Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to Game Best Mornings with Me
Speaker 1: Jeff Grubb, your host from giant bomb dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be talking more about getting more of the Witcher three
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: And no, it's not a typo. I didn't mean Witcher four.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be this. Graphics cards are at the perfect
Speaker 3: place to be playing the Witcher three.
Speaker 1: You want to go back, let's just keep going backwards.
Speaker 1: Everything's going that way. We have lex Lettie on this show.
Speaker 1: That's how you know it's gonna be a gooding Lexi,
Speaker 1: how are you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing okay, I'm very tired. Turns out me too.
Speaker 3: Turns out when you fuckers take the website independent, a
Speaker 3: lot of people want to contribute to your guest Game
Speaker 3: of the Year listen, more.
Speaker 2: So than other years. Yeah, I got to ask.
Speaker 1: Like ten people and that we meant to ask, and
Speaker 1: it's like even then it would have been oh boy,
Speaker 1: that would have been quite fit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so me and Marino edited a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff and a little behind the scenes look at things.
Speaker 3: The image library hasn't hasn't come over from the old website.
Speaker 3: So when we were cmssing all that, we had to
Speaker 3: find new images.
Speaker 1: And that was a good thing overall that that image
Speaker 1: library didn't come over.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of.
Speaker 1: Fun stuff in there that, yeah's not necessarily a Serve
Speaker 1: Giant bomb in any way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, I was also thinking about that was that
Speaker 3: was probably a shed pool, and so yeah, me and
Speaker 3: Marino were also spent a lot of time building up
Speaker 3: the backbone of an image library with images for pretty
Speaker 3: much like every game that came out in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: six or twenty twenty five, because honestly, I'm like, those
Speaker 3: are wild spreading games, and we wound up you know,
Speaker 3: almost it felt like almost every game that came out
Speaker 3: this year. Goanna mentioned in one of the lists. If
Speaker 3: you haven't led the lists, go wead the lists. I
Speaker 3: mentioned Drive Club in mind because I'm sick.
Speaker 2: Drive clubs have is it having a moment? It feels
Speaker 2: like I keep hearing about.
Speaker 3: Drive Club is drive Club was taken offline and it
Speaker 3: is like in a semi function. I stay, it's the
Speaker 3: PS four one, right.
Speaker 1: I think what happened is people like have been getting
Speaker 1: it running really well in the emulators, and so that's
Speaker 1: where it's having its moment, is I'm trying to rescue
Speaker 1: it over there.
Speaker 3: I know, me and John Linneman are like the two
Speaker 3: Drive Club Defend Defenders and that game has really cool
Speaker 3: like day night cycle stuff where it's baked lighting but
Speaker 3: it's done to like change as you drive through the level,
Speaker 3: and it's really dramatic. It's like shockingly good for what
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: I think Greg Sewart, who who submitted a list for us,
Speaker 1: he's also a drive Club sicco, although these days I
Speaker 1: think he's fully in on back on Grand Turismo. So look,
Speaker 1: you'll have your games you play him, Like, were you
Speaker 1: in like a Drive Club League?
Speaker 2: Like I know they had.
Speaker 3: Those, No, because all that stuff is gone now. They
Speaker 3: like like chucked all that out. And they also they
Speaker 3: sell of all the menus for like by the DLC.
Speaker 3: The DLC isn't for sale anymore, so you know, And
Speaker 3: speaking of that, do you want to know what The
Speaker 3: first game I played in twenty twenty six was please Anthem?
Speaker 2: Okay? Are you okay?
Speaker 3: No? Obviously, and that game's going offline forever in two
Speaker 3: weeks and.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that the guy maybe I reported
Speaker 1: here and forgot yeah, two weeks.
Speaker 3: And it's no longer for sale. They took it off
Speaker 3: for sale in August, and now it's going offline sometime
Speaker 3: late next week or early the week after.
Speaker 2: And but basically I think we're going to play that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I need some people to play that with,
Speaker 3: because I'm not sure if you remember Anthem, but a
Speaker 3: large part of the structure of that game is once
Speaker 3: you get done the first couple of missions, they're like,
Speaker 3: go complete the trials that Didley fuck or whatever, and
Speaker 3: the trials that diddly fuck are just like your dailies.
Speaker 3: It's like, go do some dailies. But one of the
Speaker 3: daily dailies, right, yeah, one of the dailies that you
Speaker 3: have to do is revive three other javelins. And I
Speaker 3: can't find anyone else to revive, so I can't progress
Speaker 3: the story. I'm stuck. And so unless I squat up
Speaker 3: with people, I can't finish Anthem before it goes off live.
Speaker 1: I am a I'm good personal friends with the greatest
Speaker 1: of all Anthem defenders, A J.
Speaker 2: Manati, So maybe.
Speaker 1: I'll give him a ring and see if he wants
Speaker 1: to show us around one last time.
Speaker 2: An Anthem, you know, game promise.
Speaker 3: You yeah, say what you will about that game flying around.
Speaker 3: It's oh, yes, some good flying around they nail.
Speaker 1: And that's like that was the focus of that demo.
Speaker 1: I like was like, Okay, I'm fully on board with this.
Speaker 1: This is going to be massive, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: once you play it and you see all the other
Speaker 1: issue you know, specifically for BioWare in that moment, it
Speaker 1: was animation.
Speaker 3: Not what anyone wanted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and they just couldn't They couldn't like make
Speaker 1: their games feel alive. That was the problem with Andromeda
Speaker 1: because the frost Bite was the problem with this game.
Speaker 1: They just didn't have anybody at their studio that could
Speaker 1: get animations looking good, so they had to kind of
Speaker 1: make everything static. And like there was the cool dance
Speaker 1: club scenes for Mass Effect, and those are just nowhere
Speaker 1: to be seen in a game like this, and it.
Speaker 3: Just it is kind of wild that even after Andromeda
Speaker 3: and Anthem, they still were forced to use or chose
Speaker 3: to use frost Bite for Veil God. Like I like
Speaker 3: Veil God. I actually think it's a pretty remarkable game
Speaker 3: given the context it was made in. But like the
Speaker 3: fact that they were still using frost Bite when everything
Speaker 3: about those games is so clearly underpinned on Hey, the
Speaker 3: tech doesn't support the way we are trying to make
Speaker 3: games is wild. And I have a question for you though,
Speaker 3: before we get into stuff. How was Games Done Quick?
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, AJ, Mike, and me went to awesome Games
Speaker 1: Done Quick on day one yesterday. We got there right
Speaker 1: as like the Mario Sunshine run was ending.
Speaker 3: Oh you thank god you dodged the bullet.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: We kept ourselves safe and secure from that scourge. I look,
Speaker 1: I like Sunshine. I like when people run it. Especially
Speaker 1: that's where that game actually literally shines is as a
Speaker 1: speed run game. I yeah, it's great. It's nice to
Speaker 1: be able to just drive over to Pittsburgh, kind of
Speaker 1: a quick jaunt from Mike's house. I just drive over there.
Speaker 1: We all drive together. It's We're there in no time.
Speaker 1: Spent most of the day there, saw a bunch of
Speaker 1: cool runs, saw some cool people. Mike did actually finally
Speaker 1: beat me in Street Fighter third Strike.
Speaker 2: He told me at dinner. No videos, no, AJ might
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if he was recording, but I think
Speaker 1: it still doesn't qualify because Mike told me at dinner
Speaker 1: that he was looking up tips and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: just play us for you and use the charge Hadoogan
Speaker 1: because it can use this people. And I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I was confused, all right.
Speaker 3: I wish yould get from the number one mythology speed
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 2: I know, yes, God, that was also fun.
Speaker 3: I that was very funny. I was sure that happened.
Speaker 1: And it was like they like must have gone back
Speaker 1: and saw it or something, because they'd have been a
Speaker 1: minute since we sent it in.
Speaker 2: And and then they added a little juice. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got people from Giant Bomb here, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank you. That's that's real nice. All right.
Speaker 1: We should explain ourselves. This is Giant Bomb, a small
Speaker 1: team of video game dup. This is who do rely
Speaker 1: on your support because we are independent games media out
Speaker 1: here on our own doing this thing. We're going to
Speaker 1: be doing it in twenty twenty six. We're back. We're
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Speaker 1: bomb dot com, slash Joint and becoming a premium member.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who has done that. Twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five was kind of a it was a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: it was you know. Honestly, it'll be remembered for me
Speaker 1: of the year where we got to save Giant Bomb
Speaker 1: and that only happens because of you. So again, thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone who has supported us. Thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone who will choose to support us in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: And if you're just here to watch, tell a friend
Speaker 1: we love you just the same. All right, As far
Speaker 1: as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff Grubb, will help.
Speaker 2: Piece your gaming life back together.
Speaker 1: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
Speaker 1: own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
Speaker 1: input of a bona fide expert who will make me
Speaker 1: look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch, welcome,
Speaker 1: we can always You can always listen to the show
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Speaker 1: You can also catch the show later with chapters and
Speaker 1: timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
Speaker 1: let's start the Morning Mess with the aforementioned the Witcher three,
Speaker 1: which is reportedly getting a surprise new expansion this year.
Speaker 2: This is from Andy Robinson at VGC. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Polish noble securities analyst Mathouse Scharanowski. Listen, I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: butchering that I did my best said last month that
Speaker 1: he was expecting the next paid add on DLC for
Speaker 1: the Witcher three to be released in May twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: according to.
Speaker 2: A Polish website.
Speaker 1: The report follows similar claims from a Polish games insider
Speaker 1: Boris Nispilaksmilak is, I'm gonna say that one who said
Speaker 1: last year that the new content was secretly in development
Speaker 1: at fool's theory, the same studio currently remaking the Witcher
Speaker 1: one for CD project, and I like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the basics here, there's some other stuff.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 1: Eurogamer has since followed up who with Nispilak who told
Speaker 1: it was? This information was verified by several independent sources. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta say when you lay it out like that,
Speaker 1: the studio that's redoing the Witcher one kind of also
Speaker 1: maybe getting used to working in the Witcher three creating content,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's all kind of serving the overall goal
Speaker 1: of making the Witcher like constantly relevant and having new stuff.
Speaker 1: All of that sounds plausible to me, how about.
Speaker 3: You, Yeah, I suppose this stuff isn't unheard of. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people are like, I've never heard
Speaker 3: of this. Borderlands two got a DLC right before Borderlands
Speaker 3: three released, which I'm not sure many people remember, and
Speaker 3: it's pretty okay. It's like going back to Borderlands two.
Speaker 3: It slots that in with that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 3: this isn't unheard of as a way to create like
Speaker 3: a bit of interest. In the case of Borderlands two,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure it worked because that game was so
Speaker 3: old feeling in a lot of ways, like it was
Speaker 3: a generation old. People had moved on to the PS
Speaker 3: four and were well into the PS four at that point.
Speaker 3: With the Witcher, I think like that game has kind
Speaker 3: of become evergreen on people's hard drives in a way
Speaker 3: where like they've done that next gen update, it still
Speaker 3: feels pretty new. Like my brother is in this house
Speaker 3: right now for Christmas playing The Witcher three for the
Speaker 3: first time, and he's like, yeah, this game is fucking awesome.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like that game, yeahs is very is like
Speaker 3: eminently playable right now, so I can totally sere getting
Speaker 3: DLC as to how it would tie into the Witcher For.
Speaker 3: I'm like super curious and at some point I should
Speaker 3: really reach out to uh Kean mar who's over there,
Speaker 3: who used to be a games journalist, who is now
Speaker 3: the head of Law and that sounds like a fun
Speaker 3: job just being in charge of the Witcher Law.
Speaker 1: You gotta have always the name the like low Keeper,
Speaker 1: right you're gonna have Yeah, yeah, cool, that's your job.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I'm curious how they like actually work
Speaker 3: this into the Witcher For and like if it's how
Speaker 3: far out the Witcher for is based on that. I
Speaker 3: know they were talking some big tark elation in the
Speaker 3: year of like this thing's gonna come out in six years,
Speaker 3: all three of these games, the new trilogy.
Speaker 2: And it's like that never we know that never works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, CD CD Project Red have had enough delays for
Speaker 3: all of their games that like, I don't buy that
Speaker 3: for a second. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think the reason that this is
Speaker 1: something that is happening is because you laid it out
Speaker 1: like the game are more like timeless than they've ever been,
Speaker 1: and the Witcher three is certainly and that that like,
Speaker 1: first it's on the other side of the line of delineation,
Speaker 1: where any game released after this point just feels like
Speaker 1: any game released after it as well. You know, Doom
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen and on is kind of the one the
Speaker 1: game game I always use, but Witcher three is certainly
Speaker 1: right there as well as a game that could just
Speaker 1: sell forever. We've seen it do that, and even like
Speaker 1: games that don't have the profile of Witcher three are
Speaker 1: doing similar things. I mean it's similar, like not exactly
Speaker 1: the same, but we'll talk about it in a little bit.
Speaker 1: Avatar got that new DLC and that's a year later.
Speaker 1: I guess that's a normal timeline, but it just for
Speaker 1: that feels like a game that is trying to capitalize
Speaker 1: on something else external and using DLC to do it.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone was necessarily believing that that was
Speaker 1: going to make some huge difference, but it did because
Speaker 1: of the external circumstances. Beyond Good and Evil, Beyond Good
Speaker 1: and Evil two is supposedly still coming. So when they
Speaker 1: redid Beyond Good and Evil one hooks and to Beyond
Speaker 1: Good and Evil one, like this idea that, like Beyond
Speaker 1: Gonna Eople two is really going to come out one
Speaker 1: day so we'll have just some suggestions towards that second game. Again,
Speaker 1: not exactly the same, but it does feel like they're
Speaker 1: trying to, like when they have an opportunity, hook these
Speaker 1: games into one another in a more real way, and.
Speaker 3: Even one felt a bit more like manifesting than anything else.
Speaker 1: Definitely, But it's all kind of part of the same
Speaker 1: idea of like, we can use these things that we
Speaker 1: have at our disposal to kind of make people care
Speaker 1: more if we if we actually if we care more ourselves.
Speaker 1: And so I think that we'll probably see this kind
Speaker 1: of thing more frequently, And the Witcher series definitely feels
Speaker 1: like the one that could take a huge advantage of
Speaker 1: this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So we'll see May twenty six.
Speaker 1: You know, that was going to be the time where
Speaker 1: we were getting a grand theft Auto six, so it's
Speaker 1: like that's not happening anymore. So yeah, I could see
Speaker 1: something like this popping up in that time frame pretty easily,
Speaker 1: all right, Metro Prime four devs say rebooting the game
Speaker 1: again was out of the question despite changing tastes. This
Speaker 1: is like more information as we get more details about
Speaker 1: what happened with this game.
Speaker 2: From Andy Robinson at VGC. Nintendo has said that.
Speaker 1: Rebooting Metroid Prime four development for a second time was
Speaker 1: considered out of the question, despite committing to an open
Speaker 1: world hub formula that faced changed player trends by the
Speaker 1: time it was completed. Metro Prime four Beyond was finally
Speaker 1: released for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switched to last month,
Speaker 1: after nearly a decade of development and a change of developer.
Speaker 1: The game received generally favorable reviews, but attracted some criticism
Speaker 1: for its support characters in desert Hub world, which some
Speaker 1: perceived as dated, and a new interview with Famitsu translated
Speaker 1: by Nintendo Everything, Metro Prime Force development team has discussed
Speaker 1: its lengthy production for the first time. According to the
Speaker 1: uncredited in interviewee Yond's formula came from an initial desire
Speaker 1: to implement open world features into the series. However, the
Speaker 1: interview suggests that by the time the game approach completion,
Speaker 1: the development team may have had some doubts about the
Speaker 1: direction it had set, but it considered further delays unrealistic
Speaker 1: given that Prime for was announced way back in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote, and then we'll start discussing it at
Speaker 1: the start of the project. Perhaps due to the influence
Speaker 1: of the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, we
Speaker 1: saw a lot of comments on the internet saying we
Speaker 1: want to play an open world Metroid. The development team
Speaker 1: told Famitsu however, Metroid's core element of increasing the amount
Speaker 1: of explorable areas by unlocking powers is not very compatible
Speaker 1: with the freedom to go anywhere from the beginning of
Speaker 1: open worlds, and so they reconsidered and they kind of
Speaker 1: tried to edit it there. But yeah, this is I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you play the game, if this
Speaker 1: feels like what happened here. I think I've said as
Speaker 1: much when I was talking about on the BombCast when
Speaker 1: we were first discussing it after it launched, And this.
Speaker 2: Feels like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: What does this mean though, when like, you know what
Speaker 1: game you have, you put it out anyway understanding that
Speaker 1: the development team solve the problems with it, and are
Speaker 1: you going to give them another chance? I hope So
Speaker 1: it sounds like they might. But yeah, are you surprised
Speaker 1: by any of this?
Speaker 3: Where were they looking that they saw people saying we
Speaker 3: want to and will to make.
Speaker 1: This is a This is a fair point, Lexie. I'm
Speaker 1: sure those things were out there, I might have said,
Speaker 1: at some point I could see a developer being like
Speaker 1: Breath of the Wild moment for Metroid. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that means open world necessarily. Yeah, yeah, that's that's right.
Speaker 3: I suppose it would be very unfair of me to
Speaker 3: say I think Veilguard is like an incredible achievement considering
Speaker 3: how troubled its development was, and then go really hard
Speaker 3: on Metroid Prime for considering how hard its development was.
Speaker 3: But I watched that ending. Yeah, boy, even out of context,
Speaker 3: even as someone who isn't really a Metroid fanho okay,
Speaker 3: it's real bad. It's it's a real bad ending for
Speaker 3: a video game, even without all the other stuff taken
Speaker 3: into context. And I'm one of those people who would
Speaker 3: traditionally say, like, I actually am not a huge fan
Speaker 3: of Metroid vaneers and getting lost in games, Like I
Speaker 3: just don't like the feeling of being lost. So it's
Speaker 3: just generally not a genre that clicks for me. And
Speaker 3: this seems like a version of that game that tries
Speaker 3: to cater towards those tastes exactly a little bit, But
Speaker 3: in the process of doing so, it does seem like
Speaker 3: they have lost they they've lost the trail on what
Speaker 3: they're they're actually like what people want from these games
Speaker 3: and what these games are about and the feelings that
Speaker 3: they are listed ish, So it just seems like Metroid
Speaker 3: Prime for goes much longer distances between feeling, you know,
Speaker 3: recreating the feeling of those first three games, and so, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a shame. I hope they get
Speaker 3: another chance. Retro is obviously like an incredibly talented studio,
Speaker 3: and it would be nice for them to be able
Speaker 3: to go back to developing some original stuff. Like when
Speaker 3: you think about it, they really haven't put out a
Speaker 3: lot of games in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: And if you know, Gaming has had like constant interviews
Speaker 1: with former Retro people over the last couple of years
Speaker 1: that like documents ten to fifteen Retro projects that were
Speaker 1: pitched or pitched and improved and like got further further
Speaker 1: along and like they all got canceled. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's and I'm sure that's normal for a studio working
Speaker 1: in this industry, but it's like for Retro it's notable
Speaker 1: because they did not have a lot of alternative releases.
Speaker 3: I suppose the big question now is like if this
Speaker 3: Metroid doesn't hit a Nintendo kind of goes, okay, well,
Speaker 3: we're not going to do Metroid for a bit. Are
Speaker 3: they going to give them back Donkey Kong? Because Donkey
Speaker 3: Kong seems to be Nintendo's new like thing of like,
Speaker 3: this is what we're putting forward front and center, and
Speaker 3: I don't know, they've moved away from the retro sensibilities
Speaker 3: in some ways with Donkey Kong. So does Retro go
Speaker 3: and make a new ip or work on something else?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they probably get back to pitching a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff and hoping Nintendo kind of gets it, which is
Speaker 1: gonna be a rough spot because it seems like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of not not necessarily misalignment, because again it's
Speaker 1: probably a normal amount of of you know, misstarts for projects,
Speaker 1: but it's a tough process regardless, and they're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get back to that, and that's gonna be frustrated.
Speaker 1: I think the reality here, though, is Metro Prime four
Speaker 1: will sell kind of within parameters, and then Nintendo will
Speaker 1: kind of be in the situation where they're like, we
Speaker 1: let retro build the infrastructure to build a game like this,
Speaker 1: Why don't we let them do it one more time
Speaker 1: now that they have sort of everything in place, they
Speaker 1: have the relationships with the multiple external studios they use
Speaker 1: to build assets, they have, they done that day to
Speaker 1: day for years. Now, let's just use that one more
Speaker 1: time and see if we kind of can't get some
Speaker 1: of our like more money back by making a sequel,
Speaker 1: maybe clean up that ending that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: I know, it's worth noting that, like plenty of or
Speaker 3: first party hardware manufacturers do have studios where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: these are the guys who make really good looking games
Speaker 3: for us, and they push the check forward. You know,
Speaker 3: Sony has that with the Horizon folks, Xbox has that
Speaker 3: with like half of their stable, and you know, Nintendo
Speaker 3: could definitely look at the like Metro Prime four is
Speaker 3: just one of the best looking video games that last year.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you were talking about life high
Speaker 3: end PCs or consoles or anything like all of it,
Speaker 3: and it is one of the best looking games of
Speaker 3: the year. And I think that they will definitely be like,
Speaker 3: we should lean into that technology base that they've built
Speaker 3: up because they have proven that, like even if the
Speaker 3: switch to isn't the most powerful bit of hardware. We
Speaker 3: can squeeze so much.
Speaker 2: Out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it turns out that, you know, they don't just
Speaker 1: hire from local, but there's turns out there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who live in Texas, a lot of artists,
Speaker 1: and there's a handful of places they can really go
Speaker 1: to work if they want to like stretch their legs
Speaker 1: in a sci fi setting.
Speaker 3: A lot of people who are good at making games on.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, right, yeah, there's and there's a ton of
Speaker 1: that in Texas as well. Like there's a huge industry
Speaker 1: there of people who are very technically minded Texas Instruments,
Speaker 1: is there. Yeah, And so of course there's people that
Speaker 1: kind of flock to these areas and retro hires them
Speaker 1: all up, and hopefully they can apply that to a
Speaker 1: game that isn't as maligned as this one was.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and let's come
Speaker 1: back and let's talk about the good news. You have
Speaker 1: too much money. Let's get rid of some more of
Speaker 1: it by raising the prices on everything. So that sound
Speaker 1: good to everyone. We'll talk about that right after this.
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Speaker 2: Go to slash Join to get those. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: A Hi dog, it's time to start the show.
Speaker 2: Are you ready to go? H yeah, dude, I'm ready.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, and I don't know
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Speaker 2: So I could still watch my stories.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes you can. Nvidia Broadcasts is a universal plugin
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Speaker 4: and since I'm using the Nvidia Studio drivers, I'll get stable,
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Speaker 1: I'm not even looking at the camera at all right.
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Speaker 2: game Bess Mornings, Jeff Grub LEXI Luddy.
Speaker 1: Let's get back into the headlines here with a SEUs
Speaker 1: officially announces price hikes from January fifth, right before CS
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. This is from Video Cards. They did
Speaker 1: get a correction. This was not an officially announced thing.
Speaker 1: This is an internal letter that got leaked. But the
Speaker 1: letter says everything's going to be more expensive, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to raise prices. They don't get into any
Speaker 1: specific models, but they do say that because of a
Speaker 1: combination of factors, mostly d Ram, but it's not just
Speaker 1: d Ram itself.
Speaker 3: All looking for the guy who did this, yep, and.
Speaker 1: Uh, they're just hey, we're going to raise prices, so
Speaker 1: expect the laptops, everything to get more expensive from a
Speaker 1: SUS and of course not just a SEUs.
Speaker 2: It's getting like apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that we were talking during the break,
Speaker 1: you said, it feels like something's over now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the salad days of affordable.
Speaker 1: Computing are done for now, Like we're on a break
Speaker 1: with that idea. And to that end, there's rumors that Nvidia,
Speaker 1: who announced recently that they're going to have a thirty
Speaker 1: percent reduction in the number of new GPUs that they're making,
Speaker 1: apparently reportedly bringing back the in Vidia thirty sixty, the
Speaker 1: RTX thirty sixty, which was the you know, the entry level.
Speaker 1: As if that's the entry level price, we kind of
Speaker 1: just accepted that, but the entry level from a couple
Speaker 1: generations ago, generations ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, so.
Speaker 1: You just built a PC, A lot of people are
Speaker 1: planning to do so, and hearing this news, of course
Speaker 1: everyone now has to panic by which drives up prices
Speaker 1: even more. We see that Micron who close Crucial, which
Speaker 1: is their consumer facing memory and storage brand. They closed
Speaker 1: that recently. Micron's stock price has only shot up since
Speaker 1: then was going to anyhow, but shot up even more
Speaker 1: specifically because they did that. It feels like the whole
Speaker 1: system has broken when it comes to this, and what
Speaker 1: do we say, like you have to do this? I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like we should be saying that, like
Speaker 1: we should be saying to these companies, no, this is
Speaker 1: a utility.
Speaker 2: At this point public like owning your own computer.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, what choice do we have because we
Speaker 1: can't like say, hey, make it because we're gonna spend
Speaker 1: money on it, because clearly the only other option is
Speaker 1: for them to raise prices to the point where we
Speaker 1: can't afford it anymore. So what's gonna happen here?
Speaker 3: Over the holiday break? I've been off and on finally
Speaker 3: catching up on the outer worlds too. Do you know
Speaker 3: the setup for how the outer worlds gets to the
Speaker 3: point that it gets to it like it's ultra capitualism
Speaker 3: their version of so in their alternate universe, the president
Speaker 3: before Teddy Roosevelt isn't assassinated McKinley. McKinley isn't assassinated, all right,
Speaker 3: so Roosevelt never comes in and breaks up the monopolies.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah that sounds bad.
Speaker 3: Yea right, And now I'm gonna just looking at the
Speaker 3: world and like, man, we're just like six years behind them.
Speaker 1: God, yeah, exactly, we just someone the right person. It
Speaker 1: didn't happen and we got Reagan. Yeah, or it did
Speaker 1: happen and we got Reagan.
Speaker 2: Shit.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh it's so it's still basically exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: You're right, just fifty years.
Speaker 3: We're just running a little bit late for the album
Speaker 3: wholes Is Timeline and I have pulled up Steams Hardware
Speaker 3: survey that they do at the end of every year
Speaker 3: in December. Do you want to hazard a guess? And
Speaker 3: some of these stats have actually changed since I looked
Speaker 3: at them earlier in December, And do you want to
Speaker 3: guess what the most popular video card is currently?
Speaker 2: Is it? I'm going to say it's probably the thirty sixty.
Speaker 3: With two point two percent of all of users using it.
Speaker 3: It is the thirty sixty. The second most popular is
Speaker 3: the forty sixty Laptop Edition with one point four percent. Then, like,
Speaker 3: you don't see a forty series. You don't see a
Speaker 3: forty series until you're out of the top ten.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Was looking for a fifty series. You don't see a
Speaker 3: fifty series until you are out of the top fifteen,
Speaker 3: and that's bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like they really struggle to like make the
Speaker 1: forty series compelling. It's kind of what I remember feeling.
Speaker 1: And then so you know, that's all part of the
Speaker 1: storyline here of we're like, hey, we want to care
Speaker 1: about these things, but the stuff you're putting your efforts
Speaker 1: into are not that exciting to us consumers. And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: it's exciting the aibros.
Speaker 2: Why aren't you excited like they are. We'll just go
Speaker 2: sell it to them.
Speaker 1: And now we're here having to deal with the like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're selling into a fad, they're selling into
Speaker 1: a boom and a gold you know, a sort of
Speaker 1: a gold chase here, and again that's always going to
Speaker 1: be impossible for the normal consumer who has a normal
Speaker 1: relationship with computing to compete with and the real problem
Speaker 1: here is the monopolies, because we should not be having
Speaker 1: to compete with billionaire corporations for the same resources. We
Speaker 1: should have a cordoned off part of the market that
Speaker 1: is meant to serve us, and then that that coordin
Speaker 1: should be put in place by regulation.
Speaker 3: Bob, have you just considered not being part of this
Speaker 3: society that you seem to dislike so much.
Speaker 1: I did just get a new computer for my job
Speaker 1: for free, and so I should not be able to
Speaker 1: criticize any of this.
Speaker 2: This is a good point.
Speaker 3: And do you want to know what the most common
Speaker 3: RAM allotment is? At thirty three percent Steam users have
Speaker 3: this amount of RAM?
Speaker 2: Is it okay? This amount of RAM? Is it eight gigabyte?
Speaker 3: Do they suppoify like it is a gigabyte? Yeah, they
Speaker 3: don't specify the type, but it's a gigabyte. And I've
Speaker 3: been because I've now built a PC, I've been browsing
Speaker 3: a lot of the Steam Store more recently, and I
Speaker 3: was looking at a lot of twenty twenty six games
Speaker 3: and the number of games with twenty twenty six ruten
Speaker 3: on them that in their minimum specs say that they
Speaker 3: support eight gigabytes of RAM. Is near zero unless you're
Speaker 3: in like the indie game scene, like pretty much no
Speaker 3: Triple A games are supporting that.
Speaker 1: It kind of culls its snuck up on people like
Speaker 1: that because there was, like the common wisdom five years
Speaker 1: ago was you don't need more than eight gigabytes, look sixteen,
Speaker 1: you should get sixteen gigabytes, but you don't need eight gigabytes.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to spend your money, the place
Speaker 1: to spend your money is get the best video card
Speaker 1: you could possibly get.
Speaker 2: That was the common wisdom.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people kind of like took that
Speaker 1: a little bit too much and like, well, we'll save
Speaker 1: money on RAM and we'll get the best video card
Speaker 1: we can get. And then like overnight one day we
Speaker 1: woke up and it was like eight gigabytes is insane.
Speaker 1: You cannot have a system on that you need at
Speaker 1: least sixteen And really we're getting to a point where
Speaker 1: thirty two is kind of recommended at this point, and
Speaker 1: that will I kind of like catching up the people
Speaker 1: who have not upgraded their system in the last five years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should say this all seems very in the weeds.
Speaker 3: If you are if you're you know, if you're normal
Speaker 3: if you're watching yeah, if you're watching this, but PC
Speaker 3: gaming is at this point about like as big as
Speaker 3: console gaming, and thirty three percent of the market not
Speaker 3: being able to run new games isn't great for the
Speaker 3: traditional type of Triple A games that a lot of
Speaker 3: people watching the show care about. And it isn't great
Speaker 3: for those companies if a third of your biggest pillars
Speaker 3: can't play those games. And so, yeah, this is going
Speaker 3: to become a very real problem in some very real ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's what does it mean for the consoles
Speaker 1: right because we're talking about going back to the thirty
Speaker 1: sixty on the PC side of things, because making new
Speaker 1: GPUs is a non starter.
Speaker 2: PS six is not that far away, and there's a
Speaker 2: couple of.
Speaker 1: Things there, and I think I'm going to make a
Speaker 1: video about this at some point.
Speaker 2: I intend to.
Speaker 1: But like Mike said on the show the other day,
Speaker 1: to me, no one wants to hear about the PS
Speaker 1: six right now, but.
Speaker 2: They're gonna have.
Speaker 1: They're gonna get to a point where like just they
Speaker 1: need the PS six for a variety of reasons, one
Speaker 1: of them being like piracy is starting to kind of
Speaker 1: creep up on the PS five a little bit, they're
Speaker 1: going to want to reset the clock on that, just
Speaker 1: like all these companies want to.
Speaker 2: And how do you.
Speaker 1: Market a PS six? Like, first of all, it's going
Speaker 1: to be very similar to the PS five. The one
Speaker 1: glaring difference, LEXI might be it might cost fifty percent
Speaker 1: more one hundred percent more. Like it's going to be
Speaker 1: significantly more expensive to play a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: looks very similar to what you're already playing on your
Speaker 1: PS five.
Speaker 2: So how does Sony position that?
Speaker 1: Like it's going to be a difficult thing to pull off,
Speaker 1: And really the answer might be we're going to be
Speaker 1: waiting a lot longer, which might be I might be
Speaker 1: fine with Like, again, I don't even know if I
Speaker 1: want to hear about a PS six in any way
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: How about you? So?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's like the internal or the skullll bush
Speaker 3: in and around the PC industry is it seems like
Speaker 3: this is a hard reset for what the expectations of
Speaker 3: the length of a generation is. Generations became like a
Speaker 3: year max for video cards, and so now people are like, no,
Speaker 3: you're going to see people use these video cards for
Speaker 3: way longer, and you're gonna see people spend a lot
Speaker 3: less time. I think a lot of developers just started
Speaker 3: throwing power at optimization and just assuming that people would
Speaker 3: have more powerful PCs, because for a large part people
Speaker 3: kind of were the growing market was in people upgrading
Speaker 3: their PCs, And so I think you're going to see
Speaker 3: a lot of like developers now have to casher two
Speaker 3: things like optimization in a very real sense, and you
Speaker 3: know whether that winds up being a kind of good
Speaker 3: thing in some ways where you know, the best looking
Speaker 3: games always come out at the end of a generation
Speaker 3: of a console, if we start to see that in
Speaker 3: the PC space, but moreover, like you're the first thing
Speaker 3: you're going to see in this is a huge swath
Speaker 3: of people who would be interested in this hobby being
Speaker 3: priced out of it forever and never being able to
Speaker 3: get into it, never being able to try it, never
Speaker 3: even being able to like check out fucking Fortnite. Like
Speaker 3: that's where we're at, is the barrier to entry to
Speaker 3: Fortnite is going to become too expensive because owning a
Speaker 3: phone that can run it will become too expensive, and
Speaker 3: like it's shit, is really really shit, and it isn't
Speaker 3: good for the industry, and like obviously things need to
Speaker 3: change I don't know what else to tell you, but
Speaker 3: like things need to change in a rather radical way.
Speaker 1: And the reality is, it's like this is the set
Speaker 1: of circumstances. Feels like it's going to solidify things even
Speaker 1: more because what is going to run on everything? What
Speaker 1: is going to be able to work on the PS
Speaker 1: four you still have, and it's going to be these
Speaker 1: live service games and the single player narrative.
Speaker 2: Any sort of game.
Speaker 1: That's not one of these live service games that has
Speaker 1: relied on big, flashy visuals to sort of stand out
Speaker 1: from the crowd. I mean, that's gonna stagnate immediately because
Speaker 1: they already are in a situation where everyone's always on
Speaker 1: one up in each other. And then the only real
Speaker 1: way to get more is to spend more money, and
Speaker 1: that means your product's gonna have a smaller profit margin,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have a lot more risk, and there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of people who are already price averse,
Speaker 1: who have been priced out of this market in the
Speaker 1: first place, so you just can have a smaller audience.
Speaker 1: It's so you don't even make those games anymore. You
Speaker 1: go and you also try to make a live service
Speaker 1: game that can run on anything, So it's yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels really grim. And I think a lot of conversations
Speaker 1: we've been having over the last year or two have
Speaker 1: kind of ended with us saying it feels pretty grim,
Speaker 1: but this is this feels like something has to break
Speaker 1: so we can get on the other side of it.
Speaker 3: Just to put into context what I was saying about,
Speaker 3: like Triple A Games Resident eval Requiem currently as a
Speaker 3: Steam page, its minimum system requirements is sixteen gigs arom. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so thirty three percent to Steam players won't be able
Speaker 3: to run Residieval Requiem.
Speaker 2: What is it say for GPU and does it have
Speaker 2: like v RAM.
Speaker 3: It's GPU is a minimum is a sixteen sixty and
Speaker 3: it's recommended as a twenty sixty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you know, I think like even beyond system ram,
Speaker 1: v RAM, which I'm certain like that's only eight gigabytes
Speaker 1: is the most common entry for that. That is like
Speaker 1: getting to a point where ten gigabytes is kind of
Speaker 1: the minimum. Really twelve gigabytes and most cards that come
Speaker 1: out in any sort of affordable at any sort of
Speaker 1: affordable price, it's all eight gigabytes right now still, and
Speaker 1: it's like that's going to get even worse in this
Speaker 1: next year, because anything above eight gigabyte is going to
Speaker 1: drive the prices way up, and they're going to put
Speaker 1: all those into the much higher end GPUs and sell
Speaker 1: those at a huge profit margin. I look, again, it
Speaker 1: has to break so we get on the other side
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: But I really don't know what it looks like.
Speaker 1: And it feels like maybe the answer is everybody scales back,
Speaker 1: everybody sort of takes a breath and uses this as
Speaker 1: a crisis moment to rethink, like what a new video
Speaker 1: game even needs to be. But that's going to I
Speaker 1: think the answer to that question might disinterest a lot
Speaker 1: of these big corporations that make these kinds of games,
Speaker 1: so they just walk away at a certain point.
Speaker 2: And again, maybe we're better off without them. I don't know. Uh, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's keep going here.
Speaker 1: Avatar Frontiers of Pandora got a major player count boost
Speaker 1: after Fire and Ash. This is from Chris Compendio at GameSpot.
Speaker 1: Over two years after its release, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
Speaker 1: is enjoying an all time peak on Steam, likely in
Speaker 1: large part due to the game's new DLC that ties
Speaker 1: in directly to the film franchise's latest installment. Data from
Speaker 1: steambe showed that the Ubisoft published open world game hit
Speaker 1: a record peak of fifteen thousand players this week, again
Speaker 1: from its previous week of twelve thousand players last month.
Speaker 1: When Avatar, Fire and Ash hit cinemas on December nineteenth.
Speaker 1: With the release of the movie, came a DLC expansion
Speaker 1: two Frontiers of Pandora on the same day, titled From
Speaker 1: the Ashes. The story expansion adds a bunch. Yeah, this worked.
Speaker 1: I think had I had a hunch, it probably would
Speaker 1: be okay. But it seems like it did really well
Speaker 1: for them. It didn't like change the fake like they
Speaker 1: didn't have eighty thousand concurrent players right like some brand
Speaker 1: new games do. But I think this is a strategy
Speaker 1: that can work for these movies or these games that
Speaker 1: have these external events that happen that can tie themselves
Speaker 1: into or have any sort of cultural cachet, which I
Speaker 1: know there's an argument Avatar doesn't have that, but it
Speaker 1: has enough for a corporation to cash in on it.
Speaker 1: I'm mostly okay with this. Avatar Frontiers of Pandora as
Speaker 1: a game that I thought was pretty good, and I
Speaker 1: like the idea of instead of trying to force a
Speaker 1: sequel out or rush another game, or just abandon what
Speaker 1: you have, make a little.
Speaker 2: DLC that sort of ties into it. It seems like
Speaker 2: a smart idea to me. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I've heard really good things about the
Speaker 3: story in that Avatar game that you know. I know
Speaker 3: a lot of people, especially with Avatar three, and have
Speaker 3: been pointing to like, Okay, the White Savior stuff is
Speaker 3: getting a bit much.
Speaker 2: Again, kind of long in the two and.
Speaker 3: The games very much. So go out of their way
Speaker 3: to like push back on a lot of that stuff
Speaker 3: and make the Navvy the protagonist, which I think is
Speaker 3: a pretty cool way to go about things. And yeah,
Speaker 3: that game it looks really nice. I've heard it plays
Speaker 3: pretty good. And so yeah, like this seems like it's
Speaker 3: working for them.
Speaker 2: Yep, let's go right along here to the next story. Here.
Speaker 1: Xbox just set a terrible new record. Talk about eye
Speaker 1: catching headlines. This is from Ethan gottch Xbox There it
Speaker 1: is the game business is. Chris Dring reports that twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five was quote comfortably the worst year on record
Speaker 1: for Xbox console sales in the UK. They were down
Speaker 1: nearly forty percent from the year prior, which was already
Speaker 1: far from stellar. I'm not sure how to square Microsoft's
Speaker 1: seemingly complete abdication of hardware sales less than five years
Speaker 1: into the current generation with its promise to continue making
Speaker 1: consoles in the future. Yeah, I dring post that and
Speaker 1: asks like, is there a chance things can improve.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty six?
Speaker 1: So, LEXI, do things improve for Xbox in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: Is there any reason to think that they could? No? Right,
Speaker 2: even if like Grand Theft.
Speaker 1: Auto six comes out at this point, right, like everyone
Speaker 1: around any person that's like considering I need new hardware
Speaker 1: to play Grand Theft Auto six, everyone knows, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about just our our audience. The people that
Speaker 1: listen to this show and have these conversations, I think
Speaker 1: they ask anyone, Hey, what should I get? Everyone's well, well, Mike,
Speaker 1: Xbox seems kind of dead. Just get a PlayStation. I
Speaker 1: think that is a common wisdom at this point. And
Speaker 1: so it's not even Grand Theft Auto six doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like it'll make a dent.
Speaker 3: I genuinely like Xbox feels more like a peripheral company
Speaker 3: now of like people buying. So when I was in Japan.
Speaker 3: There was an Xbox section in one of the stores
Speaker 3: that we went to, and they're always tiny compared to
Speaker 3: everyone else, and all of them, bar none, didn't stock
Speaker 3: any physical games. All they stocked was keyboards and Xbox
Speaker 3: controllers that were PC and Xbox supported. That's all they had.
Speaker 3: And like that whole section was basically just like, hey,
Speaker 3: you should check out PC game Pass, like just ads
Speaker 3: for like you should check out PC Game Pass ultimateh
Speaker 3: And Yeah, I think that that's being reflected back in
Speaker 3: the sentiment towards Xbox. I don't know what do you
Speaker 3: What do you think twenty twenty six could possibly hold
Speaker 3: for Xbox, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I think that there's a chance they have some
Speaker 1: good video games like they did last year.
Speaker 3: They had some good game they had some Yeah, they're
Speaker 3: some good games last year. Yeah, and nobody played them
Speaker 3: because they didn't put any money into marketing them. Like
Speaker 3: there was no marketing around Keeper. There was no marketing
Speaker 3: around the outer worlds too. There was a little bit
Speaker 3: around South of Midnight and avowed pretty much. The only
Speaker 3: Xbox thing that got marketing last year was Call of
Speaker 3: Judy Black Ops seven, and it sold worse than ever before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, the next Call of Duty product
Speaker 1: does a little bit better. That makes them happy over there,
Speaker 1: I guess. But like as far as we're concerned, as
Speaker 1: far as we care.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm excited for Boots on the Ground Action of course.
Speaker 2: Uh you know that Forts of Games that's supposed to
Speaker 2: come out this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they have a showcase on in like a week,
Speaker 3: that's right, They have a January showcase, so like we
Speaker 3: will know more about what Xbox is getting up to
Speaker 3: this year, and I'm sure Fords Haison will do quite
Speaker 3: well for them. But outside of that, you know it,
Speaker 3: do you think that they at Fort Huison his day
Speaker 3: and date PS five?
Speaker 1: I think it's like a month later, I know, like
Speaker 1: three months later at the most, Like if they release
Speaker 1: Sports the Horizon six, so where.
Speaker 2: We're at five seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and six six, they released that in the summer,
Speaker 1: and then they can put it on the PlayStation five
Speaker 1: for the holiday that doesn't sound too wrong and like
Speaker 1: and put it out in the summer data summer on
Speaker 1: Xbox because what does it fucking matter. You're gonna sell
Speaker 1: that thing on game Pass for the most part of
Speaker 1: people are gonna get it on game Pass and then
Speaker 1: you sell it for real you know, on PC at
Speaker 1: the same time, but then and it does really well there,
Speaker 1: then you know, you sell it again into.
Speaker 2: Holiday for PlayStation. Yeah, I could see that happening.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, like I think that they are going
Speaker 1: to be in a situation where they need to sort
Speaker 1: of just recognize the home runs when they have them,
Speaker 1: if they if they get any in terms of games
Speaker 1: doing well, and what that means for the console, who
Speaker 1: at this point doesn't feel like it means anything. It's
Speaker 1: completely separate from that. And so yeah, we get some
Speaker 1: good games, that'll be great.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that gob When you were trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what thought so they were on chat very
Speaker 3: helpfully wanted you to know that they're on six seven.
Speaker 2: Six seven.
Speaker 1: I my daughter made a holiday card for me, and
Speaker 1: it's dressed. It's addressed to not dad, to six seven.
Speaker 1: So that's that's where we're at in my life.
Speaker 2: All right, let's keep going.
Speaker 1: No, that's upsetting, that's just hey, I'm six seven now,
Speaker 1: all right, I've accepted it.
Speaker 2: Everyone else should as well.
Speaker 1: Nintendo switched to dev kits Dedicate availability has largely been resolved.
Speaker 1: This is from my Nintendo News but Nathan Hate is
Speaker 1: out there saying this. That's definitely the sense I've gotten
Speaker 1: as well. There was like some delays in like Call
Speaker 1: of Duty, like the Call of Duty studios getting their
Speaker 1: Switch development kits, But it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Like like super delayed.
Speaker 1: It was just delayed enough to cause some problems with
Speaker 1: the like the most recent release or something like that,
Speaker 1: according to Nathan Hate, And uh, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think what happened there is they were holding them back.
Speaker 1: They were probably holding them back just a tiny bit
Speaker 1: longer for any Xbox related company and studio because I
Speaker 1: think they're like, that's weird to give our unreleased hardware
Speaker 1: to a company that makes hardware because they're Nintendo and
Speaker 1: they're traditional. But that obviously doesn't matter once the system
Speaker 1: is out, and so yeah, this sounds like, okay, all
Speaker 1: these studios should have this now, and we're on the
Speaker 1: other side of that. Nintendo's a little bit weird, but
Speaker 1: they're not so weird that they would continue that on
Speaker 1: for no good reason. Well into the release of the
Speaker 1: Switch to Switch to support has been mostly I think respectable,
Speaker 1: but it's not like equal to the other consoles yet.
Speaker 1: And in this world now where the Xbox is less
Speaker 1: relevant and PlayStation is what it is. It's continuing to
Speaker 1: be exactly what it's been. I bet a lot of
Speaker 1: studios and publishers are like, maybe we should be paying
Speaker 1: more attention and can air stuff on switch To, and
Speaker 1: it's capable enough that we could justify doing that for
Speaker 1: our new releases. Even so, I expect support from third
Speaker 1: parties for switch to to even improve, even if we
Speaker 1: don't get like every sports game for example, what do
Speaker 1: you think.
Speaker 3: Yeah it. I think the problem that they're going to
Speaker 3: face is the quality of ports, because that seems very
Speaker 3: inconsistent right now. I know that like Star Wars Outlaws
Speaker 3: and Assassin's Creed Shadows are kind of the high water
Speaker 3: mark of ports. To switch to are people being like, yeah,
Speaker 3: these are really fucking good ports, But then you have
Speaker 3: stuff like that too, mader re release of the definitive
Speaker 3: edition of the twenty thirteen game, and they're like, in
Speaker 3: some ways this is like worse than the PS three
Speaker 3: version in places, and you know, that just seems like
Speaker 3: it shouldn't be happening. So yeah, I do wonder if
Speaker 3: that is simply companies trying to get to grips with
Speaker 3: the new hardware and if it's going to take them
Speaker 3: a while to get it up and running and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. But we do know that like the switch
Speaker 3: can output some really good looking games like Cyberpunk runs
Speaker 3: really well on it, and like I said, the Assassin's
Speaker 3: Creed game runs super well on it, so like it
Speaker 3: is capable of running these games quite well.
Speaker 2: M All right, let's see here.
Speaker 1: Microsoft CEO Satia Nadella really wants you to stop calling
Speaker 1: AI slop in twenty twenty six, and he's asking very.
Speaker 2: Nice, honey, ah babe, it's just embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't and grab the story from Luke Plunkett Aftermathew,
Speaker 1: I think does a pretty decent job of like breaking
Speaker 1: this down.
Speaker 2: In a late December blog.
Speaker 1: Post titled looking Ahead to twenty twenty six, Microsoft CEO
Speaker 1: Satia Nadella wrote down some thoughts on how he and his.
Speaker 2: Company should approach the year ahead spoilers.
Speaker 1: It's almost entirely about AI, and it has some of
Speaker 1: the most unhinged stuff I've ever seen someone with a
Speaker 1: supposedly reputable job ever post on the internet. He begins
Speaker 1: with an opening that sounds like a man who knows
Speaker 1: the game is up, but who is in too deep
Speaker 1: to back out now. As I reflect on the past
Speaker 1: year and look toward the one ahead, there's no question
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six will be a pivotal year for AI. Yes,
Speaker 1: another one, but this moment feels different in a few
Speaker 1: notable ways. The passage that has attracted the most attention
Speaker 1: over the past week, though, is the one below where
Speaker 1: he says everyone needs to move on and move past
Speaker 1: the idea of AI being slop, a sentiment gathering so
Speaker 1: much momentum among normal human beings that it was crowned
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five's.
Speaker 2: Word of the Year by was it Merriam Webster.
Speaker 1: Here's the next piece of the letter, a new concept
Speaker 1: that evolves bicycles for the mind, such that we always
Speaker 1: think of AI as a scaffolding for human potential versus
Speaker 1: a substitute.
Speaker 2: What matters is not the.
Speaker 1: Power of any given model, but how people choose to
Speaker 1: apply it to achieve their goals. We need to get
Speaker 1: beyond the arguments of slop versus sophistication and develop a
Speaker 1: new equilibrium in terms of our theory of the mind
Speaker 1: that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive
Speaker 1: amplifier tools. As we relate to each other. This is
Speaker 1: the product design question we need to debate and answer.
Speaker 1: And look, I think what I would say to Saddie is, baby,
Speaker 1: you don't see oil executives talking this way. They just
Speaker 1: go by the President and have them invade Venezuela for them.
Speaker 1: They just do all the shit behind closed doors. They
Speaker 1: don't have to convince anyone in the public of anything.
Speaker 1: They just do all their business the way they've always
Speaker 1: done it, and they go home with their riches and
Speaker 1: they win every time. Why are you embarrassing yourself by
Speaker 1: going out here and telling everyone to love AI when
Speaker 1: clearly many many people do not.
Speaker 2: Sure, a lot of.
Speaker 1: People don't care. A lot of people it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: them one way or the other. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people seem to just hate it. It's ruining things that
Speaker 1: they love and they've noticed. And you telling us to
Speaker 1: just love it, or to get past any criticisms, or
Speaker 1: get past a obvious criticism that is striking a chord
Speaker 1: is just embarrassing.
Speaker 2: This does feel like the game is up and he
Speaker 2: knows it. What's your response to to this?
Speaker 3: My response.
Speaker 2: Probably think discord ate some of that, but there's no yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, man, this is your Old Gill and
Speaker 3: the Simpsons, and he's like the wolf's at Old Gill's door.
Speaker 3: This is like that, but like you're not rooting for
Speaker 3: Old Gill. You hope the wolf fucking eats Old Gill
Speaker 3: and like destroys him and everything that he stands for
Speaker 3: and everything that he's built, because he's ruined everything. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my sympathies for Sai and Nodella feeling like people aren't
Speaker 3: respecting his plagiarism machines enough doesn't go super far. And
Speaker 3: you know, I think that this is Robert a lot
Speaker 3: of the time. You say, like, don't voting with your
Speaker 3: waalash is a misnomer because it doesn't work, and in
Speaker 3: staid you should get loud. This is what that looks like.
Speaker 3: This is him getting visibly wiled up and obsession in
Speaker 3: his end of year leisure, being like people are being
Speaker 3: mean to me on the interneth and like, this is
Speaker 3: the reaction that you want to get from these people
Speaker 3: is you want them to know that what they're doing
Speaker 3: is fucking hated, because even though they don't feel shame,
Speaker 3: they certainly feel pressure. And if you apply enough pressure
Speaker 3: then eventually things will break. So, yeah, if you have
Speaker 3: been loud about AI and about not liking it. Keep
Speaker 3: doing that, keep being loud, keep telling people how much
Speaker 3: it fucking sucks. And the Clear Obscure team have like
Speaker 3: gone out there and said, like, yeah, we used it
Speaker 3: when we were like workshopping stuff and some of it
Speaker 3: made it into the game, and we're never using it
Speaker 3: again because we don't like the reception that it gosh,
Speaker 3: because people were so hard on us for it, and
Speaker 3: like the tide on this stuff does turn if you
Speaker 3: continue to push hard on it. It just takes a while.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people who use the Internet
Speaker 3: a lot kind of forget how slowly some things have
Speaker 3: to move because so much of the Internet is like
Speaker 3: instant reactionary. But a lot of these campaigns take long,
Speaker 3: long term pressure in a way that you don't usually
Speaker 3: see with the Internet, and usually it's short term pressure.
Speaker 3: Campaigns change things quickly. With the Internet. Stuff that is
Speaker 3: like big and societal and has these big companies throwing
Speaker 3: around billions of dollars and really does require months and
Speaker 3: months and months of fish and of like fucking bullying,
Speaker 3: Like keep bullying them, because it's working.
Speaker 2: It's you know, I would like even if it doesn't
Speaker 2: like fully work.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to tell people to fall into
Speaker 1: incrementalism or anything like that, but like you could still
Speaker 1: like damn the river, you could damn the banks a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I think we should just be happy
Speaker 1: with a couple of wins here and there, the Clear
Speaker 1: Obscure team saying that is a small win, and it's
Speaker 1: like that only works because of the public response. So
Speaker 1: take that and put it in your pocket and be
Speaker 1: happy and try to get another win.
Speaker 2: I don't know we can defeat this machine.
Speaker 1: I think the machine has to be broken and dismantled
Speaker 1: and removed, and like we're not going to actually be
Speaker 1: able to do that by just getting loud.
Speaker 2: A lot more will have to happen there.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean we shouldn't get loud, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we should resort to playing their game of
Speaker 1: capitalism in voting with our wallet, because the votes aren't
Speaker 1: real if you do that, and there's a bigger voter
Speaker 1: over there with billions of dollars voting on AI constantly
Speaker 1: right now, and you are not even find all your
Speaker 1: PC parts. And when when you get loud about that
Speaker 1: over there, sure if they pull up their chair and
Speaker 1: they go home. But that doesn't mean they were going
Speaker 1: to do that no matter why, whether you got loud
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I hope that the.
Speaker 1: People continue to take these wins because they are the
Speaker 1: small ones are just as important because that's what we're
Speaker 1: going to get for now. So we'll see and when
Speaker 1: this thing does break, and uh, and it will in
Speaker 1: one way or another, whether I don't know if it
Speaker 1: will break permanently, but when it does break, there will
Speaker 1: be a moment where there will be an opportunity where
Speaker 1: people can put in safeguards and put in rails. And
Speaker 1: that's only going to happen if there is a movement there.
Speaker 1: There's still political energy, and that'll happen if people are
Speaker 1: still getting out there and yelling about it. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do a last headline here, which is just a
Speaker 1: RESTful trails to David Rosen, who was a Segas co
Speaker 1: founder and a pioneer of arcade gaming in Japan. He
Speaker 1: was an airman who was like looking for a career
Speaker 1: after the military and started like buying and selling coin
Speaker 1: out machines in Japan and eventually sort of like realized
Speaker 1: arcades were a good opportunity to expand that business, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure like glazing over a lot of the parts
Speaker 1: of that story that really matter.
Speaker 2: But that's, you know, always been the story I've heard.
Speaker 1: About David Rosen and he was ninety five long life
Speaker 1: in kind of a lot of huge history there, and
Speaker 1: it's always like a fun little trivia.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, did you know Sega was co.
Speaker 1: Founded by an American kind of a weird thing, and
Speaker 1: David Rosen was that American.
Speaker 3: All right, And before we wrap up, we should also say,
Speaker 3: because there was no game, mess over the breaks and
Speaker 3: peace to vincem Pella, answers to his family and you
Speaker 3: know everyone at that studio.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Just a tragic event. Yeah, so real, Yeah, it was tragic.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Let's see here we have no poll question from last time,
Speaker 1: because we knew we were going to be off for
Speaker 1: a long time. There will be I'll update the Bomb
Speaker 1: twelve everybody from last Friday.
Speaker 2: We did one over Christmas, We have one from the
Speaker 2: new year.
Speaker 1: But that means the voting will begin for this week's
Speaker 1: Bomb twelve today, so check out giant bomb dot com
Speaker 1: sometime today for that. So in the meantime, what we'll
Speaker 1: do here is, let's see let's do the new pole question.
Speaker 1: Have you played Avatar Frontiers at Pandora?
Speaker 2: Yes or no? Kind of just curious in like the raw.
Speaker 1: Numbers of people listening to this who have played that game,
Speaker 1: because it's you know, I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: are just picking it up now, but I want to see,
Speaker 1: like how many people have actually played it overall and
Speaker 1: maybe comparing contrast to some other stuff. We'll we'll get
Speaker 1: the results of that poll and talk about it on
Speaker 1: Game mess Mornings here on Giant Bomb on Wednesday tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we'll have the BombCast.
Speaker 2: We're going to get back ato everything this week.
Speaker 1: We're also going to start delivering some stuff here from
Speaker 1: the bomba don because it's twenty twenty six now, so
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff happening over here.
Speaker 2: Again, thank you everybody for joining us for the year.
Speaker 1: Let's make it a good one, all right, Lexi, Where
Speaker 1: can people find you on the internet? What do you
Speaker 1: have going on and all that good stuff?
Speaker 3: Yes, you can find me on blue Sky at lex
Speaker 3: dot lexload dot xyz. A bunch of really cool stuff
Speaker 3: has gone up on something menu dot co dot UK.
Speaker 3: We had our annual website wide Game of the Year
Speaker 3: Awards where we handed out a lot of different awards
Speaker 3: and we for the first year ever voted on a
Speaker 3: on a website wide award and you'll never guess what one.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you should also check out all of the
Speaker 3: lists on giant Bomb because they're all great. As someone
Speaker 3: who edited every single one of them, they are all fantastic.
Speaker 3: And if you see a typo in them, know you didn't.
Speaker 2: Yep, you just look the other way.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see what else we have going on
Speaker 1: a Giant Bomb. I don't know if we're missed in today.
Speaker 1: You know, we just came back. I gotta let go
Speaker 1: talk to everybody in a meeting and see what we're
Speaker 1: all thinking. But we'll let you know and we'll see
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen here today, tomorrow, for the rest.
Speaker 2: Of the week, for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: Thank you again, everybody once again for hanging out with us,
Speaker 1: Thank you for watching and listening. Thanks you Lexi for
Speaker 1: hanging out with me and talk about video games. Until
Speaker 1: next time, everybody, have a good one, take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: and goodbye.