Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's welcome to Game Best Mornings with me
Speaker 1: Jeff Grubb, your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about Nintendo finally doing the thing and more.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a good one because we have Lucas
Speaker 1: Holland on the show. Lucas, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic. Thank you. I'm a big fun
Speaker 2: of Giant bonmbs, so it feels a bit surreal to
Speaker 2: be on the other side of things for once, but
Speaker 2: I'm happy to be here. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: That was on your show recently and then we talked
Speaker 1: about this. It's like, yeah, let's get you on Game
Speaker 1: Best Morning, so very helpful since everyone else is out.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. But yeah, how have you been you
Speaker 1: play anything recently? How are things going with you, Lucas?
Speaker 2: I mean this morning, I did see the Mario Cult
Speaker 2: World going updates, so I have just been trying out
Speaker 2: a little bit today on Yeah, obviously, I'm sure we'll
Speaker 2: talk about that, but it's been one of those if
Speaker 2: I've been playing Mario Cult World, I'm getting rid into
Speaker 2: the boss ors mode on Metroy dread. That's been my
Speaker 2: like gaming right now.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, that's a good move. Everyone YouTube refresh
Speaker 1: YouTube if you're trying to watch it over there. It
Speaker 1: is going live. It just might be going to a
Speaker 1: different channel than was already up because there's it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like there's a lot of people watching it there.
Speaker 1: We'll get that fixed up. Yeah. I'm going to dive
Speaker 1: into that Mario Kart World update myself. I am interested
Speaker 1: in it and seeing how seeming like if I can
Speaker 1: notice any of the changes. I definitely remember feeling like
Speaker 1: when I was playing, like these CPUs are difficult, so
Speaker 1: I want to see how they have toned that down.
Speaker 1: Also very curious to see just how more frequently we
Speaker 1: will get those three lap courses again. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: all that in the news and stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: continued to be like, all right, Donkey Kong credits are good,
Speaker 1: so I can move on to something else, and then
Speaker 1: I just keep playing Donkey Kong. That's been been good.
Speaker 1: How about you? Did you? You played a lot of
Speaker 1: you can't get or what?
Speaker 2: No, not yet, But I'm going to visit a few
Speaker 2: friends to go watch EVO together, just like you know,
Speaker 2: watch the streams and stuff and enjoy some time with that.
Speaker 2: But I've got like, you know, maybe six seven eight
Speaker 2: hours worth of travel depending on how the trains go.
Speaker 2: So I'm just like, you know what, let's save DK
Speaker 2: for that and just have a good time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, good move for sure, Lucas bion all this.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I guess I've introduced you, but you
Speaker 1: want to tell people a little bit about yourself, so
Speaker 1: like how you what you do in gaming? I like
Speaker 1: talk about your podcast things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So people may originally have like heard my
Speaker 2: voice as like an editor slash co host on the
Speaker 2: channel Fact Fiend. We then made our own like spin
Speaker 2: off series called Wiki Weekends, where I'm like a co
Speaker 2: creator of that channel, and that's where I mainly PUI
Speaker 2: out of content. I also do like streaming on and off,
Speaker 2: where I mainly do like a lot of Nintendo stuff,
Speaker 2: mainly z Elder and Pokemon related. But then I also
Speaker 2: just fell into the world of Resident Evil speed running
Speaker 2: at some point with the remakes a little double here
Speaker 2: and there, and I'll put yes, my main kind of
Speaker 2: output is Wiki Weekends, where we just kind of hopefully
Speaker 2: have entertaining discussions and create a welcoming community for people
Speaker 2: to come and enjoy. Kind of like a bunch of
Speaker 2: discussions on different pop culture stuff like gaming and films
Speaker 2: and comic books, things like that.
Speaker 1: Very cool, excellent. You know, let's explain what we do
Speaker 1: here then. At we're Giant Bomb. We make fun stuff
Speaker 1: about video games. We're a small crew trying to make
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Speaker 1: We are working on some more extra goodies right now,
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Speaker 1: for you. But really your support just helps us make
Speaker 1: everything else happen. If you want to see us do
Speaker 1: these cool things, do that, it does make it possible.
Speaker 1: As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff
Speaker 1: Greb will help piece your gaming life back together. That
Speaker 1: includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own
Speaker 1: original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input
Speaker 1: of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.
Speaker 1: If you are watching live on twitch Welcome, you can
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Speaker 1: searching for Gamees mornings, or find the RSS feed on
Speaker 1: GiantBomb dot com. You can also catch the show later
Speaker 1: with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
Speaker 1: we have a lot to get into, so let's start
Speaker 1: the morning mess so with Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase set
Speaker 1: for July thirty first. This comes from Salamano at Gamatsu,
Speaker 1: who briefly summarizes what we can expect. Nintendo will host
Speaker 1: a Nintendo Direct Partner showcase on July thirty first at
Speaker 1: six am Pacific time nine am Eastern. I see why
Speaker 1: Jan took the week off so you wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: get up early, featuring twenty five minutes of information on
Speaker 1: upcoming Switch to and Switch one games from publishing partners.
Speaker 1: The company announced you will be able to watch it
Speaker 1: on YouTube and Nintendo Do dot com. Why don't say Twitch.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be on Twitch. I guess maybe they don't,
Speaker 1: do they not usually do the directs on Twitch? Whatever? Okay,
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes Partner showcase were what were you expecting?
Speaker 1: And is this in line with what you were expecting?
Speaker 2: Probably at this point, Yeah, I do think that it
Speaker 2: makes sense with we kind of know roughly like a
Speaker 2: game per month from Nintendo at this point for the
Speaker 2: rest of the year, things like Age of Imprisonment. We
Speaker 2: don't know exact dates, so we just have like Winter
Speaker 2: and things like a Rider's as well. But I think
Speaker 2: it makes sense to just kind of have a partner
Speaker 2: direct fill out that kind of rest of the year,
Speaker 2: make sure that we realistically probably get a lot of
Speaker 2: ports and switch To upgrades s right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I think that there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of demand from third parties to just kind of test
Speaker 1: the waters and beyond, like like more than just test
Speaker 1: the waters, be like no, we're we're pretty certain we
Speaker 1: want to be involved in switch To, and I think
Speaker 1: Nintendo was trying to like line up the ones that
Speaker 1: probably had a lot of those specialized versions of those
Speaker 1: ports for the switch To, the ones with the subtitles.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to think of anything. The only one that's
Speaker 1: coming to mind is the WEU version of that Batman
Speaker 1: Armored edition there was. It was a Hitman World Assassination
Speaker 1: Signature edition something like that. Although there was a bunch
Speaker 1: of games like that from third parties on switch To
Speaker 1: at launch, where the developers and publishers did a little
Speaker 1: bit of extra work to make sure that those games
Speaker 1: felt a little bit like Bespoke for switch To. I'm
Speaker 1: imagining that this next crop of third party partnered titles
Speaker 1: will be a mix of games that you know are
Speaker 1: ports but aren't the special versions that were able to
Speaker 1: get into that first direct and we launched at the
Speaker 1: launch of the console, and then totally like like much
Speaker 1: newer third party games. I wouldn't be surprised if, like
Speaker 1: we see elden Ring Night Rain mentioned here something along
Speaker 1: those lines, partially because Nintendo and Frumpsoft seem to have
Speaker 1: a really close relationship right now, but also because it
Speaker 1: seems like that game could work on switch To just fine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm you know, going in there expecting a
Speaker 1: lot of third party support. I do wonder it's like, man,
Speaker 1: Nintendo's gotta tell us what's going on with so many
Speaker 1: of its games that are still coming out this year.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're aware of the games for the most part.
Speaker 1: We have a general timeline for many of them, either
Speaker 1: months or whatever, like later this year. Metro at Prime four,
Speaker 1: we don't know that much about. It's still just slated
Speaker 1: for this year twenty twenty five, and I guess that
Speaker 1: is coming out in November or December, Lucas, they don't
Speaker 1: even need to start talking about it quite yet. But
Speaker 1: I got to say, getting a little antsy over here.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that or does this sound like typical
Speaker 1: Nintendo to you and you're not all that concerned.
Speaker 2: I don't think I would say I'm overly concerned just
Speaker 2: because they have outlied some games for the year at least,
Speaker 2: not like there's just nothing that we're aware of. It's
Speaker 2: just more settling down dates and details of games. But
Speaker 2: I think it makes sense of this point to kind
Speaker 2: of get a crop of ports along. We know what's
Speaker 2: coming in like we've gone the Nintendo games for July,
Speaker 2: we know what's coming for August, and then that kind
Speaker 2: of lines them up for that usual September direct.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good point. Yeah, that when you say it out
Speaker 1: out loud like that, that does feel like what's probably
Speaker 1: gonna happen here. Now. They do have a earnings report
Speaker 1: with investors. I think it's this week. I think it's
Speaker 1: later this week actually, so that would be tomorrow or Friday.
Speaker 1: I can't nail down exactly in my head, but I
Speaker 1: know it's happening soon. They're gonna so they're gonna get
Speaker 1: questions from investors saying, hey, what what is happening with
Speaker 1: the release schedule. So there's a potential that they have
Speaker 1: some news about some of their own games, and if
Speaker 1: it's not in this direct, then it is going to
Speaker 1: be in a Nintendo Today app drop or something along
Speaker 1: those lines, which they could they'll do. You know, I
Speaker 1: think the directs definitely serve a purpose for them of
Speaker 1: you know, we do get a lot of eyeballs on this.
Speaker 1: We do have a lot of partners we want to
Speaker 1: keep happy and let them know that this is fertile
Speaker 1: ground for their games, and the directs are part of that.
Speaker 1: For our own stuff, we want to be a little
Speaker 1: bit more more. We're going to take a scalpel to
Speaker 1: some of these things and be a little bit more
Speaker 1: you know, specific about how we are going to introduce anything.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that probably does happen with Metroid
Speaker 1: Prime four specifically, they're going to just kind of wait
Speaker 1: until a little bit later this year and have a
Speaker 1: very bespoke marketing plan for that. Although you know, in
Speaker 1: my head, Lucas, I was like, Okay, they'll give us
Speaker 1: the date for Metroid Prime four here and then they'll
Speaker 1: tell us when you know Metro Prime two and three
Speaker 1: are going to get ported to switch to now, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh man, if they don't do that now,
Speaker 1: are they going to have enough time when they eventually
Speaker 1: do start talking about Metric Prime four again, and again
Speaker 1: that gets back to my being a little anxious about
Speaker 1: all this. Okay, so let's get back to the third parties.
Speaker 1: Are there like specific big games that you think will
Speaker 1: show up here or anything along those lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I definitely think there's a few of the
Speaker 2: Steam version game or stream version games, cloud based games
Speaker 2: right that they had, so like things like Assassin's Creed Control,
Speaker 2: Kingdom Hearts three, like the Resident even remakes. I think
Speaker 2: they're all like prime targets for me in terms of
Speaker 2: getting actual Nintendo Switched two versions, like proper versions of those.
Speaker 2: And then I think as well, just like going to Capcom,
Speaker 2: it's like got the RI four remakes that never made
Speaker 2: it across and Monster.
Speaker 1: On the Wilds.
Speaker 2: And then I also think you mentioned night Rain. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much they want to talk about night
Speaker 2: Rain yet if Tarnished Edition isn't out yet yep, but
Speaker 2: clearly yeah, as you said, they've got a comfortable relationship
Speaker 2: right now with from Soft, and then I'm curious as
Speaker 2: to know whether like Square NX has maybe got more
Speaker 2: fun fancies coming and whether we get kind of like
Speaker 2: the rumored idea of maybe like a that do coming.
Speaker 2: So I think there's there's a lot of options of
Speaker 2: games that we know run on a PS four Pro
Speaker 2: or an Xbox serieses that are now capable of coming over,
Speaker 2: even if it's not necessarily new games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I'm gonna be curious to see like
Speaker 1: which partners, which third party companies do show up in
Speaker 1: this direct because there is, you know, been talk that
Speaker 1: a lot of companies have struggled to get development hardware
Speaker 1: even after the Switch two came out, a lot we're
Speaker 1: struggling to get it now. I think there was there's
Speaker 1: like Tiers obviously from Soft clearly has a development kit
Speaker 1: and no surprise there. But but it's like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: is it's just going to be a handful of really
Speaker 1: big third parties that are able to be in this
Speaker 1: twenty five minute direct, and we'll start hearing from a
Speaker 1: couple tiers down in future directs or just on their
Speaker 1: own releasing games starting next year because it's going to
Speaker 1: take time to get things ported over potentially, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like ready to kind of see like who Nintendo
Speaker 1: considers that, you know, top tier one a partner that
Speaker 1: they want to show off here, and then how much
Speaker 1: shine they're able to give them. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the switch too seems like it's in a pretty good
Speaker 1: place overall with how people are feeling about. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: first party games are doing just fine, and the third
Speaker 1: party games I think are surprising people in terms of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a mostly viable platform for a lot of
Speaker 1: different kinds of games. The biggest ones, the ones that
Speaker 1: are going to be coming out next year that are
Speaker 1: going to have all the graphical features turned on and
Speaker 1: and you know, require a ton of horsepower on PC. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe those are still going to be struggling to even
Speaker 1: hit thirty frames per second on the switch to next year,
Speaker 1: but it's like that, how many of those are there
Speaker 1: really out there anymore? You know? I didn't include a
Speaker 1: story today from It was a quote from someone who
Speaker 1: works on the Last of Us saying, yeah, well, look
Speaker 1: we did it, but we could tell you realistic graphics.
Speaker 1: Realistic visuals are kind of ruining game development timelines. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a bad thing for that, and so, and
Speaker 1: I think that's not dining include it because a boy,
Speaker 1: that's an obvious thing, I think, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of developers would echo that, which is why many
Speaker 1: developers don't try to do games as realistic and with
Speaker 1: high as high fidelity graphics as a the last of us.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I think we're probably hitting a sweet spot
Speaker 1: where the switch to is pretty close to being able
Speaker 1: to have a lot of the third party games that
Speaker 1: will release this year, next year, maybe even the year
Speaker 1: after that without any issues at least for the vast
Speaker 1: majority of releases. So now it's just up to Nintendo
Speaker 1: to shout that, capitalize on it, make people feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can I can play the next EA game on here.
Speaker 1: You know, elo e A might be one of those
Speaker 1: companies that is a little bit lagging on getting games
Speaker 1: onto the switch to me, do you think Battlefield six
Speaker 1: is on switch to?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a yeah, that's a difficult one.
Speaker 1: That's a difficult one, right, It's weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with the amount the ball Field have
Speaker 2: heard kind of you know, the notoriety for pushing tech,
Speaker 2: that might be one of those games where they don't
Speaker 2: want to have it limited by the switch to and
Speaker 2: it might be one of those few examples.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, we'll get more information about that this week
Speaker 1: as well. Battlefield six. I don't think they've said anything
Speaker 1: about switch one way or the other, and so if
Speaker 1: it does come to switch, I guess I always expect
Speaker 1: it would happen later, But right now, I doubt they're
Speaker 1: thinking about it at all. They probably have like bigger
Speaker 1: fish to fry of. Let's just get that thing up
Speaker 1: and running and successful on PC and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2: They've they've got to get as many places as they
Speaker 2: want if they want to hit that one hundred million.
Speaker 1: Players about yeah, good point, god, one hundred million players.
Speaker 1: And to me, it's like you only really get to
Speaker 1: that number if you're also on mobile. So I wonder if,
Speaker 1: like that Battle Royale version that they have of that thing,
Speaker 1: allegedly have of that thing will also be on mobile
Speaker 1: in some way. We'll see. All right, let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: move along here. The war over credit cards censoring games
Speaker 1: is just getting started. This from Ethan Gotch at Kotaku.
Speaker 1: Gilbert Martinez has just poured himself a glass of water
Speaker 1: and was pacing his suburban home in San Antonio, Texas
Speaker 1: while trying to navigate MasterCards Byzantine customer service hotline. Story
Speaker 1: kind of talks about something that a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been talking about online right now, which is calling
Speaker 1: up master MasterCard and trying to get them to answer
Speaker 1: for their actions of of caving into pressure from religious
Speaker 1: groups and Christo fascists about censoring porn games on Steam
Speaker 1: and itch dite dich id a ditch dot io to
Speaker 1: the point where it's also caught a lot of other
Speaker 1: games that maybe would even be considered porn games, and
Speaker 1: people are finding that this is a it's difficult to
Speaker 1: really tie up master Card. Although it's like something around
Speaker 1: eight thousand calls a day some people are reporting from
Speaker 1: people's trying trying to push back against the anti porn
Speaker 1: and crusaders. The thing here though, is like it feels like, Okay, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: gamers are pretty good at getting loud and shouting at companies,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times that's, you know, to the
Speaker 1: detriment of our community. Let's say, okay, well we have
Speaker 1: some practice at this, and so we'll maybe we can
Speaker 1: implement it in something of a positive way, and so
Speaker 1: far that seems to be manifesting in a decent way.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder like we'll we be able to
Speaker 1: sustain this because there's one thing about the people on
Speaker 1: the other side of this issue, the people that are
Speaker 1: pro censorship of gaming, they don't have any hobbies. They
Speaker 1: don't they'll just keep doing this forever. They just see
Speaker 1: red and they go after it, and they'll be able
Speaker 1: to keep the pressure on. And they're also well funded
Speaker 1: by those crystal fascist groups and things like that. If
Speaker 1: gamers sort of fizzle out here, this is probably going
Speaker 1: to be something that doesn't go away. So will'll be
Speaker 1: able to maintain the pressure is the question, And you
Speaker 1: know that remains to be seen, but I'm definitely curious
Speaker 1: about it. Well, I want to keep bringing this story up, Lucas,
Speaker 1: because it's like it's not going to just go away
Speaker 1: on its own. People are going to have to kind
Speaker 1: of stand up. How do you How have you felt
Speaker 1: about this? Where is this at for you? Like, what's
Speaker 1: your assessment of the censorship of games on stores like
Speaker 1: Steam and itch dot io.
Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, I think just overall, it's a it's
Speaker 2: a bad thing for the state of gaming. But I
Speaker 2: think there's also the more complex issue, which isn't you know,
Speaker 2: outright talked about where this is as you mentioned on
Speaker 2: previous podcasts, or this is not just about like adult games.
Speaker 2: This is about coming after, you know, the LGBTQ community
Speaker 2: and having those side effects that are intentional from places
Speaker 2: like Collective Shout, but they don't need to outright say it. It
Speaker 2: just happens to have that side effect in the first place.
Speaker 2: And as much as you know, I think that we
Speaker 2: should have the choice to buy whatever we want adult
Speaker 2: content or not, I do think that especially that is
Speaker 2: like the most like scary and damaging part of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's like there are going to be false
Speaker 1: positives caught in this, for sure, but even beyond that,
Speaker 1: like I'm just not interested in having anything banned by
Speaker 1: a credit card company, and like you know, it's already happening.
Speaker 1: The games getting caught in this that clearly shouldn't be
Speaker 1: games that are clearly artistic. Commentary people point out Vile Exhoomed,
Speaker 1: which I've not played, but as far as I've read,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like this horror game from an indie
Speaker 1: studio that specifically is about exploring, uh, you know, toxicity
Speaker 1: in fandoms and and that can have as relates to
Speaker 1: sexual topics, uh, but also deeply relates to misogyny. And
Speaker 1: that game is now you can't buy that game and
Speaker 1: it's that that's deeply frustrating to me. And so you
Speaker 1: know whether or not these countermeasures are going to be
Speaker 1: able to work is is you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: see how. I kind of struggle to see how it
Speaker 1: wouldn't because if MasterCard is responding to someone just being like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to be real mad at you if you
Speaker 1: keep taking this money, and then a huge backlash comes says,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? No, you can't tell us how
Speaker 1: to spend our money to me, that's like equivalent and
Speaker 1: credit and the credit card companies should then side on
Speaker 1: the side of well, these people are saying, don't censor things,
Speaker 1: and then we keep taking their money. That seems pretty
Speaker 1: good to us. But I don't know if things are
Speaker 1: that logical these days. I don't know if things are
Speaker 1: are that easy. And how deep does a group like
Speaker 1: Collective Shout, the Australian Anti porn group have their fingers
Speaker 1: dug into a credit card company I think it's probably
Speaker 1: deeper than we even realize or even know where it's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it could very easily be the case that it's not
Speaker 1: just this external group exerting pressure. This external group has
Speaker 1: people working at these companies that is completely sympathetic to
Speaker 1: their to their ideals and is helping to spread that
Speaker 1: stuff internally. And how do you remove that? That is
Speaker 1: something that you kind of much more difficult to fight against.
Speaker 1: So as people are calling up the MasterCard, they are
Speaker 1: finding themselves like struggling to find anybody who will hear
Speaker 1: them out. Once they start saying, hey, we wish you
Speaker 1: wouldn't censor things, they get you know, sent around to
Speaker 1: different departments and oops, your call got dropped. But I
Speaker 1: think that people, I think gamers are well aware of
Speaker 1: these kinds of strategies and are unlikely to back down
Speaker 1: because of that, And they know that really just being
Speaker 1: annoying is the solution here to a certain extent, and
Speaker 1: tying up those like physically tying up the phone lines
Speaker 1: so that it costs these companies' money will eventually catch
Speaker 1: the attention of someone. Whether or not that changes things again,
Speaker 1: we'll have to wait and see. It does feel though, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a good place where you know, Collective
Speaker 1: Shout was probably going to continue to try to go
Speaker 1: from one target to the next, and now actually the
Speaker 1: battlefield has been stopped here and they're going to have
Speaker 1: to continue to deal with this as the pushback has
Speaker 1: now been fully declared it and defined, and so maybe
Speaker 1: at the very least this is a serious obstruction and
Speaker 1: roadblock to the continued censorship that people are concerned about.
Speaker 1: Does that sound right to you?
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, for sure, Like, as you say, tying
Speaker 2: them up and getting them stopped in this process would
Speaker 2: certainly help them moving on, right And I remember, I
Speaker 2: think it was a few years ago they came after
Speaker 2: like adult sites as well, yes, sex workers, it's like
Speaker 2: OnlyFans and things like this, and I believe that ended
Speaker 2: up getting reversed from a lot of pushbacks. So it's
Speaker 2: not to say that it can't happen. I don't know
Speaker 2: whether that was to do with Collective Shots specifically and
Speaker 2: how much their influence might change this equation, but I
Speaker 2: definitely I do think it's important to keep bringing this
Speaker 2: topical because, as you say, the kind of other side
Speaker 2: of this is that we let this be a new
Speaker 2: Story of the Week and fizzle out and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we don't have any power within this
Speaker 2: dynamic anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's people in Chad like, hey, like we
Speaker 1: have like a real conversation about the ability for kids
Speaker 1: to get some of these games, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, for me, in my home, I have Steam.
Speaker 1: I've some adult games in my Steam account that I like,
Speaker 1: and I share that I was sharing my Steam account
Speaker 1: as family sharing, and it's like, oh, I just you know,
Speaker 1: blacklist a bunch of games that this this whole category
Speaker 1: cannot be shared. So I take some responsibility for that.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, they're they're you know, that's
Speaker 1: not every household like mine, where I'm a savvy parent.
Speaker 1: I know how this stuff works, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I think people go they revert to, well you have
Speaker 1: to be eighteen to get a credit card, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you can go to the store and buy a Steam
Speaker 1: gift card. Could a kid go do that? I think
Speaker 1: Lucas I would probably be okay. And if there's people
Speaker 1: who are like, no, actually no, even this is a
Speaker 1: slippery slope, but I would hear that out. But I
Speaker 1: think in my mind when I initially think about it,
Speaker 1: I would be okay with the idea of you can't
Speaker 1: buy eighteen plus rated games with the cash you put
Speaker 1: into a gift card at CBS or something like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe that maybe that's not a perfect solution, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's compromises to be made here with people who have concerns.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to have the conversation with reasonable people. Blanket
Speaker 1: censorship though, is not the answer.
Speaker 2: No, exactly, that's not the reasonable side. That's not the
Speaker 2: actual like faithful discussion. These are not the people that
Speaker 2: want to have a discussion in good faith. They want
Speaker 2: to do that just you know, slap their power around
Speaker 2: and make sure that they're the ones who get exactly
Speaker 2: what they want. And as you say, maybe there's there's
Speaker 2: other ways to put that in place. I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: against the idea of only being ultibi adult games with
Speaker 2: a specifically like credit cards to debit cards. And I
Speaker 2: think there's a there's definitely ways to try and make
Speaker 2: it work better than it is at the moment. But
Speaker 2: I also do think that it's it's not wrong to
Speaker 2: ask people to have some level of personal responsibility when
Speaker 2: it comes to their own children as well.
Speaker 1: Definitely not a.
Speaker 2: Lot of people, you know, might not like that statement.
Speaker 2: Well that's the way I see it personally.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, And uh, I don't think, you know, if
Speaker 1: we sat down at a table with collective shout and
Speaker 1: offered up any sort of uh compromise, I don't think
Speaker 1: that would actually get us anywhere. So it's like this
Speaker 1: that this is a conversation we save for later when
Speaker 1: it's us adults having real conversations among ourselves. And uh,
Speaker 1: these effectively children screaming because of their shame, their internalized
Speaker 1: guilt and shame. Uh, we just have to say, no,
Speaker 1: you're you're actually not welcome at the table. You are
Speaker 1: you've shown yourself to be too irresponsible, and you want
Speaker 1: to make your problem everyone else's problem. We're gonna we're first,
Speaker 1: we're gonna stop you, then set you aside, and then
Speaker 1: we'll go solve this on our own. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really the only way we can handle this
Speaker 1: going forward.
Speaker 2: I think it's a lot of the kind of the
Speaker 2: name in general is collective shout, Like, Yeah, they don't
Speaker 2: want to have a conversation, they want to shelter us, right, Yep.
Speaker 1: And they ye want to dictate things. And yeah, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they it's fascism, it's it's
Speaker 1: and it has to be just dealt with and stopped
Speaker 1: and cut out like cancer. Yeah, all right, let's take
Speaker 1: a break. We're going to go to an ad break
Speaker 1: which you can skip out on if you go to
Speaker 1: Giant bomb dot com Slash Premium. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this. All right, we are back. It's Game Mess Mornings.
Speaker 1: I'm Jeff Grubb, that's Lucas Holland we're getting back into
Speaker 1: the news with Elden Ring's two player mode. Patch has
Speaker 1: been delayed due to tsunami warnings. This is from Jordan
Speaker 1: Miller at VGC. This was supposed to launch on Thursday,
Speaker 1: the two player mode, which was much requested by players,
Speaker 1: but yesterday overnight there was an eight point eight magnitude
Speaker 1: earthquake off the coast of Russia that caused a ton
Speaker 1: of tsunami warnings on every coast in the Pacific. Essentially,
Speaker 1: now that the tsunami has hit a lot of places
Speaker 1: and it was about a meter high, very dangerous still
Speaker 1: in a lot for a lot of places, a lot
Speaker 1: of places do not have the infrastructure to put up
Speaker 1: with the tsunami even that high. But you know, I
Speaker 1: tried to like look at the news this morning to
Speaker 1: see just you know, was it is this as tragic
Speaker 1: as tragic as some tsunamis have been. It looked for
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, looks like most people
Speaker 1: have been spared, thankfully. But I like, as soon as
Speaker 1: I saw this news, it was like, first of all,
Speaker 1: hope everyone's okay. And then because you know, the direct
Speaker 1: had been on my mind, It's like, oh, I bet
Speaker 1: they'll just cancel the direct because Japan's history with tsunamis
Speaker 1: they're just not even going gonna want to risk it.
Speaker 1: But I think what happened is it came they saw that,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, we can mostly handle what has happened here,
Speaker 1: and so the direct is still happening. But from Soft
Speaker 1: it's like, ah, you know what, We're just gonna let
Speaker 1: our employees get out of here, because at a certain point,
Speaker 1: like even if the actual effect, which again I'm not
Speaker 1: full I don't have full knowledge of what has happened everywhere,
Speaker 1: but even if in like Japan, it hit and it
Speaker 1: didn't do any fatal damage anywhere, like there's so much
Speaker 1: trauma related to tsunamis in Japan that I just I
Speaker 1: would do the same thing of like, if you're actually
Speaker 1: taking the rest of the week off, go somewhere where
Speaker 1: you feel safe and secure, deal with this stuff process.
Speaker 1: It will come back next week. And I don't blame
Speaker 1: anyone for doing that. But as far as we could tell,
Speaker 1: it looks like like on the West coast of the
Speaker 1: United States, the tsunami warnings were downgraded significantly, except for
Speaker 1: in northern California, which is of course where I have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends, including I think you know, Dan
Speaker 1: and Mike are there right now, so hopefully they're staying
Speaker 1: back away from the shore. But yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing where you see this and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, this this is the right move, right
Speaker 1: if you if your employees are feeling any sort of
Speaker 1: trauma at all, just let them take the time off, correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally. I you know, I'd hope it goes
Speaker 2: without saying, really, like video games, the fun, they're not
Speaker 2: that important. People's lives of all more important, and you
Speaker 2: should even if it's not a massive safety risk. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure again, Like again, yeah, they've specifically been impacted,
Speaker 2: but just the idea of trying to put a patch
Speaker 2: above your own employees is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's just such an easy thing to do where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know what, I bet the leaders it
Speaker 1: feels the same way either, like you know what, we
Speaker 1: just also feel this. So let's just do the right
Speaker 1: thing here and let everyone know that you're you're more
Speaker 1: important if you're working on this game than putting out
Speaker 1: a patch, especially patch that can come out next week.
Speaker 1: It would be what's the difference at a certain point.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think there was probably a little bit
Speaker 1: more of this than we haven't even heard about developers,
Speaker 1: employees and shpan. It's been like, yep, let's worry about
Speaker 1: our people first, and that's just fine with me. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they are. Let's see if they have re
Speaker 1: announced when this will come out. Yeah, the patch will
Speaker 1: now be released on okay, so yeah, it was supposed
Speaker 1: to come out today, actually my bad, And now it's
Speaker 1: coming out. It is coming out tomorrow, Thursday, July thirty first,
Speaker 1: so coming out one day later. There you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I imagine many people being mudled out.
Speaker 1: Right, No, And I don't think I haven't seen any backlash.
Speaker 1: Everyone sort of gets it, you know, just especially for Japan,
Speaker 1: where it's just like, you know, you think about Fukushima
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Yeah, harrowing things have happened in
Speaker 1: countries like that with tsunamis. Okay, someone just reminded me
Speaker 1: Ninja Guid and rage Bound reviews. I've been playing Ninja
Speaker 1: Guid and rage Bound quite a bit and it rules.
Speaker 1: It's awesome, it's very good. Let's go ahead. Let's go
Speaker 1: to Open Critic real quick and see how it's doing.
Speaker 1: It's got an eighty six on Open Critic. Let's see
Speaker 1: how many reviews is that. Quite a few have come in.
Speaker 1: Let's read this one here from Austin Souter at tech Raptor,
Speaker 1: who gave it a nine point five out of ten
Speaker 1: and said Ninja Guiden rage Bound is an adrenaline pumping
Speaker 1: action platformer with killer pixel art and fast paced gameplay.
Speaker 1: Levels are challenging, especially in hard mode, and bosses are
Speaker 1: not to be underestimated. Stages feel dynamic and always have
Speaker 1: something new to offer. So I was hooked from the
Speaker 1: start to the finish. Let's see worth playes. Chris Adam
Speaker 1: d Angelus gave it a nine out of ten, and
Speaker 1: said Ninja Guide and Rage Bound is a pitch perfect
Speaker 1: revival of the NES classics. It captures the same fun,
Speaker 1: run and slash feel of the original games, while modernizing
Speaker 1: enough to be exciting to play, whether you're a returning
Speaker 1: fan or a newcomer. The fantastic soundtrack and excellent graphics
Speaker 1: elevate it and make the entire package shine. The closest
Speaker 1: thing I can come to us to a complaint is
Speaker 1: that some is the somewhat low difficulty level, and that
Speaker 1: is more in comparison to the franchise as a whole,
Speaker 1: rather than this game being too easy. If you're a
Speaker 1: fan of action platformers or a Ninja Guiden fan in general,
Speaker 1: you'll find a ton to love and Rage Bound. Let's
Speaker 1: see you can find a lower review slightly more critical.
Speaker 1: One game spew gave it a seven out of ten.
Speaker 1: This is Richard Segrave, who says Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Guide
Speaker 1: and Rage Bound is a genuinely challenging action game with
Speaker 1: lovely visuals and rewarding, fast paced gameplay. It feels a
Speaker 1: bit rough in places, though, and often borders on being
Speaker 1: simply too chaotic for its own good assistops mean that
Speaker 1: anyone can see the journey through to its end, but
Speaker 1: better balancing of or difficulty levels would have been preferred.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if like hard mode is something you
Speaker 1: un lock later, because the earlier review mentioned that, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I just kind of turned this on, started playing and
Speaker 1: immediately was like, yeah, this feels like what a Ninja
Speaker 1: Guide in Revival should feel like. You just you run,
Speaker 1: you slice the sword, you can knock the you know,
Speaker 1: the shurikens out of the air, you can clutch onto
Speaker 1: the wall, do wall jumps, you can climb up the wall,
Speaker 1: and it all just feels right. And then it also
Speaker 1: feels like they have smoothed out the edges that are
Speaker 1: not necessary to preserve where it's like they have. They
Speaker 1: did like the sampling effect. They sampled all the most
Speaker 1: important elements of Ninja Guiden and then recreated it here,
Speaker 1: and then in the upscaling of those samplings to like,
Speaker 1: we're rebuilding Ninja guid In for a modern audience. They
Speaker 1: did so through the lens of modern game play sensibilities,
Speaker 1: and so I just think it's a really extremely playable
Speaker 1: version of a two D ninja guiding game, which I
Speaker 1: always love now. I do remember the Ninja Guiding games
Speaker 1: being relatively difficult, especially at the end with like the
Speaker 1: boss battles, and you know, there was waves of boss
Speaker 1: fights one after another at the end of those games,
Speaker 1: and it was like nearly impossible for me as a kid.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I'm interested in maybe playing this game
Speaker 1: on hard mode to recreate that feeling, because that is
Speaker 1: what I associate with Ninja Guide in But I think
Speaker 1: most people are going to be able to turn this
Speaker 1: game on and immediately have a pretty good time, especially
Speaker 1: if you have any affinity for any s action run
Speaker 1: and slash platformers. Is that you, Lucas Hollin, is that
Speaker 1: there's a Ninja Guide in a game that you're interested in.
Speaker 2: So I've been more of a fun of like the.
Speaker 1: Three D games because sure absolutely.
Speaker 2: Closest to like growing up with them, But I'm definitely
Speaker 2: a fun of kind of like the more modern style
Speaker 2: like action platform of games that all you know, very
Speaker 2: retro feeling and go bots those any estays. Like, I
Speaker 2: think the first one I've really got into in the
Speaker 2: kind of more indie modern side of things was Chival Night,
Speaker 2: which just you know, I don't think it needs to
Speaker 2: be set by Wall Fantastic game, and like, just looking
Speaker 2: at the trailer for Ninja Guide and Rage Wild the
Speaker 2: moment you say it feels right, it's like that's all
Speaker 2: they needed because that trailer sold me in twenty seconds.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, exactly. And I think that for people that
Speaker 1: did grow up with the three D Ninja Guiding games,
Speaker 1: this is still going to have a lot of the
Speaker 1: elements of like making you feel cool, having just establishing
Speaker 1: that the Ninja character has some awesome stuff going on,
Speaker 1: and then you get this experience maybe some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that you like. You maybe look at the original
Speaker 1: Ninja Guiding games like, oh, this is Techmo's early example
Speaker 1: having kind of cool cut scenes at the beginning of
Speaker 1: their games or whatever, and they recreate all that stuff
Speaker 1: here and try to. In fact, they like almost recreate
Speaker 1: it one to one and a lot of situations and
Speaker 1: that rules. It's just kind of cool to see that that,
Speaker 1: you know, Ninja Guiden opening up on the nes with
Speaker 1: with those cut scenes was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: cannot believe what I'm seeing as an eight year old
Speaker 1: or whatever I was, And so for them to like
Speaker 1: treat that as something important and have a reverence for
Speaker 1: it has owned and this is this is the blasphemous stebs.
Speaker 1: I think that's another side of this that I just
Speaker 1: I love lucas of an indie studio has a success,
Speaker 1: but it's not like an earth shattering success like a
Speaker 1: Minecraft or whatever where it's or or even like a
Speaker 1: Hollow Night, where it's like, Okay, the person that made
Speaker 1: hollow are the people that made Hollow Night. They have
Speaker 1: a game that just has continues to sell. They've probably
Speaker 1: made a decent chunk of change on that, and that
Speaker 1: should be their focus. Blasphemous was successful, people played it,
Speaker 1: but these are going to be working developers, developers that
Speaker 1: are going to have to continue making games to be
Speaker 1: able to defund their lives for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: And now the industry is kind of like caught on
Speaker 1: that you can go catch these devs and say, hey,
Speaker 1: make one of the games for us, make a Ninja
Speaker 1: Guiden for us, and you know, and whether that's the
Speaker 1: way it worked or the studio pitched you know, techmo
Speaker 1: on this, however it worked the fact that they were
Speaker 1: able to take an indie studio, take an existing legacy
Speaker 1: IP put them together and get a game out relatively
Speaker 1: quickly is a really good sign to me. I want
Speaker 1: a ton more of this. We've had some of it,
Speaker 1: but it never felt like and that became a normal,
Speaker 1: normalized thing in the industry where oh yeah, of course
Speaker 1: an indie studio has a hit and now all these
Speaker 1: big publishers want to work with them on one of
Speaker 1: their games. I think that it was mostly like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of too small, small fish for us. We're
Speaker 1: not interested in like a small indie game. And these days,
Speaker 1: I think publishers are actually much more in tune with
Speaker 1: the audience, like really wanting that stuff, especially for a
Speaker 1: franchise like Ninja Gaiden that is going to have a
Speaker 1: major three D game later this year, and it's like
Speaker 1: this is a great way to keep it at the
Speaker 1: top of people's minds. Does this feel like something that
Speaker 1: could happen more frequently to you?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think I've been hoping that this kind
Speaker 2: of thing would happened for a while, considering the you know,
Speaker 2: one of my favorite examples of this is cadence of
Speaker 2: Hi Roll, were you know, Nintendo came to the crypto
Speaker 2: the Necroduncer developers, and it's like, we love this makers
Speaker 2: older game for us, and I cannot believe that we
Speaker 2: are in a state years later word known Nintendo franchises.
Speaker 2: How that happened? Again?
Speaker 1: It was such a beautiful moment, wasn't it. Where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Nintendo gets it. We're gonna get fifty of these and
Speaker 1: we're gonna get We're gonna get the Way Forward remake
Speaker 1: of Zelda II and it's gonna rule and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to play it and they still have never done that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I look, Nintendo's gonna continue to be the weird one,
Speaker 1: where not the weird one, but one of the weird
Speaker 1: ones that is just not going to follow up with
Speaker 1: such a good idea. That Crypto the Necro Dancer Zelda
Speaker 1: game was fantastic. God that music is a very good
Speaker 1: shout out to Danny B. Yeah, I'm to put that
Speaker 1: soundtrack on later. I'm actually just like craving it now.
Speaker 1: But so, yeah, that was awesome. They should have done
Speaker 1: a million more of those and they didn't. But meanwhile, okay,
Speaker 1: this is cool. The Blasphemous devs Blasphemous two did do
Speaker 1: very well and people want to work with them, and
Speaker 1: this is just more work for them. So, yeah, this
Speaker 1: has worked out I think great for everyone, and in
Speaker 1: the end we get a game that people seem to
Speaker 1: really really like, including myself. We'll do we'll get a
Speaker 1: quick look of Ninja Guide and Rage Bound up very soon.
Speaker 1: Everybody nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I think it's a great way to
Speaker 2: try and keep a franchise alive without having to bank
Speaker 2: on five plus yes dev cycles of these massive banks.
Speaker 2: It's just do little things and keep people aware of
Speaker 2: your franchise and just pluck our game every few years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, it's just you know, sprinkle some stuff then.
Speaker 1: Like clearly the main thrust for a lot of these
Speaker 1: major publishers is going to be massive games that can
Speaker 1: have massive returns. I think all we're asking is in
Speaker 1: the intervening five to six years, work with someone else,
Speaker 1: sprinkle some of other stuff in for a lot of
Speaker 1: these franchises, or it doesn't have to be like existing franchises,
Speaker 1: another studio, a chance to do something with your money
Speaker 1: so that you are releasing more than just one game
Speaker 1: every five to six years. That's all we're asking for it.
Speaker 1: It seems clearly like it can work, and there are
Speaker 1: a ton of talented developers out there that fully understand
Speaker 1: how to do this now.
Speaker 2: I mean, like great example is Joseph Firous with THEA Originals, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: look where they've gone from backing like A Way Out
Speaker 2: and Brothers and now Split Fiction is one of the
Speaker 2: biggest games of the year. And you know it Takes
Speaker 2: two was game of the Year whenever the game awards.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's uh yeah. People are clearly starting to figure
Speaker 1: out other avenues other than just make the biggest game
Speaker 1: that's ever been made. Speaking of which, with Battlefield six coming,
Speaker 1: EA reiterates that it has no plans to charge eighty
Speaker 1: dollars for games. This is from Eddie McCoo at game Spot.
Speaker 1: With Battlefield six's big multiplayer reveals set for July thirty first,
Speaker 1: that's tomorrow, everybody, and pre orders rumored to open the
Speaker 1: same day, many are wondering if EA will charge eighty
Speaker 1: dollars for the games standard adition. That remains to be seen,
Speaker 1: but new commentary from EA CEO Andrew Wilson suggests it
Speaker 1: may not happen. We're not looking to make any changes
Speaker 1: on pricing at this stage, Wilson said during an earning's call.
Speaker 1: As reported by IGN, The executive added that EA already
Speaker 1: offers a fairly broad pricing scheme across its many releases,
Speaker 1: including free to play, paid and deluxe editions. Our orientation
Speaker 1: is always to capture the full spectrum of pricing so
Speaker 1: that we can serve players in the best way possible
Speaker 1: and offer them the greatest value, he said. We'll continue
Speaker 1: to look at opportunities to deliver great value to our
Speaker 1: players through various pricing schemes over the course of time,
Speaker 1: but no dramatic changes planned yet. During EA's previous earnings
Speaker 1: call three months ago, Wilson said much the same thing
Speaker 1: when asked about eighty dollars games, so as new comments
Speaker 1: are no surprise. A European League recently suggested Battlefield six's
Speaker 1: standard edition would cost eighty EU ro, which would be
Speaker 1: about ninety four US dollars. The EA has yet to
Speaker 1: make any official announcements. If pre orders do in fact
Speaker 1: open on July thirty first, we should find out soon.
Speaker 1: I could easily see lucas that some new like information
Speaker 1: has been revealed to many of these publishers in like
Speaker 1: the last few months, like some piece of economic data,
Speaker 1: some piece of consumer data that has caused them to
Speaker 1: maybe bulk at the idea of eighty dollars games. Now, yes,
Speaker 1: in three months ago, Andrew Wilson was sounding the same tune,
Speaker 1: so maybe it was never under consideration, but the you know,
Speaker 1: the rumored price is there. But you know, recently, we've
Speaker 1: had several games that were rumored to be eighty dollars
Speaker 1: actually end up coming out at seventy dollars, and that's
Speaker 1: Borderlands for being the primary one there. And then there
Speaker 1: were games that were actually eighty dollars that got reduced
Speaker 1: back down to seventy. Those are all the Microsoft games
Speaker 1: coming out later this year, including Outer Worlds two and
Speaker 1: Call of Duty. And I think even if if you're
Speaker 1: EA and you're like, oh, no, we were not. We
Speaker 1: didn't see anything that there was any reason why we
Speaker 1: can't charge eighty dollars for Battlefield, that might have been
Speaker 1: the case until you saw Call of Duty wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be eighty dollars. Call of Duty can't be seventy
Speaker 1: dollars in Battlefield eighty That just wouldn't work.
Speaker 2: Right, No, it wouldn't all. And we're in this kind
Speaker 2: of trepidacious period where clearly a lot of publishers want
Speaker 2: to punt on the eighty dollars, and other than Mario
Speaker 2: cart no one's been able to make it work yet.
Speaker 2: And I just think EA are happy to take the
Speaker 2: kind of perceived win on this for now exactly well
Speaker 2: just oh hey, no, we're going to be the good guys.
Speaker 2: Don't worry. We'll only do eighty dollars when everybody else does.
Speaker 2: And in the meantime, they can charge one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: for the duluxe editions in the early access and every
Speaker 2: game doesn't sell for just seventy dollars. Micro transactions and
Speaker 2: all that jazz.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's eighty dollars, clearly still coming. But I think
Speaker 1: how much is that a going to really affect the
Speaker 1: people who legitimately buy a lot of games, Because the
Speaker 1: people who buy a lot of games, they're all on
Speaker 1: decu deals. They're all like on various websites looking for
Speaker 1: ways like to save as much money as possible, and
Speaker 1: they are very, very savvy, they're very in tune to
Speaker 1: like the timing that that each company kind of goes
Speaker 1: with when it when it comes down to price reductions,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you'll be soft. I'm just I know
Speaker 1: I can wait, because I can wait this out and
Speaker 1: it'll be affordable on a timeline that I fully understand
Speaker 1: and can wait and can accept. And EA might be
Speaker 1: a little bit different, but I bet the people who
Speaker 1: do tend to buy a lot of games are like, No,
Speaker 1: EA kind of goes on this general timeline and yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little bit longer than a you be soft,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to pay eighty dollars for this,
Speaker 1: and it's so really, you're just capturing your most dedicated
Speaker 1: fans upfront at eighty dollars, and that that's a lot
Speaker 1: of people, still millions of people in fact, and that's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money. But maybe that's not Maybe
Speaker 1: that's not the concern right now. If you're a concern
Speaker 1: is to get this game to one hundred million players,
Speaker 1: you don't need to be spending your energy in the
Speaker 1: first couple of months justifying why it's eighty dollars. You
Speaker 1: probably want to just be like, here is the seventy
Speaker 1: dollars version, here's the one hundred and fifty dollars deluxe edition.
Speaker 1: You can play a week early. That has worked every time.
Speaker 1: No one's complaining about that anymore. Really, people are, but
Speaker 1: people are buying it, and so the argument is sort
Speaker 1: of passed. And then if they allegedly do have this
Speaker 1: free to play version of the Battle Royale, that seems
Speaker 1: to be what Wilson's alleging or you know, trying to
Speaker 1: allude to that we have a price spectrum. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have something for the people that want free to play.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have something at the premium price that sounds
Speaker 1: like the strategy they're really focused on here, and eighty
Speaker 1: dollars would probably only be a distraction to that. So
Speaker 1: I think I tend to believe that this game will
Speaker 1: come out at seventy dollars, And that begs the question, Lucas,
Speaker 1: when do you think eighty does become the norm? Is
Speaker 1: it as early as next year, because they tried this
Speaker 1: year and that doesn't seem to have taken.
Speaker 2: I think with GGA six at the moment being labeled
Speaker 2: for like May next year, I think around that time
Speaker 2: is when people are going to pull the trigger, or
Speaker 2: at least try to again, because obviously GCA is multiplatform,
Speaker 2: it's not one game by Nintendo, and it's going to
Speaker 2: be obviously a massive celler regardless of how much that
Speaker 2: game launches for and I was kind of expecting EA's
Speaker 2: first bite to this to be a college football this year.
Speaker 2: But that's a game that doesn't seem to need to,
Speaker 2: you know, do much to sell like Gangbusters, whereas a
Speaker 2: Battlefield six, I just don't think it can happen because
Speaker 2: this game is a hard sell to people already, let
Speaker 2: alone trying to get an extra ten dollars out of everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are people who already know they want Battlepild six,
Speaker 1: and that is not one hundred million people. So if
Speaker 1: EA is like trying, looking at the list of potential
Speaker 1: people trying that are interested in this game, I think
Speaker 1: you're right. I think it falls off a cliff. I
Speaker 1: think pretty quickly of the people who know they want
Speaker 1: this game and are just gonna get it no matter
Speaker 1: what at launch because this is their shit. And then
Speaker 1: that next group of people who are like considering it,
Speaker 1: people who play a lot of shooters. Boy, they have
Speaker 1: more options than ever. It's a hard sell. I think
Speaker 1: it is a little bit of an understatement, even Lucas
Speaker 1: of like, because are these people who even buy the
Speaker 1: games anymore? Because they have so many free to play
Speaker 1: options and they're so varied and fill so many niches,
Speaker 1: and their friends are already playing those. They might not
Speaker 1: even be considering buying anything in this genre right now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, gonna be tough for battlefield. All right, let's
Speaker 1: keep going here. That Mario Kart World update is out.
Speaker 1: This is ethan gotch at Kotaku. Nintendo just reverse course
Speaker 1: on one of its most controversial changes to Mario Kart
Speaker 1: World sorta. The switch to Maker had just buffed the
Speaker 1: appearance rate of three lap courses after previously nuking a
Speaker 1: sneaky workaround players had been exploiting to avoid the new
Speaker 1: games in between driving sections. Somehow, that's not even the
Speaker 1: biggest change in the game's first major update since launch.
Speaker 1: The switch Too's biggest exclusive is back on the menu.
Speaker 1: Mario Kart World version one point two point zero includes
Speaker 1: new features, lots of game tweaks, and some massive rebalancing.
Speaker 1: One thing that might bring back some laps players is
Speaker 1: this patch note increase the frequency of lap type courses
Speaker 1: appearing in the section when choosing the next course in
Speaker 1: versus race and wireless races. Fans are taking that to
Speaker 1: mean that the traditional three lap stages will be more frequent,
Speaker 1: including when playing online. A big criticism of the game
Speaker 1: has been throwing lots of straight straightaways, interstitial courses into
Speaker 1: the mix that just have players racing between the actual
Speaker 1: tracks they want to play on. When Mario Kart World
Speaker 1: first released, choosing random while playing online automatically removed these
Speaker 1: tracks from the selection pool. The community's preferences with preference
Speaker 1: was so strong it became common to see all twenty
Speaker 1: four players and a race choose the random option. Let's
Speaker 1: see the jump here to this other thing. That's another patch. Note.
Speaker 1: They made computer players weaker in everything other than battle reads,
Speaker 1: a major change that's already rippling throughout the community, with
Speaker 1: fans unsure whether to embrace the difficulty, nerve, or call
Speaker 1: for an unofficial hard mode to return. Grand Prix and
Speaker 1: Knockout Racist could get pretty narly At one hundred fifty CC.
Speaker 1: A two hundred CC mode doesn't exist in the game yet,
Speaker 1: though many suspect it will get added at some point.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm at, Lucas, I want two hundred CC
Speaker 1: to be the hard mode. I like two hundred CC.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people don't. It's too fast.
Speaker 1: I think embrace the break button everybody. I know. It
Speaker 1: feels blasphemous to use a break button in Mario Kart,
Speaker 1: and two hundred CC using the break button is legitimately fun,
Speaker 1: and that's where I want to see you. Like, the
Speaker 1: most challenging computer players is trying to get all first
Speaker 1: place on two hundred CC. That's a really, really tough
Speaker 1: thing to do in Mario Kart eight Deluxe, and I
Speaker 1: imagine to be even difficult here after they've really made
Speaker 1: some improvements to how well the computer players can play.
Speaker 1: It's my opinion, I think one hundred fifty hundre fifty
Speaker 1: ccs should kind of be It should be hard, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be like what it has been, which is, like, man,
Speaker 1: these computer players are doing things I can't even do.
Speaker 1: So overall, I'm a big fan of a lot of
Speaker 1: these changes. I'm curious to see how this three track
Speaker 1: race change actually functions in reality. But you said you
Speaker 1: spent some time with it. How are you finding it
Speaker 1: so far?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I only maybe had like an owl with
Speaker 2: it today because the patch is only just released. But
Speaker 2: you know, I did want maybe like four or five
Speaker 2: online races, and I think maybe three of those had
Speaker 2: options to do the three lot races, which seems to
Speaker 2: be a little bit of a buff compared to what
Speaker 2: it was in the previous patch. And then I did
Speaker 2: like a Grumprix and a Knockout Tour, and as somebody
Speaker 2: on one hundred and fifty CEC, you know, it was
Speaker 2: relatively challenging. It wasn't ridiculous or anything, but the thing
Speaker 2: I was really struggling to get was those three stars
Speaker 2: on the goal wins. And it definitely feels a lot
Speaker 2: more achievable now, especially in Knockout Tour, where you have
Speaker 2: to be in first place on Knockout Tour every single checkpoint,
Speaker 2: and with the amount of mayhem going on in those
Speaker 2: first couple of checkpoints with twenty twenty four players, it
Speaker 2: felt so difficult to be able to get that momentum
Speaker 2: early on and try and maintain it throughout the entire race.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that definitely felt a little bit more achievable.
Speaker 2: And I've seen a few other people do early tests
Speaker 2: with the online races and say maybe like two out
Speaker 2: of three times they seem to be getting a choice
Speaker 2: for the three lap raisers, which is definitely more encouraging
Speaker 2: than not. But I just think give us our options
Speaker 2: of what we want to.
Speaker 1: Do yeah, it does feel like the game is limited
Speaker 1: on enabling you to customize your play style in any
Speaker 1: sort of and in a lot of the online modes,
Speaker 1: like the I think they added like one new option
Speaker 1: when you're playing with computer players locally for the item types.
Speaker 1: It's like mushroom only is now an option. When you
Speaker 1: go play online, it's like there's frantic and normal items
Speaker 1: you can't, like even for a private room, you can't
Speaker 1: go in there and select individual items that you want. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily something that I'm doing very frequently when
Speaker 1: I'm playing with friends, or even have the desire to do.
Speaker 1: But I still think, like, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: back to the way Perfect Dark worked on the N
Speaker 1: sixty four, where the on the multiplayer options were like,
Speaker 1: you can adjust every little thing in here, and at
Speaker 1: a certain point, I'm like, I thought that should be
Speaker 1: the default, that should be the standard. Let us kind
Speaker 1: of have control over these games. And Marti Kart is
Speaker 1: on the other end of that spectrum with World, where
Speaker 1: they don't give you a lot of customizable options across
Speaker 1: the board, and even when you are playing an option
Speaker 1: that isn't online or matchmaking or anything along those lines.
Speaker 1: And that's annoying.
Speaker 2: That's fair annoying. Yeah, like you kind of maybe think
Speaker 2: by it to time split is talking about Perfect Dark
Speaker 2: obviously a similar teams. I don't know the time so
Speaker 2: isn't There were just so many customized options and they
Speaker 2: should be there. And the fact that it's not for
Speaker 2: Mariocar is it's infuria and I don't really use many
Speaker 2: of those like item toggles, but they're all in there
Speaker 2: in Mario kar eight to look, so why not here?
Speaker 1: Yep? All right, there's a report the Xbox rog ally
Speaker 1: pre orders will go live during games Com. This is
Speaker 1: from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. It appears that the
Speaker 1: Xbox rog Ally and ally X could be heading to
Speaker 1: pre order next month. The handheld gaming consoles were first
Speaker 1: properly revealed over at Summer Game Fest, with no release
Speaker 1: date given besides them arriving in the holiday period of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Now, as per deal Labs, it appears
Speaker 1: we may now know when we might be able to
Speaker 1: get our hands or get our orders in for the
Speaker 1: Xbox rog ally X and Ally. Irreliable leaker site has
Speaker 1: posted that the twentieth of August is when pre orders
Speaker 1: will go live, which is also the day that Gamescom
Speaker 1: kicks off properly. Xbox usually has a pretty big presence
Speaker 1: at Gamescom. They are going to have one this year.
Speaker 1: I think that includes like a stage presentation of sorts,
Speaker 1: but they are gonna have a lot of games there,
Speaker 1: so they'll have some news announcements to make, and this
Speaker 1: is probably one of them. This thing's probably out novemberish
Speaker 1: holiday time. Like they said, pricing, we still haven't got
Speaker 1: exact pricing, although we've heard the rumors a bunch of
Speaker 1: times now. We remember pricing around like six hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for the ally and the Alix, up to one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I am curious about one of these things. Tell you
Speaker 1: if they don't, you know, send me one for my job, Lucas.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm going to rush out and
Speaker 1: get one, because I would want the ally X, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could justify spending one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars on it, especially when I'm like looking around and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, Steam Deck two could be out pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Switch To is doing just fine by me, So a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is going to be tough to justify. Where
Speaker 1: are you at with PC handhelds in general and the
Speaker 1: Xbox rog ally in particular.
Speaker 2: I'm intrigued by the idea of them. I don't own
Speaker 2: a PC handheld. I really do get the appeal of
Speaker 2: having both a Steam library and like an Xbox linked
Speaker 2: library on the go. That does sound very appealing. But
Speaker 2: for that price point, as you said, the switch to
Speaker 2: is doing fine and I'm going to have plenty of
Speaker 2: games to play on that, and it's just a thousand
Speaker 2: dollars is a lot to ask for the premium version,
Speaker 2: And realistically, I think most people that are going to
Speaker 2: be interested in these devices they want that premium experience,
Speaker 2: and I just, yeah, I think Xbox has got a
Speaker 2: lot to do to sell list tos, especially on like
Speaker 2: kind of the interface side, or I know, like a
Speaker 2: lot of people talk about just kind of how Windows
Speaker 2: doesn't work very well on these devices, and it's a
Speaker 2: big stopping point and I think that's going to be
Speaker 2: a big decision maker for people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just last night trying to uh, I'm
Speaker 1: my kid into YouTube because she was she's been using
Speaker 1: the original Asis rog ally for a long time now
Speaker 1: to play Minecraft, and then last night she's like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of tired. I don't want to play a game
Speaker 1: right now. Do you have a kind of have a
Speaker 1: device to like just watch YouTube? And I'm like, okay, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: we could just use the rog ally and we went
Speaker 1: on the internet the edge of their their browser or whatever.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to download a new browser. And I
Speaker 1: was going to sign into YouTube and trying to import
Speaker 1: her her email address for her YouTube account, and I'm
Speaker 1: like putting writing it in, and so write E and
Speaker 1: I see the name pops up, The full thing pops up,
Speaker 1: and she's got a relatively long email address. The wold
Speaker 1: thing pops up, and I just try to click on
Speaker 1: it to automatically enter in that and the thing goes
Speaker 1: to the next screen and it just has E at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com, which is the one letter I wrote
Speaker 1: to get. I'm like, what the okay, maybe I just misclicked.
Speaker 1: I go back. I try it like five times. It
Speaker 1: never works. I have to just type the whole thing.
Speaker 1: That is the Windows experience on handhelds in general, of
Speaker 1: you have something that seems like it should work and
Speaker 1: it never actually quite works. And that happens all the
Speaker 1: time with password fields, with just navigating the interface in general,
Speaker 1: and it's miserable, you know, and then trying to update
Speaker 1: the thing with the three different apps, you need to
Speaker 1: update everything, and it's it's just this lengthy process, and
Speaker 1: it's to restart a bunch of times for each individual app.
Speaker 1: It's troublesome. Now, the reason that they're doing the Xbox
Speaker 1: rog ally is, you know, apparently, you know, ostensibly specifically
Speaker 1: to address these problems to make Windows better on handhelds.
Speaker 1: I just I don't think I have the faith in
Speaker 1: their ability to do ability to do that, and even
Speaker 1: if they do, steam Os is already there for me
Speaker 1: for the most part. Now, let's be real, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of games that people want to play that
Speaker 1: are a little bit more challenging to play on steam Os.
Speaker 1: So clearly Windows is going to have a place in
Speaker 1: this ecosystem, and a lot of people are just don't
Speaker 1: have the same issues with the problems that I do,
Speaker 1: and they've gotten over the cause now they can play
Speaker 1: their Xbox Game Pass games and that's much more convenient
Speaker 1: to them. So this is not gonna go away. But boy,
Speaker 1: I hope they get they are as serious about addressing
Speaker 1: these issues as they claim to be, because I don't
Speaker 1: want Windows to be anywhere near the default in the
Speaker 1: handheld gaming PC space unless it gets its act together.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I don't. I don't have faith
Speaker 1: that they're going to be able to do that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do these last couple of stories. The Pokemon Trading
Speaker 1: Carner game Pocket also plagiarized to fan art. That's just
Speaker 1: a tradition now for game developers. From Alana Higgs and
Speaker 1: Nintendo Life, they are They're deeply apologized for the air
Speaker 1: which affects the ho O Ex three Star and lugah
Speaker 1: Ex three Star cards drawn by Sie Nanahara. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I can't. It's hard for me to follow all this.
Speaker 1: What I understand here is they had some placement art
Speaker 1: from that was made by a fan, and they used
Speaker 1: that in the cards, and then the cards actually got
Speaker 1: put into the game with that all in there. So
Speaker 1: they are going to pull the entire expansion, address this
Speaker 1: and then relaunch it. I could, I guess, I see
Speaker 1: how this happens. But this is such a like a
Speaker 1: dangerous thing after like Bungee's reputation got really trashed after
Speaker 1: doing it multiple times, that you've got to have processes
Speaker 1: in place to deal with this, right, you have to
Speaker 1: like have protections, and that's what they're saying, the right,
Speaker 1: they're going to go back and increase their protections. But
Speaker 1: I kind of don't know how. I don't how you
Speaker 1: don't have that stuff in place from the start, because
Speaker 1: stealing people's art is a serious thing that can really
Speaker 1: damage your company, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's it's very blatant when I look to
Speaker 2: the images. It's not something that can kind of be
Speaker 2: argued around it. It just pretty much is one for
Speaker 2: one in the parts of the outlock that they talk.
Speaker 2: And I just think, especially with something like the Pokemon
Speaker 2: Company where they have thirty years of reference to pull
Speaker 2: from for a lot of these monsters, just why is
Speaker 2: the need to use placement all of somebody else's all
Speaker 2: walk yep?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's because you have your own artwork. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Okay, So I'm reading the thing here. After
Speaker 1: internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided
Speaker 1: incorrect materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to
Speaker 1: create these cards. The art has been replaced end game
Speaker 1: with a temporary placeholder, so they didn't take down the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Apparently it's just like these two cards now
Speaker 1: have blank slates on them or something that's fun. So
Speaker 1: just quote says quote temporary placeholder that actually rules I
Speaker 1: want to I wish people could just keep that. I know, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that would be way better. And then finally Switch online
Speaker 1: Super Nintendo update happened and it upgraded the CRT filter.
Speaker 1: It looks really nice. But if you saw an update
Speaker 1: to switch onlines as Super Nintendo thing, it wasn't just
Speaker 1: Mario paint. They also updated it with a better CRT filter,
Speaker 1: which is great to see because I like using those,
Speaker 1: especially when they're pretty good like this one is. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's see here, let's get to the poll question from
Speaker 1: earlier this week. I got that. Actually, while I get
Speaker 1: that set up, Lucas, how and why do you tell
Speaker 1: people one more time where they can find you on
Speaker 1: the internet what you have going on and all that
Speaker 1: good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'd say the main place where I'm at
Speaker 2: is wiki weekends on YouTube, and I think as of
Speaker 2: today we're releasing a podcast or with a Jordan breeding
Speaker 2: on where we talk about the you know, very relevant
Speaker 2: film I Know What You Did last summer, and then
Speaker 2: over on the weekend I'm releasing a video on Smallville,
Speaker 2: so on Sunday that'll be coming out. And yeah, it
Speaker 2: was a community voted decision of like which Superman topic
Speaker 2: should I talk about? I forgot how long American TV
Speaker 2: shows were, so I committed to season one and within
Speaker 2: a week spent twenty hours of my life watching Smallville.
Speaker 2: So to go down to like a one hour video
Speaker 2: from twenty hours of that watching, hopefully you know, go
Speaker 2: give that a checkout. Very appreciate it from my time.
Speaker 1: That sounds fantastic. Uh, excuse me, just sneezed. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: twenty four to twenty six episodes. My brother really likes
Speaker 1: small Villain. I think you got me the DVD collection
Speaker 1: for the first season. I ended up watching quite a
Speaker 1: bit of that show. But it's a commitment for sure,
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. When are these coming out? Did
Speaker 1: you say? Went exactly there? They'll be out.
Speaker 2: So the podcast with Jordan I know what you did
Speaker 2: last some of that should be late today and then
Speaker 2: over on like kind of Sunday evening UK time, so
Speaker 2: probably more like daytime for the small Ville video over
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: But yeah, fantastic. All right, got our pull question. This
Speaker 1: one is from Monday, Are you going to try that
Speaker 1: Skate beta? Seventy five percent said no, twenty five percent
Speaker 1: said yes. I think that there's you know, one out
Speaker 1: of four people being like, yeah, I'm gonna check out
Speaker 1: this thing. That's pretty good for any sort of beta. Now,
Speaker 1: it's just up to that game to impress people, and
Speaker 1: I'll be I'll be curious to see what people think.
Speaker 1: I think there's been a murmur from people who have
Speaker 1: been in the Skate alphas and tests for a long
Speaker 1: time now where it's like, hm, you know, we're not
Speaker 1: so sure about this, and no one's like explicitly saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, some people are, but like people that have
Speaker 1: murmured this to me, it's like, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: games can tend to come together in the last minute,
Speaker 1: So hopefully that's what's gonna happen here. I'm gonna hopefully
Speaker 1: find out for myself. We'll see new poll question. Do
Speaker 1: we get that Metro Prime four release date at the
Speaker 1: Partner Direct tomorrow? I expect most people to go no
Speaker 1: because it's a Partner Direct and I'm with you, but
Speaker 1: I want to see if anyone's holding out hope. So yep,
Speaker 1: you can vote on that. We'll get the results. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about it on Game Mess Mornings here on Gihan
Speaker 1: Bomb tomorrow. That will be after the direct happens. So
Speaker 1: this is how we'll go. We'll do. We'll do a
Speaker 1: talkover for the direct, then we'll get set up for
Speaker 1: Game Mess Mornings, come back and run it all down.
Speaker 1: We'll get those results. As far as other things happening
Speaker 1: on Giant Bomb, we'll have Delight Club later today. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna place some double O seven Everything or Nothing, which
Speaker 1: is the punishment game that Dan gave me for beating
Speaker 1: us when we played. But I forget what we even played,
Speaker 1: but he maybe, oh yeah, Tony Hawk, right, he beat
Speaker 1: us in Tony Hawk, and so he gave us each
Speaker 1: a punishment. Mike is playing Outer Wild's right now and
Speaker 1: having a great time with that. I'm gonna try Everything
Speaker 1: or Nothing go from there. I think I vaguely remember
Speaker 1: maybe renting that game once. So we'll see, and then
Speaker 1: tomorrow we be back with our normal schedules as far
Speaker 1: as we can. Again, most people are out. It's me
Speaker 1: and Backlar holding this place down, So give us some
Speaker 1: slack here, all right? I think that does it? From
Speaker 1: everything I have to say, did the poll question, we
Speaker 1: said what's happening on the site. So I think what
Speaker 1: we do now, Lucas Holand is say thank you for
Speaker 1: hanging out with us and talking about video games. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I'm so thankful to be here. It's been fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, if you have any meat to come
Speaker 2: buck on, I'm always available. So yeah, they'll be fantastic.
Speaker 1: We would love to have you absolutely, definitely, like always
Speaker 1: say give me a shout whenever you're available, and usually
Speaker 1: I'll have slots open during the weeks. We'll get you on.
Speaker 1: I would love to do that. Thank you all for
Speaker 1: watching and listening. You are the best audience in gaming.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get out of here. Until next time, have
Speaker 1: a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye.