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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,

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your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for

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tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be talking

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about a silent hill in every pot, and everyone but

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Mike loves Splatoon Raiders. It's gonna be a good one

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because we have Jeff Backler on the show.

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Speaker 2: Jeff, how are you doing?

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Speaker 3: I'm doing well. I'm wearing the gaming shirt I got

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in my subscription box. It's super sick. Apparently Katamari Damassy

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is the thing I like and I but no, I'm kidding.

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I'm a diehard. Yeah, I'm og soon as again came.

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Speaker 1: At first one like I was like, I gotta get

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this game. I have no idea really what it's going

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to be about, but uh yeah, right from the beginning

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I was there for Katamari.

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Speaker 2: So I'm very excited about that shirt. Looking good.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you pal. I'm very happy to be

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here on Jeff Jeff's Games Morning.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I'm uh, I am.

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Speaker 1: I played a little bit of Splatoon Raiders and now

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I'm like, I'm trying to wait and see if I'm

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gonna end up agreeing with Mike or we have a

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story here about doing very well with the user reviews.

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But that's what I have been playing since I got back.

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You've been playing anything back? Are you been checking in

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on any games this week?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been trying to convince myself that I should

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play more of Halo y same.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Uh.

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Speaker 3: If I could just insert a little aside here, I've

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been soft locked no less than four times now in

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this game because like, the war Hoog will get stuck

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on a rock or something, and then I can't get

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back into it. The game like, won't let me drive

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the war Hoog when it's like, you know, sort of

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split on something weird and I have to restart the checkpoint.

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Guess where the checkpoint was. It was right after my

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war Hoog got stuck, So I know, Yeah, it's happened.

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I'm not Joe, I shit you not. It happened twice

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last night, and I was like, what the fuck is

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going on? Yes, chat mechanize. I had to malay the

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shit out of my warhaw so that it moved a

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few frames off whatever collision was happening, so that it

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could detect the opportunity to enter and drive it again.

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Look I think, Yeah, I'm having an okay time with it.

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I feel bad about shooting grunts. We've talked about this,

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of course, but yeah, I don't know. I'm waiting for

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a couple other things to open up for me. But

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that's what I'm playing right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I have not had those experiences yet, but definitely

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sounds a little bit like Halo.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I'll probably stick with it for a.

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Speaker 1: Little bit longer, but yeah, there's other games coming, and

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once those get in my purview here, I'll probably drop it.

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It's nothing, not like the game has any problems. I'm

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just not like overwhelmed with the emotions to play that

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game or something like.

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Speaker 3: It's a rest stop game, you know what I mean. Right,

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I'm a little bill in there waiting for the tank

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to fill up and then I'm bouncing off this thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Zacy Sacy says street Fighter two.

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Speaker 3: Yea.

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Speaker 1: I am imagining Ken coming out and just beating the

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shit out of the war Hug thinks it's.

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Speaker 3: Kind of what I had to do. My other guys

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are like, what are you doing. I'm like, I gotta

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move this all right, I need the PCs like stop,

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don't do that.

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Speaker 2: I'm not walking. Yeah, it's insane.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's explain ourselves. We're giant Bomb. Go to

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giant bomb dot com slash join become a premium member.

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If you do, you are supporting independent games media. We're

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doing this thing, and we're doing it with your help

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if possible. We really appreciate everybody who has come through

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and supported us. It enables us to do all kinds

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of fun, cool stuff like the recent road trip, and

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Speaker 2: It also gets you ad free versions of the show.

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Speaker 1: As far as this show goes most weekdays, I Jeff

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Greb will help piece your gaming life back together. That

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includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own

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original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input

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of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.

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If you were watching live on twitch welcome, You can

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always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by

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searching for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS feed

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on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the

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show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: Hello YouTube.

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Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so

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let's start the morning mess with. Double Fine has laid

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off twenty three staff after going independent. This is from

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Chris going In at VGC. Double Fine Productions has announced

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that it has laid off twenty three members of its

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development staff. The studio, founded in two thousand by former

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LucasArts veteran Tim Schaeffer, was acquired by Mike, was acquired

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by Microsoft in twenty nineteen and developed rad psychoedouts to Keeper,

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KILLN After and KILLN after That. Following news last month

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that Xbox planned to cut thousands of jobs as part

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of what CEO Asha Sharma called the most significant restructure

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in Xbox history, however, a number of Microsoft owned studios

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to faced closure. Some of those studios started negotiating with

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Xbox to go independent in an attempt to avoid complete closure,

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and Double Find was successful in these negotiations, along with

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South of Midnight studio Compulsion Games. As a newly independent studio, however,

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Double Find has found itself having to cut costs to

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remain a going concern, which it says has led to

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layoffs Double Find Today, Double Find Productions let go of

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twenty three members of our staff. As a small, tightly

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knit team, these actions are not taking lightly taken lightly.

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Speaker 2: Only the survival.

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Speaker 1: Of our of our studio would ever make us consider

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such a painful action. Our transition to becoming an independent

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company also means becoming a size that we can sustain. See,

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I mean, I think everyone knew this was part of it, right,

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Like the idea here of Microsoft, Oh, we're laying off

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these people and then we're going to let these teams go.

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Speaker 2: Well, those are also layoffs.

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Speaker 1: Those are job cuts that no longer exist that a

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new company, newly formed as independent will have to sort

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of create out like out of thin air.

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Speaker 2: For the most part, not entirely.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, having the infrastructure there to take a studio independent

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and start making stuff well ensure some of those jobs

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can transition.

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Speaker 2: But the money's gone.

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Speaker 1: The money was coming from Microsoft and now it disappeared,

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So they were always going to have to probably make

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these cuts. So it's like, yeah, double fine, is lay

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enough twenty three staff? This is still part of the

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Xbox layoffs though, right, that's right?

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Speaker 3: What are we so is the implication that there is

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no new backer here? Or I mean sounds like no, right,

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if there is nothing to support staffing these twenty three

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people that are having to be let go after this independence.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so that's what it seems to be the case

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for both Double Fine and Compulsion that they quickly were

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able to extricate themselves from Xbox from Microsoft, but any

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conversations that might have been involved with new publishers, new

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financial backers, or very early and are nowhere near completion

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when it came time to actually make these the jump

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to independent.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, if.

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Speaker 1: There's money waiting in the wings, it's not like it's

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it's probably not happening anytime soon. And so yeah, they're

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they're kind of out there on their own, which means,

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you know, I believe that Double Find took all of

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their IP with them, right, So they're they're selling video games, right,

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they have income from that, and that's it. That's probably

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what the budget that they are sort of giving themselves of, like, hey,

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we make a certain amount of income from selling our

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catalog games. We can rely on that, and then if

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we want to staff back up or grow again, it

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will really have to come from getting a big third

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party partner to come in with some money to publish

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one of our games, and it's not easy to do that,

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right now, that's kind of all you hear, is like

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how difficult it is to find that cash?

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Speaker 3: No, and I don't know how much reporting there is

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on the specificity of their IP ownership either, right, Like

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does it does it mean, like you know, fully sort

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of being able to capture all the revenue from the

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legacy library of stuff like the or is it only

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stuff since acquisition? Like what is how does all that work?

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I think the thing everyone you know should not lose,

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should not should be still able to take away from

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this is that it is like you said, the you know,

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the sort of fallout from Microsoft's decisions, right, Like, this

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is a thing that was brought on by that. I

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don't want I don't want them to get away with

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any sort of like you know, avoiding negative press after

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this is announced, because this happened because of the divestment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they clearly we're trying to shape this

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in such a way, Like going back I think to

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the leaks about hey, these these teams.

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Speaker 2: Might get closed down.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, they're in negotiations to sort of go independent,

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and like they framed it in such a way that

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when they did go independent, it will it.

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Speaker 2: Looked like the best case scenario.

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Speaker 1: It looked like, okay, yeah, these these teams aren't going

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to get shut down. So you know, you would see

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the boot looking fanboys out there being like.

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Speaker 2: Sarah, I heard it was going to be a bloodbath.

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This isn't a bloodbath.

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Speaker 1: These things aren't closing, and it's say, oh, honey, you

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just can't see that they really did pull wool over

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your eyes or you're happy to help them do it.

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And yeah, the money that was going into this industry

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from Xbox, into these studios evaporated, and that meant that

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was always going to mean job cuts.

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Speaker 2: And it's like this.

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Speaker 1: Distracts from the fact that there's other unsung cuts happening,

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including that we keep saying it a bunch of contractors,

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a bunch of contract studios getting completely the rug pulled

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out from underneath them, and those people, those contract studios

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have jobs that they are cutting that will not be

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counted toward the eventual what was at thirty two hundred

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total that Xbox is saying that they are going to cut.

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It's like, oh, yeah, so these cuts are way worse already.

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And yet we're still celebrating the fact that this team

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now has to go out but is essentially the worst

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time to find funding for a game in a very

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long time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I also got to stop seeing this fucking quote. I

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gotta stop seeing this quote the most significant restructure and

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Xbox stop saying so I don't want to that implies

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some sort of like achievement, that implies some sort of

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like awesome thing. Just shut up, shut up. I don't

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want to hear that anymore.

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Speaker 2: Stop.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a sort of no humanity in these uh

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in these quotes, and that one feels especially sort of detached.

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Speaker 2: From from what is actually happening here. You know.

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Speaker 1: They also call it stuff like this is the reset,

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and everyone, I think asks the right question that reset

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to what what is what is the thing that Xbox

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considers to be zero that they are going to reset

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to and build back from?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: Right, reset implies a rebuild, right like reset replies like

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wiping the slate clean and like, you know, going to

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some sort of rehab of sobriety and like you know,

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getting a new start on life. It doesn't mean like, oh,

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we murdered everyone. That's not the reset, Like, come on, right, Yeah,

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and the.

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Speaker 1: Vision still is very fuzzy on how they get to

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that rebuild or whatever. Right now, it still feels like

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the goal is cut as much costs as possible, make.

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Speaker 2: This lean for whatever purpose, whether that.

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Speaker 1: Is just to make just to spend less money on

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this thing, or to make it easier to eventually offload,

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which continues to feel like a possibility here. Meanwhile, Xbox

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had some issues where Xbox Live I guess I don't

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do they even call it Xbox Live anymore. Their internet

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services went out. There was a big outage, and people

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obviously during this could not launch a bunch of like

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digital games that they owned that required sort of authentication

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through servers. There was issues with like, you know, talking

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to friends or whatever. All these problems with the Xbox services,

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but it also affected physical games. If you had a

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disc and you put it into your system, it also

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tried to reach out to a server and said, hey,

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you can't play this, and Xbox like, hey, that's actually

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not the way it's supposed to work, and we are

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going to fix that in the future. So Microsoft now

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says physical game, our physical Xbox games are subject to

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entitlement verification. Although discs are supposed to remain playable offline.

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During Sunday's nearly day long Xbox outage, some consoles failed

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to use the saved entitlements that normally let those disc

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discs launch without contacting Microsoft. Yeah yeah, some of those.

255
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Yeah they failed. Excuse me. An upcoming system update is

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intended to prevent that failure from happening again. Xbox CTO

257
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Scott Van Valet attributed the broader outage to an external

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licensing service. So we kind of got some details about

259
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this yesterday and didn't know exactly what it was. He said,

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the company will conduct a full post incident review, hard

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in the dependencies used for signing and game launching, improved

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detection and containment, blah blah blah, and communicate more clearly

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during future events.

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Speaker 2: Toms like that. I know. Yeah right. It's like, okay, buddy.

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Speaker 1: People just want to play their games and you're out

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here being like this is the next broader outage will

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be better.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: So that does feel like they're still trying to make

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it feel like, yeah, discs have a special access path

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towards you being able to play them because you have

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a physical verification thing you can put it in the

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system and it should just work.

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Speaker 2: Uh, and you know, it.

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Speaker 1: Does feel like Okay, yeah, that's that's what people want

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to hear. It didn't work, And it does feel like

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you Xbox are about to go the pathway that PlayStation

278
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is setting out right now of at the very least

279
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extremely de emphasizing of physical media, if not fully pulling

280
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that out of the next system. But they're they're they're

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saying the thing where the hey, no, your discs should

282
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have that functionality going forward, and we're sorry it didn't work.

283
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Does this like feel like a weird moment to remind

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everybody that disks function that way when it doesn't feel

285
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like the future of discs themselves is very certain.

286
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Speaker 3: I mean, it couldn't happen at at at a more

287
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suspicious time, right, Like yeah, it's it's certainly not encouraging

288
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in any sense I think, you know again, and knowing

289
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what we know now about not being able to trust

290
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anything that comes out of that camp at all, you

291
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just I guess have to kind of live in this

292
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very precarious situation of like, yeah, this demonstrates the fragility

293
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of having physical media and the reliance on that working

294
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with what is being called an external licensing service, which

295
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implies that like Xbox doesn't have that in house, they

296
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like somehow have a third party service verifying all and

297
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authenticating like discs, and that system talks to the Xbox

298
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network and gives them the okay even though these things

299
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are supposed to work without having to call home.

300
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Speaker 2: I don't get it.

301
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know. It's certainly

302
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not a good sign. If you've got hardware with a

303
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,240
disk drive. I feel like that is now this valuable

304
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collector's item. Don't get rid of that, hold on to

305
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:06,679
that thing. Yeah, certainly not an encouraging forecast for our

306
00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:08,639
you know, software ownership future.

307
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I still feel like if if Xbox is

308
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serious about this reset or whatever and re establishing its

309
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platform as a place for people to buy buy games,

310
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and that you know, specifically the console, they're they're making

311
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a bigger deal about Xbox console exclusives.

312
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Speaker 2: Games they'll be on PC but then not on PlayStation. Uh.

313
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And the reason you do that is to sell more

314
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Xbox consoles.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

316
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Speaker 1: So it's like, Okay, they're they're serious about that side

317
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of the business. You supposedly they are presenting their themselves

318
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as being serious about it. Well, one thing you could

319
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do in this moment clearly is to say, hey, we

320
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are going to be different than Sony when it comes

321
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to physical media and support it for longer. No promise

322
00:15:53,039 --> 00:15:55,600
is about forever, but support it for longer. And they

323
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have a sort of reverse Xbox One PlayStation for a

324
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moment where they could say we're we're the disc side

325
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of the of the argument now, and so if you're

326
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mad at Sony, come to us. And I don't know

327
00:16:06,399 --> 00:16:09,360
all these opportunities to do that, and they haven't said

328
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that yet when they were like, hey, we're going to

329
00:16:12,799 --> 00:16:15,879
decide today four hours later that we are going to

330
00:16:15,919 --> 00:16:19,720
make years of more exclusive like moments before Summer Game

331
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Fest and kind of change the language on that if

332
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:25,360
they're willing to act really fast on stuff like that,

333
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:27,799
but not on this. To me, it sounds like no,

334
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:30,159
Microsoft is going to keep going in that direction of

335
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discs will be deprecated as well, and it's unfortunate, like, oh,

336
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:37,480
I thought these companies were still competing. That would be

337
00:16:37,519 --> 00:16:41,240
such a moment of competition. It doesn't feel like that's

338
00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:42,159
in the cards, right.

339
00:16:42,799 --> 00:16:46,279
Speaker 3: It doesn't. And again, this really all goes back to

340
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:50,320
the trust that they completely obliterated in front of the

341
00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:54,240
entire world, yes, back in June. You know, it's the

342
00:16:54,279 --> 00:16:56,559
same story over and over again. Forgive me if you

343
00:16:56,639 --> 00:16:58,879
hear wood chipping going on in the lawn. They are

344
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:01,720
we're good, kind of which we said, chopping up some

345
00:17:01,759 --> 00:17:06,359
trees from storms we've had. Yeah, it is us. There's

346
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:11,000
just no like trust. There's no faith invested in any

347
00:17:11,039 --> 00:17:12,440
of the things that are coming out of their mouth.

348
00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:14,680
So I hate to just sort of like paint everything

349
00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:16,920
with such a broad brush, but like, this is the

350
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,160
reality of it now, and I don't think anything will

351
00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,799
really change that dynamic. I think the proof will be

352
00:17:23,839 --> 00:17:27,079
in the pudding, you know. And I don't care what

353
00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:30,079
they say. What matters is what they do, and those

354
00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:33,720
actions will speak louder than their you know, sort of

355
00:17:33,759 --> 00:17:37,160
like messaging whatever pr sort of stuff they are putting

356
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:40,720
out there. That's what's going to resonate, That is what's

357
00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:45,039
going to be tangible, and we'll be able to sort

358
00:17:45,079 --> 00:17:49,160
of conduct analysis on the other side of that stuff. Yeah, I.

359
00:17:50,799 --> 00:17:51,160
Speaker 2: Don't know.

360
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:54,079
Speaker 3: I just can't see a future where like they are

361
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,599
somehow capturing the good guy energy of being the physical

362
00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,160
media you know brand like, honestly, do you do you

363
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:02,559
see that? Do you see that happening?

364
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:02,759
Speaker 2: No?

365
00:18:03,039 --> 00:18:05,680
Speaker 1: I mean no, no, it's you know, it's there was

366
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:08,240
a five percent chance, just because I could see them

367
00:18:08,599 --> 00:18:12,000
talking themselves into Like I could see Asha Sharma going

368
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,000
to copilot being like, all right, what are the opportunities

369
00:18:14,039 --> 00:18:16,960
for today to make a make a difference here to

370
00:18:17,079 --> 00:18:19,799
I kind of get people excited, and Coviolt would be like,

371
00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:22,640
there's something about physical disc over at PlayStation maybe if

372
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:24,920
you took the different tach Like I could see her

373
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:27,240
talking herself into it and on that side of things.

374
00:18:27,759 --> 00:18:28,960
Speaker 2: But clear anything wrong.

375
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:29,799
Speaker 3: I didn't like that, resigns.

376
00:18:29,799 --> 00:18:32,599
Speaker 2: I'm talking like that, respond that's gonna cost us money.

377
00:18:32,599 --> 00:18:33,400
Disk drives her bad.

378
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,559
Speaker 1: We are already losing money on our consoles, as we

379
00:18:35,599 --> 00:18:38,359
will talk about in a story later in the show. Everybody,

380
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:41,240
all right, let's see here. Uh you know, let's get

381
00:18:41,279 --> 00:18:44,519
to this one before we take the break. Your Coonambi

382
00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:48,480
wants a new silent Hill every year.

383
00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:49,359
Speaker 2: Yeah.

384
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:51,119
Speaker 1: I think they they're at a point where it's like

385
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:54,960
that's actually a prop it's not a threat. That's exciting, uh,

386
00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:58,799
Gabe Gerdwin, Kurt Indovino over at GameSpot Road from Kurt.

387
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:02,160
Speaker 3: Kurt's delivering this message specifically to me.

388
00:19:04,079 --> 00:19:06,119
Speaker 1: Yes, it's like a telegram at your door, and he's

389
00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:09,400
singing it here. Over the past few years, we've seen

390
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,680
a major revival of the Silent Hill franchise, with twenty

391
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:17,000
twenty four Silent Hill Too remake offering a spectacular reimagining

392
00:19:17,079 --> 00:19:20,240
of one of the series' most beloved entries, while titles

393
00:19:20,279 --> 00:19:23,680
like Silent Hill f and Townfall propel the series forward

394
00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:26,599
and seek to redefine what a Silent Hill game can be.

395
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:30,039
Turns out, having so many Silent Hill projects developed at

396
00:19:30,039 --> 00:19:33,279
the same time was a deliberate strategy set by Konami

397
00:19:33,519 --> 00:19:36,119
and a way to prove to fans that it's serious

398
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:39,440
about the franchise. Speaking to game Spot at a media

399
00:19:39,519 --> 00:19:43,960
roundtable event, Konami producer motoy Okamoto made it clear that

400
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:46,599
the company views Silent Hill as a major part of

401
00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:49,039
its business. The main reason why we decided to have

402
00:19:49,119 --> 00:19:51,559
multiple titles in the works, like three games in the

403
00:19:51,559 --> 00:19:53,920
works at the same time, was because we wanted to

404
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,720
convey to the players that Konami is serious about coming

405
00:19:56,759 --> 00:19:59,559
back into the gaming landscape. A part of the strategy

406
00:19:59,559 --> 00:20:02,000
behind that was to work on multiple games at once

407
00:20:02,319 --> 00:20:04,599
so that we can have annual releases or have an

408
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:08,039
annual release of a new Silent Hill game every year.

409
00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:11,000
That way players will know that it's not a facade.

410
00:20:11,079 --> 00:20:13,759
We're serious about coming back into the gaming space and

411
00:20:13,799 --> 00:20:15,319
providing players with new games.

412
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:18,640
Speaker 2: Say, but like having this idea of like, okay, first of.

413
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,880
Speaker 1: All, recognizing that the Konami's sort of standing with gamers

414
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,119
had slipped quite a bit because it did seem like

415
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,279
they had abandoned that traditional audience.

416
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 2: Recognizing that Silent.

417
00:20:30,039 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 1: Hill is a very good way of sort of countering

418
00:20:33,279 --> 00:20:36,240
that if they can do multiple games. But then being

419
00:20:36,279 --> 00:20:38,799
able to do multiple games and so far make them

420
00:20:38,839 --> 00:20:41,039
all pretty good, at least the big ones that I

421
00:20:41,079 --> 00:20:44,240
know that like interactive television show thing was kind of

422
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,240
a joke that people hated, But I don't know what's

423
00:20:46,279 --> 00:20:47,359
Silent Hell without one.

424
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:48,079
Speaker 2: Of those as well.

425
00:20:48,319 --> 00:20:50,359
Speaker 1: But to have like two out of the three so

426
00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:52,519
far hit really hard, and now we have the third

427
00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:54,759
one upon us and seems like that that could be

428
00:20:54,839 --> 00:20:58,119
excuse me, that could be good as well. I think

429
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,920
Konami's serious, and I think they moved exactly what they

430
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:01,839
were trying to prove here.

431
00:21:02,279 --> 00:21:04,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, the proof is in is in what's coming out?

432
00:21:04,839 --> 00:21:07,079
And Jan and I actually just took a look at

433
00:21:07,519 --> 00:21:11,519
town Fall. Video is up on the site now and

434
00:21:11,559 --> 00:21:14,799
the YouTube channel. Uh it's you know the way I

435
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:16,720
kind of we discussed it, and the way I kind

436
00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:18,400
of put it was like, oh, it almost seems like

437
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:21,160
they're kind of like franchising out Silent Hill, where it's like, oh,

438
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:22,440
what kind of some hell you want to do? What

439
00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:27,519
kind of and uh, screen Burn, which which developed Townfall.

440
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:30,559
The way the story goes, I think, And Jan, you're listening,

441
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:33,400
keep me honest if I say something completely out of pocket.

442
00:21:34,599 --> 00:21:37,039
They kind of just pitched this ta Konami, this this

443
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:39,359
idea of the story, and and I was like, Yeah,

444
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:41,839
this this dope, go for it. So I like the

445
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:44,960
idea that like Silent Hill, can have a new kind

446
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,799
of flavor on top of whatever story, Uh people want

447
00:21:48,799 --> 00:21:50,640
to tell a team wants to tell. I think that's

448
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:53,920
really interesting. I think that rules. That's a smart way

449
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,880
to go about doing it. And what we saw, what

450
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,400
I watched of the b roll and what Jan has

451
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,880
played and has reported back, like they are doing kind

452
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,440
of they're pushing the they're moving the needle in the

453
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:07,960
way that I think is kind of smart and new

454
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:11,200
and fresh, especially with the sort of like pocket TV

455
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,279
mechanic that they've got going on in town Fall. I

456
00:22:14,279 --> 00:22:18,680
think that's really smart. Uh yeah, I really dig it.

457
00:22:18,759 --> 00:22:21,920
And this sort of design seems like it would lend

458
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:25,279
itself to this cadence of a new Silent Hill every year.

459
00:22:25,319 --> 00:22:28,240
You know. It's like it's like the new Madden, you know,

460
00:22:28,279 --> 00:22:30,480
and they just changed. They're just got update in the roster. No,

461
00:22:30,519 --> 00:22:34,200
it's more than just updating the rosters, new locations, new stories,

462
00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:38,599
but still having that same DNA. This is uh, this

463
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:40,079
is smart. You gotta give them credit.

464
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:41,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's.

465
00:22:43,559 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 1: It's what we've kind of been saying for years, even

466
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:48,359
before Coonami like showed back up on the scene. With

467
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:52,240
this recent strategy, it's like, hey, it seems like Capcom

468
00:22:52,279 --> 00:22:54,240
over there has got it all figured out right. They

469
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:58,279
have a way to at least every other year or

470
00:22:58,279 --> 00:23:00,640
ever like one point five years to have something in

471
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,480
Resident Evil, whether that's a remake or a new game,

472
00:23:04,839 --> 00:23:07,400
and then it also has it's got all of its

473
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,319
other pillars with Monster Hunter or whatever, and it delivers

474
00:23:10,319 --> 00:23:13,400
on those relatively frequently. And then it's trying some other

475
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,000
stuff here or there. Why doesn't every publisher sort of

476
00:23:17,079 --> 00:23:19,200
try this overall strategy?

477
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 2: And Konami, I think, looked at it.

478
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,200
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yeah, we actually should do that, and

479
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,519
it seems like they're building up in a reasonable way

480
00:23:25,559 --> 00:23:27,599
to that. They're not like they didn't go whole hog

481
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:29,240
and try all of it at once. They're like, hey,

482
00:23:29,279 --> 00:23:31,960
let's focus on the most important part, which does seem

483
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,559
to be get one of your main franchises back in

484
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:36,599
order and get people believing in it again.

485
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:38,799
Speaker 2: They Capcom had.

486
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 1: To do that with Resident Evil has easily succeeded, and

487
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:44,160
now it's like bouncing back and forth between the remakes

488
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,559
and new games, and I think Silent Hill obviously stands

489
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,440
to do very similar to that. And then it also

490
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,519
seems like I could follow a similar arc of Yeah, okay,

491
00:23:53,559 --> 00:23:57,039
now that people believe that Silent Hill is this going

492
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,000
concern when they see a new one's coming out, maybe

493
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,640
more people will than ever will decide to jump aboard

494
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:04,920
the train. It's like, oh, I know that I can

495
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,359
trust Konami to continue investing in this, so I'm not

496
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:09,000
going to be wasting my time if I want to

497
00:24:09,039 --> 00:24:12,160
get into something new and really throw myself into the

498
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:14,359
lore and go back and play all the old games,

499
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:16,960
because it's like, oh yeah, if I do that, there's

500
00:24:17,039 --> 00:24:19,079
going to be a franchise waiting for me on the

501
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:19,799
other side.

502
00:24:19,839 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 2: So it really just has worked out in about every

503
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:23,000
way that it could.

504
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: Now I guess the question is can Kunami sort of

505
00:24:26,279 --> 00:24:29,279
expand on this that, Like you said, they are franchising

506
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:30,880
a lot of stuff out there, working with a lot

507
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,559
of sort of external studios again in a wise way,

508
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:38,960
like I think the Neo Boards did the Silent Hill

509
00:24:39,079 --> 00:24:40,960
f game and that was like a support studio that

510
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,039
worked with Capcom, and I think Squerannic's on a bunch

511
00:24:43,039 --> 00:24:45,119
of stuff. But it's like they have experience working with

512
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:49,240
these like Capcom, this successful publisher, let's go bring them

513
00:24:49,279 --> 00:24:49,680
on board.

514
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 2: That's smart.

515
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: But the Konami also said they want to expand their

516
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,279
internal development as well. That's I mean this, there's gonna

517
00:24:56,279 --> 00:24:57,960
be a chance that they hit a roadbump here. Do

518
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,960
you think they will be resilient enough to sort of

519
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,599
like keep pushing forward on the strategy.

520
00:25:03,319 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 3: That's a tough question to answer, but I I mean,

521
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,880
I do think they are playing it in a way

522
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:13,319
that seems thoughtful, right and sort of almost like future proofing.

523
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:15,759
And I do think that's playing out right. I do

524
00:25:15,759 --> 00:25:18,319
think they're being kind of rewarded for it so far.

525
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,559
Uh it's it's you know, it's tough to tell, right, Like, okay,

526
00:25:22,799 --> 00:25:27,440
uh so every indication is sort of saying like, oh,

527
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:32,119
town falls at the very least will be a solid experience, right.

528
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,240
I don't know, there's a fourth game, hit a roadbump, right,

529
00:25:35,279 --> 00:25:38,200
and then where are we there? Right, I think we'll

530
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,240
have to sort of take the temperature if and when

531
00:25:40,279 --> 00:25:42,960
that that that happens. But I do think they are

532
00:25:43,039 --> 00:25:46,559
playing it in a way that feels calculated and and

533
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:50,079
feels kind of smart. It is, you know, just going

534
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,440
off off the reception of of f and how almost

535
00:25:53,559 --> 00:25:57,359
universally uh uh, you know a lot of that game is.

536
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:02,119
It's it's definitely confidence inspiring for sure. I think how

537
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,079
you will go out and say selfishly like the horror

538
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:08,640
genre is probably the one little bright spot in the

539
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,640
world of games right now that seems to really be

540
00:26:12,799 --> 00:26:16,480
hitting a groove, having a third, fourth, fifth, win, whatever

541
00:26:16,519 --> 00:26:19,799
you want to call it. So those people like me

542
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:24,079
were eating well now for sure, but the precarious nature

543
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,039
of this industry certainly can't predict what would happen if

544
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:32,160
a substantial you know, speed bump lays ahead, right.

545
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:33,079
Speaker 2: Yep, Yeah.

546
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: Rich Batic gamepoints that that Konami also has a new

547
00:26:37,079 --> 00:26:39,359
version of its e football game on switch that got

548
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,559
rid of all the micro transactions micro transactions, so it's

549
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,200
kind of just like a new pro evolution soccer game.

550
00:26:45,559 --> 00:26:47,920
That sounds cool. I might actually do exactly that.

551
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:52,799
Speaker 3: There is something encouraging about the kind of like pushback

552
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,480
that the you know, that part of the world is

553
00:26:57,519 --> 00:27:00,200
sort of like putting out there right like they're does

554
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,839
seem to be now at this moment, this tangible sort

555
00:27:02,839 --> 00:27:07,240
of like oh, you know, the the US based kind

556
00:27:07,279 --> 00:27:11,240
of like methodology business model is so toxic and shitty,

557
00:27:11,319 --> 00:27:13,640
like what if like that wasn't the case, And that

558
00:27:13,799 --> 00:27:15,960
is I do think cultural in a big way.

559
00:27:16,559 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: I agree.

560
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I think kind of great to see.

561
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: I think it's a It just provides an alternative to

562
00:27:23,039 --> 00:27:25,720
the strategy. I think it was kind of pushed by

563
00:27:25,839 --> 00:27:28,720
Western studios, which was we are going to make the

564
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,240
fidelity higher and higher, and that is the one way

565
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,039
that you sort of stand out. And then as these

566
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,200
Western studios, especially ones in the United States, become too

567
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:42,119
expensive because you know, it's an expensive place to live

568
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,359
or whatever, but then you know the studios are ingrained there,

569
00:27:46,599 --> 00:27:50,079
it's like, okay, wait to outspend the other studios here,

570
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:52,839
we'd have to like spend this much more time on it.

571
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,039
That becomes unsustainable. There had to be an alternative, and

572
00:27:56,079 --> 00:27:57,880
I think a lot of these Western studios were like, well,

573
00:27:57,880 --> 00:27:59,599
we're not We're not going to look at the alternative.

574
00:27:59,599 --> 00:28:02,279
We have one way of doing things, and everyone else,

575
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,640
especially and especially it seems like in Japan, they hey,

576
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,200
let's come up with some other ideas. And obviously they

577
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,240
don't have the same cost of living necessarily, but because

578
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,920
it's that is a more more affordable country in some ways,

579
00:28:14,039 --> 00:28:15,960
but that like even take that out of it, it

580
00:28:16,039 --> 00:28:18,039
just seems like they're like, hey, we believe there's another

581
00:28:18,079 --> 00:28:21,240
way to approach getting people excited about these games, and

582
00:28:21,279 --> 00:28:23,440
it's working. I think ye just having meamoto out in

583
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,279
the past week, being like, you know, make games that

584
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:28,599
are that you care about, not that you're trying to

585
00:28:28,599 --> 00:28:31,519
make globally appealing. That feels very different than a lot

586
00:28:31,519 --> 00:28:33,200
of the Western studios, and it feels like that has

587
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:34,359
trickled down throughout.

588
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,039
Speaker 3: Japan without a doubt. I mean almost like overnight. It's

589
00:28:37,079 --> 00:28:39,640
there's like this epiphany of like, oh wow, not being

590
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,559
shitty turns out that's a beautiful way to live and operate,

591
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:44,319
and you can be a business and not be shitty

592
00:28:44,359 --> 00:28:48,839
and still make money and still be okay. So yeah,

593
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:53,839
it's certainly an indictment in terms of the American system.

594
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,680
But yeah, that is the story. That is a situation

595
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:58,440
we're in right now.

596
00:28:59,119 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: All right, we are gonna take a break. When we

597
00:29:01,039 --> 00:29:03,279
get back, plenty of more headlines to get into. We

598
00:29:03,319 --> 00:29:05,240
will touch on those after this. If you want to

599
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,440
skip out on these ad messages, just go to GiantBomb

600
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:09,480
dot com slash join. You can get the ad free

601
00:29:09,559 --> 00:29:12,200
versions of this show and the others right there. We

602
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:17,079
will be right back. All right, We're back with Game

603
00:29:17,119 --> 00:29:19,759
mess Mornings. It's jurifom Jeff. Let's go ahead and get

604
00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:23,000
into the next headline here. A Dragon Age trilogy remaster

605
00:29:23,559 --> 00:29:27,799
may be impossible without rebuilding BioWare knowledge. This is from

606
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:31,000
Chris Scully and at VGC. Dragon Age fans hoping for

607
00:29:31,039 --> 00:29:33,920
remasters of the original trilogy may have had those hopes

608
00:29:34,039 --> 00:29:37,759
dashed by BioWare veteran and dragon Age series producer Mark Dara.

609
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,599
Dara was at BioWare for twenty three years and was

610
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,039
executive producer on the dragon Age series before leaving the

611
00:29:44,079 --> 00:29:47,519
studio in twenty twenty during the development of dragon Age,

612
00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:51,640
The Veilguard and An Excuse Me. In an interview with FRVR,

613
00:29:52,279 --> 00:29:54,359
Dara was asked if he thought the first three games

614
00:29:54,359 --> 00:29:57,079
in the series, Dragon Age Origins, Dragon h two, and

615
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,559
Dragon Age Inquisition would ever get the same sort of

616
00:29:59,559 --> 00:30:03,200
remaster treatment BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy got with the release

617
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,039
of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition in twenty twenty one.

618
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,200
Dara explained that a trilogy of remasters, which he proposed

619
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,640
would be called the Champions Edition, was originally part of

620
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,279
the plan while he was at BioWare. I think what

621
00:30:16,319 --> 00:30:19,319
you want is a Champions Edition. That was always my plan.

622
00:30:19,559 --> 00:30:22,440
We're going to do a Champions trilogy. We're going to

623
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,359
retroactively turn this into like, these are three games with

624
00:30:25,359 --> 00:30:27,920
three different important figures, and we're going to group them in,

625
00:30:28,079 --> 00:30:30,920
collect them together. We're going to retroactively turn them into

626
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,400
a trilogy. The problem with this, however, is that this

627
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:35,799
is no longer a quote. The problem with this, however,

628
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,920
is that while all three Mass Effect games ran on

629
00:30:38,119 --> 00:30:42,519
Unreal Engine three remaking remasters relatively manageable, the first two

630
00:30:42,599 --> 00:30:46,240
dragon Age games ran on versions of BioWare's bespoke Aurora Engine.

631
00:30:46,559 --> 00:30:49,559
Dragon Age Origins ran on the Eclipse Engine, which was

632
00:30:49,559 --> 00:30:53,319
an advanced version of Aurora, while Dragon h two ran

633
00:30:53,359 --> 00:30:56,279
on its successor, the Lyceum Engine, and then dragon Age

634
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,039
Inquisition ran on EA's Frostbite.

635
00:30:59,319 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 2: I remember at the.

636
00:30:59,839 --> 00:31:03,359
Speaker 1: Time when a legendary edition was happening, sure that people

637
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,279
were asking me about and then so will they do

638
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,799
Dragon Age after that? And what I was hearing internally

639
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,240
was always it's this problem. It is that when you

640
00:31:11,319 --> 00:31:14,559
do work on Mass Effect one, it like carried over

641
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:16,559
to two and then to three, but.

642
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:17,599
Speaker 2: Three needed less work.

643
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: So it's like they're kind of like really getting a

644
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,319
lot out of all the efforts that they were making,

645
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,319
and it would it would mad It made a lot

646
00:31:24,359 --> 00:31:27,359
more sense, and it also helped then that Mass Effect.

647
00:31:27,279 --> 00:31:29,279
Speaker 2: Was already a real trilogy.

648
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,759
Speaker 1: So they it didn't require as much work on that

649
00:31:30,799 --> 00:31:33,440
side of things to make it make sense. Packaged up

650
00:31:33,519 --> 00:31:36,920
like that dragon Age just didn't. So they once they

651
00:31:37,079 --> 00:31:40,559
were presented with all those problems and especially the engine issue,

652
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,039
it's like, okay, well, we're not going to be able

653
00:31:43,039 --> 00:31:45,480
to make that really make sense. Now they're at a point,

654
00:31:45,759 --> 00:31:47,759
as Star points out, where all of the people who

655
00:31:47,839 --> 00:31:51,119
had that institutional knowledge about how to work with those

656
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,119
previous engines are gone, So it would be kind of

657
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,640
an even bigger hill to climb to get this done,

658
00:31:57,119 --> 00:32:00,680
making it less likely than the moment where they already

659
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:01,359
decided not.

660
00:32:01,359 --> 00:32:01,839
Speaker 2: To do it.

661
00:32:02,319 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: So this this feels like one where if they get

662
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,640
back around to doing a dragon Age trilogy sort of

663
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,079
collection or whatever, it's gonna be way down the line

664
00:32:11,079 --> 00:32:13,680
where they were gonna fully like remake these games, and

665
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,200
we're kind of nowhere near that right now, right, I.

666
00:32:16,119 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 3: Mean, yeah, everything's so fragmented with these different engines that

667
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,920
does not seem like I mean, this is almost like

668
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,880
a it's almost like a non excuses, but like an

669
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,039
explanation of like, here's here's how you need to be

670
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:32,400
realistic about trilogy, right I think.

671
00:32:32,559 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: And A fans recognize that pretty quickly or like go okay,

672
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,240
that that that does make sense. It's you know, at

673
00:32:39,279 --> 00:32:44,920
dragon Age, the last one there, dragon Age, the Vail Guard. Uh,

674
00:32:45,599 --> 00:32:48,279
it kind of just missed on enough points of of

675
00:32:48,359 --> 00:32:50,799
sort of being able to win over new fans that

676
00:32:50,799 --> 00:32:52,920
EA is just not gonna pay it any mind.

677
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:54,519
Speaker 2: Like EA feels done with it.

678
00:32:54,839 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: So the idea here that okay, maybe by Where could

679
00:32:58,279 --> 00:33:00,519
eat like that, whether we talked on the bomb Bywear

680
00:33:00,559 --> 00:33:04,119
could pitch a new game that feels like that won't happen.

681
00:33:05,119 --> 00:33:08,440
By Where could pitch like a collection of these previous games,

682
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,599
similar to the legendary edition of Mass Effect. Even that

683
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,400
at this point, I think everyone internally would recognize that

684
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:16,559
that would be something that EA would not care to

685
00:33:16,559 --> 00:33:19,599
hear about right now. So it's going to take quite

686
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,200
some time to sort of shift the fortunes of Dragon Age,

687
00:33:23,559 --> 00:33:26,359
which is unfortunate because like when I was reporting on it,

688
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,799
I always noticed it's like, man, the fan base for

689
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,519
these games is feverish, and it's kind of unfortunate that

690
00:33:33,559 --> 00:33:37,720
they won't be surf going forward, all right, clear, Obscure

691
00:33:37,759 --> 00:33:40,480
Studio says it wants to bring it to switch to

692
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:42,799
but it's way too early to announce anything.

693
00:33:42,839 --> 00:33:45,039
Speaker 2: This is from Chris Sculling at VGC.

694
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,839
Speaker 1: Clare Obscure Expedition thirty three studio Sandfall Interactive wants to

695
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,359
make a switch to part of the game, but it's

696
00:33:51,359 --> 00:33:53,480
still in the process of seeing how feasible it is.

697
00:33:53,799 --> 00:33:57,119
Following a recent post mortem event discussing the game in Yokohama,

698
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,920
Sandfall CEO and creative director Gilmbriouh, co founder and CTO

699
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,559
Tom Gillemaran Giman, Yes, and lead character Yeah, close enough,

700
00:34:06,559 --> 00:34:11,079
and concept hartist Alan Renaud. We're asked by Automaton whether

701
00:34:11,159 --> 00:34:13,719
they thought the game could run on switch To and

702
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,440
whether there were plans for report. The developers replied that

703
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,519
they did not want to bring Claire, or that they

704
00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:20,199
did want to bring Claire of Scared to switch To,

705
00:34:20,639 --> 00:34:23,039
but we're still looking at how to overcome the technical

706
00:34:23,079 --> 00:34:26,039
hurdles involved in this, suggesting it takes longer for a

707
00:34:26,119 --> 00:34:28,920
smaller team to figure these out. We are interested in

708
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,039
looking for a way to do it, but it's too

709
00:34:31,079 --> 00:34:33,719
early for us to announce anything at this point. It's

710
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,320
a big technical challenge because we tried to do something

711
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,199
beautiful with the game, but of course the switch to

712
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:40,880
is not as powerful as the PlayStation or the Xbox

713
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:43,960
series X, so it's important thing for us to consider,

714
00:34:44,039 --> 00:34:45,679
especially given the size of our studio.

715
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,280
Speaker 3: I just love that chord. It's like, yeah, like we

716
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,400
want to put it on the switch too, but switch

717
00:34:51,599 --> 00:34:52,360
is not beautiful.

718
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:56,559
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a table, you see. We made a beautiful game.

719
00:34:56,639 --> 00:34:57,719
That's the problem here.

720
00:34:57,800 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't want to have to dumb it down

721
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,119
for the fidelity that only the switch to is able

722
00:35:03,159 --> 00:35:04,519
of putting out. Yuck.

723
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 2: Yep. They probably are looking very seriously at this.

724
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,280
Speaker 3: There's a billion of them out in the market, right right.

725
00:35:13,639 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: Unreal Engine five is a little bit of a pain

726
00:35:17,119 --> 00:35:19,880
to put on the switch too, but it's worked before.

727
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,920
I mean, listen, I played Expedition thirty three on the

728
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:25,559
Steam Deck and it looked rough.

729
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was playable.

730
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 3: I also think it's a I think it's a difficult

731
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:37,199
portable game. Yeah yeah, right right, and obviously switch to

732
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,639
you dock it. It's not portable. But like I get

733
00:35:40,679 --> 00:35:44,079
what you're saying there. I think, uh, yeah, I don't know.

734
00:35:44,119 --> 00:35:46,000
I mean, look, you just want this out. You want

735
00:35:46,199 --> 00:35:50,079
a version of it that is serviceable, right, I don't

736
00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:54,760
think there's gonna be any And presumably you are trying

737
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:59,440
to reach an audience that is just a switch playing

738
00:35:59,599 --> 00:36:02,280
sort of audience that maybe would not have any kind

739
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:07,159
of like, you know, disappointment in the perhaps little lackluster

740
00:36:07,559 --> 00:36:11,159
fidelity of a switch to version of claib Scirit.

741
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: And I think it's like we've been surprised a bunch

742
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,960
of times now where not only hey, this game's coming

743
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,239
to switch to, I guess I didn't necessarily expect that,

744
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,400
and then a lot of those have been like, oh,

745
00:36:21,559 --> 00:36:24,719
and it looks really good, it runs pretty well.

746
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,039
Speaker 2: That's happened repeatedly. I think it's going to happen here again.

747
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,599
Speaker 1: I think the point that Sandfal the people over at

748
00:36:31,639 --> 00:36:34,760
Sandfall are getting at is we're a smaller team. It's

749
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,199
going to take a little bit more work for us

750
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:41,880
to accomplish that, unless we've again maybe bringing in a

751
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:43,800
port studio, which they might be doing, who knows.

752
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 3: Right, Look, Sandfall, if you really want to feel good

753
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,880
about it, maybe you just call it, you know, clare

754
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:52,119
obscurit not so.

755
00:36:52,199 --> 00:36:55,119
Speaker 2: Beautiful Expedition thirty thirty two.

756
00:36:55,119 --> 00:36:58,559
Speaker 1: It's knock a down one. Yes, right, that's fair to

757
00:36:58,599 --> 00:37:00,480
take a little bit of it on our away from it.

758
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,960
All right, let's let's wrap back to Xbox real quick.

759
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,159
There's a couple other things happening over there. Xbox is

760
00:37:06,199 --> 00:37:10,440
reportedly losing around one hundred and fifty dollars on every console.

761
00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:14,719
Windows Central's just Cording reports that Microsoft is losing approximately

762
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:18,840
one hundred and fifty dollars on recently manufactured Xbox series

763
00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,159
X and S units, largely because of rapidly increasing memory

764
00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:25,840
and storage cost Obviously more strikingly Accorded says Microsoft will

765
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,000
apparently continue losing money on each unit even after the

766
00:37:29,039 --> 00:37:32,320
August first price increases happen, which, yeah, that makes sense,

767
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:34,679
not all, Like those weren't one hundred and fifty dollars,

768
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,079
so and then they also still expect RAM and storage

769
00:37:38,119 --> 00:37:40,119
costs to keep going up, so they might be right

770
00:37:40,159 --> 00:37:41,480
back at one hundred and fifty.

771
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: Dollars a missing from every console they sell.

772
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 1: As a rough illustration recovering a one hundred and fifty

773
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,920
dollars hardware loss solely through a thirty percent platform cut.

774
00:37:51,159 --> 00:37:53,920
So basically, there were some math done about Okay, let's

775
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,679
say they're losing, they're subsidizing these consoles at one hundred

776
00:37:56,679 --> 00:37:58,440
and fifty dollars, what would people have to buy in

777
00:37:58,519 --> 00:38:02,320
terms of seventy dollars games to make up that subsidy.

778
00:38:02,559 --> 00:38:05,559
It's like, oh, it's like seven or maybe fine, yes,

779
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,480
seven seventy dollars games is what people would have to buy,

780
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,920
and that's people aren't really typically buying that many pieces

781
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:15,559
of software per console. It's usually a little bit lower

782
00:38:15,559 --> 00:38:19,199
than that. But of course, the real world use case

783
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,559
for a lot of people is way different. They're buying

784
00:38:21,639 --> 00:38:24,119
first party games and they're getting game Pass and they're

785
00:38:24,159 --> 00:38:28,519
getting they're buying games here or there, or they're borrowing games,

786
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:32,039
they're playing free to play games, so there's micro transactions involved.

787
00:38:33,159 --> 00:38:35,360
I think one hundred and fifty dollars subsidy is not

788
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:37,480
where any of these companies want to be. That is

789
00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:40,760
not an amount that they have been comfortable comfortable with

790
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,039
for a very long time, which is why the prices

791
00:38:44,079 --> 00:38:48,199
do keep going up. But they're not going to be

792
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,199
solved by this most recent price increase that's already already

793
00:38:51,199 --> 00:38:54,000
been announced. Are we expecting another round of price increases

794
00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:55,039
in twenty twenty seven?

795
00:38:55,199 --> 00:38:55,639
Speaker 2: Sure?

796
00:38:56,639 --> 00:38:57,800
Speaker 3: I mean to what end?

797
00:38:57,880 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 2: Right? Like?

798
00:38:58,559 --> 00:39:02,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you you know, we we've already seen sales

799
00:39:02,119 --> 00:39:07,840
start to be impacted. I don't know, I don't know.

800
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:11,920
There seems to be this like extremely wishful thinking throughout

801
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:16,320
the industry that somehow these things will rebound. There's just

802
00:39:16,519 --> 00:39:21,400
really no evidence that points to that sort of inevitability.

803
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,079
I don't know, I mean to what end, Okay, you

804
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,480
rate another round of price right, like what I mean?

805
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:33,159
These are now items that are just wildly out of

806
00:39:33,199 --> 00:39:39,800
the scope of a traditional consumer. They are becoming luxury,

807
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:44,159
elite items that you will tell your grandkids about if

808
00:39:44,159 --> 00:39:45,840
you can afford to have children.

809
00:39:46,159 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: Right, yes, And then of course it's like sets us

810
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,599
up for expectations in terms of pricing for the next gen,

811
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,599
which apparently is all supposed to coming across the board

812
00:39:55,599 --> 00:40:01,519
from PlayStation and Xbox. And yeah, they're already losing one

813
00:40:01,599 --> 00:40:05,000
hundred and fifty dollars on older hardware that is getting

814
00:40:05,079 --> 00:40:09,599
up to eight hundred dollars or whatever. New hardware is

815
00:40:09,639 --> 00:40:11,760
not going to be less expensive to produce. It's going

816
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,119
to be more expensive in every way it is. Yeah,

817
00:40:15,159 --> 00:40:18,480
the pricing expectations I think from everyone for the next

818
00:40:18,519 --> 00:40:21,840
gen stuff is through the like through the roof beyond

819
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:22,480
whatever one.

820
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:23,079
Speaker 2: Thought was possible.

821
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 3: And also they fucking did this, yes, well absolutely, yeah,

822
00:40:29,519 --> 00:40:31,559
they fucking did this. So I you know, we can

823
00:40:31,599 --> 00:40:33,840
talk about this and keep it up until we're blue

824
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,639
in the face, but like this situation come you know,

825
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,800
not one hundred percent directly, but substantially. It was impacted

826
00:40:42,079 --> 00:40:48,360
by their broader business decisions and the investment in AI

827
00:40:48,639 --> 00:40:53,000
and the need to build uh you know, data centers

828
00:40:53,039 --> 00:40:56,000
for endless data centers and all these things that require

829
00:40:56,079 --> 00:40:58,760
the hardware that is forcing the price up for all

830
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,920
these things. This is their bed. They shit in it

831
00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:03,239
and now they got to lay in it.

832
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:08,119
Speaker 2: Yep. Finally, Actually a couple more things here.

833
00:41:08,199 --> 00:41:11,559
Speaker 1: Xbox and Ubisoft introduced one way console, the PC crossby

834
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,480
so Xbox and Ubi Suft are granting the Ubi Seft

835
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:18,239
Connect PC versions of thirteen games to people who own

836
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:22,599
their digital Xbox console editions. Basically, if you buy these

837
00:41:22,599 --> 00:41:26,079
certain Xbox or certain Ubi Soft games on Xbox consoles,

838
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,800
you will then get access to the Ubisoft Connect PC

839
00:41:30,039 --> 00:41:31,159
versions as well.

840
00:41:31,199 --> 00:41:35,559
Speaker 2: It doesn't go the other way. So if you have the.

841
00:41:34,679 --> 00:41:40,119
Speaker 1: PC versions of Assassin's Creed, Mirage, Assassin's Creed, Valhalla, Avatar,

842
00:41:40,159 --> 00:41:44,800
Frontiers of Pandora, Far Crist Six Immortals, Phoenix Rising, principersha

843
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,480
The Lost Crown Riders, Republic everyone's favorite, Skull and Bones,

844
00:41:48,559 --> 00:41:51,840
Everyone's second favorite, the Crew, Two's the Crew, motor Fest,

845
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:55,599
Rainbow six Extraction which everyone remembers, Rainbow six Siege, and

846
00:41:55,679 --> 00:42:01,480
Watchdog's Legion. You will not get the Xbox version like returned, yes,

847
00:42:01,519 --> 00:42:05,119
and the reverse way. I think, yes, that's how it is. Yes,

848
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:06,920
So but if you have the Xbox version, you get

849
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:10,039
the PC version. I don't know who this is really for.

850
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:11,119
Speaker 2: Jurff.

851
00:42:11,639 --> 00:42:13,679
Speaker 1: I don't know, like what needle this is even trying

852
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:18,639
to move. I suppose that Xbox and Ubisoft, trying to

853
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,480
tighten their relationship, suggest something like one about the other.

854
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:25,440
I don't know, but they they were definitely like they

855
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,159
already had the situation where if you have Xbox Game

856
00:42:28,159 --> 00:42:30,760
Pass Ultimate, I think you get a small version of

857
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:35,559
Ubisoft subscription service on Xbox. So they've had this close

858
00:42:35,599 --> 00:42:38,239
relationship and it really doesn't seem to have helped either one.

859
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 2: So I don't know.

860
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 3: Nobody knows there U BEI selft login information, what do

861
00:42:42,519 --> 00:42:42,719
you do?

862
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Right, who the fuck is being like?

863
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 3: Oh second old, now I'm gonna download connect you. Oh,

864
00:42:49,199 --> 00:42:51,440
come on live in the real. I don't know who

865
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,239
this is for. You're right, who are you people? Where'd

866
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:59,639
you come from? What your gaming habits are? Incredibly confusing?

867
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:05,199
I don't know. This seems like how did this even happen?

868
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:06,559
Speaker 2: You think? Right? Right?

869
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 3: What sort of weird footnote? This is like when a

870
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,920
team like like trades and like you get like conditional

871
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,159
draft picks and it's like, oh, this is this is

872
00:43:17,199 --> 00:43:18,639
a result of something like that.

873
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: Right, and it's like it definitely feels like a conversation

874
00:43:21,519 --> 00:43:23,880
that started under the previous regime and sort of just

875
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,960
carried forward under its own momentum or something. It was

876
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,559
so close to the finish line that they just they

877
00:43:29,599 --> 00:43:32,159
just went through with it, because I can't imagine, like

878
00:43:32,199 --> 00:43:35,159
this was like on ashes Sharma's to do list when

879
00:43:35,159 --> 00:43:36,039
she started the job.

880
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm at I'm at the goal line, but you

881
00:43:38,599 --> 00:43:41,920
gotta give me the crossby on on on Ubisoft Connect.

882
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:43,960
That's the only detail that I'll get this deal over

883
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,440
the finish That's what makes my world go round, please

884
00:43:46,679 --> 00:43:47,679
Jesus Christ.

885
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:53,199
Speaker 1: Speaking of confusing, I think Splatoon Raiders is currently the

886
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:57,199
seventh greatest game of all time according to user reviews.

887
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:02,039
On Meta Critics Right, Splatoon Raiders is currently the seventh

888
00:44:02,039 --> 00:44:05,559
best game of all time according to Metacritic users. Metacritic,

889
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,400
while the review aggregation site is mainly used for tracking

890
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,280
review scores from verified critics and gaming publications, it also

891
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,639
lets registered users give each game their own score out

892
00:44:15,679 --> 00:44:18,599
of ten. Those scores are also aggregated by Metacritic and

893
00:44:18,639 --> 00:44:21,480
presented as a separate user score, similar to the way

894
00:44:21,599 --> 00:44:24,199
Rotten Tomatoes has a Tomato meter for critics scores and

895
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,719
the popco Meter Popcorn Meter for audience scores. At the

896
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,440
time of writing, Splatoon Raiders has a Metacritics score of

897
00:44:30,519 --> 00:44:33,960
eighty one, currently placing it sixty fourth in its list

898
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,119
of the best reviewed games of the year. Its Metacritic

899
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,880
user score, however, is currently nine point three, making it

900
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,639
the seventh highest rated video game on the site of

901
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:44,480
all time.

902
00:44:45,559 --> 00:44:47,599
Speaker 3: We should ask Mark, be like, Mark, what's going on

903
00:44:47,679 --> 00:44:50,920
with Metacritic? What's happening? Have you ever seen anything like

904
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:51,639
this before?

905
00:44:52,079 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 2: Mat Jackson?

906
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: I think that the only explanation is Splatoon fans are

907
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,880
out there and they are real, and they're passionate, and

908
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:05,280
I mean, the game is good, it's it's good, it's fun.

909
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,400
I've been enjoying what I've played. What little bit I've

910
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,039
played so far. I do think I'm I will end

911
00:45:10,119 --> 00:45:13,679
up maybe agree with Mike more than these user reviews.

912
00:45:14,199 --> 00:45:16,599
But it seems to be like that doesn't matter. This

913
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:19,960
game is a new Splatoon game, and the Splatoon fans

914
00:45:20,159 --> 00:45:22,400
love that. I don't know, is there any other explanation?

915
00:45:23,159 --> 00:45:23,599
Speaker 2: I don't know.

916
00:45:24,079 --> 00:45:26,280
Speaker 3: I mean, was the last time we had like a

917
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:27,480
real positive brigade?

918
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:29,840
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, go to town. You know what, you guys,

919
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,159
knock yourselves out. This is great. We're not gonna say nuts.

920
00:45:32,159 --> 00:45:33,320
I'm not gonna stand in their way.

921
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 3: It almost means nothing, So go nuts, right and a

922
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:38,559
fellows zero impact on any.

923
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: Affects, nothing else, and at least in a negative way.

924
00:45:41,119 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Think you guys are doing great work.

925
00:45:43,199 --> 00:45:46,559
Speaker 3: You're passionate about the thing you love. Positive brigading. Let's

926
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:49,480
bring it back. We're on the posey brigading arc.

927
00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 2: Let's see just real quick.

928
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,679
Speaker 1: So that means it's in front of the Legend of Zelda,

929
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,880
Ocaran of Time, middle Gear, Solid and Warcraft are three,

930
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:02,840
the Frozen Throne exp it's right behind Resident Evil Requiem

931
00:46:03,199 --> 00:46:05,880
Core again. Number all right, let's keep in mind where

932
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,320
we're at with the Metacritic user reviews. The number five

933
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:11,079
highest rated game of all time of Court according to

934
00:46:11,119 --> 00:46:13,920
Metacritic users is, of course, Corey in.

935
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: The House, the Disney.

936
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:21,039
Speaker 1: TV show licensed game for DS or whatever it was, So.

937
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 3: All right, maybe, yeah, maybe you put that user score

938
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:26,320
a little little lower down on the page.

939
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,159
Speaker 1: Maybe can you make it smaller? Maybe mess up they

940
00:46:29,159 --> 00:46:30,960
mess up the currenting on it so no one wants

941
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,719
to look at it. You get a font swapping, maybe

942
00:46:34,159 --> 00:46:38,239
make it all comic sense to reflect its importance. All right, Today,

943
00:46:38,639 --> 00:46:41,599
Miss Fall Hunter is launching a PC at nine pm

944
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,119
A dispatch gets its Xbox release tomorrow Gears of War

945
00:46:45,199 --> 00:46:46,480
e Dame multiplayer reveal.

946
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:48,519
Speaker 2: The Coalition is expected to show a.

947
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: Classic four on four competitive multiplayer and a twelve player

948
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,400
PvE Horde mode ahead of a beta beginning August sixth.

949
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,320
All right, that does it for the headlines. I think

950
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,800
we have a question from earlier this week. Let's go

951
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:07,320
ahead and get the refreshed results right here. Let's see

952
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,280
what would you want from a final Fantasy Vix remake,

953
00:47:10,599 --> 00:47:13,559
a massive multi game series, or one game that's forty

954
00:47:13,559 --> 00:47:17,480
five hours with limitations. Obviously most people went with that

955
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,199
because they're not crazy. Eighty nine percent said they want

956
00:47:21,199 --> 00:47:25,000
one game that's forty five hours with limitations, and eleven

957
00:47:25,039 --> 00:47:27,559
percent said massive multi game series.

958
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 2: So I don't think squaren exteds that talk.

959
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: Themselves into doing that if if they want to approach

960
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,000
Final Fantasy six. All right, I have a new poll

961
00:47:35,079 --> 00:47:38,000
question we'll get to. Actually, let's let's do it right now.

962
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:40,679
Are you playing Splatoon Raiders. I just want to know

963
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:42,079
yes or no. I want to see what this audience

964
00:47:42,119 --> 00:47:43,719
is doing with that game. I just started that up.

965
00:47:44,679 --> 00:47:47,760
I am enjoying it, but it does feel like, Okay,

966
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,239
it's one of those smaller Nintendo fifty dollars summer games

967
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,599
could get overlooked. It's not getting overlooked by the Splatoon fans.

968
00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:57,039
And let's see how it's going for Giant On fans.

969
00:47:58,039 --> 00:47:59,800
We'll get the results of that. Talk about it here

970
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:02,800
on Game this morning, on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of

971
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,280
Giant Bomb, Uh, it's it's Wednesday.

972
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:08,159
Speaker 2: I gotta go back to play more Cyberdillo.

973
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,760
Speaker 3: Oh buddy, you gotta you gotta pack there. We're doing

974
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:13,119
a fun thing after this. I don't think we can

975
00:48:13,159 --> 00:48:15,800
talk about it just yet, but yeah, uh yeah, all right,

976
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,039
Well look I'm right there with you, because I myself

977
00:48:18,039 --> 00:48:20,800
am playing a terrible game that is in no way

978
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,599
fun or hilarious. So that's that.

979
00:48:24,079 --> 00:48:25,159
Speaker 2: What do you what are you playing?

980
00:48:25,199 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 3: I'm playing cat Woman, man, I would drove god Catwoman.

981
00:48:31,599 --> 00:48:31,760
Speaker 2: You know.

982
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 3: I see your shirt, I see your Kirby with his

983
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,360
mouth wide open, and I'm just thinking it's a place

984
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,519
to put a cop, you know. I'm just thinking it's

985
00:48:40,559 --> 00:48:41,559
a place to throw a cop.

986
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,280
Speaker 1: Just throw a cop right in there, man. Cat Jurfman

987
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:47,679
has been so special everybody. I we'll have more from

988
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:49,639
that very soon. You'll be able to start watching that

989
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:53,079
with us. Uh, probably next week is what we're aiming for,

990
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:54,000
So looking.

991
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 2: Forward to that. Uh.

992
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:56,760
Speaker 1: And then yeah, it should be a pretty normal week.

993
00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,039
Beyond that, we're gonna have a voice, small dump truck.

994
00:48:59,039 --> 00:49:01,639
We're gonna have upf I think we're gonna play a

995
00:49:01,679 --> 00:49:03,159
weird little party game on there.

996
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 2: It'll be fun. And then we'll have it.

997
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 1: We are recording a bunch of other stuff in the

998
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:08,400
meantime that will pop up on the site for both

999
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:10,199
free and premium users here very soon.

1000
00:49:11,079 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 2: All right, I think with all of that out of

1001
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:15,519
the way, Yeah, let's do this.

1002
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:17,199
Speaker 1: Jeff, thank you, so much for hanging out with me

1003
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,760
today and talking about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.

1004
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,760
Speaker 3: My pleasure anytime. Thank you for having me sir, Thank

1005
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,519
you all for watching and listening. You are the best

1006
00:49:25,559 --> 00:49:26,320
audience in gaming.

1007
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,599
Speaker 1: Until next time, have a good one, take care of

1008
00:49:28,639 --> 00:49:35,119
yourself and goodbye.

