Speaker 1: Bad Buddy. Welcome to Gay Mess Mornings with Me Mike Minatti,
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: Perfect Dark being canceled, Hell Divers Too is coming to Xbox,
Speaker 1: and they did our boy Romero Dirty. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: going because we have Aj Minatti on this show. Aj,
Speaker 1: how is it going? Thank you for joining me here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's it's a day, you know, not
Speaker 2: too much to talk about, so we'll fill the air somehow,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we'll figure it out. Uh, it's okay. You know,
Speaker 1: we had we had Kayla on yesterday. So I think
Speaker 1: it's just nepotism week.
Speaker 3: You're a giant Bomb unstrong, you're at a giant bump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Having depotism the same week as Fourth of July seems
Speaker 1: fitting somehow. Actually, So let me get.
Speaker 2: In front of this right now. I did not make
Speaker 2: the Dead Dog Pog. That was the other brother.
Speaker 1: Oh the other probably did the Dead Dog Pog, which
Speaker 1: I hate to say, it has a ring to it.
Speaker 1: Terrible thing to say. Yeah, you saw a movie yesterday.
Speaker 1: Multiple times, You're like, all right, you're coming to the movie,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, I gotta work. I gotta admit,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what movie you were talking about.
Speaker 3: What did you see a Goofy movie?
Speaker 1: Oh? It was still that. Yeah, they're playing uh.
Speaker 2: Our second theater in town is doing a new classic
Speaker 2: every week. So I took the kids to see a
Speaker 2: Goofy movie and we had a grand old time.
Speaker 1: It still hit.
Speaker 3: Oh it hit very hard, very very hard.
Speaker 1: Did your whole family see eye to ee on it?
Speaker 2: Yes, we did, and we listened to each other's hearts.
Speaker 1: All right, that's good. Make a bunch of old movies there.
Speaker 1: I have to look at that schedule and figure it out.
Speaker 2: It's Independence Day this weekend. Shocking enough, but what people get?
Speaker 1: Madmy, I have never seen that movie.
Speaker 3: That's right, you haven't. I should.
Speaker 1: It was a scary movie because all they kept showing
Speaker 1: in the previews was them blowing up the White House,
Speaker 1: which now I find actually pretty uplifting, but at the time,
Speaker 1: let's terrified. Yeah, it seems like a really scary thing.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I just assumed it was horror.
Speaker 1: Independence so I don't Yeah, maybe'll say you know, you
Speaker 1: know me, my preferred Fourth of July movie is usually
Speaker 1: either National Treasure or seventeen seventy six, the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence with
Speaker 1: that guy from Boy Meet's World as John Adams. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the stuff that hits. That's the stuff that really hits.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into things Before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's explain our So this is Giant Bomb, a small
Speaker 1: team of video game dupe this says, who rely on
Speaker 1: your support so that we can make cool stuff. If
Speaker 1: you want to help, go to giant bomb dot com
Speaker 1: slash join. It gets you Afrey shows and some other extras.
Speaker 1: That's giant bomb dot com slash Join most weekdays. Jeff
Speaker 1: Grub not me will help you piece your gaming life
Speaker 1: back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some
Speaker 1: of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll
Speaker 1: get the input of a bona fide experts or available
Speaker 1: close family member who will make me look smart. If
Speaker 1: you're watching live on twitch welcome, you can always listen
Speaker 1: to the show later on podcasts feeds by searching for
Speaker 1: Games Mornings, or find the RSS feed on giantbom dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also catch the show later on YouTube. Hello YouTube,
Speaker 1: We have a lot to get into it, so let's
Speaker 1: start the morning mess with xboxes Quadruple A Perfect Dark
Speaker 1: reboot canceled developer shutting down by Cameron Kosh at Games Spots,
Speaker 1: Xbox is Perfect Dark reboot, first announced in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: has been canceled this developer. The initiative is also shutting
Speaker 1: down Microsoft. That's confirmed, first reported by Windows Central and
Speaker 1: corroborated by Bloomberg Report Jacent Schreier. The cancelation of Perfect
Speaker 1: Dark and closing in the initiative come as part of
Speaker 1: Microsoft's latest round of layoffs, which are affecting an estimated
Speaker 1: four percent of the company's workforce. That translates to around
Speaker 1: nine thousand people losing their jobs, many of them across
Speaker 1: Microsoft's various gaming studios. The initiative was formed at twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen and based in Santa Monica. Built as a quadruple
Speaker 1: A studio, it was led by Formal Crystal Dynamic Studio
Speaker 1: had Daryl Gallagher and made up of developers Respawn, Bio,
Speaker 1: Our Naughty, Dugan Moore. Twenty twenty one, the initiative announced
Speaker 1: a partner with Crystal Dynamics, developer in the most recent
Speaker 1: tomb Rator games, to assist on the Perfect Dark reboot.
Speaker 1: Players got their first look at Perfect Dark game play
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four as part of that year's Xbox
Speaker 1: Games Showcase, a trailer that I was really excited. I
Speaker 1: thought it looked great aj at least for me. This
Speaker 1: has maybe been the most shocking developments of all these
Speaker 1: terrible Xbox layoffs that have been happening since yesterday. Did
Speaker 1: this news catch you by surprise?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean they've been hyping this game out. I'm surprised. Actually,
Speaker 2: it's only been since twenty twenty two is announced. It
Speaker 2: feels like it's been in the consciousness for a very
Speaker 2: long time. Yeah, it was a big part of last
Speaker 2: year's showcase. You know, they've been hyping out the initiative
Speaker 2: as this again this Quadruple A developer, which, boy, the
Speaker 2: Quadruple A games are just really hitting, Mike, aren't they not?
Speaker 1: Ves, don't ever call your project quadruple A. It is right?
Speaker 3: Is that just poison now? Finally?
Speaker 2: Can we stop doing that? But yeah, I mean the
Speaker 2: gameplay demo it was strong. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: people wondering how genuine that was And there was a
Speaker 2: former level designer from the initiative who's now it's to
Speaker 2: do MDHR. I'm sorry I didn't write his name down,
Speaker 2: but he was one of the people who worked in
Speaker 2: that demo. They said it was genuine an engine gameplay.
Speaker 2: It's just like if you didn't kind of follow the
Speaker 2: script it wanted you to, it mostly work. But like
Speaker 2: obviously there was like an ideal way to play that
Speaker 2: demo for it to look at its best.
Speaker 3: Uh So, who knows how.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe these reports in the game not coming
Speaker 2: together are accurate, but boy, that feels like rampant mismanagement
Speaker 2: from every direction, right.
Speaker 1: So it's an embarrassment. It's such an embarrassment that I'm
Speaker 1: almost surprised they are willing to go through with it.
Speaker 1: And uh take that l as it were, because you know,
Speaker 1: you you talk this studio up like crazy. You promoted
Speaker 1: this game a good amount until it was suddenly you know,
Speaker 1: it was odd that it was absent from their showcase
Speaker 1: just a month ago, but you know they're bringing back
Speaker 1: a big ip. You have all these people on you
Speaker 1: even have Crystal Dynamics. They're helping and probably not great
Speaker 1: news for Crystal Dynamics, which can use the work at
Speaker 1: the moment. So yeah, it's it's it's embarrassing. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: evil because of you know, the people who are losing
Speaker 1: their jobs. It is awful all around. It's a game
Speaker 1: that I was looking forward to. Least importantly is that
Speaker 1: I wanted to play this video game. Now that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen, because it was you know, it looked
Speaker 1: like it had some mirrors edge, DNA n it. I
Speaker 1: was getting excited about that just a Really it's it's
Speaker 1: if the decision happened because they thought they couldn't salvage
Speaker 1: the game. The shape on them for letting it get there.
Speaker 2: For sure, you know you again, the game already had
Speaker 2: all this baggage with the whole quadruple. I think like, like,
Speaker 2: there's this expectation it's got to be this big, bombastic
Speaker 2: thing that's going to carry the platform, and even that,
Speaker 2: like you know, since this game was announced, the idea
Speaker 2: of the Xbox platform is radically shifted, so like it's
Speaker 2: just like what are we what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Like like everyone says like, oh, Xbox doesn't have an
Speaker 2: identity anymore. And then they they released a string of
Speaker 2: really good games in the beginning this year, we're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: they're finding a groove, and like it feels like every
Speaker 2: time that happens with x every time things seem like
Speaker 2: they're fixing themselves, the rug gets pulled out from under
Speaker 2: the whole thing with something like this, Whereas it's like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel good to be an Xbox fan right now.
Speaker 1: Right No, I kind of almost can't imagine it, you're
Speaker 1: cause I think people were just getting used to Okay,
Speaker 1: no more exclusives, that's all right, and going board with that.
Speaker 1: They actually had a pretty good showcase last month, despite
Speaker 1: some honest with the absence of Perfect Dark and other
Speaker 1: projects like Fable. We didn't hear anything really much about
Speaker 1: that game or its studios, so presumably they're fine. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Xbox is just in a stuper strange place. Nobody feels
Speaker 1: good about them right now now. You know, I almost
Speaker 1: hate saying it, Like they can recover from that they
Speaker 1: kind of have before. Maybe this is going to be
Speaker 1: the straw that breaks the camel's back for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. I'm almost like cynically skeptical of that, like
Speaker 1: they can bounce back. I don't know if they deserve
Speaker 1: to bounce back, but they can. One more thing here
Speaker 1: to report from shortly before the debut of Perfect Or
Speaker 1: Escape Bay Trailer, saying that the reboot of the spy
Speaker 1: Ps was in bad shape, that the project hadn't really
Speaker 1: come together despite Crystal Dynamics being brought in to help development.
Speaker 1: The report that Game Spots referring to here was from
Speaker 1: Jeff Grubb. I remember at the time many people were
Speaker 1: very mad at him or said he was he was
Speaker 1: wrong about that. Jeff is usually not the person going
Speaker 1: to do this thing, But uh, I will you all
Speaker 1: need to stop doubting my boy Grub. He is just
Speaker 1: about always right all the things it's about, always right.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, nobody's going to ecrow on that,
Speaker 1: and you know obviously not. I don't want me to
Speaker 1: do what I told you so thinking about something so terrible,
Speaker 1: but yeah, stop uh stop yelling at Jeff for being right.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right.
Speaker 1: Below next up here is Banjo KAZOOI see of the
Speaker 1: director leaves Rare after thirty five years following the Everwild cancelation.
Speaker 1: This is by Andy Robinson at VGC. Greg Males, Rare's
Speaker 1: most experienced and influential game designer will leave the company
Speaker 1: after more than thirty five years, sources have told VGC.
Speaker 1: According to multiple people at the studio who spoke to
Speaker 1: VGC anonymously, Males will leave Rare following news of Everwild's
Speaker 1: cancelation on Wednesday. The designer had been directing the project
Speaker 1: since the team was restructured in twenty twenty one. Coin
Speaker 1: to the sources, executive producer Louis O'Connor, another Rare veteran
Speaker 1: whose first project was Congress bat Furday for An ten
Speaker 1: sixty four, also leave the company following Everwild's cancelation. Males
Speaker 1: was one of Rare's earliest design hires, with this first
Speaker 1: credited game, Solar Jetman, releasing in nineteen ninety. Everwild was
Speaker 1: a perhaps a predictable casualty.
Speaker 3: From all I'd surprised, but it's.
Speaker 1: Still like, what are we doing here? How are we
Speaker 1: not you know, helping get these things together or at
Speaker 1: least finding something else to do for a respected important
Speaker 1: veteran like reg Males, to keep them happy or keep
Speaker 1: them with the company again. Thirty five years, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, worked on all these important games, including you know,
Speaker 1: Banjo KAZUOI, an ip that everybody. You know, maybe they
Speaker 1: have market research we don't have. That's like, actually nobody
Speaker 1: would does care about Benja Kazuoi. It's for me, it
Speaker 1: seems like people would care about that. If people popped
Speaker 1: off for remakes of crash Bit, it couldn't in Spiral.
Speaker 1: I think they would pop off for Banjo Kazuoi, so
Speaker 1: we could at least do something over there. Are you
Speaker 1: worried about Rare?
Speaker 3: I'm not worried about Rare itself.
Speaker 2: I think C A Thieves is still kind of sustainable,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what else they have cooking there.
Speaker 2: I don't think like Rare is gonna go away, but
Speaker 2: it's not great for their future prospect of making like
Speaker 2: a big new game. I guess, you know, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe they live in that double Find space, so they're
Speaker 2: making like these smaller double A kind of games. I
Speaker 2: think that's fine. It's just again, it seems like every
Speaker 2: time this has with Microsoft, the the excuse they kind
Speaker 2: of give sometimes is, you know, we were two hands
Speaker 2: off and we need to be more involved with these studios,
Speaker 2: but like they never seem to actually do that. Like again,
Speaker 2: it's like ever while didn't come together because the studio
Speaker 2: was two hands off and Perfect Dark wasn't coming together
Speaker 2: because we were leaving the initiative alone. Like I don't know,
Speaker 2: get in there, like support these studios they're not getting
Speaker 2: support clearly like that that is I think abundantly clear
Speaker 2: from all this. You know, I don't think it's your rundown.
Speaker 2: But like a Max Online also had staff reductions and
Speaker 2: a in development NML get canceled, which apparently, from the
Speaker 2: reporting I saw in the leaks, was actually coming together
Speaker 2: very well. So why is that gone? It's just I
Speaker 2: don't get it. It's just it's frustrating because it is
Speaker 2: such blatant mismanagement issues. It doesn't sound like any of
Speaker 2: these games were where the faults of the people making them,
Speaker 2: but they're the ones suffering the consequence.
Speaker 1: That's about Zen Max. We talked about a little bit yesterday,
Speaker 1: I think. But yeah, they had an MMO apparently it's
Speaker 1: going to be something more sci fi E and that
Speaker 1: got canceled.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, some people were saying that the game was
Speaker 1: uh looking like it's gonna be something special. We will
Speaker 1: never know. And again, I just don't know how much
Speaker 1: more O juice there is there. I think I may
Speaker 1: be a little bit more worry than you are, maybe
Speaker 1: just pessimistic with everything. But yeah, I see if he's
Speaker 1: probably has some juice for a while. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it has forever juice, like a world of nothing.
Speaker 2: I think I think they'll have something come out. It's
Speaker 2: not going to be as big as you know, even
Speaker 2: even a band of Kazooi might be too big at
Speaker 2: this point, but I think they'll have another Sea of
Speaker 2: Thieves esque thing to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I hope so, because you know, closing
Speaker 1: down the initiative is one thing. Uh, if Xbox really
Speaker 1: wants to lose any goodwill that they could possibly have left,
Speaker 1: I dare you shut down Rare? Because holy crap, would
Speaker 1: that be a terrible thing and a terrible look. Right,
Speaker 1: And we talked about EA just closing down Beloved Studios.
Speaker 1: If you somehow bungle Rare and have to just close
Speaker 1: that thing down, you are going to be rightfully and
Speaker 1: heavily disliked. Yeah, yeah, no, good, all right. John Romero's
Speaker 1: next FPS has lost funding in the wake of Microsoft cuts.
Speaker 1: This is from Jordan Miller VGC. Romero Games has announced
Speaker 1: that its next unannounced project has lost funding, with a
Speaker 1: now extra Marrow Games of Play, claiming it was due
Speaker 1: to this week's Microsoft cuts. A statement from Brenda Romero
Speaker 1: Studio announced that last night we learned that our publisher
Speaker 1: has canceled Funny from our game, along with several other
Speaker 1: unannounced projects at other studios. This was a strategic decision
Speaker 1: made at a high level within the publisher, well above
Speaker 1: our our visibility or control. We deeply wish there had
Speaker 1: been something, anything, we could have done to prevent this
Speaker 1: outcome of Romero Games. Employee has claimed the whole studios
Speaker 1: being what goes result of Microsoft cuts, with many advertising
Speaker 1: on link in LinkedIn that they've lost their jobs. Romeo
Speaker 1: Games is based in Galway, Ireland. The team, which included
Speaker 1: over seventy five developers in twenty twenty four, hadn't fully
Speaker 1: revealed his next project beyond the fact that it was
Speaker 1: a first person shooter made an Unreal Engine five. I know,
Speaker 1: we have our fun with Romero around here, with Dakatanadka Grebba,
Speaker 1: whatever the heck we were calling that, But I you know,
Speaker 1: this is just another pretty massive hits. This is a
Speaker 1: lot of people suddenly out of work, and you know,
Speaker 1: I find it unsettling in a lot of ways, like yeah,
Speaker 1: Daikatana hahaha. But John Romero made Doom right, just like
Speaker 1: one of the most important game designers ever. Here's somebody
Speaker 1: who just can't get this next game made or can't
Speaker 1: get a studio to work. I would have liked to
Speaker 1: see what a quote unquote modern John Romero FPS looked
Speaker 1: like it was going to be something more.
Speaker 3: So it's so marketable the olds.
Speaker 1: Like us, but you know you could do something with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you can't. Like again, it's it's it's just
Speaker 2: what do they want us to feel right now?
Speaker 3: And here's the issue. I'll get into this real quick.
Speaker 2: Microsoft is a company, Microsoft the capital and above Xbox
Speaker 2: decided that rather than sell video games to people like
Speaker 2: us to make millions, they're funneling this money into AI developments.
Speaker 2: They could sell it to other companies and make billions.
Speaker 2: Like That's really what this is about.
Speaker 1: That's the strategic shift happening here.
Speaker 2: Great, yes, and so as much as like we're upset,
Speaker 2: they don't care like we're like again Phil's statement that
Speaker 2: he put out about oh, we're actually in great shape
Speaker 2: and making all these games, and this is that's not
Speaker 2: for us, that's for investors.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: You know, if they sell a few fewer video games,
Speaker 2: but they sell a SHINE contract to health insurer to
Speaker 2: use AI to process claims, they're gonna make millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: That's what this is about.
Speaker 1: To imagine that whatever Romero Games was working on with
Speaker 1: seventy five developers, I bet it was going to be
Speaker 1: a mid sized kind of you know, classic shooter experience thing.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it was going to be the most
Speaker 1: expensive thing in the world. This is a company that
Speaker 1: is literally worth brillions, brillions of dollars. It is disgusting
Speaker 1: and im moral how much money this one company has.
Speaker 1: You know, they went around, they went acquiring all these
Speaker 1: people and making all these deals. That's the other thing, too, right,
Speaker 1: because when we were there doing that, the big concern,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other people saying, oh, they might
Speaker 1: just shut everything down if they pivot. But you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, no, they're gonna have a monopoly, right,
Speaker 1: Like we thought that because they're going to bring in
Speaker 1: all this money from Call of Duty and king and.
Speaker 3: Now insteady for everything.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's like they got all that money and
Speaker 1: when they're cutting jobs at King and they're cutting jobs
Speaker 1: at Raven who works on call of.
Speaker 3: Duty, right, like what we're doing? So what was the
Speaker 3: point of all that?
Speaker 1: What was the point of all that? Yeah, it's deeply frustrating.
Speaker 1: And again, John Romero, we joke is a legend is
Speaker 1: incredibly iportant to the game industry, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: distressing that they just, you know, their game could just
Speaker 1: get canceled like that and almost kind of like in
Speaker 1: the background amongst a lot of the bigger moves happening
Speaker 1: as far as but it's just a good reminder like
Speaker 1: this is these cutbacks are going to affect so many
Speaker 1: people because it's not like, you know, Xbox own this
Speaker 1: studio but your yeah, exactly. But if you're a smaller
Speaker 1: studio and your one game is being funded by Xbox
Speaker 1: and they cut the funding funding, then you're done. That's it,
Speaker 1: You're over all right. Neil Truckman pulls back from the
Speaker 1: Last of Us show to focus on Naughty Dog Games.
Speaker 1: This is by Dean Takahashia Games Beat. Neil Truckman, the
Speaker 1: co creator of the Last of Us show on HBO,
Speaker 1: is pointing back from the show's production to focus on
Speaker 1: naty Dog Games. In a note to the job Naughty
Speaker 1: Dog community, Druckman said, I made the difficult decision to
Speaker 1: step away from my creative involvement in the Last of
Speaker 1: Us on HBO with work completed on season two before
Speaker 1: any meaningful work starts on season three. Now is the
Speaker 1: time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty
Speaker 1: Dog and its future projects. Those tests include writing and
Speaker 1: directing for the next game Intergalactic, the Heretic Profit, along
Speaker 1: with his responsibilities in studio head and head of Creative Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a pretty big job right there. It's
Speaker 1: kind of wild to be super heavily involved with a
Speaker 1: TV show as long as he was. But I imagine that
Speaker 1: there's not too much more and but he can really
Speaker 1: give at this point. Have you watched the Last of
Speaker 1: Us shows? You're not like me? You don't think all
Speaker 1: TV is completely mid.
Speaker 2: No, I actually am like I've watched very little TV. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge Last of Us person either, But
Speaker 2: I didn't you think the format of this was weird?
Speaker 2: Like it was posted like these apology screenshot text things
Speaker 2: that always come up with like a game's canceled or something.
Speaker 2: It was like a weird humble bragging away like, I'm
Speaker 2: just so busy making these award winning games. I just
Speaker 2: can't work on Pristige's television anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm too busy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, now that you mentioned it, now you
Speaker 1: mentioned it, Yeah, it's a little obnoxious to the bust.
Speaker 1: It is like to me, it does not seem that
Speaker 1: important that you're not consulting on season three of the
Speaker 1: Last of Us TV show anymore.
Speaker 3: You know, like this in an who cares?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go oh, I have to go back and do
Speaker 2: my job now, Okay, cool, I do that every day.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, frankly, I mean, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: can't speak for other people. Made for him working on
Speaker 1: the TV shows, we're exciting. I'd imagine getting to work
Speaker 1: on Intergalactic to herit to profit and running all of
Speaker 1: Naughty Dog would be a pretty good gig. I think
Speaker 1: that would be a pretty good give. But you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's all pretty rote for him now. I don't know.
Speaker 1: The impression I was getting was kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: Colm's kind of the games itself. Last of Less season
Speaker 1: two was a bit more divisive than that first season.
Speaker 1: I think the format off all of it was also like,
Speaker 1: you know, we did the l focus stuff here and
Speaker 1: then next season is going to be the the abby stuff, which, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine the divisiveness will continue. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he's getting out while the getting's good or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but let's be honest. You say we're adapting
Speaker 1: all of the Last of Us to a TV show, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is the part of that everyone's
Speaker 1: gonna care about? It's gonna be the first season with
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie.
Speaker 3: Didn't Pedro Pascal like diss him or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also the embarrassing thing there, something about like
Speaker 1: do you care about art? He said that's something which
Speaker 1: seemed embarrassing. I don't know, but yeah, other projects too,
Speaker 1: like that probably has to include some version of The
Speaker 1: Last of Us Part three in one shape or form.
Speaker 2: And didn't they say they have another game cooking besides Intergalactic.
Speaker 2: They just aren't ready to announce that, right, They are
Speaker 2: working on something.
Speaker 1: And I know I used to be like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: they won't make one, considering how many times they have
Speaker 1: re released things called The Last of Us and how
Speaker 1: much money that's making, and how proud they still are
Speaker 1: of their Prestige TV show. I think we are all
Speaker 1: going to get a Last of Us Part three. I
Speaker 1: bet it'll be even more depressing in pain inducing than
Speaker 1: ANYO series. I'm sorry, I guess I'm throwing. I used
Speaker 1: to like the Last of Us. What's Happened? I liked
Speaker 1: Last of Us Part one. Boy, halfway through two was
Speaker 1: I just completely ran it? Be ten hours into that game,
Speaker 1: and I'll say by line again, I get tired of
Speaker 1: those miserable people and their miserable problems. All right here, Actually,
Speaker 1: when don't we take a break right now? About halfway
Speaker 1: through the news you can all if you're watching live
Speaker 1: or certain places you're going to see an ad you'll
Speaker 1: get your dose of Jeff Grub there. So yeah, say
Speaker 1: hi to Jeff. We'll be right back everybody.
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Speaker 4: to you chat. I saw all of you saying hi
Speaker 4: to Jeff Grub over there. Very nice of you, and
Speaker 4: I hope, I hope he's doing well on his trip.
Speaker 4: I believe he will be back on Monday.
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing. I suppose, like, who's not back on
Speaker 1: the Monday after a vacation?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Actually that was me, but that was mostly because that
Speaker 1: was because I got Look alike, were you shocked when
Speaker 1: you got that text from me saying I gotten mixed up? There?
Speaker 2: No, The funny thing is you you will originally asked
Speaker 2: me to pick you up from the airport, and so
Speaker 2: you went at the drive and I couldn't because I
Speaker 2: couldn't pick you up in the morning.
Speaker 3: I could have picked you up in the evening, Mike.
Speaker 1: That would have been cool. I wonder I've had to
Speaker 1: drim and tune from the airport. That would have been nice. Actually, shoot,
Speaker 1: that's all right, I got to go write et so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's the frustration.
Speaker 2: You screw that up and you're ward is a half
Speaker 2: day Universal Studios.
Speaker 1: I'll never learn.
Speaker 3: I'll never learn.
Speaker 1: Speaking of maybe never learning, Mind's I dev's UK workforce,
Speaker 1: around three hundred received at risk emails, as former GTA
Speaker 1: lead Lensley Benzi's finally addresses staff. This is from Leslie
Speaker 1: Ianpool at IGN. Build a Rocket Boy, the Edinburgh, Scotland
Speaker 1: based developer of Mind's Eye, has issued at risk emails
Speaker 1: to its around three hundred strong UK workforce following the
Speaker 1: disastrous launch of the game. Sources familiar with the goings
Speaker 1: on inside the Embattle studio told IGN at risk emails
Speaker 1: were also sent out to staff at PlayFusion, which Build
Speaker 1: a Rockaboy acquired in late twenty twenty four. PlayFusion, who
Speaker 1: CEO Mark Gerhard became co CEO of Build a Rocket
Speaker 1: Boy as part of the buyout, is working on a
Speaker 1: different game, a fast paced FBS called a Send It,
Speaker 1: which was meant to come out this year. Last month,
Speaker 1: IgM reported that Build a Roca Boy begun a redundancy
Speaker 1: process following the release of Mind's I. Standard forty five
Speaker 1: day consult consultation process kicked off on June twenty third, which,
Speaker 1: according to the UK law, is triggered when an employer
Speaker 1: proposes one hundred or more redundancies within a ninety day period.
Speaker 1: IGN understands Built a Rocketboy currently has around three hundred
Speaker 1: ukme boys, with two hundred a broad on Steam, which
Speaker 1: does not paint the whole picture of mindzi current popularity.
Speaker 1: The game hit a peak concurrent player count of three
Speaker 1: three hundred and two on launch, but had a twenty
Speaker 1: four hour peak of just forty six players the time
Speaker 1: this article's publication. Twenty six people were playing on Steam
Speaker 1: or Mindsei has a mostly negative user rating. Meanwhile, Build
Speaker 1: a Rocket Boy sources toward IGN that Benzi's finally addressed
Speaker 1: staff following the release of Mind's Eye in a brief
Speaker 1: video call yesterday July second. According to two people presidents
Speaker 1: who I thought to be named in order to protect
Speaker 1: their careers, Benzi's insisted Build a Rocket Boy would bounce
Speaker 1: back and relaunch my blaming the studio and game struggles
Speaker 1: on internal and external saboteurs, among other things, Oh my god, cool,
Speaker 1: what the absolute hell loser behavior? Oh my god, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's just so delusional. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess going to him that I'm among
Speaker 1: the saboteurs here.
Speaker 3: But no one likes the game.
Speaker 1: No one likes you just don't see it, like.
Speaker 2: Like like I think you, I think you and talked
Speaker 2: about this before, Like what what what is there to fix?
Speaker 3: There's nothing there. There's no substance to this game.
Speaker 1: No, it's not it's not what you do.
Speaker 3: To it, relaunch it.
Speaker 1: It's not like Cyberpunk, where like it's mostly bugs and
Speaker 1: like performance is the issue. There's nothing here. The best
Speaker 1: part about the game is a bug when you hit
Speaker 1: that guy and he turns into spaghetti. So fixing that
Speaker 1: your game's actually gonna be even worse worse. Yeah, Benze
Speaker 1: just sounds like an absolute loser. If one just for
Speaker 1: saying that the reason only twenty six people are playing
Speaker 1: your game on Steam right now is because of like
Speaker 1: the deep or something like. Either you believe that or
Speaker 1: you're just saying it in either way, absolutely pathetic, unhinge, right,
Speaker 1: But you know, and it sucks because there are you know,
Speaker 1: over three hundred people who depend on this person's leadership.
Speaker 2: I am firing up my resume if I'm one of
Speaker 2: those people.
Speaker 1: What the heck right, it just does not sound good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean you're completely you completely discount the
Speaker 1: possibility of a mind's eye bounce back.
Speaker 3: No, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Relaunch it with again with what what are you gonna
Speaker 2: do to that game? The fact that he is so
Speaker 2: unwilling to take any accountability for this game they put out,
Speaker 2: and instead of saying, okay, like let's learn from this
Speaker 2: move on, you're like digging in your heels like no,
Speaker 2: this is the game, Like these these these people can't
Speaker 2: see how good it is because we're being internal saboteurs.
Speaker 3: What internal saboteurs are you talking about? That?
Speaker 1: That's a classic that's a classic move right. So it's
Speaker 1: not just the press, but there's people within the studio
Speaker 1: and they're leaking to the press and they're somehow they're
Speaker 1: a big part of the problem.
Speaker 2: Like the game's out, like there's no hiding anything now
Speaker 2: it's out. People played it, they said it's bad, Like
Speaker 2: what do you want?
Speaker 1: No, don't know. It's just one of the most obvious. Again,
Speaker 1: like this game's like average scores in the thirties. I
Speaker 1: think like that's something like like like what are we
Speaker 1: talking about here? Like the saboteurs have gotten the score
Speaker 1: down amongst all these publications that that low or you know,
Speaker 1: he's blaming freaking Take two before, right, because they're so
Speaker 1: afraid they're going after it. Yeah, it is just absolutely wild.
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine there's any future for Mind's Eye.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine there's a future for Build a Rocket Boy,
Speaker 1: And there shouldn't be a future in the gaming industry
Speaker 1: for Leslie Benzi's after this embarrassing.
Speaker 2: He'll he'll find another studio in five years and at
Speaker 2: least another mediocre game and blame everybody when it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, right, like what.
Speaker 2: Jeff just said. What if he's right though? What there
Speaker 2: actually our internal and external septoy.
Speaker 1: Yeah we don't believe well we have egg on our face, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, though, he's going to become a consultant or
Speaker 1: an investors or something embarrassing like that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's somehow he'll probably be fine. I don't know
Speaker 1: about the three hundred employees who got Tiken flour ride
Speaker 1: on this whole Minds Eye experiment. Thank you, Massive Placeation
Speaker 1: five hit Hell Divers two is coming to Xbox this
Speaker 1: August as console exclusivity wall comes down. This is from
Speaker 1: Ethan gotchak Otaku. Hell Divers two is breaking it's places
Speaker 1: five console exclusivity and coming to Xbox Series x luss
Speaker 1: in August. Gotta hate that name, cauld I. You know what,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of a bad day. You know, we're
Speaker 1: all talking about how we feel with Xbox God, I
Speaker 1: hate that Xbox Series x es day about other people
Speaker 1: have said it. It's always been a terrible name. Xbox
Speaker 1: One was not a great name either, What the hell? Anyways,
Speaker 1: fans have long called get them. Fans have long called
Speaker 1: for the hit Extraction shooter to be available on every platform,
Speaker 1: and in a shocking twist, the Sony published blockbuster is obliging.
Speaker 1: It's another major crack in the vestiges of console exclusivity
Speaker 1: and falls in this footsteps of MLB the show. You
Speaker 1: asked for more dudes, We're sending more dudes. Arrowhead Game
Speaker 1: Studios Chief creative officer, Jordan.
Speaker 3: Boy Johan, excuse me, oh god.
Speaker 1: I missed that part. You're right, Johann, I was worried
Speaker 1: about the last name I said, Jordan Saily says, Johan, Oh,
Speaker 1: will you do the last name. Then you got this,
Speaker 1: uh pistead, I think that's actually right, said during a
Speaker 1: surprise live stream announcement on Thursday. For one and a
Speaker 1: half years, you've been fighting the enemies of democracy, and
Speaker 1: one of the requests that you've always had is for
Speaker 1: us to send more dudes. And the best way for
Speaker 1: us to be able to do that is to bring
Speaker 1: another platform into the fight. The game arise on Series
Speaker 1: X ands on August twenty six at forty dollars and
Speaker 1: is the first return exclusive from Sony since Microsoft started
Speaker 1: porting major first party games like cfths to its PlayStation rival.
Speaker 1: That also happens to be the same day that Gears
Speaker 1: of War reloaded brings the long running Xbox shooter franchise
Speaker 1: a PS five, suggesting the arms race between the two
Speaker 1: consolemakers is cooling as Microsoft pivots to primarily being a
Speaker 1: third party publisher. Kind of ye but yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is some good news today. Finally here, this game's
Speaker 1: gonna be available for more people. And yet, if you're
Speaker 1: making a live service game that depends on a high
Speaker 1: player count, yeah, hell divers too. I'm sure are still
Speaker 1: doing good. It's been doing well, but yeah, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the Xbox audience isn't big as of one was.
Speaker 1: But bring the game there, get more people in, make
Speaker 1: more money. Why not.
Speaker 2: Well, it has a reciprocal effect too, right, Like it
Speaker 2: comes down an Xbox and make it a big splashy thing.
Speaker 2: And then you know, maybe this I haven't on Steam,
Speaker 2: I haven't played in a while. Maybe this gets me
Speaker 2: to be like, oh, let me fire this back up again.
Speaker 2: You know, at any time you're in the news cycle
Speaker 2: like that, it's good. Uh. We haven't played much of
Speaker 2: this really since it's initial. At least I wonder what
Speaker 2: state it's in. I know, like there's there's a scenario
Speaker 2: back on Earth where it was being invaded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, be willing to kind of ump jump back jump
Speaker 3: back in uh uh and check it out.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that it's been pretty good. I think
Speaker 1: people are joint schame bit so yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: always liked playing it a lot. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't been in a position where I have like that,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to play this game with people three
Speaker 1: times a week sort of thing, which is kind of
Speaker 1: the mindset you maybe need to be in for a
Speaker 1: hell diverse too. But no, I liked it a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of been you know, the ones Shining
Speaker 1: Beacon and a mostly failed effort from PlayStation to make
Speaker 1: live service games. It was an early success, so I
Speaker 1: mean this came out before Concord, right, that's how long ago.
Speaker 1: Now since then, they've been just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: canceling games or things have been struggling, like marathon things
Speaker 1: like that. So if you have a hit, you kind
Speaker 1: of need to squeeze as much water out of that
Speaker 1: thing as possible. It is still interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: we had MLB the show and yeah, that came to
Speaker 1: the platforms. That was mostly because the MLB was a joint.
Speaker 2: Public right, so Sony was not the publisher on that
Speaker 2: Xbox version was the MLB published it. So this is
Speaker 2: the first PlayStation published title on Xbox.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is interesting. And you know, like frankly,
Speaker 1: something like a marathon, like I don't think they say
Speaker 1: anything about that. That should just be everywhere it can be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hell Divers two on switch to that'd be cool.
Speaker 3: I mean it plays great on seam Deck.
Speaker 2: It runs at thirty fps on there, but it works
Speaker 2: very well if they could optimize it for sixty fs
Speaker 2: playback on a switch to.
Speaker 3: That'd be great.
Speaker 1: I would absolutely love to see it on the switch too.
Speaker 1: Are there any other PlayStation games that you think could
Speaker 1: show up on Xbox anytime soon? Or is this kind
Speaker 1: of just the one that made sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't see them bringing like God of War to
Speaker 2: the Xbox, right, or even you know, Ghosts of Yota
Speaker 2: or anything like that. But I'm trying to think, like,
Speaker 2: what are the multiplayer things? I feel like these ones
Speaker 2: have been announced and haven't happened. But yeah, I mean, Marathon,
Speaker 2: I think absolutely should. If Concord were still a thing.
Speaker 3: It should.
Speaker 1: Maybe that would have I mean, that wouldn't have helped.
Speaker 1: Nothing would have helped Concord absolutely all right. Dying like
Speaker 1: developer Techlan, has reportedly canceled two games, is from Jordy
Speaker 1: Miller VGC. Dying like developer Techlan, has reportedly canceled multiple games.
Speaker 1: The Polish developer has reported losses of one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty Polish currencies approximately thirty seven point thirty million. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what did I say? One hundred and thirty million? I
Speaker 1: do that some time. I forgot the million number. I
Speaker 1: just say the number and not the million part.
Speaker 3: It's not important.
Speaker 1: It's about thirty seven point three million US dollars, according
Speaker 1: to Polish business outlet poles Binznu beni zoo uh. These
Speaker 1: losses have been attributed to our decision to discontinue further
Speaker 1: work on two projects. It's unclear which projects have been affected.
Speaker 1: BGC has asked Techlan for comment. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: tech Lan announced that I was working on a new
Speaker 1: open world fantasy RPG. A few details were While a
Speaker 1: few details were known about the game, Techlan has announced
Speaker 1: that it had begun building a new team to helm
Speaker 1: the game, which included RPG veterans. The team responsible for
Speaker 1: the new IP included several former CD Project Red staff,
Speaker 1: including Open World director Bartas Auctionmen from Cyberpac twenty seventy
Speaker 1: seven and What's Your Three? Narrative director Carolina Stashaw from
Speaker 1: Whatcher two with Your Three? And narrative lead Arcadellas Barwick
Speaker 1: from WI Your two and WI You Three. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I included so many of these names here.
Speaker 1: I'm just setting myself up for so.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, this seems like a bummer, but I just
Speaker 1: can't imagine that Techlan can ride this dying light train forever.
Speaker 1: I know there's another new one coming out relatively soon here,
Speaker 1: Dying Like the Best supposed to come out this summer,
Speaker 1: but that was originally supposed to just be DLC for
Speaker 1: Dying Like Too, So they kind of you know, making
Speaker 1: its own thing. Sure, why not?
Speaker 2: I mean this feels tough, right because it feels like
Speaker 2: they were trying to branch from Dying Light.
Speaker 3: But maybe they like they went about the.
Speaker 2: Wrong way trying to spin up a whole new team
Speaker 2: instead of just taking the Dying Light team and having
Speaker 2: them make the next thing, Like they were afraid to
Speaker 2: leave Dying Light behind, so they tried to have their
Speaker 2: cake and eat it too. Maybe they needed to just
Speaker 2: make a clean break or put that series on pause
Speaker 2: while they did the next thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean I'm trying to like,
Speaker 1: they've been making games since nineteen ninety nine there, and
Speaker 1: it's finally when I look at it, the only other
Speaker 1: franchise I really recognize is I ever Dying Light. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's the original Dead Island, but they were the Call
Speaker 1: of War as people.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I forgot about that. I like that game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they were involved mat but yeah, I definitely
Speaker 1: feel like some branching out here is going to be
Speaker 1: required if you're playing much of the dying like games.
Speaker 2: I think I played a little bit of the first one.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a demo or I rented
Speaker 2: it on console or something. I know i've touched it again.
Speaker 2: I have severe zombie burnout since The Walking Dead that
Speaker 2: I have not recovered from. So I just don't get
Speaker 2: into these games at all.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I was never much of a
Speaker 1: zombie guy, so I never really played these, even though
Speaker 1: people always kind of compare them to Mirror's Edge and
Speaker 1: you know the time. Yeah, I like Parkour in my video.
Speaker 1: I like first person platforming. I'm a sick of at that.
Speaker 1: I even I liked Doomed the Dark Agents, but I
Speaker 1: kind of missed the first person platform I thought that
Speaker 1: was actually a positive aspect of that game, all right.
Speaker 1: Microsoft insists that Xbox Boss Phil Spencer isn't retiring anytime soon.
Speaker 1: In response to rumors following mass layoffs from Wesley Ian
Speaker 1: Pool at IGN, Microsoft has assisted the Xbox offtil Spencer
Speaker 1: isn't retiring anytime soon. Amid rumors around four percent or
Speaker 1: just over nine thousand staff were cut across Microsoft, and
Speaker 1: while the majority of those layoffs were outside the gaming business,
Speaker 1: Xbox studios were hit hard. Whereas Ever, while for examples
Speaker 1: canceled as was the Perfect Doug reboot, the initiative was
Speaker 1: closed amid the blood bath Call of Duty leaker at
Speaker 1: the Ghost of Hope, claimed Spencer, who has come under
Speaker 1: fire for the layoffs that have plagued Microsoft's gaming business
Speaker 1: ever since it's sixty nine billion dollar acquisition of Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: was set to retire from his role as CEO after
Speaker 1: the launch of the next generation Xbox, with current Xbox
Speaker 1: President Sarah Bond said to take its place. However, Microsoft
Speaker 1: issue statements to press that suggests Bets will remain in
Speaker 1: his role for some time to come. Speaking to the Verge,
Speaker 1: Krrie Perez, head of Xbox Communications, said Phil is not
Speaker 1: retiring any time soon, should he.
Speaker 3: Aj feels like we're getting there, doesn't it. You know
Speaker 3: what what did Harvey Din't say? Mike?
Speaker 2: You either live the hero or die the hero, or
Speaker 2: live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And
Speaker 2: right does feel like we're shifting into that phase now, right.
Speaker 1: Although to be clear, I'm not saying it may not
Speaker 1: just be a matter of perception. I mean, look, Phil
Speaker 1: is a A A like O person, and he's nice
Speaker 1: individually to people, including to me. Right, He's given us
Speaker 1: access things like that, he talks to the press a
Speaker 1: lot more than most of his peers do. And yet
Speaker 1: you know, he's the boss h and all these things
Speaker 1: keep happening, and it seems like the whatever the plans are,
Speaker 1: which I assume are you know, his plans are, at
Speaker 1: least plans made above the side that he is executing,
Speaker 1: they don't quite work. We had this, uh you know,
Speaker 1: we had the Giant game Pass thing that was gonna
Speaker 1: pay for everything, and now we're barely even talking about
Speaker 1: game Pass anymore. It feels like we had all these
Speaker 1: acquisitions so that we can, you know, finally build enough
Speaker 1: studios so that they can compete against PlayStation and all
Speaker 1: their great exclusives, and that just never really happened. The
Speaker 1: Xbox series X and S, it just didn't really work.
Speaker 1: So like, at some point, when does when does leadership
Speaker 1: have to pay for this a little bit? When do
Speaker 1: they have to take responsibility for it? And also, you know,
Speaker 1: when when the bosses are saying, hey, you need to
Speaker 1: go cut around four percent of staff or whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm ignorant of how much power he has there. BIKE
Speaker 1: assumed he could at least say no or say I'm
Speaker 1: going I'd rather resign than do that. I know that's
Speaker 1: a difficult decision, but at a certain point, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: pushback as hard as possible on nonsense.
Speaker 2: But that's the issue, right, Like what we see as
Speaker 2: a bad job and a failure, he's doing exactly what
Speaker 2: they want, right. Ass has said said you have to
Speaker 2: do this, and you're going to be the decision maker
Speaker 2: and take the heat, and he's willing to say okay,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't. So that's job security, that's him his role.
Speaker 1: No, I think you're absolutely right there. As far as
Speaker 1: the larger Microsoft leadership is concerned, they're probably very happy
Speaker 1: that he will mostly do but of course he has
Speaker 1: to do what they tell him to. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's just that's such a problem. In Sony world, being
Speaker 1: the head of PlayStation means more than being the head
Speaker 1: of Xbox does. In Microsoft world, PlayStation is just so
Speaker 1: much more important to a Sony than an Xbox is
Speaker 1: revenues wise to a Microsoft. But again, this is a
Speaker 1: company with literally trillions of dollars and they are just
Speaker 1: going out there and inflicting all this human suffering just
Speaker 1: to get that bottom line slightly higher. It's all about money,
Speaker 1: and it's freaking pathetic and disgusting. And look, I mean,
Speaker 1: Phil's been there a long time, right, It's been a
Speaker 1: long tenure, and if things aren't working out, I just
Speaker 1: don't really under a certain point, I don't understand why
Speaker 1: he needs to be in charge anymore. And frankly, I
Speaker 1: don't really I don't know if promoting somebody else from
Speaker 1: just that leadership team is going to make much of
Speaker 1: a difference there either. I don't think things are gonna
Speaker 1: suddenly change if Sarah Bond is in charge of Xbox.
Speaker 3: Needs be a shift.
Speaker 2: There needs to be a shift at the corporate level
Speaker 2: that that prioritizes Xbox. That's not there right now. I
Speaker 2: think Xbox makes enough money that they're happy with it.
Speaker 2: They're not going to get rid of it. But I
Speaker 2: don't think they see a reason to grow it any further,
Speaker 2: or they don't see an opportunity to grow it. So
Speaker 2: let's keep it, you know, profitable but manageable. Let's not
Speaker 2: invest into it because we'd rather again invest into AI and.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that, because that's where.
Speaker 2: The money is right now, and maybe two, three, five
Speaker 2: years from now, hopefully AI the bubble bursts on that
Speaker 2: they move to the next thing. Unless gaming somehow has
Speaker 2: some huge glow up where all of a sudden that's
Speaker 2: as marketable as something like an AI is right now,
Speaker 2: we're never going to get that, And that's why you
Speaker 2: know a company you sit sewing. But even Nintendo, like
Speaker 2: Nintendo is a game company, there is nothing above that,
Speaker 2: And in a weird way, that's why as a consumer,
Speaker 2: I guess I feel a little more confident in pouring
Speaker 2: Nintendo right now because they're not going anywhere like there's
Speaker 2: they're they're not feeding some some grotesque beasts behind the
Speaker 2: curtain in the name of making some video games, like
Speaker 2: that's what they do, So they're a little more comfortable
Speaker 2: right now. Just struggle Microsoft and Xbox has always had.
Speaker 2: It felt like maybe they're gonna start coming out of
Speaker 2: that with things like game Pass and these investments, all
Speaker 2: these studios, and the proof in the pudding has not
Speaker 2: been the case.
Speaker 1: It really does just make you wonder what the heck
Speaker 1: an Xbox is gonna look like in ten years Again,
Speaker 1: you assume that call of duty makes enough money that
Speaker 1: even the people at the top of Microsoft are happy
Speaker 1: to have that revenue stream things like candy Crush, Gay
Speaker 1: Pass still has to be some kind of passive income.
Speaker 1: I guess passive maybe isn't the world, but that has
Speaker 1: to be income. I know that it can't grow, but
Speaker 1: they also don't want to lose that revenue stream. You know,
Speaker 1: they're doing things to try to bring in an influx,
Speaker 1: and that means taking games to PlayStation other platforms. It
Speaker 1: means doing a bunch of layoffs. But what else, What next?
Speaker 1: If it's always got to you know, just be these
Speaker 1: big hits, these these big sudden drivers to increase the
Speaker 1: bottom line, you just keep going and going down that road.
Speaker 1: I mean, eventually you're gonna run out of tricks here.
Speaker 1: And I'm a little worried about what that's going to
Speaker 1: look like.
Speaker 2: You know, it's gonna be very telling. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: whatever happens with the next Halo, both what it looks like,
Speaker 2: what it looks like they put into it, and how
Speaker 2: it performs. If that doesn't work, like if it's not
Speaker 2: a rampant success, that's when I think things will start
Speaker 2: to radically shift downwards. If it does well, that's the
Speaker 2: crummy thing, right, If it does well, I think it
Speaker 2: just maintains the status quo. Like I don't think there's
Speaker 2: a growth to come from a new Halo, but I
Speaker 2: feel like if that doesn't work, then I think Microsoft
Speaker 2: loses to appetite even more than they already have.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's fine you say. It almost feels like
Speaker 1: in some sense we are here because people did not
Speaker 1: care about the last Halo. Really, yeah, true, true, Right,
Speaker 1: Like if Halo and it was maybe some big success
Speaker 1: and it drove a bunch of people to get an
Speaker 1: Xbox Series X and the by game Pass, maybe we
Speaker 1: aren't having all these weird conversations. So yep, I have here.
Speaker 3: It's your fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: You who didn't play Halo, an actual good video game.
Speaker 1: It's not even three four three industries. It's Halo Studios
Speaker 1: now or something. I always forget that I see about that.
Speaker 1: What the heck is that?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry?
Speaker 2: I did donche Edy and the adel and the chat
Speaker 2: metch that I found funny day, did you see this
Speaker 2: report that apparently e A thinks the next Battlefield will
Speaker 2: have one hundred million players.
Speaker 1: One hundred million players.
Speaker 2: Which is like three times more than the most successful
Speaker 2: Battlefield game has ever had.
Speaker 1: Yeah that serious has really been on the up and
Speaker 1: up lately Battlefield. Yeah, yeah, that's gonna work out really
Speaker 1: well for them.
Speaker 3: I bets.
Speaker 1: I bet that's gonna go great and there's gonna be
Speaker 1: no consequences of them not meeting expectations at EA, look
Speaker 1: at you, just because you are the villain this week. Look,
Speaker 1: we'll get to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we haven't forgot.
Speaker 1: To calm the hell down. All right, Let's let's look
Speaker 1: at our poll from yesterday here while we figure out
Speaker 1: a new poll, because yesterday j I asked everybody would
Speaker 1: you have played an Outrider's sequel, apparently also recently canceled.
Speaker 1: Only thirty percent of people said yes. Seventy percent said no.
Speaker 1: I think you liked Outriders, right, aj I.
Speaker 2: Did like Outriders. You know, it's funny it came out
Speaker 2: at a time when it felt like there was a
Speaker 2: very strong sentiment against the churn of a lot of
Speaker 2: games of service and a live service game. So like
Speaker 2: the pitch was this that luter shooter you like, but
Speaker 2: like there's no season passes there's no constant grind for
Speaker 2: loot and gotcha's and all this stuff. And it was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: like this is what we want, right And it still
Speaker 2: didn't quite hit.
Speaker 3: So it's like, well, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what these people want any more. Like you
Speaker 2: say you want one thing, we give you that you
Speaker 2: don't want it, we give up.
Speaker 3: So it's a bummer.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that game, okay, I have to say I
Speaker 1: found its world and storytelling incredibly boring. I didn't really
Speaker 1: care about anything.
Speaker 3: It was a little bland in that card. The gameplay
Speaker 3: was good, though.
Speaker 1: I like the game play was relatively good. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you like a good leader shooter.
Speaker 3: You were.
Speaker 1: You were an anthem defender. I'm sorry to say it.
Speaker 1: You were a huge anthem defender.
Speaker 3: Don't be sorry. I love anthem.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for you, even if you have no shame.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing, all right. A new question is going to
Speaker 1: be should Phil Spencer still be in charge of Xbox?
Speaker 1: We'll let Jeff handle the results of that one.
Speaker 3: I should do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should almost do like a Jeff poll here,
Speaker 1: like did we did we really miss Jeff this week?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Or no?
Speaker 1: Like you know, but no, no, no, we absolutely missed
Speaker 1: our boy Jeff, and I am going to be happy
Speaker 1: to see him back. This this warning shows are a
Speaker 1: lot of work. It turns out, agent.
Speaker 2: Well, this is early for you, Mike. It's still am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know right right, because I don't have a
Speaker 1: flight to catch or anything.
Speaker 3: Unless you were playing Miss, then it's.
Speaker 1: Okay, right right, So gosh speaking, I wish I am
Speaker 1: sad I didn't get to play miss this week because
Speaker 1: I missed my flight.
Speaker 3: Uh oh Like so some of the point is that
Speaker 3: you can play miss without Jeff with you, Jeff Jane
Speaker 3: gotta be gott to be playing with you.
Speaker 1: That it was gotually part like at first it was like,
Speaker 1: we can't do without Jeff. Jeffs like, of course you can,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't want to do without Jeff.
Speaker 1: It's fun at me Jeff and Jan there, I think it's.
Speaker 3: See the universe righted that wrong for you?
Speaker 1: I know you're you. You were the miss guy. I
Speaker 1: always told people you, Oh, I.
Speaker 3: Love Missed, adorn Missed.
Speaker 2: So I'm very happy that you're playing, and I hope
Speaker 2: you get through Missed and Riven, I want you to
Speaker 2: play through all of them then we can play. We'll
Speaker 2: get a giant bomb community in Uru and the fan
Speaker 2: servers will be great.
Speaker 1: Just be on Missed. Your miss three is your big
Speaker 1: one from whatevery.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite. That's that's that can't hit so hard.
Speaker 2: I was in high school.
Speaker 1: Did you ever beat Missed five?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: You know, I fell off it. It is my my
Speaker 2: weird little streak of shame. And the reason I fell
Speaker 2: off it is because spoiler Atrus is dead in that one,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I like Atrus, Like I found that.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, well.
Speaker 2: That kind of kills the vibe a little bit, like
Speaker 2: I don't like that. And yeah, weird mechanic with like
Speaker 2: drawing on these tablets.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely gonna order it over you though. If
Speaker 1: I beat miss five before you do and I'm the reaing.
Speaker 3: I think I could.
Speaker 2: I could catch up if you if you're if you
Speaker 2: get to three, maybe playing five.
Speaker 1: I'll get back.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh, hey, we we've had some fun on the site.
Speaker 1: Yesterday I played through Guitar u Man on the Light
Speaker 1: Club with Dan and Kayla uh both cheering me on.
Speaker 1: Uh we didn't have that game, AJ, I think we
Speaker 1: might have it was a great game. I like that
Speaker 1: a lot. And then last night on Wednesday Evening Gaming
Speaker 1: got MIC's at night wegga man, I played Dune Awakening, which, uh,
Speaker 1: that was good stuff. I think you'd like that game
Speaker 1: quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Ye say, do I need do I need to finally
Speaker 2: check this out?
Speaker 1: Maybe we have a Giant Bomb serve on there. If
Speaker 1: you watch the stream you can find out where we're
Speaker 1: all playing that on. But yeah, you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: really played a lot of these survival MMO kind of things.
Speaker 1: I was having a very good time with that. The
Speaker 1: vibes were good. It feels good. There's a grappling hook
Speaker 1: and you have Breath of the Wild style climbing in it.
Speaker 1: So that stuff that's fun. Yeah, that stuff was all
Speaker 1: super fantastic. And we're not quite done with this week though.
Speaker 1: We still have a voicemail dump truck popping off later
Speaker 1: today at about eleven am Pacific, super Eye Patch Wolf
Speaker 1: joining us. Yes, yes, so I haven't actually met him yet.
Speaker 1: I think he's met everyone else on the team. He
Speaker 1: said some nice things about me on a video he
Speaker 1: did not too long ago when everything was going down
Speaker 1: with Giant Bomb, So I appreciate that makes excellent videos.
Speaker 1: I like his Simpson stuff quite a bit, so yeah,
Speaker 1: excited to see Super Eye Patch Wolf later to day.
Speaker 1: But that's about it. Ag Anything you would that you
Speaker 1: would like to promote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of you may know that Mike and along
Speaker 2: with our brother Chris, do a Disney podcast called nineties
Speaker 2: Disney at nineties Disney dot com. We just had an
Speaker 2: episode come out about Muppet Treasure Island, which is a
Speaker 2: great movie that I hadn't seen in a while, but
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed kind of going back and visiting that.
Speaker 2: So you can go listen to that if you want
Speaker 2: to get your Disney and Muppet fixed.
Speaker 3: From the Minati brothers.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, I always enjoy doing that show. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with the Muppets there. I think
Speaker 1: we might do a Muppet movie rinking soon our August
Speaker 1: first episode. Every summer we do this thing where we
Speaker 1: recreate cocktails from the theme parks and we kind of
Speaker 1: have just a backyard cocktail party and we record that.
Speaker 1: That's always a very good time, So I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to that for sure. All right, and with that we
Speaker 1: are out. Thank you to our guest. Thank you again.
Speaker 1: AJ really do appreciate. Do you want to shout out
Speaker 1: socials or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Blue Sky mostly I'm at age guy
Speaker 2: on there and come say hi.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for being the best orients in gaming.
Speaker 1: And until the next morning mess which render not tomorrow
Speaker 1: where we are off for the fourth so on Monday,
Speaker 1: have a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.
Speaker 3: You'll be gon't be bad.