Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Games Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
fun new developments in pricing and more. It's gonna be
a good one because we have Renelle Crawford on the show. Renelle,
how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Pretty good? Pretty good? Pretty good? I'm chilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, glad to have you on man and keeping up
with your stuff on some social stuff.
Speaker 3: Really always appreciate when I see in the feed. How
are you feeling about video games these days?
Speaker 2: How could stop a blast? I'm having a blast as
long as I'm offline with it, you know, Yeah, throw
my phone out of a window and then just just
play the game. I'm having a blast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the way to do it, right, is like, yeah,
you just put it out of arms reach and then
all that stuff immediately goes away like a snap of
the fingers. It's like it doesn't even't exist anymore. It's
good stuff. Yeah. I am excited to go to packs,
hoping to see everybody there. We're getting ready. Some folks
from the team are getting in there today. So if
you're at PAX today, feel free to like try to
track them down say hi.
Speaker 3: They will love that.
Speaker 1: And by day, I mean Mike, definitely say hi to him. Well,
me and Sean will get into town tomorrow. So Friday,
if you want to come do this, this is the
Ron Millionaire edition. We'll be having that going on the
show floor a couple of times throughout the day. Come
hang out with us. It'll be a good time. You
guys can participate, so get in the audience, raise your
hand if you want to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: It'll be a good time.
Speaker 1: Basically, I fly in and I go right to my hotel,
drop my stuff off, and then go to the convention
and we start doing a Millionaire. So hopefully there's no
problems with the flight. Yeah, you know what, no complaints,
and I'm looking for it to it. Yeah, I'm cutting
it close, but I'm excited about it for sure. But yeah,
that means no episode tomorrow. So if you're listening to
this now, this is the last episode of the week.
Speaker 3: So we're going to do the Bomb twelve.
Speaker 1: And then we'll be back on Monday, I believe right,
no holiday, Yes, we'll be back on Monday. All right,
So let's explain ourselves. We're Giant Bomb, we're independent games
media out here on our own.
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Speaker 3: We recorded a new.
Speaker 1: Episode today that you'll get in a few weeks, or
now today this week that you'll get in a couple
of weeks.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: That show continues to be very excellent, so do all
the premium shows, So go check those out. As far
as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff Grubb, will
help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking
news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
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with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
let's start the morning mess here with switch To games
in the US will have different prices for their physical
and digital versions. And right now, when I was trying
to find the right headline for this story, everyone has
a different perspective of whether it's like, oh, digital games
will be less expensive or physical games are going to
be more expensive. Now Nintendo has weigh in on this,
but we'll discuss it when we get to it. So
let's go ahead and lay down the story here real quick.
Nintendo has announced price changes to switch To titles in
the US, with digital versions costing less than their physical counterparts.
From May twenty twenty six, new Nintendo titles exclusive to
switch To will have different MSRPs. Cost will depend on
retail partners who quote set their own prices for digital
and physical games. That's according to Nintendo. The platform holders
said the change simply reflects the different costs associated with
producing and distributing each format and offers players more choice
in how they buy and playing Nintendo games. The example
here is I believe it's let's see Yes Yoshi and
the Mysterious book. Pre Orders have started for that, and
the game has a digital price of sixty dollars and
a physical price or you know, a suggested physical price
of seventy dollars. This this is something that has been
happening in other territories right now for quite some time.
I guess people were mentioning that this has been happening
since the launch launch of the switch to in Europe
and countries around the world. But the United States is
we're the most entitled in the whiniest so people are
going to hear about it when changes happen here, and
that's that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I get that Nintendo came out renow and said, no,
we're not raising the price of the physical versions. We're
giving you a discount on the digital version. I'm struggling
to wrap my mind around, like you could just you
could say that, but to me that this game always
looked like it was going to be a sixty dollars game.
So in my head, what it looks like is the
physical versions more expensive, And that gets to the nature
of pricing right where.
Speaker 3: It's all made up.
Speaker 1: So the idea that like, well there's a natural price
and it's like you're going to get a discount or
a premium on top of it.
Speaker 3: It's all kind of in our heads, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it's yeah, like you said, it's the
choice of was this going to be the sixty period
or is this them saying now we can raise the
price and use the digital remaining sixty to say that
the price is not actually being raised, which we all
know they always want to raise the price. It feels
like that's how it alwayshould have been, right, Digital should
always have been cheaper than.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a talking point for years, right yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So for this to happen, you know, coincidentally
as physical are demanded to be more expensive now because
of everything that's going on, it does, Yeah, it does.
It does, a little little question mark does come up.
Speaker 3: For sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's and you know, I see people in chat saying
this is a good thing, right, like the digital will
be less than the physical, And I think had this happened.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago, that would have been my position for sure.
Speaker 1: But as you pointed out, we know now, or at
least you know at this point where I've realized that
these companies want to charge as much as they can
possibly get away with. So my skeptical, cynical approach to
this is like, what are they really trying to accomplish
by doing this? It's like giving a discount on digital?
Is it actually a discount? And what they're really trying
to do is is push people towards digital because it
will end up will end up making more money at
that lower price because of all the costs associated with
the physical version. That's certainly a possibility, but it also
just feels like, yeah, I mean, this gives them more
room to maneuver and to raise the price of physical
versions or make people more comfortable with the idea of
a physical version that costs more because oh, yeah, costs
more to produce. We know that the cost of production
for a product actually rarely comes into play with the
final pricing decision.
Speaker 3: They price it at what they can like the most
that they can get away with.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to like reverse engineer that
and be like, oh, they have a good reason.
Speaker 2: To do this, right, yeah, yeah, because in the same breath,
this probably won't be the last price increase, right, there's
a strong chance, like this is just the introduction, you
know of, like at some point maybe physical, I mean
digital becomes sixty and physical becomes eighty ninety. Right, maybe
maybe they just kind of slow creep it up and
then slowly digital goes back into sixty five seventy as
they keep pushing it up. As of right now, I
can't say I'm too mad, but saying I can see
the future right of, like, dang it, that might suck
in the future, but it is what it is for now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's kind of where I'm at as well,
where it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I was expecting this game to be sixty,
I can pay sixty and get it. I'll get the
digital version. I was always going to get the digital version.
So this hasn't hurt me too much one way or
the other. And I do understand the cost associated with
the physical one. So if this is them saying, hey,
we can keep making the physical version of the game
if we have this higher price, I can justify that
all that to myself and make it make sense. I
think what you got at of, we can see the future,
we know where this goes. Where this makes it easier
for them to raise the price of the physical version,
especially so that in a you know, a year's time,
when they do want to release that three D Mario
and they want to have an eighty dollars version on
the shelf a ninety dollars version on the shelf in.
Speaker 3: A couple of years.
Speaker 1: That's a lot easier to do now that you've decoupled
these two things, because you could still have the advantage
of setting your digital price at at the price that
people have become very comfortable with, and then you get
that profit margin on that side.
Speaker 2: Do you see others kind of following suit with this
collector's tax?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that's just where physical's going, right, Yeah,
the collector's tax of we are going to have smaller batches,
We're going to print fewer games. You know, the we
were talking about next gen PlayStation, next gen Xbox, I
mean renew Do you think those things launch with dis
strives built in or they're going to be external drives
at best?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, that that fraud digital digital, which you know,
I'm gonna cross road up because I really don't buy
physicals unless it's something that I just like the ip
of I like and I love, right, the last one
of all was like Barter's Game three, right, like just
because I wanted.
Speaker 3: To have it.
Speaker 2: So for me, you know, not a huge, huge deal.
But I have friends who like to, you know, have
the physical. Will I be more enticed if the base
physical have a little something that comes with it, right,
like the old days of like she used to come
with like a watch, you know what I mean, Like
like regular games like based not even collectors addition used
to come with cool stuff. So if they start doing
that and then give us the collector's tax, could be something,
could be something I could be interested in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that that is the direction this
all heads of heads in in that the fiscal versions
will have to feel even more special, and then that
means that there will be fewer of them, and that
means the price will be higher, and that sort of
becomes a self perpetuating cycle of the people leftover who
are actually purchasing these things are the least price sensitive
among us, and and and like value these things higher,
so that price just keeps going up and up and
up over time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that when we get these new consoles that
they at the very best, they do have external drives,
so they are going to be in a natural yes,
sold separately exactly, and then that means that it automatically
becomes like the vinyl market of today, where when a
band releases an album and they want to sell something
at a premium price to their biggest their biggest collectors,
people who just want to have a physical thing to
either mount on a wall or keep in a collection. Uh,
they can, they can do that, but people most people
don't have record players, So that's that's just like, yeah,
that is full. They know who that's for, and they
target that audience with the most like the highest quality
thing possible to charge the highest price possible.
Speaker 3: We're not that far away from that.
Speaker 2: That so ugly that you said VI Like, I know,
I get it, and then it's the truth. But god,
Lee PlayStation and Xbox, Nintendo physicals going the way of
the vinyl where it's like something special for the old
heads out there sounds crazy, but it is actually probably
what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I we'll see, Like, yeah, I don't blame anyone
in the moment for being like, yeah, this this is
fine and potentially even good. We've been asking for us
for years. It's just every time we ask for something
and we get it, it's all for me. It feels
like in video games and brilliant capitalism as a whole,
it's always a monkey paul. It's always the fing finger
curling on the monkey paw of like, oh, we didn't
realize that this thing that we wanted went with all
of these costs that we didn't even think about, because
we're not psychopaths running you know, CEOs of these corporations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I always give us the price increase, but
never the price decrease. Right, everything went perfectly from here
on out.
Speaker 1: It would still not change, right if the if like
the economic conditions that they operate in suddenly like went
back to the years and they're like all these man,
all the coster back to what they were, they would
not give us those those price increases back.
Speaker 3: No way, all right.
Speaker 1: Fox McLeod is officially appearing in the Super Mario Galaxy movie.
This is from Andy Robinson at VGC. Nintendo and Universal
have announced a major crossover appearance for the Super Mario
Galaxy Movie a week before the film's release. Announced on
social media on Thursday, the Super Mario Galaxy Movies Excuse
Me Official profile revealed that Star Fox protagonist Fox McLeod
will appear in the sequel. It's just a poster for
the movie or now it's and it's Star Fox there
in all his glory, and they're not trying to hide it.
This is he's not in the background. He is the
star of this poster. It's it's pretty wild to see
people thought that they saw star star Fox Fox McLeod
in the background of some videos and I was like, yeah,
that sounds right.
Speaker 3: That feels like something a brief cameo.
Speaker 1: Now the way that they're positioning it could be more
than that, maybe a less brief cameo.
Speaker 3: But what is this say to you about their plans
for a his appearance in this movie beat?
Speaker 1: Uh, star Fox's future in other movies and then see
Star Fox in video games?
Speaker 3: What do you think? Uh?
Speaker 2: Still no Star Fox in video games. Don't don't look
forward to that. You got ten years? Yeah, not happening. Hey,
look this, this, this, this makes us want to marvel
up the whole thing. Right Now we got star Fox,
Now we get Kirby, Now we're getting you know, Metroid
next in the movie. We're getting everybody put your hopes
to the ceiling because everything you ever dreamed of is happening.
But hey, I think people have been waiting for for
my boy Fox to come back for so long. Anything
would be cool. Personally, I would love like a nice
little small game first, you know, nothing too crazy, just
a nice little forty dollars banger. Yeah, would be great.
I think that would be perfect to start off with
Star Fox. Don't give us a super high production one yet.
I don't think people are really ready for it, but
let this come out, let us fan base build even more,
and I think we could we have some more Fox
in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I definitely just want them to kind
of maybe do a Starfox remaster collection with like the
Super Nintendo in its original version and then give us
it in a weird sixty frames per second version.
Speaker 3: That would be cool and weird.
Speaker 1: Do the same thing for Star Fox sixty four, kind
of update zero so that we can play it on
something that's not a WEU kind of put all those together,
and then maybe a few of the other side side games,
the Namco one, even Starfox Adventures. Bring all that stuff back,
let people get reacclimated to it, and then I think
a future of Starfox would be just make it very stylized,
either stylized in the direction of, oh, this is like,
what if we had super effects graphics chips today, the
thing that made the polygons work on the Super Nintendo
back then. What would it look like if that technology
just just got introduced now, something along those lines, or
something maybe anime inspired, animation inspired or like the puppets
they had for that one E three showcase.
Speaker 3: Something's just very.
Speaker 1: Stylized, just to make it feel like it stands out
could go a long way, and then the gameplay.
Speaker 3: Can be the very familiar Star Fox gameplay.
Speaker 1: As far as as far as disappearance in the movie,
I do expect it to be kind of a substantial
cameo so that they can set up the Marvel GMCU
miss of it all where they have to be working
toward a Smash Brothers, right. That is, that's such a
popular brand, It's so popular with such a wide and
varying demographic set that it's just like, yeah, that should
probably be the end goal. And you know that it
also helps that they are probably looking at having some
new version of Smash Brothers, probably Smash Brothers Ultimate Deluxe
or whatever. In the next year or so year. Yeah,
I mean they like to have it in the second
year of their consoles, right, So I do think that
they're going to have try to have something so they
could sell it throughout the entire generation.
Speaker 3: That's what they like to do with Smash Brothers. I
know it's weird.
Speaker 1: Because ultimate feels so ultimate in the definition of the word,
but that they'll find some way to sell that to people.
Speaker 2: Again, I think, right, right, I can imagine, I can
imagine it. I think that uh, I would have liked
for it to have been a surprise in the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that would have been a huge We would
have went crazy if we would have assume that in
the movie theater. So now we have to deal with
like how much is going to be enough? Right, like
because at first, if he had just passed by, we
would have went crazy, great time. But now he has
his own poster. They're pushing it four days before the
movie comes out. Now we're thinking he has has a
substantial talking role where it's like he's walking and talking.
It's escalation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like we're already talking, like we're already talking about
his like him getting his own movie or him showing
up in Smash Brothers. That's where we're at mentally, so
that means, yeah, you're right, like his appearance in this
movie has to feel like worthy of all this excitement
and we worthy of that poster, and I'm with you
in my head.
Speaker 3: I keep building it up to be more and more
and more, and.
Speaker 1: Maybe it won't be like yeah, they chose to put
him out there up front, like a week before the
movie's out, saying come see this movie because star Fox
is in it. Fox McLoud is in this and it's okay,
so you know how, like what does that appearance look like?
And then what are the surprises they're holding back? Like
there's got to be even more, right.
Speaker 2: That's where I'm at a out. I'm like, all right,
they put this out there in the front, so this
isn't even a big one for them. Maybe there's now
there's someone now Kirby's coming, you know what I mean,
Like that at the end of the movie. That's where
I'm att or none of that happens, right, very strong
chance and like we don't get anything so too crazy.
It's just a nice ending with a nice little easter
egg of the next movie coming and they have to
do this for marketing. Now I feel like they didn't,
but who knows, what do I know? You know what
I mean? Like they have whatever, they have statistics and
surveys that say they need to reveal the entire movie
before it comes.
Speaker 1: Of course, right yeah, now, I mean you're not wrong,
Like Illumination shows very much like that company that has
done all that data act, you know, acquiring all that
data so they can see the best way to promote
their movie.
Speaker 3: And you're right, they could just be following a.
Speaker 1: Playbook being like, what character do we have that feels
different and exciting? Oh, Fox McLoud, he's in there for
a second. Put him on a poster. Nothing would stop
them from doing that. And because it's all about they're
just trying to get that one inciting moment where you
buy a movie ticket, right and when anything yes.
Speaker 3: Anything yes, and then it's over.
Speaker 1: Whatever, whether you enjoy the movie or not is almost
you know, it doesn't matter at that point. So yeah,
if this helps facilitate that, they absolutely would do it
regardless of the actual appearance.
Speaker 3: And it's you know how much it matters to the
final film.
Speaker 1: I'm getting excited though seeing stuff like this is pretty cool.
I definitely hope they are building up to a cool
Smash Brothers thing where these characters can get you know,
maybe maybe Fox Mcloud's not going to get his own movie,
but you know, if there's a show that happens where
like a bunch of these characters can have their own
episodes or own arcs and that builds up to a
Smash Brothers movie, I would welcome that.
Speaker 2: My question is what characters will have to be in
the Smash Brothers movie for it to be a Smash
Brothers movie.
Speaker 3: Right right?
Speaker 2: I mean you have Mario.
Speaker 1: You probably need that original like the sixty four.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, sos will have to get an appearance at
some point, I.
Speaker 1: Mean ness or an equivalent, right, Like, there's a strong
chance that they're like, Okay, maybe we're not gonna do
nests because our situation with Mother and earth Bound is
weird right now, but we would have to swap in
someone from the wider eventual Smash Brothers cast that feels equivalent.
So yeah, that's actually not a bad idea Sonic could
show up in something like this. I would wouldn't be
surprised if everyone involved between you know, Illumination, Nintendo, Sega,
and Paramount.
Speaker 3: Right if they're all like, come on, we're not.
Speaker 2: Only helping you get this money.
Speaker 3: Point, yeah, yeah, let's get that money.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they build up to a small
roster that feels equivalent to the N sixty four to one,
and then they go from there. That gives them a
lot of room for sequels to grow, and you know,
you ever seers, Yes, exactly. All right, let's keep going here, everybody.
I know it's Thursday, but we're gonna celebrate shut the
fuck up Friday just a little bit early because everyone
needs the chill about this. I did not include this
story yesterday because I'm like, maybe it won't break wide,
and then I saw it everywhere, So everyone needs the
chill about Tomadaci life, living the dream, having no profanity filter.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: We want this game to launch in a way where
we could just get very weird with this game. And
I do not know how Nintendo is gonna feel about
all these like the immediate first clips I saw right
now of this game where people be like, here's a
bunch of words that refer to human genitalia and we're
just gonna throw that and that's gonna be the name
of my city in Tomadacci Life. And it blew up,
and I'm like, hm, I know Nintendo does want to
give us that freedom, but they're gonna probably have those
conversations again.
Speaker 3: After this early sort of surge of excitement.
Speaker 1: About this game, it does seem like that filter is
very limited, if it's there at all, And I think
that's what led in to Nintendo, like they thought about
this or no where there is the built in screenshot
and video sharing is turned off for this game specifically
because of this stuff. So they've already sort of seemingly
made their choice of like, we know probably what's going
to happen with this game, how can we sort of
limit you know, the bad feelings that we would have
if there was a bunch of stuff being shared that
makes this game look like it's crazy and potentially you know,
obviously profane, but potentially filled with hate speech. And they're like,
how do we sort of mitigate that? They came up
with a solution and it immediately didn't work, so I
could see them being like, we got to sort of
undo this. And I want to have that freedom because
this game is about my ability to sort of express
myself and have the game express itself back to me
in the ways that surprised me. And I want all
those options there, and I don't want to sort of
be limited by the worst people among us maybe using
this game in a way, although I just can't imagine
those people coming to Tomadaci life.
Speaker 3: So hopefully that's not a problem. Maybe it will be,
but I don't know. How do you view this?
Speaker 1: Do you think that this game is gonna get to
a one point oh release with this profanity filter not
in place?
Speaker 2: Ah? Man, It's tough. It's tough because every time they
take away the filter, they always regret it, right, every
time they give us that freedom there, they always are like,
all right, that's uh sorry, no more. And it's always
because of the worst right I think of like black pipes, emblems, right,
creating your own like or like anything.
Speaker 3: Right anything, yes, absolutely anything.
Speaker 2: And Nintendo, I don't know, it's tough that they're gonna
put They're gonna put it back for sure. They can't
deal with it, you know, like it's it's gonna be
too ugly.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have those conversations for sure, and they're having
them right now. And there's gonna be people who are
like I told you so for sure, and and and
those people are gonna be the lawyers who run a
big part of like Nintendo of America, And yeah, it's
I think they're I think you're right. My hope is
it's something that gets implemented in an update, so we
can have like a one point zero on the card
that is pure and could be a file that gets
shared so we have an easy access or way to
easily access this in perpetuity. Once that becomes the option
there that still feels like a possibility because this game's
coming out very soon. But I think they'll probably update
it with a filter and hopefully it just doesn't get
too aggressive.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, it only.
Speaker 2: Takes it only takes two or three like viral pols
for them to say, let's let's just really back. The
only way I can see this surviving is unless the
opposite side of the spectrum happens when you get really cool,
really like fun innovative stuff that they can push like
kind of in front of it. That could kind of
make them say, well, you know, there's some weird those
you know, like but like look at this, look at
this cool stuff.
Speaker 3: Right and the other.
Speaker 1: There's even another flip side of it of people who
are like, I'm starting like my name is just like
Christian gay Lord, and it's not letting me use my
Christian name in here has the word gay and it's like,
that's just what you know, that's my name.
Speaker 3: What can I do about that?
Speaker 1: And now I can't have myself rep resented in the
game because of this aggressive filter, And they don't want
that either. They do want people to feel like anything
as possible and you can escape the world and go
into this Tomadaci life and have anything happen and you
don't have to worry about the rules of society and
all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, that's what they're going for.
Speaker 1: That's why they prioritized having a very limited filter and
then not letting you share the videos and the clips
in the in the screenshots. But yes, especially a couple
of days, I might might change their mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is too, like I do believe that
they maybe just weather the storm and not really say
anything about it. Like after like the first you know,
week or two, you know, like people it's going to
die off like that that those attention seekers won't get
they don't find something else to try and seek that
attention from it, then like they just have the freedom,
you know, they're they're cake and eat it too. But
exactly it's whether in that storm and that's a gamble yep.
Speaker 1: Exactly, it's like these early days where that's where they're
trying to sell this game, and they're very in It's Nintendo,
they're very sensitive about this stuff. So and they think
about all these things, right, do they really think about that?
They absolutely do. So, Yeah, the early days is when
this will be a problem. And then you know, a
month from now, when this game is just another game
that's out, this will no longer be a conversation point.
So hopefully the game can get to there and we
can just the cool people can just have this cool
game and we don't.
Speaker 3: Have to worry about the freaks trying to ruin it
for everyone else.
Speaker 1: All Right, we are going to take a quick break.
We'll be right back after some ad messages. If you
want to skip out on these ads, you can do so.
You become a member by going to GiantBomb dot com
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In the meantime, we will be right back.
Speaker 3: We're back. It's game mess morning. Still.
Speaker 1: That's Renelle Crawford. I'm Jeff Grubb. We're getting back into
the headlines with more. Triple A games are reportedly costing
three hundred million dollars or more to make. This is
from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. Ever see reporters say
a game quote only sold a million copies, as if
that's nothing to be proud of.
Speaker 3: Well, we might now know why.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that Triple A budgets have ballooned in
the last decade or so, but it now seems that
the cost of making a game is getting to a
point where it's almost impossible to make that money back
unless you create a generational hit. Speaking on Blue Sky,
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreyer explained while most publishers avoid giving
concrete data on their budgets for Triple A games, the
figures he's hearing from developers are three hundred million dollars
or more and sometimes, excuse me, sometimes much more. This,
according to Schreier, quote helps explain the current state of
the industry. He notes that these numbers are primarily for
US and Canadian developers, and that the majority of these
budgets are spent on developer salaries and have very little
to do with executive compensation, most of which is apparently stock.
Looking at the numbers, a game on a three hundred
million dollar budget needs to sell at least six million copies.
It's seventy dollars a piece to break even. And that's yeah,
that's kind of what I'm hearing about Marathon. Marathon is
what stoked this conversation where I was talking to some
sources and this is before the game was coming out,
but they were like looking at some numbers and it's like, yeah,
this thing looks like it's going to do between one
and two million copies at launch, and what it really
needs to do is between seven and nine million to
justify the cost of operating Bungie, which is the cost
of making a game. I think people have this idea
of like, well, you can't just take the salaries times
the number of years, times the number of people and
then put all that together and come up with the
cost of making a game. It's like, no, that's exactly
what you do. Because it caught the people are the
ones making the game. That's where the costs come from.
And when you do that for American salaries, especially like
on the West Coast, where a lot of these developers
used to be and I more and more frequently are
not at because the studios are closing these or the
publishers are closing these studios. You get a very very
high number. That was two hundred million dollars five years ago,
and it's got to be creeping up because those salaries
have increased.
Speaker 3: The demand for those developers went up a ton during the.
Speaker 1: Pandemic, and you kind of can't take that back at
a certain point because you've got to maintain those people
or close the studio.
Speaker 3: So obviously that three hundred million dollar a number.
Speaker 1: We look at that and Renald I knew we would
end up here and end up here and it felt unsustainable.
But I don't know what we do about it now.
It just feels like, yeah, we're gonna have to just
stop doing that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I wonder that it's a little
bit of like they got to shoot for the stars, right,
We don't want them to not want to make the
next try and make the next biggest hit. Yeah, yeah,
like that's that's cool in theory, right, However, the chances happening. Man,
it's just so slow, even for a bungee, you know
what I mean, Like even for a bungee, Like the timing,
the everything has to be so perfect for them to
hit that banger out of the park that Like it's
just like they just released it after our Graiders and
now there there was no chance of them doing that, right, Like, yep,
there's just so too many variables. People aren't buying new games.
It's ugly. It's ugly. We just got to really back
find a way to make a cool game. You know,
that's forty dollars, that's small, take a couple of years,
you know, to make, and just real the whole thing back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like unsustainable has been the word for a decade,
and it's because it's like the market forces that led
us to this point where games cost three hundred million
dollars like those just have not been been dealt with
because it's kind of the only way to stand out
if you're making a game, Like that's what you're the
point you started with, Like we don't necessarily want developers
and publishers to not try to make the best game possible.
And if you say, as a publisher to your team
of developers in Los Angeles, go make the best game
possible so that we can stand out on the shelf
when being compared to every other game. The one sort
of weapon you have in your toolkit is spend more
money than anyone else does making this game. Get the
best developers, let them have the most amount of time
just working on this thing, and that necessarily leads to
a very expensive product. And you do that because that
helps market the game, because you could say you've never
seen anything like this before. Now there are obviously a
handful of studios who have found alternative paths, games that
are almost certainly still very expensive.
Speaker 3: But like from Software's got.
Speaker 1: Their own voice and their own way of saying this game,
you must play this game, regardless of how much time
it took us to make or whatever, Like there's another
reason you're coming here other than just the visual polish.
And Nintendo has sort of broken themselves away from that
decades ago when they went from the GameCube to the Wii,
and they're like, we're gonna stop chasing these high end trends.
We're gonna just make our own stuff. Stay in our lane.
They're Nintendo and not everyone's Nintendo's. There's just not a
lot of ground to go to if you're one of
these other publishers that you know, when I say, like
Tronic Arts, no one's getting the warm and fuzzies about
Electronic Arts. Electronic Arts kind of has no choice but
to make a game that's more expensive than anyone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, or of course, like they're what they're clearly
already doing too, is is finding some sort of cash
cow and then making the games, right, Like Electronic Arts
is good, right, They're good FIFA, Madden, you know, Ultimate Team.
Speaker 3: Pegs even for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Apex Legends. People spend one hundred thousand dollars a
year on these games. They can make whatever they want,
you know, at least for the most part. A lot
of other companies can't do that. I don't even know.
I don't I can't even imagine what they could do. Again,
I always say that the I see Marco transactions as
a muzzle, you know, like obviously a lot of us
don't like them necessarily, but hey, we can keep games
alive with them, and right now they're the best bet
for gamers, right because I could choose not to buy them, right,
and they don't affect the game right, and it keeps
the game costs low price low. So they need to
come up with something like that, you know, like in
More maybe more Microsoft, I don't even know, but.
Speaker 1: That I mean, that has definitely been the strategy for
the last couple of years, right. It's like, let's find
our game that we can make that can be a
micro transaction factory, and we can go after the whales
and and you know that that could be our lottery
ticket that pays for everything else. But we've seen that
the appetite for that has certainly diminished, and there's just
people have chosen their hobby game where they are willing
to spend one hundred thousand dollars on a game in
a year. Like the people they're willing to do that
have their game already and the idea that you're going
to be able to peel them away after the after
they've already made that investment in that other game.
Speaker 3: Or you're gonna be able to create new versions of
those whales.
Speaker 1: I mean, no, this market is a certain size that
it's going to grow over time, for sure, but you're
not going to be able to like manufacture that excitement
for one of these games out of nowhere, even when
it's very good, like in the case of Marathon, it's
going to take many years for you to sort of
build up in a Warframe style way. I bet just
keep delivering on the hits here and every time you
have a new expansion, there's going to be more players.
And if you do a really good job like a Warframe,
you can do that. But that is not the business
model that Bonjie Bungee's operating on. It's too expensive for sure.
Speaker 2: And even again, even like a Warframe, which again came out,
you know, so long ago, where people were still choosing games.
You know, like people have already all picked their teams,
their size, they got their war zones, et cetera. People
aren't picking new games, man, They're just not interested in
new games. The only thing again, thinking like other than
a gaming quarantine where no one, no new games come
out for like a couple of years and people's excitement
build again, where people love games. Yeah, right, that's like
the only thing I can see remedying this this entire situation.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's yeah, I think that there is.
Speaker 1: It's a fever in the industry of like chasing after
these bigger returns by any more money on your games.
It's a bit of a sickness, a symptom of the
capitalist system that we're in, of course, and I think
at a certain point it does sort of have to
just break.
Speaker 3: And that means I feel like we're in the middle
of it.
Speaker 1: Of this, This industry feels like it has sustained a
not fatal blow, but a very damaging blow to the
way people feel about the excitement that people hold for games.
And I think that what you just described is going
to happen, and.
Speaker 3: We're in the middle of it a little bit. A
lot of people have just tuned out.
Speaker 1: We got epic games, I think has deeper problems than
people got a little bit less engaged than Fortnite, but
they people have been less engaged in Fortnite. And it's like,
I'm even myself. I would see Fortnite clips in the
past on social media and I would be like, Okay,
what's going on here, And now I see it, I'm like,
oh Fortnite. Still, I'm like rolling my eyes hard. It's
like they've like lost me. For goodness, They've exhausted me,
right exactly, and I think a lot of people feel
that way, and at the same time, a lot of
people still feel like those are still the games that
are my option. Yeah, there's some other stuff over here,
but I had so much fun in the heyday of Fortnite.
I'm looking to feel like that again. But my option
is still just Fortnite and a couple of other games
that are inspired by Fortnite. I think they're going to
have to sit on the sideline for a couple of years.
This industry is going to have to come up with
a bunch of innovative, innovative new ideas. Right now, that's
that is Friends Slop and that has been working in
a really good way. But for that budget of like
a forty dollars game, a fifty dollars game, a sixty
dollars game, plus, they're gonna have to come up with
innovative new ideas that really like invigorates these people again,
and we feel pretty far away from that in this moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because it's also because of like the culture
in general, right people are curious in games, but also
people aren't really excited and jumping into new games that
everyone isn't talking about right, Like people was very excited
for Fortnite. Fortnite feels like such a huge thing, and
it was, but because everyone was a part of it, right, Like,
everyone downloaded it and played it, right, they're looking for
a big moment apex. Everyone downloaded and played it, like
though arc raators held divers. Everyone down a little bit
and played it because it was spreading like wildfire on
social media and it was just big. That excitement and
like that cultural moment where everyone wants to be a
part of it is just happening less and less and
less likely to happen, so that even if your game
is amazing, if you don't rally the social media to
become like fun and clippable and all that stuff people see,
the game is lesser, Like yeah, Steam numbers gotta be
up there, Like you had a certain time like together,
it's uh, it's ugly. Do they, like you said, friends
slop is pretty good? Do they start to leach off
of like indie game stuff, right, Like you have a
game ding game that's there and you just you just
jump on those I mean it's become an angel investor,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, like oh like you mean like directly
getting involved in like just saying here that any game
is working with you. Yeah, for sure, all these companies
are always being like, here's our new publishing initiative, that
that will happen. I mean, I think for sure of
what's happening is a company like Epic is, let's fire
a thousand people so we could save some money, sit
back and wait for what we did last time, which
was we put out Fortnite and it wasn't the Fortnite
we know today.
Speaker 3: It was a different game.
Speaker 1: And then pubg happened, and they're like, we're making that now,
and they're gonna wait for that to happen. They are
gonna look at early access, and they're gonna look at
the indie space, wait for some like very smart and
development team probably coming out of nowhere releasing a new
idea that just is like a very very cool thing.
And then a company like Epic will be like, can
we make the slick version of that for the masses,
And we're gonna sort of just wait on the sideline
and try to save some money and operate in a
maintenance mode, which is a crazy thing to say about Fortnite,
as big as that is. And they'll still take their
money from Disney and make all the Disney related stuff whatever.
They're gonna wait for that next big inflection point that
they can hop on and go from there. The bad
news for them on that side of things is it
is getting to the point where those indie games are
are looking and feeling and comparing to the biggest games
in the world, and maybe we won't need the slick
version of that. The indie version we get just will
be that select from the people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that will work maybe once or twice, but then
people are really gonna gonna they're switching on the flip
and say, oh though, you're just making an ugly knockoff
of it, because it's crazy because the exact opposite of
the perception of Triple A Games is happening with the
indie games, right, Triple A games, you need the polish,
you need the budget. You gotta be big, you gotta
be here, you gotta be cool. Everyone has to be
playing it with the small indie quote unquote.
Speaker 3: Friends a weird freak.
Speaker 2: Gotta be a fucking ugly, random, weird thing that look
key no one really heard about yet. But you're hopping
on it first, you know, like the hipster like things
that's going on, and I'm a part of it. That
was Super Battle Golf thing like real quick played it
once or twice. It was out of there. You know.
It's just such as it's all a weird, a weird
thing right now for sure.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to how the indies kind of approach
all this stuff because.
Speaker 3: They will have cool ideas and I love that stuff.
Speaker 1: These big companies are gonna have to figure something out
because three hundred million dollars the market just can't support
multiple games like that.
Speaker 3: Spider Man. Yeah, that was That's gonna sell enough.
Speaker 1: The Spider Man games being three hundred million dollars, You're
gonna sell enough there to make everyone involved happy, although
I'm sure they wish they could get the price down
of that.
Speaker 3: One quick note on this before we move on.
Speaker 1: There's always that talking point of Ghost of Sushima cost
sixty dollars or sixty sixty million dollars excuse me to
make and that number apparently came from some LinkedIn profile
from someone who left the studio four years before that
game came out. That number is certainly not real. That
game costs more than that.
Speaker 3: I bet that.
Speaker 1: I bet, relatively speaking, Ghost of Sushima is not as
expensive to make as a Naughty Dog game, but.
Speaker 3: I bet it's still pretty expensive. More than one hundred
million dollars for sure, and probably a point a bit
more than that.
Speaker 2: And that's what we probably get more of, just the
same ips, right, Like we just get just ips. That's
it works already happened, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: Because the like every money you spend on making a
new Horizon game, right, that's like you're spending a dollar,
but it feels like you're spending like seventy five cents
because the money is not just going toward making that game,
it's going toward broadening Horizon, and everything like pays for
itself because now more people are buying that version of Horizon,
and the camera about the TV show and the TV
show with people back.
Speaker 3: Into the games.
Speaker 1: They view it as this this network that feeds on itself,
and they're going to try to keep replicating that. But
that also gets still a point of like, oh, now
you're sprawling in all these direction directions. What if people
wake up one day and the majority of people be like,
I don't care about Horizon anymore?
Speaker 3: Like that happened with Game of Thrones, right, Game of Throne.
Speaker 1: Like, people, they're still making games, Game of Thrones TV shows,
and I guess the latest one.
Speaker 3: Is very very good.
Speaker 1: That that series is not anywhere near the peak of
what Game of Thrones.
Speaker 3: Was at its height, although I guess the.
Speaker 1: Show is still growing very much. But people get what
I mean, Like it was the cultural Zeit guest there
for a moment and then everyone woke up. It's like,
I'm kind of over this that happens.
Speaker 3: So there's risk involved in all of this, all right.
Speaker 1: Eight PlayStation studios have closed since PS five was launched.
Jonas mackew over Game Reactor just did a quick timeline
here in twenty twenty. Manchester Studio closed. In twenty twenty one,
they can close Japan studio Travesty. In twenty twenty three,
Pixel Opus closed, then they closed London studio Firewalk and
Neon Koi in twenty twenty four, and then this year
they have closed Blue Point Games and Dark Outlaw Games.
So this story goes hand in hand with that last
story right where the cost of making big games is rising,
therefore you have to put your bets on the most
surefire things, and that means if anything has a question
mark around it, it immediately is like on the chopping
block and a Blue Point Games, where it's like, obviously
you know how to use a blue Point games. You
take them, you put them on X or Y, you
let them, let them loose for three or four years.
Then you sell that and it's going to be a
remaster or remake of some cool game. So easy to make.
That make sense. And when the other game costs three
hundred million dollars or more to make, suddenly a Blue
Playing Games makes less sense.
Speaker 3: And they rose the studio let alone any of these
other ones.
Speaker 1: Dark Outlaw, which was going to be you know, the
Call of Duty Zombies guy, that was going to be
his new game, and they gave him like multiple chances.
Speaker 3: The Firewalk was his previous studio. So yeah, this this
goes hand in hand right with the rising cost of
making games.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, small demos on popular games, bring those back,
crash even up with spiral for a demo. All right,
give us the demo, let us see if we even
like it. If we like it, love it, maybe you
keep going on with prediction. I don't know. They got
something different.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like just like early access for some of
these bigger games or like yeah prototypes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like not even early access, yeah yeah, like tell
us about the writing of the story, like before you
even get intovolved with anything.
Speaker 1: Right, So one mentioned to me recently I can't remember.
I think it might have been Phil Salvador on the
show yesterday. Uh that like apparently developers have begun doing
the thing of they have a trailer for their game
and then based on whether or not and whether or
not it gets enough wish list on Steam, then they'll
decide whether or not they're gonna make it.
Speaker 3: And I kind of like that idea. Yeah, Like it
means there's gonna be a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Like you might be messing around with trust a little bit,
but if people don't wish list the game, you broke
trust with people who weren't gonna buy back again, and
you could probably get them back if you release another
trailer that they think is dope. And so like that's
definitely along those lines of what you're getting at. And
I think you're right that they developers and publishers need
to get a little bit more store, like like can
we sniff out people's excitement a little bit early and like, yes,
start building a story, a narrative around. Here's why this
game matters, Here's why it's cool, and here's why you're
gonna you're gonna want to pay attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And unfortunately I think they got to pay more
attention to again, everything has to be stylized. Now. It
has to look cool like in clips, like it has
to look Yeah, it gotta just be like holy crap,
you know what I mean, Like by like the style,
not even the story, the cat none of that. It
has to just look cool at the very like least,
which you know I'm not the hugest fan of because
I'm a gameplay over anything else guy.
Speaker 1: But it has to just look cool, yeah, I mean,
and for me it's like if you can make the
style and the animation enhance the gameplay, it's like that's
where that's my butter sound right there.
Speaker 2: That's because that's what happened already with the Rock Band game.
Lad a new Guitar Hero game. It's Guitar Hero, right,
we know who the tarho is. We just want more
Guitar Hero. But it came out and people are like, oh,
this looks kind of ugly, you know, Like also, who
cares a guitar hero, you know what I mean, Like,
it's those characters are in the background of something you're
not looking at. They're literally peripheral vision characters. Yeah, but
it doesn't matter. It has to look cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got to be.
Speaker 1: It's got to look good in that gift to make
people feel good about spending the money.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: It's like in a post like Tetris Affect World, right,
where yeah, that's just Tetris and the gameplay is perfect.
Speaker 3: You don't need to do anything. We have some ideas.
Speaker 1: We're going to sell those ideas by pairing it up
with crazy visuals and awesome audio design.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, yeah, that does work. I get it,
and it looks good in gifts. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, PlayStation closed a lot of studios over the
last six years. Probably not done yet either. Well, we
still haven't heard about what's going on with fair Games.
It feels like one of these days we're just going
to wake up and be like, oh, yes, of course
that studio's done and that games that were coming out.
Speaker 3: But we'll see, all right.
Speaker 1: The RAM crisis is forcing super popular kids console to
raise prices again from Zackuphison at Kotaku. The Next Playground,
a kids focused motion control console that exploded in popularity
last year, is the latest bit of video game tech
to announce a price increase directly connected to the ongoing
RAM shortage caused by AI hyperscalers rushing to build data centers.
On March twenty fifth, and an open letter posted online,
Next CEO and co founder David Lee announced that starting
next month, the company's flag Ship console, the Next Playground,
will receive a fifty dollars price increase, bumping from two
fifty to three hundred. This is the second price increase
in less than two years. So okay, so yeah, the
damn is right because think about this, like we are
talking about new hardware coming out or whatever, and we're
talking about is the switch to going to get a
price increase? This is a tiny little box that just
that like was always meant to be very cost effective.
It came out years ago, and it cost three hundred dollars.
Now that is what you would pay for a switch
one in twenty seventeen. Like that is, and that you
know that was a long time ago, and that you
know that was underpowered itself, so too yes, I like
the next playground. We actually got it crazy. My wife
got one for free. She actually got two for free
as part of this deal group that she's incause they
were kind of just giving these things away a couple
of years ago, and then they charged you on a
subscription thing on the back. On the backside, it's like, okay, cool,
And now it just took off in the last year.
It's like, yeah, that thing was neat. It's like a
connect for the right audience. It's like that Tommy Talla
Erico in television, the Anigo television. But like, actually good,
it makes sense. And this thing now costs three hundred dollars.
They don't want it to be that expensive. They want
it to be an impulse purchase at the holidays for families.
So this thing needs to be three hundred dollars. We
are certainly looking at a PlayStation six that has to
be eight hundred dollars, maybe even more. It stinks out there,
right now, what do you think?
Speaker 2: I don't know, two fifty to three hundred sucks?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Is it change that that that two to three?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right?
Speaker 2: If this was two twenty five to seventy five, maybe
maybe right, three hundred is a whole nother thing. We're
one getting those those price increases, and people already are
not looking forward to the costole. Like I don't know
anyone who's like, right, I'm ready to turn in my PSI,
you know, like no one is saying that. And I
don't think they will for at least five more years,
Like I don't think people are ready at all. Uh
So with that, with plus a price increase, plus the
fact that it will have AI, so we're gonna be
looking at the thing that we don't want that's causing
the prices. Probably, Yeah, the pain will be right in
front of us, and they're gonna market it as such,
you know, like they're gonna they're gonna have new AI
thing where you could do this and do that, and
we're gonna be upset. We're not gonna be happy for it,
Like it's it's gonna be ugly. I don't think we're
going to see. We haven't seen anything like what this
next generation will.
Speaker 3: Be, Like yeah, I mean when you're describing it, it's
like that could be. It could be a blood bath.
Speaker 1: Like in terms of people not showing up for the
new console unless they are giving a given a real
tangible like Fomo possibility, pomos all they're gonna have in
terms of just like you have to have an exclusive
game you just can't get anywhere else that's better than
everything else.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty tall order on its face.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have that, how are you going
to commence anyone to spend the money on that new console?
And the answer might be they won't be able to,
and people might just sit back with their PS fives
and be happy because all the games they're playing, and
probably all the games will come out for the next
couple of years after the PS six is there will
come out on that console.
Speaker 3: It's like that.
Speaker 1: It could just be a cliff that these companies are
headed toward, and I don't know how they deal with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one, this one, this one might actually be
pretty bad. The only things PlayStation is has is that momentum,
A little bit of PlayStation momentum, right, yeah, a little
bit of people who may get it just in case,
you know, because the PlayStation five shortages were so crazy, Right,
there's a couple of that there. But as far as
everyone really rushing out that game, whatever that game is, man,
it's already hard. You can't. We can't make a good,
great game now right. You're gonna have to throw multiple
You're gonna have to be the next gout of Ward,
the next Last of Us, the next Horizon, the next
everything on that console for us to even think about
moving over right, Like one game won't even do it.
It's going to be a collection again of great exclusives.
That's a gain in itself.
Speaker 1: They might hope that, like Grand Theft out of Six,
kind of runs a little bit shit on on the
spot so that people are like, and then you know,
it's probably gonna run pretty good on a PS five
pro I bet, but I bet they'll be like, oh
now just wait for the PS six and get the
we'll have a PS six version of it. Then that
might be their best bet. And that's kind of sad
that a game I have already been out by then, Yeah,
what's going to go to the will come out right exactly,
so that's gonna be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, an Xbox is real, really ugly. I don't know
what they're going to do because people don't even want
their current Xbox Steam. You gotta have Steam on it.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, it's all right.
Speaker 1: The Xbox just not even part of this conversation, right,
It's going to be they're gonna want to sell ten
million of those things and be happy with that compared
to you know, Xbox three sixty, which is like eighty
million or something like that. It's just a whole different
universe that they're in now, all right, last couple of
stories here, Uh, we have a cousin update.
Speaker 3: Everybody, they're updated.
Speaker 1: They're patching cousins in Capcom Capcom street Fighter six. I'll
read that headline here from Kenneth. Capcom addresses the street
Fighter six incest storyline fans have been losing their minds
over the funniest fighting game patch note of all time
will read some variation of quote. We altered the incest
storyline in Alex's backstory. At least that's what it sounds
like street Fighter six is doing. Alex, a veteran fighter
in Capcom's fighting game series, was added to street Fighter
six earlier this month, and while that on its own
should be caused for celebration, fans were less enthused by
the character's storyline, which included him getting his second cousin
and stepsister Patricia Yes doing many things with her. They
even had a kid on the way. The fandom was
sent into a tailspind trying to figure out how to
explain this as less weird than it comes off as.
Even if you debate the legitimacy of the brother sister relationship,
they are definitely still cousins. This is a quote from
the team talking about it. We apologize for any confusion
that recent topics regarding Alex's story may have caused. While
we have not changed the care aracters backstories, after internal
review by the development team, we plan to revise certain
text passages that may have been misleading in the near future. Additionally,
we have published a supplementary episode on Buckler's boot Camp
to provide further insight into the characters emotions and backstories.
Speaker 3: All Right, yeah, hey, this is weird.
Speaker 1: They and the fact the fact that Cap Goob kind
of at the height of their power right now to
come out and be like, look, we're sorry about the incests.
We're not going to get rid of it, but we're
going to explain it better. Excuse me, what are you
talking about? A weird story?
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, you mentioned Game of Thrones and the incests just.
Speaker 3: On this episode, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, uh, we'll have
to explain it themselves here in a little bit. We'll
see what that looks like.
Speaker 2: What do you think I have no clue how this
has even became a thing. You know what, what are
we blaming that fault here? Because this was this is
a silly miss up.
Speaker 1: It's like unnecessary, right, Yeah, you could just have changed
the story from the beginning.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, guys, guys, I got you in this
one because apparently it's worse in the Japanese version. So
I think they might start removing language like and at
that moment I knew she was no longer my sister,
they might take some of that stuff out. I'm thinking
that might be a good place to start.
Speaker 3: No, no, it is this, Sean.
Speaker 1: This is the one where you tell me where it's
like there's a scene where it's like, oh, she was
no longer my sister, and then in the next scene
it's like a flashback to him holding her when she
was a baby or something.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they made some customer for this ship where
it shows them through the years of him holding her
as a newborn and then them dancing at their wedding.
Speaker 2: Oh god, oh.
Speaker 3: God, let's make some changes. Capcom. Let's get to work.
Let's get to work. Oh no, all right, let's let's
move on.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, Jackson, Jack and Dexter fans prepared to have
your heart broken. Basically, Sinzera y Sanzaru, a development team
pitched to Sony on remaking Jack and Daxter.
Speaker 3: They did some spec.
Speaker 1: Work where like, hey, we're gonna rework some of these
cut scenes and show what it can look like in
a modern engine. And they did a pretty good job,
and then apparently there were some conversations and then it
never happened. So that's the heartbreak here of if you're
waiting for Jack and Daxter to make its return, the
eternal hell that you live in continues, you're you're not.
Speaker 3: Gonna get that.
Speaker 1: That's that's what seems to be happening or what At
a certain point, Brunel, they they gotta start looking to
the back catalog a little bit more, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't don't delete all of the hope. Yeah, put
you put your meters up. The mark is looking ugly.
They're gonna start tapping into that nostalgia. Jack and Dexter's
coming everything is coming at some point, they gotta throw
everything at you. PS six, new Jack and Dexter it
comes home.
Speaker 3: I think you're right. I would echo all of that.
All right, that doesn't go in the headlines. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Let's get through the rest of the stuff we gotta do. Here,
we have the pull question from yesterday. I'm gonna go
ahead and refresh. We'll get the results of that right here.
Do you have a PC gaming handheld? We wanted to
check in on this. I do have one, so do
forty seven percent of respondents. Man, that really tells you
what kind of.
Speaker 3: Audience we have over here.
Speaker 1: Thirty six percent say said no, and I don't want one.
There's going to be the people happy with their switches
or happy with their consoles. And then seventeen percent say no,
but I do plan to get one. Okay, so it's
still some people waiting on the sideline. But man, act now,
because those prices are just going to keep going up.
How about you right now? How are you playing games
like these days?
Speaker 2: You go?
Speaker 1: Do you have a console that you've always been going
to have you switched over to Steam or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I got it all. I do it all PC. I
mean console to PC. I've been having a lot of
fun with PC just because games could be cheaper there
and oh yeah, a lot of random stuff over there.
But I love my Steam Deck to death. It's probably
my favorite device since like the PSP, since the Sidekick,
Like it's my favorite device. I love the Steam Deck
and it's so underpowered and uh yep, my screen has
a couple of dead pixels on it, but I love
it so much. I don't know what it is. It's
it's to fill the controls like the touch pad. It
it's just a great device and it just.
Speaker 1: Feels yeah's just like you just they they present games
in such a forward way of like you picked up
this thing to play a game. We know that, so
when you turn it on, let's get into those games.
And so, okay, that's like a number one check mark
that I need. That's why I like to switch so much.
It's a gaming device and knows it. That's how it
presents itself. And the Steam Deck does that as well.
And then the Steam Deck's like, and we're gonna give
you everything you need to kind of play whatever game
you want and if you want to, if you want
to get freaky on the desktop mode and start installing emulators.
Speaker 3: We're gonna rarely supplement that make sure that's easy to do.
It just feels like a thoughtful device. I'm so obsessed
with my Steam Deck.
Speaker 2: Stemos is also so good. I love the again the
touch packs, so I can play some random, crazy games
that doesn't really make sense on that device, and I
can make it make sense, especially with the community controls
and shit. It's great.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, right exactly, just yeah, thoughtful from top to bottom.
All right, we do not have a new poll question
because we are going to be doing The Bomb twelve
in the week again, no episode tomorrow, everybody, We're gonna
be at packs. We'll get to the Bomb twelve here
in a second. We should kind of tap into what
we're doing on Giant Bomb here real quick. Today we
are going to be talking over excuse mean, the the
Xbox Partner preview that that event that's happening today.
Speaker 3: We're going to be talking over that.
Speaker 1: Y yeah, that is today, and then the voicemail dump
truck will happen after that. So all that's happening this afternoon,
and then tomorrow we're not going to have any normal
you know, programs.
Speaker 3: Instead see us at PAX and that goes through the weekend.
Speaker 1: All right, With that out of the way, were now,
why don't you tell people where they can find you
on the internet, what you have going on and all
that good stuff for sure?
Speaker 2: Short form social media TikTok, a big closed fist. That's
eight b it closed fist, just talking about video games
every day. I got some long form video game essays dropping.
I'm dropping a how to Enjoy Games in twenty twenty
six video essay coming on YouTube. I have a Checkpoint
the show if you miss G four like Attack of
the Show kind of vibes. It's live. I mean it's
not live, but it's in person at like an old
game studio in Burbank called Game Realms. They let us
film there after hours. It's really fun, it's cool, it's
cool stuff. It's called Checkpoint the Show.
Speaker 1: People should go check all this stuff out again right now.
I love your stuff really great follow on social media
and elsewhere, so people should make that happen. People are
dropping the wink and chat. People should get on top of.
Speaker 3: That absolutely all right.
Speaker 1: I think we got everything out of the way, So
what we should probably do now is in the week
with the bomb. Twelve, everybody, these are the twelve games
that really matter to people who are really playing games.
You all submitted what you been playing over the last week,
and we do.
Speaker 3: Have the results right here.
Speaker 1: Let me go ahead and start with number twelve, which
is World of Warcraft Midnight people checking out the expansion there.
Number eleven is Mugenics, which I think popped off the
chart last week, so it's popping back on here. That
game apparently is going to be coming to console here
in the future. I bet it will come back on
the list at that moment. Number ten is Esoteric EBB.
Number nine is Warframe. Number eight is Kingdom Come Deliverance
to making a reappearance on the chart. Number seven Resident
Evil Requiem. Number six is Monster Hunter Stories three, then
Destranding two at number five. Number four is Crimson Desert,
which is not cracked the top three yet, which I
also think says something about our audience. A lot of
people playing that game, but not necessarily everyone in our audience,
but still quite a few people. Number three, though in
the top three, we have Slay the Spire two, then
Pokemon Pacopia dropping from one to two this week, and
number one going from two to one is Marathon. As
I think the word of mouth on that game just
continues to spread, and regardless of whatever it's doing with
its budget versus what it's selling, it's succeeding as far
as the audience who's playing it is concerned and it's yes,
and it's its ability to sort of attract like those
people's friends, right they start saying, I'm having a good time,
you should come play this with me. That I think
is working and it could work over time. So I'm
getting the itched to go back and check out more Marathon.
I kind of want to do the single player side
of it, of like you go and you place the
rook or whatever and going by yourself. That's how I
use to place Club G And I've heard people say
it's like very similar of like you. It's like could
feel like a horror film of like everything is scary.
It's like that's what I like. So I'm gonna give
I'm gonna give that a shot myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good Top twelve. I like this audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people, people are tapped and they know what they're doing.
Thank you everybody for submitting your game. If you want
to contribute to the Bomb twelve next week. Excuse me,
I'll get the form link updated on giant bomb dot com.
Just scroll down a little bit. You'll see this week's
Bond twelve. You'll see a vote here link over to
the left. Submit your game. We'll get the results next Friday.
All right, with all that out of the way, I
think it's time to wrap up this show, wrap up
the week.
Speaker 3: We'll see you all at Pax.
Speaker 1: Renelle, thank you so much for hanging out with me
today and talking about video games.
Speaker 3: Man really appreciate it for sure.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely anytime we'll make it happen again. Thank you all
for watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming.
Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself,
and goodbye.