Speaker 1: Don't be bad.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grubb,
Speaker 2: your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
Speaker 2: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 2: the questionable future of the Xbox Handheld and people aren't
Speaker 2: loving one of the biggest releases of the year. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be a good one because we have Jason Finelli
Speaker 2: on the show. Jason, how are you doing? I feel great.
Speaker 3: It's it's Summer Games Fast Week and we're all running
Speaker 3: around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to
Speaker 3: figure out all of the video game things.
Speaker 1: Now quite a few things.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, shout out to video game things. One's up
Speaker 3: in the chat for video game things. I love being
Speaker 3: this busy. I love this time of year. I live
Speaker 3: for it. I love the adrenaline of, you know, finding
Speaker 3: out new games and and going and hanging out in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. I fly out Thursday night very excited for that.
Speaker 3: It's it's gonna be a good one. I just feel
Speaker 3: it in my bones. I know people have been like
Speaker 3: not really expecting much from some rest, so I don't
Speaker 3: know what to think. I just feel we're gonna we're
Speaker 3: gonna have a good time. It's gonna click.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm starting to get there now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it definitely feels like, you know, starting to
Speaker 2: make appointments and it's like, okay that some people are
Speaker 2: showing up, maybe things will be a little bit better
Speaker 2: than I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Are you as your flying out Thursday? Yes? Do you
Speaker 1: think this? You think do you have a switch to preorder?
Speaker 3: I am midnighting switch to the name you got all
Speaker 3: figured out. Oh yeah, I'm going to midnight it on
Speaker 3: Wednesday night into Thursday. I'll have it all set up.
Speaker 3: My flight's about five six o'clock at night, six o'clock
Speaker 3: in the afternoon. I'll I'll land in l A about
Speaker 3: ten ten p m. L A time. I will not
Speaker 3: go to bed because who does that? And uh yeah,
Speaker 3: well we'll make it happen. Figure it out.
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
Speaker 2: I I've been like looking, I booked my flight right
Speaker 2: as soon as I separated from my previous company, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm just gonna go on my own whatever,
Speaker 2: and then everything else happened, and so like I booked
Speaker 2: my flight without really even looking at it might have
Speaker 2: been a little emotional, and I'm flying out Tuesday, like wait, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: I remember you saying on one of your other you're
Speaker 3: independent now, so I can mention this. Oh. By the way,
Speaker 3: by the way, this is the first time. This is
Speaker 3: the first time I have been here since your declaration
Speaker 3: of independence, your fourth of July moment at Pax East. Hollay.
Speaker 3: Fucking shit, it is awesome. Thank you, right bigure out
Speaker 3: of applause for the Giant Bomb fellas. I am proud
Speaker 3: to be support this thing as far as it will go.
Speaker 3: And everybody watching this go to giant bomb dot com
Speaker 3: slash join right now and join this goddamn website because
Speaker 3: these are good dudes trying to do good things and
Speaker 3: it's just great. It's great. So thank you, Bob.
Speaker 1: We're excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but uh but anyway, I completely lost my train
Speaker 3: of thought in that exuberance.
Speaker 1: So what was you were gonna say something?
Speaker 2: I can You're independent now, so I could say this
Speaker 2: if that doesn't write well.
Speaker 3: On one of your other on one of your other podcasts,
Speaker 3: I think it was then ten Dogs, you had mentioned
Speaker 3: that you might be in flux a little bit. So
Speaker 3: if you need a place to throw you shit start
Speaker 3: Thursday night. You say the word I got you Thursday night.
Speaker 3: We'll have our place, but I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I actually got the where I'm staying
Speaker 2: figured out, got some family situation going on, so it's
Speaker 2: gonna be good. It's gonna be all good. Looking forward
Speaker 2: to it. Actually, it'll be nice to you know. I'll
Speaker 2: get some work done as well. We'll maybe try to
Speaker 2: meet up with some people who are in the area,
Speaker 2: maybe meet up with some devs that are in la
Speaker 2: oh shit ye, so yeah, get some stuff done. All right,
Speaker 2: let's explain ourselves. This is Giant Bomb. You can go
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Speaker 2: to stuff stuff like Summer Game Fest and putting on
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Speaker 1: Really looking forward to that.
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Speaker 2: only do that because of your support, So that has
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Speaker 2: gets you add free podcast, gets you some other goodies.
Speaker 1: I've got some fun ideas.
Speaker 2: I'm working on it to like just surprise people with
Speaker 2: on the staff, like hey, come come into this room
Speaker 2: and then we're gonna record a video and then I'm
Speaker 2: gonna put that out as a premium thing, I think
Speaker 2: at least live first. So yeah, it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: good time. Go to giant bomb dot com slash join
Speaker 2: and help us out.
Speaker 3: Are we talking like a are we talking like gifts
Speaker 3: or something? Or are you gonna tell Are you gonna
Speaker 3: tell Dan to committing room and slap them in the nuts?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But pretty much. Yeah, it's the equivalent of that. It's
Speaker 2: like I'm just gonna get the Parsec PC and I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna be like, all right, now you have to
Speaker 2: play this and it's gonna be you know, maybe not
Speaker 2: a Blake club game, but it could be atrocious in
Speaker 2: other ways. So as far as this show goes, most weekdays,
Speaker 2: I Jeff Grubb will help piece your gaming life back together.
Speaker 2: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
Speaker 2: own original reporting for.
Speaker 1: All these topics.
Speaker 2: I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who
Speaker 2: will make me look smart. You are watching live on
Speaker 2: twitch Welcome. You can always listen to the show later
Speaker 2: on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings, or
Speaker 2: find the RSS on gimebomb dot com. You can also
Speaker 2: catch the show later on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right,
Speaker 2: we have a lot to get into, so let's start
Speaker 2: the morning mess with. Microsoft reportedly pauses development on Xbox handheld.
Speaker 2: This is from Blair Marnell at GameSpot. Last year, a
Speaker 2: story broke that Microsoft was working on prototypes for an
Speaker 2: Xbox handheld console that could potentially compete with Valve's Steam Deck. However,
Speaker 2: a new report suggests that Microsoft is putting aside its
Speaker 2: ambitions for a dedicated dedicated Xbox handheld, at least for now.
Speaker 2: According to Windows Central, Microsoft is shifting its priority away
Speaker 2: from its Xbox handheld to focus on improving the gaming
Speaker 2: performance of Windows eleven on third party handheld devices, including
Speaker 2: Asus's Project Kennon I think It's Kenon. The report notes
Speaker 2: that Microsoft still has ambitions of releasing its own handheld,
Speaker 2: and it's developing additional technologies towards that goal for the
Speaker 2: immediate future, that's not the priority. Excuse me, Jason, We've
Speaker 2: heard these rumors for a long time. I think that
Speaker 2: as I hear this to me, it actually makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense because Microsoft is the Windows company, and
Speaker 2: in the last couple of weeks I've been paying attention
Speaker 2: to this. This is probably not something that's like getting out
Speaker 2: there to most people. It's just I'm a steam Deck freak.
Speaker 2: Steam Os has been updated so that you could kind
Speaker 2: of put it on other devices, and the first third
Speaker 2: party handheld, the Lenovo Legion go s, launched with steam
Speaker 2: Os instead of Windows and by all, and this is
Speaker 2: the same device that did launch with Windows, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of years back. It's got all the same
Speaker 2: components for the most part, it just has steam Os now,
Speaker 2: and the side by side comparisons are really rough.
Speaker 1: For Windows. It looks pretty bad.
Speaker 2: Like obviously, there's the stuff I complained about, which is
Speaker 2: I think Windows on a touchscreen controller device is miserable.
Speaker 2: Trying to update the correct drivers in three different apps
Speaker 2: when it's time to update things because it's not all
Speaker 2: centralized because it's Windows, is a pain. And then you know,
Speaker 2: when you want to type in a password field and
Speaker 2: you click on it and it just doesn't work right
Speaker 2: because Windows, it's like, wait, where's the keyboard? What's going
Speaker 2: on here? That's happened to be plenty of times that
Speaker 2: stuff's annoying.
Speaker 1: They need to fix that. They're working on that.
Speaker 2: The bigger problem might be, like the performance of these
Speaker 2: games are it's just better on Steam Os, which is
Speaker 2: wild considering that it's like there's a proton layer translating a.
Speaker 1: Lot of games. Battery life way better.
Speaker 2: And so you know what Microsoft needs to do is
Speaker 2: figure out Windows first, because if that's going to be
Speaker 2: their strategy of let's make everything a Windows PC, including
Speaker 2: our Xbox, the Xbox Handheld, that operating system needs to
Speaker 2: be more scalable for devices like this, and it's pretty
Speaker 2: far away from that right now. So this makes sense
Speaker 2: because this is a big problem they need to solve
Speaker 2: because if this space takes off like as much as
Speaker 2: it has been, if it continues to growing the way
Speaker 2: it has been, a few million consoles per year or
Speaker 2: a few million of these handel PCs per year, and
Speaker 2: then it like against the grow, Microsoft could miss out
Speaker 2: on a big new opportunity and it doesn't want to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: So does this all sound right to you.
Speaker 3: Yes, they could miss out on miss miss out on
Speaker 3: a huge opportunity again, seems to be their mo Hello,
Speaker 3: Windows Phone, Hello Zoom. It makes perfect sense to me
Speaker 3: that they would need to get Windows, some sort of
Speaker 3: Windows proprietary Windows systems, specifically for these handheld PCs, because
Speaker 3: translating Windows eleven to the original Lenovo Legion Go which
Speaker 3: I have, is a mess. The keyboard is a mess.
Speaker 3: It doesn't come up when you need it to. The
Speaker 3: touchscreen works when it wants to work, doesn't work when
Speaker 3: it doesn't. It forgets that you have the handheld on
Speaker 3: sometimes and then you have to attach it again, and
Speaker 3: then Windows doesn't read it doesn't recognize it as a controller.
Speaker 3: It's they cannot. They cannot if they want everything to
Speaker 3: be an Xbox, they cannot fall behind again. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: have to figure this out. If Kennon had come out
Speaker 3: or Keenan, keen it in kel whatever it's called, if
Speaker 3: it had come out and was you know, inferior to
Speaker 3: the Legion Goes, the rog Allies and the Steam Deck particular,
Speaker 3: it will be left from the dust. It would be
Speaker 3: the Windows Phone in the Zoom all over again. And
Speaker 3: I don't think with this particular technology they can afford
Speaker 3: that because they're supposed to be the PC gaming company
Speaker 3: for reputation's sake, they can't afford it, let alone the
Speaker 3: actual technology. So yes, this tracks. This makes sense. It
Speaker 3: is beneficial to them that we have not actually seen
Speaker 3: this thing yet, and it's been all rumors. They didn't.
Speaker 3: They didn't pull on multiverses and put it out and
Speaker 3: then take it away again. That works for in their favor,
Speaker 3: so we don't have anything to we won't have anything
Speaker 3: to compare it to when it actually does launch, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it. It seems like a sound strategy for them,
Speaker 3: whether or not it pays off, if the delay in
Speaker 3: when they wanted it to come out versus when it
Speaker 3: actually does come out is beneficial. Once they figure this
Speaker 3: stuff out, who knows, they could have already missed the
Speaker 3: boat and just don't know it yet. But you know,
Speaker 3: for their sake, I hope they figure it out, because
Speaker 3: this a first party even though they're partnering with Asis,
Speaker 3: a first party Windows PC gaming handheld makes sense. It
Speaker 3: makes sense in the space, and the fact that it
Speaker 3: doesn't exist yet is a little weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do seem motivated so I think they recognize
Speaker 2: that this is an opportunity that they did that they
Speaker 2: don't want to miss out on, and so I think
Speaker 2: they're taking it seriously, which gives me the hope that
Speaker 2: when this project kenen ASU's Handheld comes out, which is
Speaker 2: you know, mostly still going to be a third party
Speaker 2: hardware with a lot of micros off love on it,
Speaker 2: I think there's a chance that they do solve most
Speaker 2: of these issues.
Speaker 1: The battery.
Speaker 2: The actual performance, maybe that's more questionable because Windows has
Speaker 2: been this kind of thing where they've tried to make
Speaker 2: it more scalable in the past, and sometimes that looks
Speaker 2: like a Windows for arm you know, the mobile chips
Speaker 2: or whatever they've tried that that that's not what this is,
Speaker 2: or at least wouldn't be yet. And then sometimes it
Speaker 2: looks like Windows you know eight, which had all the
Speaker 2: you know, the idea of.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, this can also run on your tablets.
Speaker 2: For as much as they've made that like okay, here
Speaker 2: is a good UI or an acceptable UI for a
Speaker 2: touchscreen interface, that even when they were trying that, they
Speaker 2: didn't necessarily figure out all the the you know, lower
Speaker 2: performance or you could put this into a laptop that
Speaker 2: doesn't need a fan or whatever.
Speaker 1: No way, that's that's not how it was working.
Speaker 2: So I'm still pretty skeptical that they're going to figure
Speaker 2: that out until we see it. But I think the
Speaker 2: very least this story mixes sound like they know that
Speaker 2: is something they must be concerned with, and hopefully they
Speaker 2: have people working on it.
Speaker 1: We'll see.
Speaker 2: I want I think I want a handheld space that,
Speaker 2: especially on the PC side, that does have both steam
Speaker 2: Os and Windows kind of competing with one another. I
Speaker 2: think that would be good for the improvement of features.
Speaker 2: I think Steam I think the reason Valve has been
Speaker 2: moving so fast, other than it's had success is it
Speaker 2: does see a chance to kind of dominate, and I
Speaker 2: think kind of Windows keeping it honest there would really help.
Speaker 2: YEP all right up next, morale at Star Wars, Jedi
Speaker 2: and Titanful developer Respawn is at an all time low.
Speaker 2: This is from Alex Hopley, a game reactor. EA has
Speaker 2: made headlines a few times this year with job cutting.
Speaker 2: Most recently, it canceled its Black Panther game and shut
Speaker 2: down the developer making it making it over at Cliffhanger Studios.
Speaker 2: Also earlier in the year, around one hundred people were
Speaker 2: let go from Apex, Legends, Titanfull and Star Wars Jedi
Speaker 2: developers to Respawn. According to senior encounter designer at Respawn,
Speaker 2: Patrick Wrenn, this has understandably led to an adverse effect
Speaker 2: on people still at the company. Morale has been at
Speaker 2: an all time low, he said in a post on
Speaker 2: Blue Sky. I can say that much as the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three and twenty twenty four trend of jobs being
Speaker 2: lost in the industry continues in twenty twenty five, it's
Speaker 2: difficult to imagine that morale is very good at any
Speaker 2: major publisher right now, or that it will even approve
Speaker 2: at EA. This yeah, I mean boy, everyone at EA
Speaker 2: has got to be feeling like pretty shell shocked right now,
Speaker 2: after massive cut after massive cut, and a big game
Speaker 2: like Black Panther getting canned, several games you know, over
Speaker 2: the years getting canceled at Respawn, but then a bunch
Speaker 2: of layoffs happening at Respawn recently, and that.
Speaker 1: Was on top of Mammoth layoffs last year.
Speaker 2: It's just been kind of cut after cut to the
Speaker 2: point where it's like, Okay, well, what does the future
Speaker 2: look like? And then when EA says what the future
Speaker 2: looks like. It's like it is focusing on a handful
Speaker 2: of games that have already had proven success and then
Speaker 2: skate and so it's it's what they said, Evince.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how that goes for them.
Speaker 2: But if you are working at EA and you're looking
Speaker 2: around and be like, Okay, well we're still working on
Speaker 2: Star Wars Jedi three dare you gonna mention that? And
Speaker 2: it's like, well, in this latest round of laoffs, when
Speaker 2: they talked about the games that they're focused on for
Speaker 2: the future, they didn't mention that. The only thing they
Speaker 2: mentioned was Apex Legends, a game that feels like it
Speaker 2: has been rung dry. So if you're working at Respawning, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we've done everything we can think of. And
Speaker 2: many of the people who made respawn respawn early on
Speaker 2: have left because their stocks have vested and they are
Speaker 2: starting their own studios.
Speaker 1: So I think that this is a.
Speaker 2: Situation where it's got to feel gloom gloomy, and the
Speaker 2: chances of you feel like you're you're able to turn
Speaker 2: it around in such a big and such a big company,
Speaker 2: it has to feel impossible at a certain point, right.
Speaker 3: It can't be good walking in your office every day
Speaker 3: and feeling this sort of damicle is hanging over your head,
Speaker 3: not knowing when that's actually going to drop, and you're
Speaker 3: not going to have a job anymore. I feel for
Speaker 3: these people, I really do. I cannot imagine, especially in
Speaker 3: a business or in an industry we're supposed to be
Speaker 3: making things that are fun and people enjoy, right to
Speaker 3: have to go in every day with that, with that
Speaker 3: lack of assurance, with that fear that the next email
Speaker 3: you get could be the one that sends you packing,
Speaker 3: is harrowing. It's not something I envy, It's something I
Speaker 3: very much empathize with. Like I was laid off in
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen from a unrelated to the gaming industry, that
Speaker 3: the job that I had at the time, and if
Speaker 3: I still remember waking up and being directionless, for christ,
Speaker 3: it was months before I finally got back into a
Speaker 3: steady job. So to know that that might be in
Speaker 3: your immediate future, and then not knowing what that immediate
Speaker 3: future looks like. Is it three months, is it one month,
Speaker 3: is it tomorrow? It's it's rough, and it's it's even
Speaker 3: weirder to say this about Respawn, who you mentioned those
Speaker 3: franchises that they want to focus on Respawns, like half
Speaker 3: of them they are APEX and they are Star Wars,
Speaker 3: just Star Wars. It's so so to have them morale
Speaker 3: being an all time low there, what's it like at
Speaker 3: I was going to say, uh, Code Masters, but that
Speaker 3: I think we're talking about that next or whatever. The
Speaker 3: racing studio is like I I, oh, yeah, so I
Speaker 3: just it sucks. I mean, there's no other way to
Speaker 3: put it. I try. I'm trying to, you know, find
Speaker 3: a way to get a smile out of people with
Speaker 3: the chat at How how do you do that in
Speaker 3: a story like this. It's it's it's it's harrowing, it's
Speaker 3: it's it's not it's not a situation they deserve for
Speaker 3: the quot allity of stuff they've been putting out and
Speaker 3: like you, like you said, it's got to feel helpless.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, I think you know at Respawn, which is
Speaker 2: you know where this where Patrick Wrinn works and is
Speaker 2: saying the morales especially bad. It's it's got to be
Speaker 2: a certain point. They have tried so many new ideas
Speaker 2: and had so many projects that were really promising, things
Speaker 2: that you know I heard about like titan Fall Legends
Speaker 2: that looked that sounded really awesome.
Speaker 1: It was going.
Speaker 2: To take inspiration from Hades and but still be titan Fall.
Speaker 2: And they're like, hey, the one problem we had with
Speaker 2: titan Fall two is we would watch people play and
Speaker 2: some would still play it like Call of Duty and
Speaker 2: they wouldn't even like do the wall run or the
Speaker 2: double jump and stuff like that. We want to really
Speaker 2: kind of encourage them to do that. And they had
Speaker 2: all these great ideas to do that, and it's then
Speaker 2: changed its mind. At first, it's like, this is a
Speaker 2: good way to get people back into Apex Legends. We're
Speaker 2: going to kind of bring it into that umbrella. And
Speaker 2: they're like, well, now Apex Legends is actually dead and
Speaker 2: we're going to let it have a graceful sort of
Speaker 2: dropping off period. We're not going to reinvest in it
Speaker 2: too much. And then they changed their mind again. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you're not going to do anything else because we're going
Speaker 2: to go back and reinvest in Apex Legends. And they've
Speaker 2: gotta be like, what the hell we were making stuff
Speaker 2: that was that would have made sense if this is
Speaker 2: what you wanted, if you want us to keep growing,
Speaker 2: And so the whiplash, the back and forth has got
Speaker 2: to be very frustrating. And then and then, as you said,
Speaker 2: as you listed all of the uncertainties.
Speaker 1: Really have to just kill morale.
Speaker 2: So I'm hopeful that that, you know, the people that
Speaker 2: are still respond can do good work. I don't have
Speaker 2: much faith in EA overall in this moment.
Speaker 3: Which sucks because they handle some of the biggest properties
Speaker 3: in the world. Like and if you're the NFL right now,
Speaker 3: you have to have at least I mean you're and
Speaker 3: you're one of the most sure things every single year
Speaker 3: in the industry. You have to have like just one
Speaker 3: eye on what the hell is going on outside of
Speaker 3: EA sports. It's got to be scary. So yeah, and
Speaker 3: people like to I've heard people say why is the
Speaker 3: industry so secretive? Why why do they only why is
Speaker 3: it so controlled? I think it's because I think at
Speaker 3: least there's an element to it that if we heard
Speaker 3: about the games that were in development and all the
Speaker 3: awesome ideas that were in them and then they get canceled,
Speaker 3: people would lose their minds. I imagine this probably happens
Speaker 3: more often than we are privy too. But like when
Speaker 3: you say you're making a Black Panther game and then
Speaker 3: just say, oh no, never mind, sorry we lied, And
Speaker 3: now like does iron Man come out? Like do you
Speaker 3: get iron Man now? Or is that?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: Like it's and there's apparently like there was like a
Speaker 2: third Marvel game that I remember hearing.
Speaker 1: About, but I never found much else out about it,
Speaker 1: and it's like.
Speaker 3: It's probably like Feing Fang Foom and the Savage Lands
Speaker 3: or something that we've never heard of, but like it's so,
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's I I'm thinking about them. I'm
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that they find a way to turn it
Speaker 3: around despite the myriad forces working against them.
Speaker 2: Definitely sticking with EA. EA is planning to close its
Speaker 2: main racing studio as part of future layoffs. According to
Speaker 2: some reports, this is from Alex Co at Dual Shockers.
Speaker 2: Following yesterday's cancelation of the Black Panther game by Electronic
Speaker 2: Arts and closing the studio working on it, Cliffhanger Games,
Speaker 2: it seems more layoffs might be planned for the video
Speaker 2: game company this time. The latest rumor suggests that one
Speaker 2: of EA's newest studio acquisitions is not only facing layoffs,
Speaker 2: but also reportedly closing its doors completely. The latest rumor
Speaker 2: comes from extasists, who has been corrected multiple times when
Speaker 2: it comes to insider info. He had that Xbox story
Speaker 2: a few weeks back about all of Xbox's plans or whatever,
Speaker 2: and I kind of double checked in many of those things.
Speaker 2: He had a lot of that right, So I'm like
Speaker 2: ready to give exstacists some credit, although who knows what's
Speaker 2: actually going to happen here. The cancelation of Black Panther
Speaker 2: will not be the only thing. I've been able to
Speaker 2: learn that there are about four hundred more layoffs coming
Speaker 2: to EA, a total closure of the main headquarters of
Speaker 2: code Masters, and that these developers will be integrated into
Speaker 2: E a SP which does F one, and a new
Speaker 2: need for speed that is already in development. This is
Speaker 2: the thing that people hate about EA, maybe the most
Speaker 2: buy in the studio and closing it years later. Like Bear, Honestly,
Speaker 2: it feels like they just acquired code Masters, They maybe
Speaker 2: did a couple of the code Masters annual racing games,
Speaker 2: and now here we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: That work there, so I don't hope that it collapses,
Speaker 2: But honestly, EA, do we even need you like, why
Speaker 2: do like, I'm pretty sick of this.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 2: Okay, wh who knows what Code Master's future would have
Speaker 2: been like had they not been acquired. There's always that
Speaker 2: that that you should consider. But still this looks terrible, right,
Speaker 2: it looks awful. And it's it's e A doing e
Speaker 2: A things again.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's it's what people you know, when they
Speaker 3: bought BioWare they thought by the joke was, oh, sorry, BioWare,
Speaker 3: you're out. It's it's it's it's over for you because
Speaker 3: e A owns you now, and who knows, maybe they're
Speaker 3: on the clock too, which is unfortunate. They talk about
Speaker 3: all those four properties, mass effects not in there either,
Speaker 3: and we know you're making that. So but back to
Speaker 3: Code Masters, this is wild to me. They were they
Speaker 3: were making a successful racing franchise. They get swallowed up
Speaker 3: by EA, and now they're rumored to be getting Lets
Speaker 3: of Pasture. It's it's it makes covering the industry tougher.
Speaker 3: That should be. I think I would love to spend
Speaker 3: my time, you know, talking about new game releases and
Speaker 3: and you know, all the fun stupid stuff that people
Speaker 3: are doing in Elden Ring Night rain right now or whatever.
Speaker 3: And and you know that's a minor grape. My my
Speaker 3: complaint of oh no, it makes me sad to write
Speaker 3: these articles does not compare to the of course, I'm
Speaker 3: to make that very very clear. But what the fuck happened? Man? Like,
Speaker 3: what what happened that we are now getting into this situation.
Speaker 3: It's at this point, I'm just expecting EA and Ubisoft
Speaker 3: to merge, make Uba and they'll make one game a
Speaker 3: year and they'll just be this big Ivory Tower game
Speaker 3: studio in Montreal or whatever, and they'll just be there
Speaker 3: own the It's it just none of this makes any
Speaker 3: sense to me. And maybe it's just because I don't
Speaker 3: have a business background the business know well of why
Speaker 3: this made financial sense to just buy a studio and
Speaker 3: then close it. I it's it's fucking terrible.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I know you're right. Uh it's so.
Speaker 2: And you know, sad thing about Code Masters would be
Speaker 2: if it did close, And we don't know ben round
Speaker 2: since nineteen eighty six or been thousand since nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: Uh So there's a huge legacy there and it's not
Speaker 2: like it's, you know, a couple of games and then
Speaker 2: a bunch of years off. It's like they were consistently
Speaker 2: putting out several games a year for decades. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a chance that this is miscommunication that some jobs
Speaker 2: are getting you know, cut as part of other layoffs
Speaker 2: or whatever. But it's clear that they are diminishing the
Speaker 2: role of Code Masters because they've already given up the
Speaker 2: World Rally cross ip like that is that went back
Speaker 2: up and someone else already grabbed that and Naton I believe, yes,
Speaker 2: that's right. Code Masters was, you know, putting out an
Speaker 2: annual WRC game every year, and the last one they
Speaker 2: did was in twenty twenty three, and then they didn't
Speaker 2: do one in twenty twenty four, and it's okay, well,
Speaker 2: now here's twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Is that when it's going to pop back up? It's like, no,
Speaker 1: EA's done with that.
Speaker 2: So they are already taking away some of the projects
Speaker 2: that that studio was working on.
Speaker 1: It's not like they are.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like they were going back to dirt instead,
Speaker 2: it does sound like they're taking the people from Code
Speaker 2: Masters and putting many of them on Need for Speed,
Speaker 2: as the story claims, and it's like, okay, I get
Speaker 2: the Need for speed is the one of your racing
Speaker 2: games that always does just sell. There's a massive audience
Speaker 2: for it, even though I think that's kind of weird personally,
Speaker 2: but there is a massive audience for it. But man,
Speaker 2: what was the point of acquiring code masters just to
Speaker 2: make more need for speed games? I thought the idea
Speaker 2: was they ton't diversify, and now that's not what they're thinking.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see here, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: We'll come back plenty of more headlines. If you want
Speaker 2: to miss out on these breaks, you can always go
Speaker 2: to giant bomb dot com slash join and you can
Speaker 2: get the ad free podcasts.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: Go do that in the meantime everyone else. Here are
Speaker 2: the ads. This episode of giant Bomb is brought to
Speaker 2: you by GiantBomb dot com slash Join. Join us there,
Speaker 2: become a member. It helps us make fun stuff. It
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Speaker 2: at Giant Bomb once again. That's giant bomb dot com.
Speaker 2: Slash Join, become a member now, welcome back to mornings.
Speaker 2: I'm Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb. That's Jason Finelli. Let's
Speaker 2: get back into the news. Elden Ring Night Rain explodes
Speaker 2: on Steam, but is already getting cooked in the reviews.
Speaker 2: Here's one of the reviews in the headline, Very bold
Speaker 2: of Miyazaki to think I have two friends to play with.
Speaker 2: This is from Ethan Gotch at Kotaku. Elden Ring Night
Speaker 2: Rain had a huge first night on PC. It's already
Speaker 2: from software's second biggest launch ever on Steam. The multiplayer
Speaker 2: spin off of the twenty twenty two hit Open World
Speaker 2: RPG is already getting hammered by use reviews, as fans
Speaker 2: complain about the lack of onboarding, poor communication tools, and
Speaker 2: the need to play with friends to have any real
Speaker 2: shot at surviving the challenging boss fights. Officially out today
Speaker 2: on PlayStation five and Xbox Series X and S, elder
Speaker 2: Ring night Rain went live on PC last night around
Speaker 2: six pm, and it's already sprang up the Steam charts
Speaker 2: with to reach over three hundred thousand concurrent players that
Speaker 2: made it the fourth biggest game on Valves storefront and
Speaker 2: the second biggest launch from from Software, behind only elden
Speaker 2: Ring itself, its namesake and its forty dollars price point.
Speaker 2: Clearly did the experimental multiplayer spin off some favors, but
Speaker 2: it didn't take long for players to realize that Night
Speaker 2: Ring is very much not elden Ring, Unlike its slow
Speaker 2: plotting predecessor, spinoff is a battle Reale influenced loot race
Speaker 2: in which a session see an entire a Soul's Word
Speaker 2: experience condensed into just forty five minutes. It takes them
Speaker 2: getting used to, and players are already coming to grips
Speaker 2: with Night Rain's notable hostility to explaining itself, even for
Speaker 2: a from Software game. And while it does allow for
Speaker 2: online solo play or offline solo players, should say, it's
Speaker 2: steep difficulty curve more of a right angle, really heavily
Speaker 2: rewards group play and coordination. And then there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of user reviews here, but they are many people are
Speaker 2: just kind of getting at this idea of there is
Speaker 2: a game here that probably is good and maybe in
Speaker 2: some ways great. It is difficult to find that as
Speaker 2: a player just entering this game for the first time,
Speaker 2: especially because you need to be with two other people
Speaker 2: who have already gone through that process and discovered what
Speaker 2: made it good as well, and that is not happening yet.
Speaker 2: And I believe that there are going to be people
Speaker 2: who eventually end up falling in love in love with
Speaker 2: this game, Jason, but I think in this moment, the
Speaker 2: idea of asking a lot of people like, okay, by
Speaker 2: this game, get two other people that you're going to
Speaker 2: play with to buy it, because you're going to need
Speaker 2: that because while there is match making, there are no
Speaker 2: communication tools.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: There's no in game chat oh where you could type
Speaker 2: out your messages, and there's no voice chat inside the game,
Speaker 2: so it's like people are match making and everyone's kind
Speaker 2: of running in a different direction. Maybe that sorts itself
Speaker 2: out over time as people do learn how to play
Speaker 2: the game. But I think even regardless, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: have random matchmaking without voice chat, you're kind of setting
Speaker 2: yourself up for a lot of headaches with how all
Speaker 2: your players interact with this game.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'm surprised, right I hear experimental
Speaker 3: multiplayer from a studio that is more known for its
Speaker 3: single player stuff. I mean, there's multiplayer aspects to all
Speaker 3: the Soul's games short, but but this is like a
Speaker 3: as it said in the in the in the article here,
Speaker 3: a Battle Royale inspired loot race with three players that
Speaker 3: does not fit the elder Ring formula. They people trusted
Speaker 3: from Soft to make it fit, but it sounds like
Speaker 3: it they may have stumbled a little bit in that
Speaker 3: regard the fact that they went with the two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven two thousand and eight sweet and that's even
Speaker 3: being generous of online multiplayer offerings. No voice chat is
Speaker 3: very weird, that's very The fact that the fact that
Speaker 3: Call of Duty Modern Warfare two has something that this
Speaker 3: brand new twenty twenty five game does not have is
Speaker 3: not sitting right with me. Yeah, and someone did put
Speaker 3: in chat. I missed who it was, and forgive me.
Speaker 3: They may be patching the solo experience to make it
Speaker 3: slightly more bearable.
Speaker 1: I think I would love that personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if there are enough, if they have
Speaker 3: enough data that suggests that a lot of people are
Speaker 3: trying the solo and they want to patch it down
Speaker 3: so that those Solo folks can give a shot the
Speaker 3: elden Winge. Players who don't have two friends to play
Speaker 3: with are still able to enjoy the game. Great, that's
Speaker 3: how it should work. And then if you have a
Speaker 3: patch in the middle where if it's a two player game,
Speaker 3: maybe the difficulty goes up a little bit, but not
Speaker 3: too much. That's fine too. I'm not surprised that that
Speaker 3: people who UH were looking for a certain type of
Speaker 3: experience with an because of the name elden Ring aren't
Speaker 3: getting it. I wonder if they, maybe I would have
Speaker 3: had more success without the name on it, like if
Speaker 3: it was just inspired by elden Ring or or or
Speaker 3: Tales of Elder or something to differentiate it and not
Speaker 3: make it sound like a direct sequel or an expansion
Speaker 3: or something like that. You know I'm saying, But I
Speaker 3: don't know that. It doesn't shock me. I haven't tried yet,
Speaker 3: I haven't a chance to UH, and from Soft isn't
Speaker 3: usually my bag anyway. But I don't think that I'm
Speaker 3: surprised that's something that's so far off from the core
Speaker 3: experience of the namesake is turning people off. Maybe with
Speaker 3: the patch it'll get fixed, Maybe with easier ways to
Speaker 3: connect with random matchmaking, especially in the voice no voice chat.
Speaker 3: That's really throwing me that there's no voice chat. That
Speaker 3: seems like that's like Nintendo decision right there.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you like, if you're on console, like you
Speaker 2: can just you know, see the person's screen name, makeup
Speaker 2: party and connect with the hit away Steam. It's a
Speaker 2: little that's like, you know, even if that might be possible,
Speaker 2: it's it's a little bit against the way people play
Speaker 2: PC games. It's like you're not supposed to like reach
Speaker 2: out and start calling the person you're playing with randomly.
Speaker 2: So maybe there's a little faux pau situation there. But
Speaker 2: you know, also I think people are like, well, I
Speaker 2: just if I'm supposed to communicate, just put it in the game,
Speaker 2: Like that's how it works in every other game on Steam.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't be here in this game from one
Speaker 2: of the biggest developers in the world, and so well,
Speaker 2: because they're weird.
Speaker 1: They're weird. They're just weird. There's no cross play.
Speaker 2: This is a game that definitely feels like you should
Speaker 2: have progression that happens where where your characters tied to
Speaker 2: a server.
Speaker 1: Or something, so you when you're going on these online sessions.
Speaker 1: It goes.
Speaker 2: But it's like, apparently xbox eron chat was saying, that's
Speaker 2: only tied. That only happens for the main person who's playing,
Speaker 2: and everyone else who's joining their game doesn't have the
Speaker 2: metal World progression.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Don't like so if I join your game, only you
Speaker 3: get the.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe you get like some certain progressions for your character.
Speaker 2: I've only played a little bit, but apparently you don't
Speaker 2: get the metal World progression, is what they say, And
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what that means.
Speaker 3: Yes either.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not surprised to hear that, because again,
Speaker 2: Weird from Software is weird with this stuff. They make decisions,
Speaker 2: they make big choices, and a lot of times that's like, wait,
Speaker 2: everyone else does it this way, and a lot of
Speaker 2: times it makes it doesn't make sense, but it makes
Speaker 2: for fun or creates opportunities for their very fun messaging
Speaker 2: system where people are just leaving all kinds of notes
Speaker 2: for each other. And it's like, no, that this is
Speaker 2: actually a great thing. You put me Verse in all
Speaker 2: your games. I know it predates me Verse even but
Speaker 2: you put me Verse in all your games and now
Speaker 2: we can just enjoy these messages here. It just feels
Speaker 2: like it's antithetical to the way you're to the game
Speaker 2: that you've built and that you want, and antithetical to
Speaker 2: the way you want people to be playing your game,
Speaker 2: So that could be a little annoying. Platonic confirms layoffs.
Speaker 2: The landscape is shifting, and with it, so must we.
Speaker 2: This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. Yuka Leiley, developer
Speaker 2: and publisher Platonic Games has confirmed that a number of
Speaker 2: its staff has been laid off. Numerous Platonic staffs have
Speaker 2: been posting on social media over the past week that
Speaker 2: they had lost their jobs, making it increasingly likely that
Speaker 2: these weren't individual cases and that Platonic had conducted a
Speaker 2: round of layoffs. The company has now officially confirmed this
Speaker 2: in a statement on Twitter and Blue Sky, though it
Speaker 2: hasn't clarified how many staff are affected. This is one
Speaker 2: of those messages we never wanted to have to write.
Speaker 2: The statement reads. We've all seen in recent years how
Speaker 2: the games industry has been changing, resulting in studio after
Speaker 2: studio finding themselves in situations where to continue to exist,
Speaker 2: they must make painful decisions decisions that impact the lives
Speaker 2: of so many individual developers. Like others, we've felt the
Speaker 2: knock gone effects, and after exploring every possible avenue, we've
Speaker 2: had to make the incredibly heartbreaking decision to say goodbye
Speaker 2: to some truly brilliant members of the Platonic team, Jason.
Speaker 2: They kind of go on to say that this is
Speaker 2: something that a lot of developers and publishers are dealing with.
Speaker 1: They hate this.
Speaker 2: They're trying to shift with the times because they feel
Speaker 2: like the way games are being financed, the way that
Speaker 2: they're being built, has completely changed up on them, and
Speaker 2: so they're going to have to start from scratch in
Speaker 2: some ways, and that means greatly pairing back. This size
Speaker 2: of studio is one that I really wish could find
Speaker 2: stable footing.
Speaker 1: I hope that does happen.
Speaker 2: What do you think the chances of that are of
Speaker 2: that of that happening are for in the next couple
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 3: Or Platonic specifically Platonic.
Speaker 2: Or a studio of this size, like it feels like
Speaker 2: the like all the studios of the size are standing
Speaker 2: on Quicksand.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would agree with that, just because if you
Speaker 3: don't come out with a major hit, and then a
Speaker 3: follow up to that major hit that's another major hit.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of these these size studios feel like
Speaker 3: one and done. Platonic is A is A is a
Speaker 3: bit of a exception to that role, even though all
Speaker 3: three of their games are in the same universe, right,
Speaker 3: Ukulele The Impossible Layer I think was the second one,
Speaker 3: and now Replay, which who stop it?
Speaker 1: Love it?
Speaker 3: That's a hard one to say, so yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: they have been able to keep going based on this
Speaker 3: little franchise they've built for themselves and the indie clout
Speaker 3: that it gained for bringing back the three D platforming genre.
Speaker 3: And that's part of it too, right, A lot of
Speaker 3: these indie studios like to focus their efforts on a
Speaker 3: genre or on a style of game that hasn't been
Speaker 3: around in a while. The three D platformer in Ukulele,
Speaker 3: the banjo kazui style three D platformer in Ukulele's case
Speaker 3: is the example. But then, Okay, you've gotten your nostalgia hit.
Speaker 3: Now what you're gonna You're gonna go back to that? Well?
Speaker 3: Does that work? How are you going to iterate on
Speaker 3: what you've already iterated on without then falling into the
Speaker 3: same trap that the genre fell into in the first place,
Speaker 3: and that's why people don't make them anymore. So you
Speaker 3: need to have you need to have a studio who
Speaker 3: or or maybe like maybe in a group of studios
Speaker 3: under one umbrella, who can kind of branch out and
Speaker 3: do different things even within the same genre. I think
Speaker 3: of dot EMU. Yeah when I when I come up
Speaker 3: with this, because they have they have a bunch of
Speaker 3: beat them ups, but everyone, every one of them feels
Speaker 3: different enough, and they're all developed by different studios.
Speaker 2: And yes, exactly, they're like a smaller studio that partners
Speaker 2: with a lot of other.
Speaker 3: Studios, right, and then they partner with IP and license
Speaker 3: the IP from I don't know the Sega still owns
Speaker 3: Treets of Rage at the time, I'm not sure about that,
Speaker 3: But then Marvel Cosmic Invasion and Turtles Freder's Revenge, which
Speaker 3: was excellent, so they come to mind. It's sort of
Speaker 3: how the strategy seems to work now. Two D beat
Speaker 3: them ups maybe easier to develop sort of than a
Speaker 3: three D platform, or granted it's all hand drawn pixels,
Speaker 3: that's probably takes a little more effort, or maybe just
Speaker 3: as much effort than modeling three D, but I don't
Speaker 3: know that the I don't know where the development costs
Speaker 3: would be in those type of projects. I want to say,
Speaker 3: I hope that Platonic comes out of this without, you know,
Speaker 3: put a sign on the door it says no longer business.
Speaker 3: But I think in order to do that they need
Speaker 3: to have another hit that isn't ukulele. They need more IP,
Speaker 3: license an IP and adapt the three D genre to it.
Speaker 3: Revive gex that seems to be a thing that people
Speaker 3: are trying to do now, bring gets back. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's whatever, you know what playton Maybe I'm sorry, Jeff,
Speaker 3: you break the glass and you press the button. The
Speaker 3: white with the big inflamation paint on it.
Speaker 1: Now it tastes.
Speaker 3: Of emergency break for pubs, break back pubs.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think a Playtonic bubbsy game. I would like
Speaker 2: to see that. That would be pretty cool. I think
Speaker 2: it's it's a matter of scale, right, dott Emu. And
Speaker 2: then like all this slew of indie developers where it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you've been making Silk Song for years.
Speaker 1: I was like trying to remember the name. What was
Speaker 1: gonna call It's do in.
Speaker 2: Heaven you've been h making Silk Song for years, and
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, they can afford to do that because
Speaker 2: they're it's a smaller studio that can thrive on the
Speaker 2: profits of the game, the first game selling in Steam
Speaker 2: sales for years, right that they could just like like
Speaker 2: kind of predict that a little bit, like we can
Speaker 2: just rely on that to sort of fund everything. I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's other funding because they probably are trying bigger things,
Speaker 2: especially a successful studio like that, But in a lot
Speaker 2: of cases, these smaller studios are just kind of surviving
Speaker 2: on the profits of their first game. Platonic was too
Speaker 2: big to do that, right They also had a publishing
Speaker 2: arm and things they were trying to grow and grow
Speaker 2: and grow, And I just don't know if the current
Speaker 2: gaming industry can sustain a studio trying to do that
Speaker 2: right now. Maybe one, maybe two. There's a couple here
Speaker 2: and there that can pull that off, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're a little bit bigger, if you're io interactive, like
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, let's try that. We're going to publish
Speaker 2: some stuff. Although you know that could be treacherous as
Speaker 2: well for them. We'll find out, But Platonic is of
Speaker 2: that scale where it's like, actually, maybe it is better
Speaker 2: to pair back down and try to be more like
Speaker 2: a dot emu, where it's like, hey, we could do
Speaker 2: this thing very well. Let's partner up with some other studios,
Speaker 2: or just have to make smaller games.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Death Stranding two is getting a live game premiere presentation
Speaker 2: during Summer Game Fest. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC.
Speaker 2: A live game premiere event for Death Stranding two has
Speaker 2: been confirmed for Summer Game Fest. The presentation will take
Speaker 2: place at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, will be
Speaker 2: hosted by Jeff Keeley, and we'll be streamed online. Adeo
Speaker 2: Kojima will be in attendance at the event, which is
Speaker 2: designed to celebrate the game's upcoming launch with a panel
Speaker 2: discussion with special guests, an exclusive live demonstration of the
Speaker 2: game in action. A limited number of tickets for the
Speaker 2: event are available with those listed interests. We have with
Speaker 2: those interested able to register now for a chance to attend. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 2: they're really kicking this off.
Speaker 1: Obviously.
Speaker 2: This is part of his like, I think his world
Speaker 2: tour where he's going to take the game to Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: right here. It's a Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, London, Soul, Taipei,
Speaker 2: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Riad and South Paolo before ending in
Speaker 2: Luca in Italy in November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're kicking it off here.
Speaker 2: Do you think that this is the kind of marketing
Speaker 2: campaign that can get des straining to a lot of eyeballs.
Speaker 1: I think this is like Summer game Fest. Makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we were getting it at Summer game Fest
Speaker 3: no matter what because of the bromance right with of course,
Speaker 3: whether whether we wanted to Kojima there or not, He's
Speaker 3: going to be there to support his boy Jeff. You
Speaker 3: know it. No, this makes perfect sense. I think it's
Speaker 3: a good setting. I think with Keeley as the host,
Speaker 3: they obviously have a lot of chemistry. They can they
Speaker 3: can put on a good a good like back and
Speaker 3: forth fireside chat sort of thing. That's the vibe I'm
Speaker 3: getting from this Special guests probably mean some of the
Speaker 3: other people, the other celebrities who are in the Kiss,
Speaker 3: they're in LA, they're probably in their backyard. Just bring
Speaker 3: them in. Yeah, I think this is a neat idea.
Speaker 3: I think they're were smart to not compete with Giant
Speaker 3: bomb at night and to go on on Sunday. That
Speaker 3: was very smart of them not to do that. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's cool. It's a good idea. This is how you
Speaker 3: get some some extra gameplay out there. Makes me wonder
Speaker 3: if it'll show up at SGF Live as well, But
Speaker 3: when I really think about it, yeah, of course it will.
Speaker 3: It'll be all over this weekend. So yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 3: This is this is a cool little idea. As much
Speaker 3: as we talk about speaking of weird, as much as
Speaker 3: we talk about how much of an altar and an
Speaker 3: artist and you know, weird, Kojuma is nobody talks about
Speaker 3: his games better than him, So to give him the
Speaker 3: opportunity to do that in this sort of setting makes
Speaker 3: perfect sense. Now, is this the PlayStation showcase that you
Speaker 3: were that we were talking about, because it is live
Speaker 3: streaming on the PlayStation channel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask that. It's like, so
Speaker 2: this does kind of say that we shouldn't expect a
Speaker 2: a state of play that would have featured death stranding
Speaker 2: right around this time. Maybe that is something that's happening
Speaker 2: later in June. Uh, this makes sense that this would
Speaker 2: be separate from what I was hearing about just and
Speaker 2: that's all I could say. Really, but yes, but this
Speaker 2: is going to be on the PlayStation YouTube channel, so yeah,
Speaker 2: they're definitely promoting this as a PlayStation thing.
Speaker 3: Which of course they are. At first, I was like,
Speaker 3: how'd they get the orphium? The orphum is really Larry
Speaker 3: usually full around this time. And then I think it's
Speaker 3: Ubisoft that takes the orphium. Let's see they have What
Speaker 3: are they doing? Do we know what they're doing?
Speaker 1: Like? Are they I don't think I've heard anything from
Speaker 1: ub Soft. I don't know.
Speaker 3: They have a game that's so weird. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: Be I'm good and evil to be there the big
Speaker 1: game this year?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go. There it is.
Speaker 2: Multi Versus officially closes down and is delisted today. This
Speaker 2: is some Chris scullying at VGC. The online service for
Speaker 2: Multiverses officially closed down today. This is, of course, the
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers Games crossover Smash Brothers rival. The publisher announced
Speaker 2: back in January that the game's fifth season would be
Speaker 2: to be its last, running from February fifth to May thirtieth,
Speaker 2: and then it went offline today.
Speaker 1: You were following multiverses there for a while.
Speaker 2: It kind of a rough end for a game that
Speaker 2: never really found its footing, and I think because Warner
Speaker 2: Brothers was directing it in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: But that's my take.
Speaker 3: What do you think, farewell, sweet Prince, we hardly knew ye. Well,
Speaker 3: we did know yee and then you went away, and
Speaker 3: then we had.
Speaker 1: Knew you again. Yeah we re knew yee before.
Speaker 3: Damn it U? Yeah? What? Like? What the fun? Man? This?
Speaker 3: This should have been a slam dunk. There was a
Speaker 3: void created by a lack of a new Smash Brothers
Speaker 3: Ultimate had gotten all of its characters out. This should
Speaker 3: have been a slam dunk with all of the ip
Speaker 3: even in the game. You had Game of Thrones, you
Speaker 3: had Scooby Doo, you had DC Superheroes, you had Rick
Speaker 3: and Morty, all of those premier names in one game
Speaker 3: in a silly slapstick platform fighter. It should have been
Speaker 3: a slam dunk. And the fact that it's not continuing,
Speaker 3: but not for any fault of player. First, because of
Speaker 3: all of the bullshit shenanigans surrounding it is it makes
Speaker 3: my skin crawl right this it should have been a
Speaker 3: no brainer. And the game was fun. It was fun
Speaker 3: before it went away, and it was fun. After it
Speaker 3: came back. I enjoyed playing this game, and I just
Speaker 3: cannot wrap my head around the fact that they fumbled
Speaker 3: this bag so much. It is astounding to me that
Speaker 3: this game is not continuing that I've been trying to
Speaker 3: think of the exact moment where it all fell apart.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I disagree at the time with
Speaker 3: them taking it out of beta, but if you're gonna
Speaker 3: do that, you better relaunch with guns fucking blazing. And
Speaker 3: they didn't like a big.
Speaker 1: Change, like a big shift has happened.
Speaker 3: They didn't do that. It felt like the exact same
Speaker 3: game with extra characters. It was one point oh, but
Speaker 3: without the smooth transition from beta to one point oh.
Speaker 3: And if you go back and watch the live streams
Speaker 3: of when they're coming back and they're talking about why
Speaker 3: they were doing this and how like the strategy, you
Speaker 3: can just see in their faces that they have no
Speaker 3: control over this and this is not what they want
Speaker 3: to do, but they're being told they have by people
Speaker 3: who don't know what the goddamn fuck they're doing.
Speaker 2: So and the people who like have this idea of
Speaker 2: like this game can be so much more than it
Speaker 2: ever really could have been. It could have just been
Speaker 2: a successful video game. We're saying on Decides last night.
Speaker 2: They could have just made it a product. It could
Speaker 2: have just put a price on this game and sold
Speaker 2: it like the Nickelodeon games, and it would have done
Speaker 2: way better than Nickeladien games because it was a better game.
Speaker 2: And they just didn't want to do that because they
Speaker 2: had stars in their eyes or dollars signs in their
Speaker 2: eyes for a live service game that would just be
Speaker 2: the equivalent of Smash Brothers, but free to play, and
Speaker 2: every time a new character got announced, people would freak
Speaker 2: out the like the way they do for Smash Brothers characters,
Speaker 2: and it's like, no, you gotta you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: earn that. Don't don't start with that as the goal.
Speaker 2: That's like a that's like step five. You got so
Speaker 2: much stuff to figure out if you ever get there,
Speaker 2: which you probably.
Speaker 1: Won't, So just sell us a video game. Just do that.
Speaker 2: And then the business model was the exact opposite and
Speaker 2: was kind of toxic for the game and just turned
Speaker 2: a lot of people off.
Speaker 3: I think not only that, if you're going to introduce
Speaker 3: a brand new character and try to do it in
Speaker 3: the same way that Super Smash Brothers does. You're not
Speaker 3: going to do that because no one makes trailers like
Speaker 3: as a Hero Sakarai.
Speaker 1: They just don't.
Speaker 3: I go back to the Switch direct that we watch
Speaker 3: together and all of us going, this is a Sacarai trailer.
Speaker 3: You could just see it's a Sacarai trailer. When Kirbeer
Speaker 3: Rider showed up, he just has a style to him
Speaker 3: and a flair for the dramatic to him that they
Speaker 3: never replicated with their trailers. Like go back and watch
Speaker 3: in particular, I think it's Rick Sanchez specifically. The Rick
Speaker 3: Sanchez reveal trailer is just thirty seconds of gameplay where
Speaker 3: it's two characters fighting and the portal shows up and
Speaker 3: he walks through it and he looks like it's an
Speaker 3: alpha model or even like a pre alpha model that
Speaker 3: they didn't want to use. You can just tell that
Speaker 3: they were told to make a trailer and they were
Speaker 3: just like shit, all right, I guess we have to
Speaker 3: do this now. Everything about this game was mismanaged. I
Speaker 3: feel so terrible for this studio and if they could
Speaker 3: all get the gang back together and make a player
Speaker 3: form Fighter, either with different ip or even original and
Speaker 3: just say hey, we made multiverses, now we're trying something different.
Speaker 3: I would be there day one because the game was fun.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's frustrating as a lot of these new stories
Speaker 2: today have been. I hope that the people who were
Speaker 2: at player first can kind of get out of the
Speaker 2: situation and try something new and like come back and
Speaker 2: be like, look, see see what we could do untethered
Speaker 2: from a big dumb publisher like w B, which is
Speaker 2: the biggest and dumbest of publishers. Oh my god, wait,
Speaker 2: oh my god, the President is dead in hell Divers too, everybody,
Speaker 2: The President of Super Earth has been killed in action
Speaker 2: by the Illumina Tea during the fall of Prosperity City.
Speaker 2: That was the message that greeted Hell Divers two players
Speaker 2: when they logged on last night in one last bid
Speaker 2: to repel their invading squid like foes. Some truthers think
Speaker 2: that this was an inside job. When the dust settled
Speaker 2: Friday morning, the battle to save Super Earth was over
Speaker 2: and players had succeeded in winning the Extraction Shooters biggest
Speaker 2: showdown since it launched. So yeah, okay, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to do the joke. That's really what this I just
Speaker 2: saw the headline. I was like, Ethan, gotcha, well done.
Speaker 2: You give me a fun thing to do. I hell
Speaker 2: divers Dude two does just seem like it's one of
Speaker 2: those games that's in like a bunch of different states
Speaker 2: at the same time. It's a schroding RS video game
Speaker 2: where it seems like it's completely fine, and then it
Speaker 2: seems like, man, maybe it's winding down, and then it's like, no,
Speaker 2: actually it is popping off again.
Speaker 1: There's new content.
Speaker 2: People were waiting for this, and it's like, oh man,
Speaker 2: more people are playing than a long time. And then
Speaker 2: as soon as they kind of finished that content, apparently
Speaker 2: a bunch of Chinese players went and review bombed the game,
Speaker 2: so it's like they played it and then they're like
Speaker 2: review I'm like, Okay, what the fuck is going on
Speaker 2: over there?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that makes it actually pretty standard for a
Speaker 2: live service game, right. These things always seem like, think
Speaker 2: about the way Destiny was forever but for several years
Speaker 2: there for Destiny one and then Destiny two, where it's
Speaker 2: like you could ask any person who had been playing
Speaker 2: that game, like go Loo with their Steam profile one
Speaker 2: thousand plus hours, you can ask them how they feel
Speaker 2: about Destiny, and you would get a million different answers,
Speaker 2: and so I think that the fact that Hell Divers
Speaker 2: two is in that zone is maybe even kind of
Speaker 2: a good sign. It's like that is the natural state
Speaker 2: of a live service game, right.
Speaker 3: That's how it should be. I mean, that's how the
Speaker 3: most successful live service games they build on these moments.
Speaker 3: The one, the one that really started at all really
Speaker 3: was the Rocket and Fortnite. I still think about that
Speaker 3: and how that the rocket blew up and shatout the sky,
Speaker 3: and so to keep having these little moments in your
Speaker 3: game and to keep driving the story in that way,
Speaker 3: it's how it should be. It's how Destiny two is.
Speaker 3: It's how at the other one that you mentioned there
Speaker 3: is I can't remember the name of all a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm blinking, but yeah, the fact that so many different
Speaker 3: people are playing this game in so many different ways
Speaker 3: and developing their own relationship with the game is the
Speaker 3: sweet spot, and I think they're getting there. My nephew,
Speaker 3: he's a fourteen fifteen something like that. He got a
Speaker 3: play Station five this past Christmas and Hell Divers two
Speaker 3: was first first on his list, still talking about it,
Speaker 3: and I like he texted me about this. They got
Speaker 3: the president in hell Divers. I'm like, I'm glad you
Speaker 3: prefaced that, and lad you're smart enough to preference that,
Speaker 3: which you sir Chat is mad at you.
Speaker 1: We all have to just I just was trying to
Speaker 1: wake everybody up.
Speaker 3: Seems like you did that. But yeah, I think the uh,
Speaker 3: I think this is a good This is a good headline.
Speaker 3: It's good news for hell Divers too. It's something that
Speaker 3: grabs the attention and lets people remember that you're there, especially,
Speaker 3: you know, amongst all of the news that we've dealt
Speaker 3: with today. It's yeah, good for them. Keep up the
Speaker 3: weird storylines that keep people coming back and wake up
Speaker 3: the chat.
Speaker 1: That's right, exactly. Last story. We'll just do this one
Speaker 1: real quick.
Speaker 2: A Concord developer's commemorative release plaque is being auctioned at
Speaker 2: a good will store. It's just like, you know, like
Speaker 2: when an album goes like gold or platinum and they
Speaker 2: put like an artist puts that stuff on the wall.
Speaker 2: It looks a lot like that, but for when they
Speaker 2: print the version of the game, so it's the disc
Speaker 2: and the cover and then the developer's name or whatever,
Speaker 2: and the developer's name has been confirmed by I think.
Speaker 1: VGC or some people.
Speaker 2: Uh this the bidding for this thing on the goodwill
Speaker 2: website is up to three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's three thousand two dollars.
Speaker 2: So that's the most excitement anyone's ever had for Concord
Speaker 2: is happening right now for this thing.
Speaker 3: Somebody, somebody was commenting on Blue Sky about this. At
Speaker 3: some point, this particular plaque is going to make more
Speaker 3: than the game did, and I was like, oh no.
Speaker 1: Just inherently, yeah, that game lost so much money, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Don't Yeah, I don't want to kick you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to beat a dead horse or kick anybody
Speaker 3: while they're sure down. But oh god, is it.
Speaker 2: Like it's an artifact of like gaming's recent mistakes, right,
Speaker 2: That's what this is. It just represents the whole wrongheaded
Speaker 2: thinking about the way to approach people who play video
Speaker 2: games so that will spend money on your stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 2: this is just like emblematic of that moment is which
Speaker 2: is ongoing in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: But this is this is like it's going to be
Speaker 1: the poster child for that.
Speaker 3: It really is a tangible piece of gaming history. For
Speaker 3: all of the wrong reasons exactly.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the poll question. This one
Speaker 2: is from yesterday. I'm going to vote right now. Do
Speaker 2: you think PERSONA four will get announced at Summer Game Fest.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get my hopes up and say yes. I know,
Speaker 2: like there's still a good chance it won't happen, but
Speaker 2: I am in the majority. Sixty seven percent of people
Speaker 2: think it will get announced at Summer Game Fest.
Speaker 1: Thirty three percent say no. So there you go. What
Speaker 1: do you think, Jason, you think there's a chance.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be I'm going to be a pedantic
Speaker 3: asshole and say no, it'll be at Xbox.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's because at let's enn, Xbox seem to be cozy.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: So if it's going to be anywhere this next weekend,
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be at the Xbox Showcase.
Speaker 2: Thank you Skalker for your first super chat on the stream.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. If anyone else wants to like try
Speaker 2: to burst into the show drop a super chat, I'll
Speaker 2: keep my eyes on those. Feel free to do that
Speaker 2: on the episodes going forward. And that's on YouTube for
Speaker 2: audio listeners that are wondering later. So maybe we'll get
Speaker 2: some messages from the audience going forward. Ye, all right,
Speaker 2: we have a new poll question. We'll get to that
Speaker 2: here in a moment before we do that, Jason Finelli,
Speaker 2: why don't you tell people where they can find you
Speaker 2: on the internet, what you have going on and all
Speaker 2: that good stuff.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can find me at big Man Finelle on
Speaker 3: basically all social media that there is, Instagram. I am
Speaker 3: most active on Blue Sky and Instagram because Instagram takes
Speaker 3: my pictures to Facebook nice and conveniently for me, so
Speaker 3: I don't have to go on there, and blue Sky
Speaker 3: is just better than X. I don't make the rules,
Speaker 3: it just is. So that's where I'm mostly hanging out
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff on GameSpot recently GameSpot. Oh wow, here,
Speaker 3: what is he is? That? Is that the voice of Mitch?
Speaker 1: Yes, that's Mitch.
Speaker 4: I gotta give you important information about this persona situation
Speaker 4: before you make your decisions.
Speaker 1: Oh no, breaking news.
Speaker 3: Where's the music?
Speaker 1: Where's the music?
Speaker 4: It's been pointed out to me that these voice actors
Speaker 4: have been coming out and talking about how they aren't
Speaker 4: going to be in the new game in the same
Speaker 4: exact order that their respective characters join.
Speaker 1: Your party in persona four.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a marketing make of that?
Speaker 4: What you will just say it that if we if
Speaker 4: we're supposed to make of that, like you think what
Speaker 4: you will up to you?
Speaker 1: I'm just goodbye?
Speaker 3: Where did this turn into Italian Grandma mess mornings with that?
Speaker 1: What am I supposed to do with this?
Speaker 3: What is this mafia? The old country settler? But but
Speaker 3: uh yeah, game spot m m r p G. I've
Speaker 3: written a excuse my language. They know I'm cursing this
Speaker 3: whole time. Fuck ton of coverage about Magic the Gathering,
Speaker 3: final Fantasy card reveals and galleries and shit like that.
Speaker 3: The full set will finally be on the website today,
Speaker 3: Wizard's website, so we can finally see all the cards.
Speaker 3: They have all been previewed, so I could I could
Speaker 3: finally be done with that and just get and just
Speaker 3: be ready to play the damn game when it comes
Speaker 3: out in two weeks. I also, I mean, if I
Speaker 3: could brag for a second, please, I lost fifty.
Speaker 1: Pounds hell yeah you're looking ground brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well fifty two since November. I just feel like
Speaker 3: I feel like a million dollars. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's Uh, it's it's wild. It took going to
Speaker 3: the gym four times a week at five in the morning,
Speaker 3: but uh, here at MCGOV but here we are.
Speaker 1: It helps.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's uh that was nice to get on
Speaker 3: the scale this morning and see fifty two down. That's
Speaker 3: pretty awesome. But yeah, that's what I'm doing, that's what
Speaker 3: I have. We say, it's hell yeah, brother, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you, thank you. So yeah, that's that's me.
Speaker 3: That's uh, that's uh, that's where you can find me.
Speaker 3: That's where I'm doing this stuff. And uh, Jeff, I
Speaker 3: am ready to give you a high five next week.
Speaker 1: I'm ready. Yeah, I can't wait to see you. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be great, looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Uh, we're gonna be back in l A for SGF
Speaker 2: doing fun stuff, uh in GB at night and all
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll see Jason on the show. It'll be a
Speaker 1: good time, all right.
Speaker 2: So let's see here new poll question. Are you enjoying
Speaker 2: Elden Ring night rain, Yes, kind of no or I'm
Speaker 2: not playing. We'll get the results talk about that on Monday.
Speaker 2: Next week's gonna be a little bit hairy for our
Speaker 2: shows because we will be traveling bombcasts will happen, although
Speaker 2: I'm not probably not gonna be honest, I'm gonna be traveling,
Speaker 2: uh and then no game mess morning is likely Wednesday
Speaker 2: through Friday. We're just gonna be too busy getting ready
Speaker 2: for GB at night. But we'll be back at it,
Speaker 2: you know, as soon as we can, uh likely on
Speaker 2: the other side of SGF and in the meantime, well
Speaker 2: other ways of conveying information for you to to. You
Speaker 2: check out the you know these channels. Check out GiantBomb
Speaker 2: dot com. There'll be plenty of stuff happening there. Speaking
Speaker 2: of Giant Bomb, we still have more coming today in back.
Speaker 2: Right after this, we'll take some time to get set up.
Speaker 2: We are gonna play some elder Ring Night Rain. We're
Speaker 2: gonna kind of do a quick look live, and then
Speaker 2: later we're gonna do roadcraft for UPF, and then at
Speaker 2: one thirty Pacific time three thirty Eastern, we're gonna try
Speaker 2: to match up against kind of funny in Eldering Night Rain.
Speaker 2: I know it's not competitive game, but we're gonna turn
Speaker 2: it into one where we're each gonna play in parallel
Speaker 2: and see who can kill the most many bosses bosses,
Speaker 2: you know, the giant bosses, they're all worth different different points.
Speaker 2: Andy's got a scoring system. We'll give that a shot.
Speaker 2: We're expected to get We're expecting to get cooked.
Speaker 3: Here where Indy has a scoring system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got like its many bosses worth one point
Speaker 2: and like the big Night boss is worth twenty five
Speaker 2: points or whatever. So we'll get into it, all of it.
Speaker 2: So we'll shift from Roadcraft to that about three or
Speaker 2: of the way through upf exactly. Yeah, well in a
Speaker 2: very similar games when you think about it. All right, Jason,
Speaker 2: and now, I thank you so much for hanging out
Speaker 2: with me today and talking about video games. Man, I
Speaker 2: really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It was an honor. Again, it was my first time
Speaker 3: since you've gone in dependent. I am so happy for
Speaker 3: you guys. I cannot wait to see what you do
Speaker 3: and if you ever need anything, right here.
Speaker 1: Real quick chat.
Speaker 2: So if this isn't, if they're doing it in order
Speaker 2: and it continues, who would be next?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it Matthew Mercer that we should expect to see next?
Speaker 2: Because if that happens at this point then I.
Speaker 1: Will fully believe.
Speaker 2: Uh so we'll see all right. Thank you everybody for watching.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening. You are the best audience
Speaker 2: in gaming. Until next time, have a good one, take
Speaker 2: care of yourself and goodbye BA.