doing it in the rest of the world,
Speaker 3: just not the United States. So between Target, Walmart, and
Speaker 3: best Buy, they all have pros and cons. Best Buy
Speaker 3: and Walmart use a qu system which helps against the box.
Speaker 3: Target does not, so they might go faster. But between
Speaker 3: Walmart and best Buy, I would go with Walmart because
Speaker 3: they're you know, obviously, the size of Walmart as a
Speaker 3: company is much bigger than best Buy, and their servers
Speaker 3: and their website handles these kind of things a lot better,
Speaker 3: and most people are going to probably go for best
Speaker 3: Buy because they're doing that midnight launch. So if you
Speaker 3: go for Best Buy, I would go for one of
Speaker 3: their bundles. The more expensive the bundle, the easier will
Speaker 3: be to get because scalpers only want the Mario Kart
Speaker 3: bundle and in the base.
Speaker 1: Car the bundle would eat into their profit margins of
Speaker 1: them trying to scalp it.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, exactly. So they have some crazy bundles. Some
Speaker 3: of them are up to seven hundred dollars. I don't
Speaker 3: think you need to go that crazy, but those ones
Speaker 3: will last the longest. And then but I would I
Speaker 3: would go with Walmart because they guarantee delivery by nine
Speaker 3: am on launch day and they used to be pretty bad,
Speaker 3: but so they have a bad reputation, which is also
Speaker 3: why people might not choose them first, right, but for them,
Speaker 3: definitely try for all three. But I would keep in
Speaker 3: mind that Walmart's probably going to be people's best chance.
Speaker 3: The Best Buy app is terrible, So if you're going
Speaker 3: for all three and you're also trying to do it
Speaker 3: on your phone, don't go for Best Buy on your phone.
Speaker 3: I would say, okay for either Target or Walmart, but
Speaker 3: that's that's kind of where I'd rank them.
Speaker 1: Okay, So as people are making these decisions, is there
Speaker 1: like a best practices for like splitting up like multiple devices.
Speaker 1: Should they have like like the Target app and like
Speaker 1: all their stuff preloaded on their phone? Like? Is that
Speaker 1: just basics at this point? Make sure you have your
Speaker 1: account on Walmart and Target and best Buy and all
Speaker 1: the payment info already and they're ready to go. Should
Speaker 1: people be doing that right now? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Obviously you want to do your prep work.
Speaker 3: You want to make sure you have accounts for all
Speaker 3: these places ready to go. You want to make sure
Speaker 3: you have your shipping info and your payment info. And
Speaker 3: a tip that works really well is during like restocks
Speaker 3: or pre orders. Obviously, these retailers are servers are getting throttled.
Speaker 3: So if you use PayPal or Apple Pay or red
Speaker 3: Card or Google Pay instead of a credit or debit card,
Speaker 3: it increases your chances exponentially because it processes your payment
Speaker 3: on those company servers instead of the retailers servers.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, So I would do.
Speaker 3: That, And also I would recommend if you can only
Speaker 3: go for one on your phone of the three, I
Speaker 3: would recommend Walmart because if you have Walmart up on
Speaker 3: your computer and also on your phone in their que system,
Speaker 3: it'll give you a separate place in line on each
Speaker 3: of them. Oh okay, it's kind of like getting two chances.
Speaker 3: And then while you're waiting in the queue on Walmart
Speaker 3: and best Buy on your computer and also waiting in
Speaker 3: the queue and Walmart, then you can focus on the
Speaker 3: target website in terms of refreshing, since that's the only
Speaker 3: one of these that doesn't have a que system.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, interesting, Okay, So if you if you
Speaker 1: were trying to get a switch to tonight, you had,
Speaker 1: you know, just enough money to get get one, Like
Speaker 1: what is your like your go to Like what is
Speaker 1: the one thing that you recommend everybody do and like
Speaker 1: the best path forward? Like what would you say to
Speaker 1: that person in that situation.
Speaker 3: So honestly shameless self plug here, but I think it
Speaker 3: is really helpful, not just because of me, but I
Speaker 3: will be live streaming the pre orders, and the actual
Speaker 3: benefit to the live stream is it will let us
Speaker 3: adjust on the fly. So if certain websites aren't working
Speaker 3: on your end, if you're not on the stream, you
Speaker 3: just have no idea.
Speaker 2: What's going on.
Speaker 3: You don't know, you don't realize. Oh this website's the
Speaker 3: servers are just down, so I shouldn't be focusing on
Speaker 3: this right now. But in the live stream I can
Speaker 3: tell you that. And I have a lot of experts
Speaker 3: that are smarter than me in a lot of ways
Speaker 3: in my chat that can also tell us that. So
Speaker 3: as a community, it's not really even my thing. It's
Speaker 3: the community working together. And in the past we've gotten
Speaker 3: employees to give us backdoor links and stuff like that
Speaker 3: in the chat, so it can at least instead of
Speaker 3: you panicking, and it can at least paint you a
Speaker 3: picture of Okay, is everyone having this problem?
Speaker 2: Have the website sold out? Should I give up yet?
Speaker 3: So if you can only do it for one place,
Speaker 3: I would be prepared for all three. Obviously, wherever you
Speaker 3: get in your order is good, but using the live
Speaker 3: stream can really help to figure out what.
Speaker 2: You should be focusing on in the moment.
Speaker 1: Yep, okay, very good. I'm gonna be watching tonight for sure.
Speaker 1: I'll be hanging out in chat looking for all the
Speaker 1: tips we can get. And I think the thing that
Speaker 1: you open with with the don't panic, don't if you
Speaker 1: don't get it right away, just there's gonna be other
Speaker 1: opportunities even before this thing comes out, Right, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be another probably like drop from retailers. Like, so people
Speaker 1: shouldn't have that immediate feeling of fomo like maybe they
Speaker 1: might have felt with the PS five, which was a
Speaker 1: really extreme situation.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's gonna be canceled orders, orders that get
Speaker 3: declined because of payment methods, and the retailers wait till
Speaker 3: a significant amount of those to pile up, and then
Speaker 3: they will also get allocated more stock that they're not
Speaker 3: counting for, and then they'll drop them all together in
Speaker 3: random segments. And so when those drops happen, they're potentially
Speaker 3: easier because there's not this one week build up of
Speaker 3: everyone knowing that they're going to happen. And the other
Speaker 3: thing is, at the end of the day, Mario Kart
Speaker 3: is going to be a launch title. But even if
Speaker 3: you don't get it at launch, but the next big
Speaker 3: game doesn't come out till July, like Donkey Kong, it's
Speaker 3: not like you're missing out on too much.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day.
Speaker 3: If you don't get it right at launch day, you're
Speaker 3: just gonna have more stuff to play when you do
Speaker 3: get it, which will be probably an even better experience, yep.
Speaker 1: And then as far as getting these switch twos into
Speaker 1: the country, there is beginning talks of the country backing
Speaker 1: off on some of the tariffs, even on China. So
Speaker 1: you know, this initial batch that they rushed into the country,
Speaker 1: maybe after this stuff settles down a little bit, which
Speaker 1: who knows if they actually will. You know, Trump's gone
Speaker 1: back on his word a number of times now, but
Speaker 1: if he does, then they might rush another batch into
Speaker 1: the country like immediately because they want to. They won't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe it will last either, So I think there's
Speaker 1: some maybe good news on the horizon here for these
Speaker 1: consumer electronics products. All right, Jake, excellent, that's very helpful.
Speaker 1: Any any other things that you want to mention before
Speaker 1: we move on from this, like anything else that's like
Speaker 1: rattle around in your head. You're like, oh, man, I
Speaker 1: wish more people knew about.
Speaker 3: This, honestly, not off the top, but you know, after
Speaker 3: the podcast, you know you have plenty of time. I
Speaker 3: would in the description of my life treatment also just
Speaker 3: on my channel, the most recent video is that guide
Speaker 3: that will cover everything we kind of just talked about,
Speaker 3: plus a lot more too, So I would just recommend
Speaker 3: just going over that put it on the background. It's
Speaker 3: like twenty minutes. You saw my notes. It was very
Speaker 3: hard to condense. But that's my last thing.
Speaker 1: Excellent, Thank you so much. What was the like, where
Speaker 1: should people find the YouTube channel? Should they just go
Speaker 1: sert of Google, Jake Randall on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Yep, Jake Randall on YouTube or Twitter x it'll I'll.
Speaker 1: Come right up well. Speaking on this topic, and Nintendo
Speaker 1: is already apologizing for not having enough switch tos. This
Speaker 1: comes from Ethan Gatcha at Kotaku. Switch to pre orders
Speaker 1: don't begin in the United States until late tonight around midnight,
Speaker 1: but they've already been underway in other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and even Nintendo has been shocked by the level of
Speaker 1: demand so far. The company said that with over two
Speaker 1: point two million fans seeking to pre order a switch
Speaker 1: to directly from my Nintendo in Japan alone, the demand
Speaker 1: already far exceeds its ability to fulfill shipments to that country.
Speaker 1: At launch, we received an extremely large number of applications,
Speaker 1: approximately two point two million people in Japan alone, Nintendo
Speaker 1: president Shuntaro for Okawa posted directly on Twitter today. However,
Speaker 1: this number far exceeds our expectations and far exceeds the
Speaker 1: number of switch to consoles that can be delivered from
Speaker 1: the Mind Nintendo store on June fifth. Therefore, unfortunately, we
Speaker 1: expect that a significant number of customers will not be
Speaker 1: selected when the winners are announced tomorrow April twenty April
Speaker 1: twenty fourth. So they're doing a lottery in Japan. They
Speaker 1: don't do that in a lot of territories. I think,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of I think they think a
Speaker 1: lot of other territories don't like the idea of a lottery,
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe they're right about that. Japan is more
Speaker 1: accustomed to that sort of thing. Two point two million
Speaker 1: trying to get in there, obviously a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Jake is going to be like, if you are, you're
Speaker 1: going to be spreading out your chances. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are going to try to go to the retailers.
Speaker 1: They're going to try to go to you know, online stores,
Speaker 1: and then if this is an opportunity, they're going to
Speaker 1: go do that as well. But two point two million
Speaker 1: right there at launch for the Mi Nintendo option, that
Speaker 1: is a pretty big demand for launch. Like if they
Speaker 1: sold two point two million switch tos just in Japan,
Speaker 1: in the first month. That would be really really good. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it does sound like you're right where we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: The mixed messaging on the availability of this thing is
Speaker 1: kind of a little confusing, but I think you know
Speaker 1: the bottom line, right is this thing is going to
Speaker 1: sell out at some point here pretty quickly after it
Speaker 1: goes up for sale, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other thing that's a little tricky here is well,
Speaker 3: it's been fairly easy in par the world to pre
Speaker 3: order once this comes out, once the game start coming out,
Speaker 3: you can actually expect it to get harder to get
Speaker 3: the longer it's out, because even the Switch one has
Speaker 3: historically sold out every holiday season. There's been other factors
Speaker 3: into that, there's been chip shortages and things like that,
Speaker 3: but even like five six years into its life cycle,
Speaker 3: to Switch one sells out for the holidays. So factor
Speaker 3: in like the demand for this, the fact that the
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty million Switch one user base doesn't
Speaker 3: have it yet and will be a lot of those
Speaker 3: players will be wanting one, and I expect it to
Speaker 3: be probably hard for pre orders then possibly like a
Speaker 3: little after lunch a couple a couple of months into
Speaker 3: it to get a little easier, but then like comes
Speaker 3: September in October, it might be harder than preorder time.
Speaker 3: The other thing is they have the most amount of
Speaker 3: stock during pre orders. They've been building up stock for
Speaker 3: months and months. Now it's going to come down to
Speaker 3: how many they can produce each month, so they'll never
Speaker 3: be able to stockpile units again. So that's gonna make
Speaker 3: it harder to get as well. So your best chance
Speaker 3: is probably like the pre order phase then maybe a
Speaker 3: couple months in, but then it's gonna get really hard
Speaker 3: to get. And then first quarter next year it might
Speaker 3: start to get easier.
Speaker 1: Yet right the slack might come back, like they won't
Speaker 1: begin stockpiling again, but the demand will sort of calm
Speaker 1: down a little bit. So okay, yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: Nintendo recognizes that to a certain extent, which is why
Speaker 1: they're out there kind of explaining this. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we will have to kind of see. But I'm i'm
Speaker 1: i'm imagine it's gonna go a lot like what you said,
Speaker 1: where it's you know, people who really want to run
Speaker 1: right right now, if they kind of put their head down,
Speaker 1: they'll have a good chance of snatching one. And then
Speaker 1: if you do. Wait, that period closer to the holiday
Speaker 1: is going to be more difficult. All right, Let's get
Speaker 1: on to some of the other news. C Obscure Expedition
Speaker 1: thirty three is a Game of the Year contender. I
Speaker 1: wrote down here just based on its early reviews. And
Speaker 1: it's not like this is a handful of reviews. There
Speaker 1: were more than eighty on Open Critic, where it has
Speaker 1: a ninety two ed Nightingale at Eurogamer gave it four stars,
Speaker 1: said that the French take on a GRPG is out
Speaker 1: has outstanding artwork and glorious combat that bring Claire Obscure
Speaker 1: Expedition thirty three's bold, painterly world to life. Richard Wakeling
Speaker 1: at GameSpot gave it a nine out of ten said
Speaker 1: Claire Obscure Expedition thirty three is a phenomenal RPG or
Speaker 1: RPE as we call it around here, telling a heartbreaking
Speaker 1: tale well incorporating thrilling action into its tactical turn based combat.
Speaker 1: Dom Pepiot at VG twenty four to seven gave it
Speaker 1: five stars and said they say art is all about
Speaker 1: eliciting an emotional reaction. If you could do that, all
Speaker 1: the effort expended in creating it was worth it. I
Speaker 1: think Claire Obscure does that with Uplum. If you have
Speaker 1: ever loved role playing games ever, you owe it to
Speaker 1: yourself to play this. It has the to touch you
Speaker 1: on your heart, all that good stuff. Yeah, Lexi and
Speaker 1: Chats gave it a ninety eight out of one hundred.
Speaker 1: Everyone I've been talking to Jake who's been playing this
Speaker 1: has really been liking it. I have it. I haven't
Speaker 1: had much time to play it myself, but I will be.
Speaker 1: I played it in the there was an early preview
Speaker 1: phase where I played quite a bit of it, and
Speaker 1: I just think it's got the juice. It has got
Speaker 1: the stuff that people come to these games for, and
Speaker 1: then it doesn't try to do too much outside of that,
Speaker 1: and I think that's pretty wise. It focuses on delivering
Speaker 1: like a really well done acting and storytelling and then
Speaker 1: a really good combat system. So I think this one's
Speaker 1: really going to catch on with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Is this one that's been on your radar, Jake?
Speaker 3: It? I mean it hasn't just because I've my backlog's
Speaker 3: been a little crazy. But I'm a huge RPG guy
Speaker 3: and I'm actually really interested because I'm addicted to turn
Speaker 3: based comment tactical RPGs srpgs. But one thing that when
Speaker 3: there's so many things to play in these games take
Speaker 3: a lot of time. One thing that kind of steers
Speaker 3: me away is if the story isn't compelling, if that
Speaker 3: part doesn't pull me in, it's you know, it makes
Speaker 3: it really hard for me to put all my time
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 2: But this game sounds like it has that.
Speaker 3: It's so definitely after hearing that, now it's it's kind
Speaker 3: of jumping up on my list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's exactly that that this is.
Speaker 1: You know that that's not always something that that captures me,
Speaker 1: but in this case, what I have played of it
Speaker 1: and have seen of it, it did like the story
Speaker 1: was something that won me over, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily need that personally, so when it does,
Speaker 1: it's always like this nice bonus. And then when that happens,
Speaker 1: I can usually tell it's like, if it's getting me
Speaker 1: in that way, the people that like you that do
Speaker 1: come to these games for that kind of of strong
Speaker 1: compelling storytelling storytelling are really going to have something to
Speaker 1: fall in love with here. So that's kind of been
Speaker 1: what everyone's saying and then on top of that that,
Speaker 1: really I just find it a super engaging combat system
Speaker 1: where all the characters have a little bit something different
Speaker 1: going on, and they all have their own sort of
Speaker 1: gameplay loop of how one action that you do feeds
Speaker 1: into the next action, and then that feeds into the
Speaker 1: next action that's even bigger and more impressive, and then
Speaker 1: it sort of flips over and starts all over again,
Speaker 1: and you just feel like you're always working towards something.
Speaker 1: It just it really understands the genre, really understands its
Speaker 1: own mechanics in a way that I have found very impressive.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yes, I think this game is can pop off.
Speaker 2: But I'm currently playing Astrobot.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, fair enough, Hey, that's a good game too, finish.
Speaker 3: Definitely gonna platinum it. I'm like, I'm like halfway through,
Speaker 3: but yeah, now I've got another one.
Speaker 1: Yep, Hey added to the list for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do think this game is going to find a
Speaker 1: massive audience. It's it's going to be a lot of
Speaker 1: people's new main thing that they're going to be thinking
Speaker 1: about for the rest of the year, and it is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I am like people keep playing. Hey,
Speaker 1: Oblivion launched this week. And obviously there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who play all kinds of games, concluding both
Speaker 1: in Oblivion and RPG like this, But I think this
Speaker 1: one's gonna find its own audience, very separate from from
Speaker 1: that noise.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a stacked year.
Speaker 1: Yes, already is kind of like there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of good.
Speaker 3: Game our world, Donkey Kong, Pokemon Legends, this game, GTA six,
Speaker 3: Ghosts of Yotai. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, And speaking to Ghost Yota. Ghost of Yota
Speaker 1: release date set for October second, I know I can't never.
Speaker 1: I think it's Yota, but I can't remember for sure.
Speaker 1: From Darren Bonteuse at game Spot, ghosty Ota has an
Speaker 1: official release date locked in as the upcoming open world
Speaker 1: samurai game will be released for PlayStation five on October second.
Speaker 1: Developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the game is a sequel
Speaker 1: to the critically acclaimed Ghost of Sushima. This got announced
Speaker 1: that blog post Sucker Punch revealed more about Ghost Yota's plot,
Speaker 1: which revolves around the protagonists Atsu hunting down the Yota Six,
Speaker 1: a gang about laws who murdered her family. It's just
Speaker 1: like they're completely just ripping off that assess it's Creed
Speaker 1: Shadows game. Yeah, this is a little bit surprising, Jake,
Speaker 1: because what we've been hearing is people are not going
Speaker 1: with the release dates. They're not nailing these things down
Speaker 1: because Grand Theft Auto six is still hanging on the horizon.
Speaker 1: But they're going with early October, which to me says
Speaker 1: they know Grand Theft Auto six isn't coming out before then, right?
Speaker 1: Is that what it says to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's that's what's what people are saying.
Speaker 3: That's that's what going around. And yeah, it kind of
Speaker 3: definitely makes you feel that way. And for a game
Speaker 3: the size and the scope of GTA six, it often
Speaker 3: happens that whenever they announce a year and not the
Speaker 3: date it comes out at the very end.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, I mean I think that the earliest that
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto six could come out this year is
Speaker 1: late October. I think that is.
Speaker 3: Probably what's possible it gets delayed into twenty twenty six,
Speaker 3: oh for sure. Sure.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have our Fantasy Critic League, and I
Speaker 1: think Mike picked Grand Theft Auto six and then I
Speaker 1: counterpicked it just on the hope that it does get delayed.
Speaker 1: And that, you know, the hope, but really I hope
Speaker 1: it comes out this year because I want to play it.
Speaker 1: But that was I'm like, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: thing does get delayed, and yeah, yeah, but at the
Speaker 1: very least it's it's not early October, it would be
Speaker 1: late October and then through the rest of the year
Speaker 1: if it comes out this year, which there's still a
Speaker 1: really strong chance it does, but you know, we're getting
Speaker 1: close to that time. You know, we're going to be
Speaker 1: planning for Summer Game Fest kind of NonStop for the
Speaker 1: next month. Like people need to know their dates, and
Speaker 1: if your game is Grand Theft Auto six and it
Speaker 1: really is coming out this year, you probably do have
Speaker 1: to start being like, no, we do have a real
Speaker 1: date for that now that we are going to stick
Speaker 1: to and tell our partners and like people like PlayStations
Speaker 1: so they know what's going on, they could feel better.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, the game
Speaker 1: being done will dictate all of that, and they'll have
Speaker 1: to do that first. But if the game is getting
Speaker 1: to a point where it's ready now is about the
Speaker 1: time where I would expect them to have a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea when that thing is actually coming out, So
Speaker 1: do you think we hear about that here in the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks next month. Do you think they
Speaker 1: hold off until they like the last minute to tell
Speaker 1: us the actual release date, Because once they announced it,
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna know, because it's going to be everywhere, it'll
Speaker 1: be impossible to ignore. So they kind of have the
Speaker 1: leeway of announcing it whenever they want, right.
Speaker 3: I think similarly to companies not wanting to reveal games
Speaker 3: or release games around GTA six because it'll kind of
Speaker 3: take over all the attention and they'll lose, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever they're doing in the chaos. I think rock Star
Speaker 3: probably wants to wait till after like switch to stuff,
Speaker 3: wait till wait, till after some of these other games
Speaker 3: have come out. I think they would also like to
Speaker 3: like kind of have center stage, to have that big
Speaker 3: release date. And obviously the big thing that's been a
Speaker 3: problem with them is they don't want it. They don't
Speaker 3: want to get leaked. They want to have control of
Speaker 3: when that gets announced, so they might even just not
Speaker 3: be picking a date internally yet because of that.
Speaker 2: It's such a big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you're right that it's like that
Speaker 1: they are going to take all of the leeway that
Speaker 1: they're possibly given. If you are a big game and
Speaker 1: your game sort of sells itself, you do have that slack,
Speaker 1: so you might as well use it because it's honestly,
Speaker 1: it saves you money. It saves you money on marketing,
Speaker 1: saves you money from having to like try to crunch
Speaker 1: people to get something done in a way that isn't
Speaker 1: that it actually isn't ready for. And so it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just kind of go with the flow here, see
Speaker 1: how things are going. We all know when we want
Speaker 1: this thing to come out, but let's not say anything
Speaker 1: publicly because we don't want to have to like correct
Speaker 1: the record, which also does just cost money in terms
Speaker 1: of marketing. So yeah, I think this is just a
Speaker 1: lot of it's just driven by simple business decisions at
Speaker 1: this point. And I think at the same time, they
Speaker 1: are probably out there having conversations with partners like Sony
Speaker 1: being like, yeah, no, don't worry, it won't be out
Speaker 1: before the middle of October. So if you wanted to
Speaker 1: release Ghost of Yota on October second of this year,
Speaker 1: excuse me of this year, go for it. You're going
Speaker 1: to be just fine. You'll have a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: to yourself and yeah, that's probably right.
Speaker 3: Well, I had a question for you, just your opinion
Speaker 3: when it comes to do you think that Rockstar is
Speaker 3: watching how people are reacting to the price of Mario
Speaker 3: Kart and do you think they know what they want
Speaker 3: to charge for it yet or do you think they're
Speaker 3: kind of taking advantage of being.
Speaker 2: Able to see how people are.
Speaker 3: Reacting to this and kind of they might have something
Speaker 3: they're looking at but they're open to they don't have
Speaker 3: a set price yet.
Speaker 2: Is I guess this is what I mean?
Speaker 1: No, I think that's right. Is you know it doesn't
Speaker 1: always work this way with software, but if people like
Speaker 1: look back to when we were wondering, hey, what it's
Speaker 1: the price of the PS five and the Xbox Series
Speaker 1: X going to be, and everyone's like, well, they know,
Speaker 1: they're just not telling us. It's like, no, they don't
Speaker 1: know they have a range. They're waiting for the other
Speaker 1: person to make a move, so they're like, so they
Speaker 1: don't look out of step. And then they both played
Speaker 1: chicken and then they kind of both like at the
Speaker 1: last minute decided on five hundred because they're like, the
Speaker 1: other one's not going to go to six hundred. If
Speaker 1: the other one went to six hundred, maybe we go
Speaker 1: to six hundred. So they decide the price. That's the
Speaker 1: last thing that they decide on. For hardware and software,
Speaker 1: you kind of are a little bit more pinned down
Speaker 1: because people have an expectation of what things should cost.
Speaker 1: Now we've seen normally it's pretty set right, but things
Speaker 1: have become a little bit unchained from that, and the
Speaker 1: anchor of the price has been lifted a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I do think that now Mario Kart frees them
Speaker 1: up to be like a little bit have a little
Speaker 1: bit more flexibility. But also the reaction does make it
Speaker 1: so it's like, well, you got to keep in mind
Speaker 1: people will be angry, but they have a chance now
Speaker 1: to see how Mario Kart eight actually performs. Like people
Speaker 1: are saying one thing, what do they actually do when
Speaker 1: the rubber meets the road, and they actually actually have
Speaker 1: to decide if that game is worth eighty dollars and
Speaker 1: it's grand theft out of six so it will have
Speaker 1: even more demand actually than a Mario Kart. So I
Speaker 1: think they're they're going to decide at the last minute
Speaker 1: that they I don't think there's any way the game
Speaker 1: is under eighty dollars at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say this kind of gives them
Speaker 3: the green light to at least go eighty. But if
Speaker 3: they are then the next ones to raise over the
Speaker 3: eighty price point, they could see some of this backlash.
Speaker 2: So this this.
Speaker 3: Might cap them at eighty and then a lot of
Speaker 3: DLC and you know, online micro transactions and stuff.
Speaker 2: They probably want to have that route.
Speaker 3: So I think people that are saying one hundred, I
Speaker 3: think just because of like what that what that price
Speaker 3: point would mean, and.
Speaker 1: Just just the.
Speaker 2: Just like the look of it would just be so shocking.
Speaker 3: I don't think it'll be one hundred, but I think
Speaker 3: at I agree with you, and it possibly like a
Speaker 3: little more, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's they are. I'm sure they are worried a
Speaker 1: little bit about a backlash, but the backlash I think
Speaker 1: they would view it as well, that's temporary and people
Speaker 1: will get used to whatever price we set. And in
Speaker 1: five years do we want to look back and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we didn't have a backlash for three months?
Speaker 1: Or am I glad that we got an extra ten
Speaker 1: to twenty dollars for every copy we sold for the
Speaker 1: last five years. I know which way that they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 1: You're right, I know which way that they really how
Speaker 1: they really feel about that. But they the realities, they
Speaker 1: do have to take price pressure into consideration, because every
Speaker 1: dollar you increase it does mean fewer people will buy it.
Speaker 1: But do you think your thing has so much demand
Speaker 1: that won't matter. I think they probably feel that way
Speaker 1: about Grand Theft Auto six. The reality here is they
Speaker 1: almost certainly just get creative with the price, right, eighty
Speaker 1: dollars for a base version, one hundred dollars for something
Speaker 1: that has all the stuff that you really want if
Speaker 1: you're gonna play GT Online two or whatever. That looks
Speaker 1: like something. We still have no idea how they're going
Speaker 1: to present that early access.
Speaker 3: The TS six version. Then we're gonna have the PS
Speaker 3: six pro versus.
Speaker 1: Of course, yes, and then the play at a week
Speaker 1: early for one hundred and twenty dollars. That sort of thing.
Speaker 1: They'll sell a lot of copies of that. That'll be
Speaker 1: the bulk of their sales honestly, in the first year
Speaker 1: if they could. And so I don't think that they
Speaker 1: will avoid that either, so they'll find a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to get that average price up well above eighty,
Speaker 1: but the minimum is going to be eighty. All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about Matt piscatella drop in the latest
Speaker 1: SIRCANA report for US game sales, and a lot more
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, back into it on Game
Speaker 1: Breaking News. Jeff Grubb Here, it's Jake Randal. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about March twenty twenty five SIRCANA report. Here.
Speaker 1: It is from Matt Piscatella. March twenty twenty five projected
Speaker 1: US consumer spending on video game hardware, content and accessories
Speaker 1: declined six percent when compared to last year. And that's
Speaker 1: to four point seven or yeah, to four point seven
Speaker 1: billion dollars total assassage. Creed Shadows debuted as the best
Speaker 1: selling game of March, ranking second year to date so
Speaker 1: far US video game market. March spinning trend. This is
Speaker 1: them kind of just tracking how things have gone. March
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, content spending fell four percent versus a
Speaker 1: year ago to four point two billion dollars. The only
Speaker 1: growth segments were non mobile subscription which was up eleven percent,
Speaker 1: and console digital premium downloads, which were up twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Mobile content finished six percent behind March twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: so even mobile spending was down. They do have a
Speaker 1: chart where it shows like how marches have gone for
Speaker 1: like the last let's say, like, yeah, let's like six years,
Speaker 1: seven years, and overall it's very flat, like it's just
Speaker 1: not growing. There was a spike in March of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, big surprise, and then since then it's back
Speaker 1: in line with March twenty twenty and it's basically been
Speaker 1: the same ever since. So there's like four straight years
Speaker 1: of not a lot of growth in the US total
Speaker 1: video game spending market that includes mobile. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times if we talk about this and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, the console space is pretty even, but
Speaker 1: on the mobile side things are growing. So they're like
Speaker 1: for people that make games, they're looking over there and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, even when you count that in there,
Speaker 1: the overall spending on video games is pretty flat for
Speaker 1: four years in a row. As mentioned, Assassin's Creed Shadows
Speaker 1: was the best selling game of the month. It's the
Speaker 1: second best selling game of the year so far, MLB
Speaker 1: The Show the new version was number two. WWE two
Speaker 1: K twenty five joined the chart at number four, and
Speaker 1: number five was Split Fiction. Pretty good showing for that game.
Speaker 1: Let's see here rest of the chart. Yeah, okay, some
Speaker 1: notes from Matt about some of these games. Assassin's Creed
Speaker 1: Shadows was the best selling title in March, instantly becoming
Speaker 1: the number two best selling game of the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five year to date. Assassin's Creed Shadows finished the month
Speaker 1: ranked first in full game dollar sales on Xbox platforms
Speaker 1: and second on both PlayStation and Steam. MLB The Show
Speaker 1: twenty five ranked as the second best selling game of
Speaker 1: March and led all titles in full game dollar sales
Speaker 1: on PlayStation platforms. Tracked launch month dollar sales of MLB
Speaker 1: The Show twenty five, or twenty three percent higher than
Speaker 1: those of MLB The Show twenty four during its March
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four debut period. I think that game is
Speaker 1: no longer on game Pass, and that might be what
Speaker 1: happened there, Okay, Jake. Basically, it's like some new games
Speaker 1: came out, they performed pretty well. It's still like the
Speaker 1: sales for software down year over year, regardless of that.
Speaker 1: Do you think that we are in a place where
Speaker 1: Switch two comes out and kind of cures a lot
Speaker 1: of what ails the gaming industry right now? Or is
Speaker 1: there more to it than that.
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of a little more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: I think that the backlash with the prices doesn't really help.
Speaker 3: So in a way, the switch too is kind of
Speaker 3: hurting it as much as it's helping it. Nintendo always
Speaker 3: produces quality software there. Their games are very polished, very fun,
Speaker 3: but I think there's a lot going on right now.
Speaker 3: When those numbers kind of peaked, it was around COVID
Speaker 3: and there was also new consoles coming out, so that
Speaker 3: was part of it. So that's why I switched to
Speaker 3: could definitely renew some interest, but we can't really.
Speaker 2: Recreate that situation, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it was never gonna always be like that, but
Speaker 3: the world's populations always getting up. That's why there's always
Speaker 3: records being broken for most selling games. I'm sure Mario
Speaker 3: Kart World will will break records, especially being available in
Speaker 3: a bundle with the console.
Speaker 2: But there's just it's so easy.
Speaker 3: There's so many like handhelds like the Steam Deck and
Speaker 3: things like that. Where it's so easy to emulate past
Speaker 3: libraries and it's just becoming more and more accessible for
Speaker 3: the average consumer to easily do that. And there's so
Speaker 3: many games out there that you could be a hardcore
Speaker 3: gamer and play video games every day and never really
Speaker 3: have to spend any money or you know, at least
Speaker 3: be able to wait for heavily discounted sales, especially when
Speaker 3: you know it's going to come from companies like Ubisoft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's like all of those factors
Speaker 1: are are so huge of the reasons that like console
Speaker 1: gaming specifically isn't growing, Like those barriers of the price
Speaker 1: were always an issue, and the industry seems to have
Speaker 1: no real interest in solving it. Those solutions they did
Speaker 1: come up with. Cloud gaming is just not something that
Speaker 1: has clicked for a lot of people. You know, I've
Speaker 1: talked about a story on Monday's show Jake about the
Speaker 1: renting PS five being very popular in Japan. It's like
Speaker 1: something that yeah, and that's like okay, yes, so clearly
Speaker 1: there is a demand there of people who want to
Speaker 1: play these consoles, do not want to spend five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or more on them to make that possible. So
Speaker 1: they're looking for an alternative method, but the cloud option
Speaker 1: is not something that they're really considering. They'll just instead
Speaker 1: rent a consoles. Okay, So there's still this gap that
Speaker 1: needs to be bridged, and in the meantime, prices keep
Speaker 1: going up, and so the traditional method of hey, buy console,
Speaker 1: buy some games, that is not It's not more appealing,
Speaker 1: it's less appealing and feels like, well, if I'm someone
Speaker 1: who was looking over there in that direction and I'm
Speaker 1: already playing something free on my phone, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to keep playing the free thing on my phone. So
Speaker 1: it's definitely the industry kind of putting itself in this
Speaker 1: position in a lot of ways. But also the stuff
Speaker 1: does get more expensive than they have reasons that they
Speaker 1: need to grow, and so them trying to get more
Speaker 1: money from the same people. I understand that, but boy,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is a long term sustainable strategy.
Speaker 1: But that's not the way these companies think. So I
Speaker 1: think Switch too will come along and we'll answer a
Speaker 1: lot of this because obviously where the switch was a
Speaker 1: big part of booing the entire least video game sales
Speaker 1: in the United States and around the world, and it's
Speaker 1: at the end of its life, so a lot of
Speaker 1: the declines we see year over year are attributable to that.
Speaker 1: So the switch to coming back on the rise will
Speaker 1: be fantastic, But in the meantime PS five and Xbox
Speaker 1: Series X are both like experiencing major declines of their own.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have a note here from Matt much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: March video game hardware spending fell twenty five percent when
Speaker 1: compared to a year ago, to two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: six million dollars. This is the lowest March hardware spending
Speaker 1: total since twenty nineteen. PlayStation five hardware dollar sales fell
Speaker 1: twenty six percent in March versus a year ago. However,
Speaker 1: this platform once again led the market in both dollars
Speaker 1: and unit sales, so it's down massive digit percentages and
Speaker 1: still is out selling.
Speaker 3: A similar decline in like PS four sales right before
Speaker 3: the PS five came out.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when there's a new console, people are going to
Speaker 3: be saving for that. That's that's probably a minor factor
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that that We had Matt on the show
Speaker 1: a couple months ago now at this point and he
Speaker 1: mentioned it is like, yes, this is the time where
Speaker 1: these consoles do see a natural decline. The bell curve
Speaker 1: of sales were over the hump there. But he did
Speaker 1: note that these declines, like twenty six percent, is much
Speaker 1: greater than what he was expecting. He thought it would
Speaker 1: be a more gradual decline and this seems to be
Speaker 1: pretty precipitous. So I think there's just again multiple factors there.
Speaker 1: Of the system is expensive and in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: in a lot of places has gotten more expensive, like
Speaker 1: the PS five and the people who are sitting out,
Speaker 1: we're sitting out, sitting out specifically to save money. And
Speaker 1: we know that they they had some discounts on PS
Speaker 1: five a couple of holidays and row where I was like,
Speaker 1: actually can get this for like three hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: and even that was too much for quite a few people.
Speaker 1: You know, they're PS five sold really well.
Speaker 3: I feel like the entertainment industry as a whole, like
Speaker 3: even movies and shows. I feel like everything's kind of
Speaker 3: just people like they're not going to see movies in
Speaker 3: the theater. I feel like everything's on the decline right now.
Speaker 1: Everyone just is saving a little bit extra money, and
Speaker 1: the expensive costs of everything I think is a huge
Speaker 1: factor there, so switch to will only solve so much
Speaker 1: of that, right, because it itself is very expensive. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see anything else from this. He also notes that
Speaker 1: people are buying a lot of accessories though, so although
Speaker 1: year to date spending is down sixteen percent actually and
Speaker 1: it was down eleven percent in March. But if you're
Speaker 1: selling accessory, make it black apparently, because black accessories were
Speaker 1: the top selling across all categories there, So there you go,
Speaker 1: all right. Persona four remakes speculation picks up as website
Speaker 1: gets updated again. This is from Mike Straw at Insider
Speaker 1: Gaming talk surrounding a potential reveal of a Persona four
Speaker 1: remake is continuing to pick up steam online. Late last month,
Speaker 1: Key nine fans discovered that a website with the domain
Speaker 1: P four r dot Jp had been registered. It was
Speaker 1: quickly pointed out that just three months before it was
Speaker 1: revealed a domain for our the domain of P three
Speaker 1: r e dot JP was also registered for Persona three
Speaker 1: remake that launched in February twenty twenty four. So people
Speaker 1: are drawing drawing a direct correlation here, Jake of this
Speaker 1: happened before, so maybe we'll get this game very soon,
Speaker 1: and at the very least. People are also noting that
Speaker 1: this website is getting updated frequently. It was just updated
Speaker 1: a couple days ago apparently. So does feel like we
Speaker 1: are gonna find out about this pretty soon? Of course,
Speaker 1: this is no guarantee of that. The website could be
Speaker 1: just a placeholder this is this is yeah, no guarantee,
Speaker 1: but Persona four remake has been rumored and speculated on
Speaker 1: seems pretty likely. Do you think this is something we
Speaker 1: hear about pretty soon? Oh? I for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean as soon as you know they did Persona
Speaker 3: three remake, It's like, Okay, Persona four remake is gonna
Speaker 3: come at some point. It's an even more popular game,
Speaker 3: you know, whether you like three or four better Persona
Speaker 3: series ever since three, like three, four, five has just exploded,
Speaker 3: And as soon as as soon as they remained three,
Speaker 3: you knew four was gonna come. And I think with
Speaker 3: this website coming out, it absolutely points to they're gonna
Speaker 3: share it soon.
Speaker 2: Or at least it's it's probably ready to be.
Speaker 3: Shared and they're trying to pick the exact perfect time.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll see it at Summer games Fest. That would
Speaker 3: make sense, But honestly, I'm I'm more interested when we're
Speaker 3: gonna get Final Fantasy nine and Persona six.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, Persona six is probably something that they are
Speaker 1: gonna say for quite a bit longer whenever I talk
Speaker 1: to my friends or a huge Persona fans, so like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's happening, but I'm not expecting to hear about
Speaker 1: it anytime soon. Final Fantasy nine, though, that's one they
Speaker 1: keep like teasing in every way except for just saying
Speaker 1: that they're doing it, So what is going on there?
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that's another one that could be at Summer
Speaker 1: Game Fest, although I think I've said that about every
Speaker 1: like major show for months now. Yeah, that is one
Speaker 1: of the last few games that was in that Nvidia
Speaker 1: leak that has not come out, so I continue to that.
Speaker 3: And it's so funny because that was one of the
Speaker 3: most hyped games from that leak, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: almost like we're getting teased every time another game comes
Speaker 3: out and that one is an announced hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, Square Enix now has started up
Speaker 1: a Final Fantasy nine like anniversary thing. It's what it's
Speaker 1: it's twenty fifth thirtieth anniversary something like that. Yeah, twenty
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary, and they keep talking about, Hey, and there
Speaker 1: will be other projects as well, so here's a bunch
Speaker 1: of merch you can buy. And I said, well, what
Speaker 1: are the projects? Can you just tell us what's going
Speaker 1: on there? And they keep just not saying it.
Speaker 3: It's not to diminish from Persona four because I'm extremely
Speaker 3: excited for that. That's an amazing game, and I also
Speaker 3: want to I mean, Atlas has just been killing it
Speaker 3: the last few years. Metaphor Refantasio is basically Persona. It's
Speaker 3: like a Persona game in a different setting, right, I
Speaker 3: mean everything about it feels Persona, but it's really refreshing.
Speaker 3: So that's the fantastic game too, so I really can't complain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as people are plating out in chat, if
Speaker 1: you are desperate for a Persona Exhibition thirty three is
Speaker 1: very much inspired by Persona games, So there you go,
Speaker 1: get in on that action.
Speaker 2: Now I'm even more sold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a Persona with adults, It's what they're saying
Speaker 1: in chat, all right. Oblivion Shadow dropped yesterday, and who
Speaker 1: could have predicted that was going to happen. It peaked
Speaker 1: at one hundred and eighty two thousand concurrent players on Steam, though,
Speaker 1: which you know, current players for a single player game.
Speaker 1: I get it. I always just used as an indicator
Speaker 1: of how a game is performing in terms of sales.
Speaker 1: That is a massive number and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are playing this game and buying this game. And that's
Speaker 1: just on Steam, where you know, the game is also
Speaker 1: available on game Pass on PC and Xbox, so I
Speaker 1: think the thing must be doing very well. I am
Speaker 1: very excited about this game still. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: checking it out. It was gonna play a sim yesterday,
Speaker 1: ran out of time and I couldn't. But it seems
Speaker 1: like they've done They've done a good job, and it's
Speaker 1: one of these games that like came out of nowhere
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I wonder what the controversy is going
Speaker 1: to be Jake, where I'm like, oh, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: gonna be something wrong with it, and people are going
Speaker 1: to be they're gonna hate it, something about it, and
Speaker 1: that'll be come the entire conversation. That does not seem
Speaker 1: to be happening. So I think people are pretty happy
Speaker 1: with this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people are just it's yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: pretty drama free release so far, which is great to see.
Speaker 3: It's funny because the original Oblivion was one of the
Speaker 3: first things to have a lot of drama about the
Speaker 3: price of having to pay to get the horse horse.
Speaker 2: Like mind blowing.
Speaker 3: Now it's started, and I think there's like a version
Speaker 3: you can get that comes with that, which.
Speaker 1: Is, yeah, the dual Exhibition. It's sixty dollars. Yep. There's
Speaker 1: a fifty dollars version and a sixty dollars version that
Speaker 1: comes with the horse armor. So still doing it to this.
Speaker 2: Day, okay, yeah, but no one cares at this point because.
Speaker 1: Really, wow, but we're so used to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: I noticed that there's no announcements for coming to switch
Speaker 3: too yet, but I think it would be really cool.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they would do this, but they
Speaker 3: did it with Skyrim where they put the Master Sword
Speaker 3: and Link Shield in the game, and I think that
Speaker 3: would be pretty cool if they did that for the
Speaker 3: switch to version.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. And as Snackda points out, the one thing
Speaker 1: of drama that is happening around it is there is
Speaker 1: the Microsoft boycott by BDS, and that, you know, it
Speaker 1: does seem to be hitting the game a little bit,
Speaker 1: but that BDS boycott is still like picking up Steam
Speaker 1: I think, I think, and a lot of people are
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where they fall on it. All right,
Speaker 1: excuse me, let's see here instead of shutting down mod
Speaker 1: remaking Oblivion in Skyrim. Yeah, the mod's remaking Oblivion in Skyrim,
Speaker 1: but does it gave the team Oblivion remass keys. So essentially,
Speaker 1: there's the sky Oblivion mod that a bunch of creators
Speaker 1: are working on to remake Oblivion in Skyrim. They've been
Speaker 1: working on it for years and they now, you know,
Speaker 1: Bethesda has their own version of that idea. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not remaking it in Skyrim. Then remade the visuals
Speaker 1: in Unreal Engine five, and you could imagine like a
Speaker 1: couple like Nintendo being like, shut that down, we don't
Speaker 1: want competition from the community. Well that's not what Pothessa
Speaker 1: is doing. They are. Instead, they gave keys for their
Speaker 1: version of Oblivion remastered to that entire team, and the
Speaker 1: sky Skyblivion team was like, just like, thank you. We
Speaker 1: think that this game coming out is actually going to
Speaker 1: help us as well. So everyone's kind of getting along
Speaker 1: over there, And I gotta say I appreciate this aspect
Speaker 1: of things of you don't have to squash every sort
Speaker 1: of fan show of devotion when it when it just
Speaker 1: takes just because it takes the form of a video
Speaker 1: game like that, people want to make their fan art
Speaker 1: and they want to make their fan games, Let them
Speaker 1: do it, and it really is not going to hurt
Speaker 1: any thing in the end. It clearly has not hurt Oblivion, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's so cool.
Speaker 3: I mean, the people that are making these mods are
Speaker 3: the biggest fans of your names, so I think it's
Speaker 3: it's amazing to do that for them and show that appreciation.
Speaker 3: Probably made their year. You know, it's frustrating the way
Speaker 3: Nintendo goes about it. They're kind of like how Disney
Speaker 3: is with their intellectual properties. Yes, I get it, it
Speaker 3: makes sense from a business perspective, but it doesn't always
Speaker 3: make sense, you know what I mean. Like it's some
Speaker 3: sometimes when you see all the love, it's good. And
Speaker 3: you know, Nintendo has, especially like the Pokemon Company has.
Speaker 3: It's been speculated that they've used fan created Pokemon to
Speaker 3: inspire their designs. It's hard to say because most Pokemon
Speaker 3: are based on real animals, but there are some very
Speaker 3: compelling cases where you can look at some fan made
Speaker 3: Pokemon versus what Nintendo did, and there's so many similarities
Speaker 3: that kind of makes sense. And I don't know, imagine
Speaker 3: if Nintendo open up a contest, you know, to create
Speaker 3: your own Pokemon and it will be added to the game.
Speaker 3: That would be so much publicity right there, like the
Speaker 3: next game, whatever performance issues that have, that would totally
Speaker 3: kind of take over, you know what people are talking about.
Speaker 3: I wish Nintendo would do stuff like this more so,
Speaker 3: shout out to them for doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's definitely I always point out it's like
Speaker 1: the difference between Lucasfilm for a long time and CBS
Speaker 1: Paramount with the Star Trek, where Lucasfilm was actually pretty
Speaker 1: litigious and stopping people from making a lot of Star
Speaker 1: Wars fan films, and Star Trek was just like, go
Speaker 1: to town, do whatever you want, make all this stuff,
Speaker 1: make your own entire fan shows and stream them online.
Speaker 1: And we love to see this stuff. And it's like,
Speaker 1: clearly one of those is better than the other and
Speaker 1: helps grow and foster's a community of creative people who
Speaker 1: want to be a part and like eventually a lot
Speaker 1: of those people are going to end up making the
Speaker 1: real ones because they will have built up so much
Speaker 1: talent and skills, and they'll go work in those fields
Speaker 1: professionally and then maybe one day actually make a real
Speaker 1: Star Wars for you. So yeah, I'm if I'm one
Speaker 1: of these game companies, I am definitely finding every way
Speaker 1: I can to support the mod creators. Now, Oblivion Remastered
Speaker 1: doesn't support mods out of the gate. I think they're
Speaker 1: mostly just saying, don't install the mods that already exist
Speaker 1: for Oblivion into this game because it'll probably break it is.
Speaker 1: What is how I read that. I bet the community
Speaker 1: will figure I bet the community we'll figure out that,
Speaker 1: figure that out really soon. And at that point, I think,
Speaker 1: but that it will just stand back and be all right,
Speaker 1: go to town. We're not going to get in your way,
Speaker 1: all right. Last thing here, Activision confirms tonyaks pro Skater
Speaker 1: three plus four will have a career mode, but fans
Speaker 1: are still confused. This is from Joshua Robertson at The Gamer,
Speaker 1: and I too, am still confused about this.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see we can figure this one out. Tonyawk's
Speaker 1: Pro Skater three plus fours reveal earlier this year was
Speaker 1: a big surprise to many, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of excitement over potentially revisiting some of the classic Many
Speaker 1: Hawk games with we all grew up with. Unfortunately, a
Speaker 1: lot of the excitement was then ruined by the reveal
Speaker 1: that the games wouldn't include pro Skater Force free roam
Speaker 1: career mode. Instead, the game will have a new streamlined
Speaker 1: career mode in which players have two minutes to complete challenges.
Speaker 1: It was a major blow to many fans, though Activisions.
Speaker 1: Activision seems to now be doing the best to make
Speaker 1: sure the entire situation is as confusing as possible, as
Speaker 1: it appears to have rubbished its own comments and confirmed
Speaker 1: career mode after all. So there is a tweet that
Speaker 1: they posted where they said, who said there's no career mode?
Speaker 1: And then they show small snippets of gameplay of Tonyak
Speaker 1: pro Skater for missions, and it looks like it's suggesting
Speaker 1: that the original career mode is in there as people
Speaker 1: want it to be, although they didn't just come out
Speaker 1: there and explicitly state that. And the one thing that
Speaker 1: is making people think, giving people hope is there is
Speaker 1: like a two second segment of this video that has
Speaker 1: a timer counting up and so that seems to suggest like, Okay,
Speaker 1: for the mission that you're doing for this tony Oks
Speaker 1: pro Skater for objective, you're gonna get a timer counting
Speaker 1: up because there's no two minute timer counting you down.
Speaker 1: It's just tracking how how long it takes you to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: So you can like time, is that counter out? Because
Speaker 3: could it be counting up to two minutes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's at forty two seconds. Yeah, Jan's getting here.
Speaker 1: For everybody on the video version, there's some Tonyak's pro
Speaker 1: Skater content creators who are like looking very closely at this,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think I might have one from
Speaker 1: someone here. Okay, now I didn't bring that up, but
Speaker 1: essentially what he said was I can't tell from looking
Speaker 1: at this this He's like, it's either this is like
Speaker 1: a version of a speed run mode where people can
Speaker 1: like take those missions and go do a speed run
Speaker 1: version of it, or this is the full career mode
Speaker 1: and there was for some reason they just confused the
Speaker 1: messaging out of the gate, or they've made some changes
Speaker 1: and they've restored that. And it's like I think he
Speaker 1: was saying he leaned towards this being a speed run
Speaker 1: mode and that's kind of where I'm at as well.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get my hopes up and you
Speaker 1: would get other people.
Speaker 3: They just completely reinstated the career mode, and they went
Speaker 3: out of their way to you know, make a statement
Speaker 3: about it that they would be.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, that's the best way to put it, Jake.
Speaker 1: I think is like if they were doing it, they
Speaker 1: would say that they're doing exactly that without any sort
Speaker 1: of confusion around the matter. This this feels like trying
Speaker 1: to muddy the messaging and be like, no, there's a
Speaker 1: career mode and you're gonna be fine with whatever we
Speaker 1: put in here, Come on, relax and yeah, well I.
Speaker 2: Tend to agree.
Speaker 3: It seems like it's one of those situations where we
Speaker 3: got to wait for it to come out to confirm exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think they're going to not do review copies
Speaker 2: like early Early.
Speaker 1: No, because I think that they are of the opinion
Speaker 1: and I'm of this opinion Jake, that once people get
Speaker 1: their hands on this, this concern the concerns people have
Speaker 1: about this not being the Tony OOKX pros skater for
Speaker 1: that they want, we'll mostly go away because it's like,
Speaker 1: once you're playing it, I bet it's gonna be like,
Speaker 1: oh right, it is different. But I see how they
Speaker 1: what they mean by streamlined and how this is actually
Speaker 1: still a very fun game and probably going to be
Speaker 1: better in a lot of ways. I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be an improvement in a lot of ways, even
Speaker 1: if it's not exactly what people are saying they want now.
Speaker 1: Once they get their hands on it, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people change their mind, I hope.
Speaker 2: So I hope that's the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's definitely me hoping in that as well. But
Speaker 1: I do think that's probably how this will go down.
Speaker 3: So that does kind of make sense if they're confident
Speaker 3: in the products and they think it is actually more
Speaker 3: fun this way, but people just can't experience that yet.
Speaker 3: You do have to have it come out, So I
Speaker 3: hope that's the case for sure.
Speaker 1: Yep, we'll see. It's the game's out July eleventh, so
Speaker 1: not that far away at all. We got Donkey Kong
Speaker 1: Bonanza and then that a couple days later. All right,
Speaker 1: that does it for the headlines. We have poll questions
Speaker 1: we need to get to. Let me go ahead and
Speaker 1: bring it up here. This one is from Monday. Let
Speaker 1: me scroll down here all right, have you ever rented
Speaker 1: a console? Yes? Or no? I actually did rent a
Speaker 1: police station one well once forever ago, thirty years ago, jesus.
Speaker 1: Thirty four percent of people said that they have actually
Speaker 1: rented a console before sixty six percent said no these days,
Speaker 1: or at least for like the last ten to fifteen years,
Speaker 1: it's like, where would you even go to do that?
Speaker 1: And maybe like a rent to center and then they're consoles.
Speaker 1: I don't think game Flavor did consoles. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, like we were to our smer
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, rent a center and that they'll charge
Speaker 1: you like so much that.
Speaker 2: It's clear that that it's known to it it's.
Speaker 1: A bad deal. So yeah, but maybe some people are
Speaker 1: talking about that when they're saying yes. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think this is something that might come back a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's not going to be a major
Speaker 1: part of the industry, at least not in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't really see it working in our market.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Okay, that does it for that poll question.
Speaker 1: We have a new poll question we'll get to here
Speaker 1: in a second before where we do that though, Jake
Speaker 1: Randal one more time. Tell people where they can find
Speaker 1: you on the internet, what you have going on, what
Speaker 1: you want them to watch, all that good stuff.
Speaker 3: You can find me if you just search Jake Randall
Speaker 3: on YouTube or Jake Randall switched to. You can do
Speaker 3: it on YouTube on Twitter x and if you're trying
Speaker 3: to pre order, switch to or maybe you're gonna wait
Speaker 3: a little bit either way to be fully prepared for
Speaker 3: how the retailers work. I have guides on my channel.
Speaker 3: The most recent video on my channel is a master
Speaker 3: guide that has it took me a really long time.
Speaker 2: We showed the notes at the beginning of the stream
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw those out after, but uh, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: be live streaming tonight as well, So all of that
Speaker 3: stuff is on my channel. So the best part about
Speaker 3: the live stream isn't even me. It's the fact that
Speaker 3: we have, like you know, thousands of people there that
Speaker 3: collectively can let us know what websites are working, what
Speaker 3: websites aren't. To keep you in the loops, you're not
Speaker 3: just kind of guessing on your own right and kind
Speaker 3: of panicking.
Speaker 2: So hopefully this is a smooth process.
Speaker 3: But I do expect even if even if the stock
Speaker 3: is sufficient, the websites are going to probably crash and
Speaker 3: servers are going to go down right at midnight. So
Speaker 3: just hang in there, and like I said, if if
Speaker 3: you're panicking, come to the live stream and I can,
Speaker 3: I can assure you and keep you in the loop
Speaker 3: of what's going on.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm looking forward to it. I will definitely
Speaker 1: be watching, We'll be streaming as well, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to have you on. I might just be pointing everybody
Speaker 1: in your direction if they're really having a hard time
Speaker 1: keeping you, keeping you, keeping everybody apprized of what's going on.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to actually, yes, yeah, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: it actually because it's like, man, I been wanting to
Speaker 1: be able to pre order this and having that delay
Speaker 1: happen was a real tough thing. So I want to
Speaker 1: get my hands on this system ready for all of
Speaker 1: this tonight.
Speaker 2: I really took the window of my sales as well, but.
Speaker 1: I exact, yes, we're back, exactly, We're back, everybody. All right,
Speaker 1: new poll question right here, are you going to play
Speaker 1: Oblivion Clear, Obscure Expedition thirty three or both? Your options
Speaker 1: are Oblivion Expedition thirty three both or neither. That pull
Speaker 1: question is up on YouTube dot com slash at giant
Speaker 1: Bomb under the community tab right now, so you can
Speaker 1: vote on that. We'll get the results. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: it on Game Breaking News tomorrow here on the Power
Speaker 1: Block with Giant Bomb and GameSpot. In the meantime though,
Speaker 1: on the website and on the Power Block and a
Speaker 1: little bit, I think we're going to be playing some marathon.
Speaker 1: Then after that there is I think a clear obscure
Speaker 1: expedition thirty three streams, So new games are happening for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day today and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow with that Game Breaking News episode, Voicemail, dom Truck,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other fun stuff in the anytime. Jake Randall,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for hanging out with me today
Speaker 1: and talk about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Jeff Yep, anytime, and thank you all for watching. You
Speaker 1: are the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have
Speaker 1: a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.