Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff
Speaker 1: Grab your host from giant bomb dot com. Hey, we're
Speaker 1: a year old. Hi everybody, Thank you, thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: Xbox's biggest gaming leaking, biggest gaming leaking, biggest game leaking early.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a good one because we have Lexiletti
Speaker 1: on the show. LEXI, how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I am here, I'm celebrating. I'm in the festive spirit.
Speaker 2: I'm wishing you happy anniversary, like, which is a normal
Speaker 2: thing to do. Is Yeah, it's it's been a year.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know where I was when I
Speaker 2: found out that that Giant Bomb may not have been
Speaker 2: a thing. I was about to sit down to watch
Speaker 2: Thunderbolts in the cinema because.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, really, yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2: A rough week. I'm going to take an early day
Speaker 2: off this Friday. I think it was a Friday. I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to take an early like day off.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the cinema, go for a
Speaker 2: nice long walk out to the cinema. And I get
Speaker 2: there and I sit down and I look at my
Speaker 2: phone and I see a bunch of ominous messages on
Speaker 2: Blue Sky, and I was like, well, I have time
Speaker 2: to watch a movie for two hours and see what
Speaker 2: is when I come out.
Speaker 1: And then by the time you came out, we we
Speaker 1: own giabomb. So yeah, we've we've been independent for a year. Everybody,
Speaker 1: it's it's been fast, kind of NonStop and a lot
Speaker 1: of really good ways.
Speaker 3: It's been a good year. We got a cool little
Speaker 3: video up.
Speaker 1: Showing some of the like a sizzle reel from our
Speaker 1: first year. We are going to be celebrating everything with
Speaker 1: a big marathon stream. Mike's going to be playing through
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong sixty four. He's starting that today and think, yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 2: I don't think he understands no, that game is not
Speaker 2: like he's like, oh, yeah, she's a boring platform but like,
Speaker 2: I don't think he under sounds that like it's a
Speaker 2: grating platformer. It's an aggressively grating platformer. Like I watched
Speaker 2: a lot of us. Yeah, yeah, I watched a lot
Speaker 2: of that h bomber guy streaming it. But that man
Speaker 2: doesn't break easy. It almost killed him.
Speaker 1: No, those those beavers, they were bothering him. They were
Speaker 1: definitely bothering him. Uh yeah, so that's my that's my
Speaker 1: one thing. Everybody when when we ski, when we post
Speaker 1: on social media that he is in Beaver bother, just show.
Speaker 3: Up for that.
Speaker 1: At least you're not gonna want to miss it. I
Speaker 1: think there is a chance Mike one shots it, and
Speaker 1: if he does, then we all we all have to give.
Speaker 1: We have to we all have to subscribe to Giant Bomb.
Speaker 2: If he doesn't one shot at We're gonna get a
Speaker 2: lot of good sound bites of like saying things about.
Speaker 1: Beavers, suggest non stop weird weird phrases about beavers.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be special and amazing.
Speaker 2: So Soundboard is going to be like totally overhauled with
Speaker 2: just Mike beaver talk.
Speaker 1: We will get the beaver bother Claxon's going everybody when
Speaker 1: it happens. But yeah, the whole thing is going to
Speaker 1: be starting today and I think basically it's a Sabbathan style.
Speaker 1: So the more subs that we get, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're doing this because it's the years up. We want
Speaker 1: people to re up their subscription. We'll be transparent, like
Speaker 1: we're trying to give you guys a fun reason to
Speaker 1: come back and stay subscribed. This is the first fun reason,
Speaker 1: so tune in for that. Support support us, support Mikey,
Speaker 1: keep them going. Let's actually see him one hundred and
Speaker 1: one percent this thing, and thanks to everybody who's just
Speaker 1: been been there for us so far. You know what,
Speaker 1: Let's get into things and explain ourselves. Yeah, we are
Speaker 1: Giant Bomb. You could start that at support by going
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Speaker 1: If you are a subscriber, might get you some early access,
Speaker 1: like hey, starting today or tomorrow in some cases, I'm sorry, yesterday.
Speaker 1: In some cases, bully, the endurance run has begun. If
Speaker 1: you are a premium member, you get a week early access.
Speaker 1: It'll be going up for everybody next week. But why
Speaker 1: not just go ahead and start watching right now. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. I hope people are enjoying it.
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Speaker 1: Thank you as far as this show goes most weekdays,
Speaker 1: I Jeff Grubb will help Eeceier in gaming life back together.
Speaker 1: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
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Speaker 3: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
Speaker 1: let's start the morning Mess with Directive eighty twenty. Reviews
Speaker 1: are in seventy six On Open Critic, Let's see tech Raptors.
Speaker 1: Andrew Stretch wrote seven point five out of ten ten
Speaker 1: and said Directive eighty twenty does a lot correctly, but
Speaker 1: tends to get in its own way instead of letting
Speaker 1: the players sit in the uncomfortableness. The new turning point
Speaker 1: system makes exploring new outcomes a breathe. Though Day one
Speaker 1: gave it a seven out of ten, I believe this
Speaker 1: was Jesse that wrote this. Director of eighty twenty is
Speaker 1: a solid sci fi yarn let down by some early
Speaker 1: snark filled writing. The plot is serviceable in showing you
Speaker 1: some gorgeous locations full of people you may or may
Speaker 1: not want to save and a bevy of monsters you'll
Speaker 1: get bored hiding from. If you've enjoyed the studio's previous works,
Speaker 1: then rest assured that director of eighty twenty may well
Speaker 1: be worth checking out.
Speaker 3: LEXI, I believe believe you played this right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I reviewed this. My review is up on Game
Speaker 2: of Guides right now. I gave it a seventy nine
Speaker 2: out of one hundred. I like it quite a bit.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's pretty obvious why they have
Speaker 2: not been leaning into the dark Pictures stuff with this game.
Speaker 2: This is a ark Pictures game, but is much more
Speaker 2: in line with the size and i'd say the polish
Speaker 2: of something like The Quarry or what's it again until Dawn,
Speaker 2: of course. But yeah, I really really enjoyed this game.
Speaker 2: It has one or two genuine surprising plot twists in
Speaker 2: it that I thought were pulled off pretty well and
Speaker 2: kind of play into the structure and the foremast of
Speaker 2: these games in a way that I quite like. I
Speaker 2: also quite like that the characters are one that they
Speaker 2: just have more time to develop them in a way
Speaker 2: that the usual dark pictures games just really don't. And
Speaker 2: also all of them are like good at their jobs.
Speaker 2: They're not dirt bad teenagers, which like you can have
Speaker 2: endearing dirt bag teenagers. I think until Darn Mike, especially
Speaker 2: in that game, is like really good the guy who
Speaker 2: the jock who gets the shit beat out of them
Speaker 2: without that game, but I think that all of these
Speaker 2: people being quite competent and good at their jobs and
Speaker 2: generally able to keep track of things and logic things
Speaker 2: out is really refreshing for the like compared to the
Speaker 2: usual more slashery victims in these games. It's much easier
Speaker 2: to keep these people alive because they are able to
Speaker 2: think through what they are doing. I also think the
Speaker 2: turning points system is a much better way. That is
Speaker 2: basically it in previous games. You could you'd see at
Speaker 2: the end of the game all the decisions that you'd
Speaker 2: made and how they kind of butterfly affected out on
Speaker 2: what path you went down, And if you wanted to
Speaker 2: go and see other decisions, you had to start from
Speaker 2: the beginning of the game or load a chapter and
Speaker 2: then continue from there. This allows you to rewind to
Speaker 2: literally every single previous decision, no matter what is, whether
Speaker 2: it's a dialogue choice or whether it is one of
Speaker 2: the bigger like ranching points of the narrative. It allows
Speaker 2: you to jump back to one of those and pick
Speaker 2: something different. And as you look through the kind of
Speaker 2: mind map of the game, which you know tells you
Speaker 2: where you made your decisions and what they led to,
Speaker 2: it also tells you what decision would let you get
Speaker 2: the other outcome. So if you see one of the
Speaker 2: characters dies in it because you know in a chapter,
Speaker 2: and you pause it and then you see that there's
Speaker 2: a version of events where they wouldn't have died, it
Speaker 2: will tell you like, oh, back in chapter three, if
Speaker 2: you had set this up, they would have been fined.
Speaker 2: So you can rewind back to chapter three and just
Speaker 2: start from there. And it's again, it doesn't totally relieve
Speaker 2: the like fact that you do have to replay through
Speaker 2: all of the section leading up to mash point then again,
Speaker 2: but it allows you to at least know where to
Speaker 2: start to make that decision and quickly jump back to it.
Speaker 2: And it is like an almost instantaneous you just jump
Speaker 2: straight back to that point. The game also introduced is
Speaker 2: a collectible towards the end that does ties into the
Speaker 2: rest of the Dark Pictures universe. Up until that point,
Speaker 2: it's barely it's barely connected, and basically that's a reason
Speaker 2: to continue exploring your save file and going looking in
Speaker 2: different scenes again for more collectibles. And if you do that,
Speaker 2: you'll unlock a thing. And there's a whole thing that
Speaker 2: wasn't even in the game when we played it, but
Speaker 2: they've said they will patch it in with the Day
Speaker 2: one release. So yeah, I think this game stands alone
Speaker 2: really well compared to the rest of the Dark Pictures games.
Speaker 2: And I think that like even just the character one character, Surning,
Speaker 2: is way more interesting than almost any other character their
Speaker 2: version if you keep them alive long enough and you
Speaker 2: hear some of the like stuff that he has to
Speaker 2: deal with, And yeah, I quite like it. It's not perfect.
Speaker 2: These games have a habit of feeling quite disconnected in
Speaker 2: places because they do have to account for certain characters
Speaker 2: not being alive or maybe you not learning so and
Speaker 2: pieces of information, so sometimes they do just feel slightly disjointed,
Speaker 2: but like, it's not the end of the world. And
Speaker 2: also this game is designed to be replayed multiple times
Speaker 2: so that you do get that whole soul you or
Speaker 2: a bigger insight to what was really happening.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I really like it excellent. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, while you were talking there, I was kind
Speaker 1: of glancing at some of the previous Open Critics scores
Speaker 1: for the Dark Pictures games and other super massive games basically,
Speaker 1: and this is just right in kind of the middle.
Speaker 1: It's maybe on the higher end actually in terms of
Speaker 1: just where the scores are coming in A seventy nine
Speaker 1: for The Quarry, this is seventy six. A lot of
Speaker 1: the Dark Dark Dark Pictures games. The other ones are
Speaker 1: in that range or lower. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as it's a cliche at this point, and
Speaker 1: we do rightfully ridicule it, fans of the genre shall
Speaker 1: rejoice here, right. I mean, like, if you know you
Speaker 1: like these games, this is another one of those without
Speaker 1: sort of anything that's going to necessarily push you away,
Speaker 1: and maybe some neat features that might help you explore
Speaker 1: the game, like the turning point system.
Speaker 3: Right. That's my read on these reviews so far.
Speaker 2: The degree to which they lean into, hey, this is
Speaker 2: just the thing in space is kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we know that, Like you are literish in the horror genre,
Speaker 2: and as the game progresses, it actually subverts some of
Speaker 2: that stuff in a way that I thought was really
Speaker 2: fun for a game that is so like it is
Speaker 2: a way that the people who are playing this have
Speaker 2: probably watched the thing and have probably watched Alien and
Speaker 2: it does some clever twists on that stuff as the
Speaker 2: game goes on, and it plays around with time and
Speaker 2: some interesting ways that I really liked this game is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: fans of the genre is one way to put it.
Speaker 2: But I do think it's just it's engaging in a
Speaker 2: way if you do like that stuff in a different
Speaker 2: way if you do like that stuff. So that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of why I was drawn to it, because I
Speaker 2: do really like, you know, horror and horror movies and
Speaker 2: shit like that.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that makes sense as well, did do you?
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Is this the one that also has
Speaker 1: or maybe they've done this in recent games and carries
Speaker 1: over here built in sort of multiplayer function where multiple
Speaker 1: people can play at the same time and have input
Speaker 1: on the choices.
Speaker 2: So this one, as far as I can tell, the
Speaker 2: multiplayer is much more in line with until Dawn, which
Speaker 2: was kind of a past the controller thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In some of these games, it was like, oh, if
Speaker 2: you split up, then one player online has control of
Speaker 2: these characters and another player online has control of these characters.
Speaker 2: And that is not here in this one. And I
Speaker 2: think that actually serves the story better because they don't
Speaker 2: feel as compelled to constantly separate characters for no good reason,
Speaker 2: and it kind of just gives the game a more
Speaker 2: naturalistic feel to it. For most of it. I think
Speaker 2: that the multiplayer stuff is mostly just past the controller
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yep, makes sense.
Speaker 1: Once again, that's directive eighty twenty. It is a seventy
Speaker 1: six on Open critic LEXI seems to be pretty but pretty.
Speaker 3: You seem like you liked it. When is it available to? Like?
Speaker 3: What is it up now? Is it available to?
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a few days. I
Speaker 2: can check the release that. If you are unsure on
Speaker 2: this game, I would recommend I bet the next Land
Speaker 2: of Folks will play through this, watch the stream and
Speaker 2: how the look as they like those games. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: is out the twelfth, so it's out tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Plan Rama over there on
Speaker 1: the next Lander, which helps me plan the month as well,
Speaker 1: So thanks for doing the work for me, guys. And
Speaker 1: they were talking about it on there and they were
Speaker 1: interested in the turning points system and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll be watching them play as well. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next story. Yeah, the biggest Xbox
Speaker 1: game kind of period at this point just leaked early.
Speaker 1: Sports the Horizons has leaked online and they have cracked it,
Speaker 1: so now you can play it early right now on PC.
Speaker 1: This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. The PC version
Speaker 1: of Forts of Horizon six appears to have been leaked
Speaker 1: online ahead of its full release. The much anticipated sixth
Speaker 1: game in the Forts of Horizon series is set for
Speaker 1: general release on May nineteenth, with early access available from
Speaker 1: May fifteenth, basically this Friday for people who buy the
Speaker 1: premium Premium edition. However, as noted by numerous sources online,
Speaker 1: including the Gaming Leaks and Rumors reddit page, the PC
Speaker 1: version has been acquired, cracked, and made available for download
Speaker 1: by pirates. Well, the main reason for the leak has
Speaker 1: not been fulleged. Yeah, all right, touche well done. It's
Speaker 1: not been fully and officially confirmed. The main reason that
Speaker 1: is The leading theory is that the pre loaded version
Speaker 1: of the game was uploaded to Steam's back end on
Speaker 1: Sunday by a developer, but was done so without any encryption.
Speaker 1: This reportedly made it possible for certain individuals to download
Speaker 1: the files and apply a crack to make the game playable.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make a ton of sense to be like,
Speaker 1: people could just go into Steam servers and find the
Speaker 1: game if it's been uploaded, even if it's not been released.
Speaker 1: It feels like multiple things must have failed here. VGC
Speaker 1: has been has seen the game available for download on
Speaker 1: certain websites, but it's not downloaded it and therefore cannot
Speaker 1: verify its validity. Although people are just playing it now.
Speaker 1: People have been sharing stuff online.
Speaker 3: So uh yeah, wow, this is god.
Speaker 1: Xbox can't can't do any Like if there is a
Speaker 1: rake that could be stepped on.
Speaker 3: They'll find a fucking way.
Speaker 2: You know, the phrase like couldn't catch a break if
Speaker 2: like for love nor money, like the idea of like
Speaker 2: you no matter how much money, you couldn't catch But
Speaker 2: Microsoft have infinite money and they literally can't catch a
Speaker 2: break in a way that I find like pretty fucking
Speaker 2: poetic these days.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, exactly. It's like it's maybe karma. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is the game.
Speaker 3: That just sells for them, does very well.
Speaker 1: This one feels like it is going to be a
Speaker 1: monstrous hit, and so for this to happen and kind
Speaker 1: of just it's going to take some of the wind
Speaker 1: out of the sales.
Speaker 3: Obviously.
Speaker 1: The Xbox version is going to probably still do just fine,
Speaker 1: although it's on game Pass. Although that happened last time,
Speaker 1: and when they had the early access thing, people still
Speaker 1: paid a bunch of money on top of their game
Speaker 1: Pass subs.
Speaker 3: To play it early.
Speaker 1: They'll still sell a lot of copies of this game,
Speaker 1: but this is the one that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: like their big winner this year.
Speaker 3: And now I bet, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like just checking a pirate site
Speaker 1: and seeing the number of seeds for this thing right now,
Speaker 1: I bet it's pretty high. I bet there's already one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand plus people seeding this thing. Yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised.
Speaker 2: It is very funny that people who are pirating this
Speaker 2: game can play it through Steam by adding it as
Speaker 2: a non Steam game. But I can't play it through
Speaker 2: Steam because I was given a Microsoft Store code, and
Speaker 2: Microsoft does and allow you to add their games to
Speaker 2: Steam if you I just want to use Steam input.
Speaker 2: I just want to take a screenshot with my control
Speaker 2: of goddam it. Yeah, Sean also left you and Osha story.
Speaker 3: That's uh.
Speaker 1: The Forts files were uploaded to Steam without DRM. Yes,
Speaker 1: I did hear that of something that then I heard
Speaker 1: they only had Steam DRM, which Sean, you're in chat
Speaker 1: you could correct me is basically the same thing as
Speaker 1: no DRM at all. Is kind of how that works
Speaker 1: these days. But I don't know, like either way this
Speaker 1: stuff is. This is a big, big mess up because
Speaker 1: this game was going to sell a ton on Friday.
Speaker 3: It probably still will.
Speaker 1: But Microsoft, coming off their most recent financial earndents, was like, hey,
Speaker 1: our hardware is obviously not selling nobody wants that, but
Speaker 1: also our games are selling less than they were last year.
Speaker 1: And then Forts Horizon six was supposed to come along
Speaker 1: and change that fate again it probably still will. I
Speaker 1: don't know what do you think this has a measurable
Speaker 1: like detrimental effect.
Speaker 2: I mean, these games sell really well on PC, but
Speaker 2: they sell their best on consoles, like we do know that,
Speaker 2: and so it's not been cracked on consoles. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's super interesting to see if this does
Speaker 2: affect sentiment in any way. The Fort Sir Horizon games
Speaker 2: are like so known quantities in some ways that in
Speaker 2: some like reviews for this game are kind of just
Speaker 2: gonna be like, yeah, it's Forts Horizon. You know, they
Speaker 2: didn't wind up making a third person shoot a weird
Speaker 2: but yeah, ultimately, people, what if.
Speaker 1: The reviews are like, no, wait, this is actually Fable.
Speaker 1: They actually just put Fable in here instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they fucked it up and they uploaded fable to
Speaker 2: see that. But yeah, like, I am curious to see
Speaker 2: what the desire for this game for three years, you know,
Speaker 2: if it like if that's what the proposition being presented
Speaker 2: to people now is, because like, if this got cracked
Speaker 2: a couple of days after launch, it wouldn't get as
Speaker 2: many news, right ups. It's getting news right ups because
Speaker 2: it's happened before launch. So that's the thing spreading the
Speaker 2: information now is that this happened before launch. And I'm
Speaker 2: curious if that drives people to be like, oh, there's
Speaker 2: a way to play this game for three So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm curious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even know. I don't even know what
Speaker 3: pirates sites people go to anymore. I'd have to.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I tried, I tried the Pirate Bay, and
Speaker 1: at that that website is always like it's just real.
Speaker 3: This is probably just.
Speaker 1: The honey pot now yeah, and then, uh, I can't
Speaker 1: Jane added it out here.
Speaker 3: I can't believe he didn't read. Oopsie, yeah, my bad.
Speaker 1: Uh Sean said the forts of files were uploaded to
Speaker 1: Steam without DRM parentheses. Oopsie, there you go, my bad.
Speaker 1: I apologize. What we're you gonna say?
Speaker 2: Like, I feel like you haven't had to care about
Speaker 2: getting games on the cheap ever since you got that
Speaker 2: press account.
Speaker 1: Yeah's place of differences? May yeah at this point, like
Speaker 1: I'll just wait, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Wonder if you were to calculate how much money you've
Speaker 2: saved over the years.
Speaker 1: I was, I was still telling somebody like I was
Speaker 1: doing my taxes, and I'm like, man, I still spend
Speaker 1: a lot of money on games because I you know,
Speaker 1: I'll write it off of my taxes.
Speaker 3: It's like this is still you know, four figures. But I.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, yeah, well, like all those copies of one
Speaker 2: two switch again.
Speaker 3: I mean that is exactly what it is. You got me.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, hey man, I'm playing Forts Horizon six everybody,
Speaker 1: and yeah, hey, that game is going to be out soon.
Speaker 3: We could talk about it.
Speaker 1: More than several Xbox users managed to download. Here's a
Speaker 1: different story, everybody, Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight
Speaker 1: ten days early.
Speaker 3: This is from Jordan Miller at VGC.
Speaker 1: Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight briefly became playable
Speaker 1: over the weekend, with a small group of Xbox players
Speaker 1: reporting that they were able to download the game over
Speaker 1: ten days before it's planned release. Legacy of the Dark
Speaker 1: Knight is due for release on May twenty second. Over
Speaker 1: the weekend, a player on the r slash Lego gaming
Speaker 1: subreddit man There's a subreddit for everything, reported that after
Speaker 1: pre ordering the game on Xbox, their console notified them
Speaker 1: that it was ready to play. Typically, when attempting to
Speaker 1: start a preloaded digital game, it will inform players that
Speaker 1: they can't use the content until the release date. According
Speaker 1: to the user, the game started as normal without the
Speaker 1: usual block. The user uploaded several images to Reddit of
Speaker 1: him playing the game's opening level to.
Speaker 3: Verify the situation.
Speaker 1: All right, LEXI I think I know what's happening here,
Speaker 1: agentic AI? I think we have AI agents doing the
Speaker 1: work of people who should be overseeing the uploading and
Speaker 1: management of these games to make sure that all of
Speaker 1: the eyes are dotted, the teas are crossed, and the
Speaker 1: fucking DRM.
Speaker 3: Works and it.
Speaker 1: Missed something and there was no human to intervene and
Speaker 1: see that that was happening.
Speaker 3: That's working theory. What do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like it. It is notable that this happened with an
Speaker 2: Xbox published game on a third party platform and a
Speaker 2: game being published on an Xbox plam Like there's there's
Speaker 2: a common element in those two stories and they happened
Speaker 2: hours apart.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And I would like to hear the discussions going on
Speaker 2: inside of Microsoft right now, especially people who handle stuff
Speaker 2: like you know, publishing and getting those store pages up,
Speaker 2: and what their current workflow has looked like, and if
Speaker 2: there's someone very annoyed in a Slack channel going fucking see,
Speaker 2: I told.
Speaker 1: You, uh this, this sort of thing has happened before.
Speaker 1: It's worth pointing that out. This is not like some
Speaker 1: incredibly rare thing. It's pretty rare still though. I think
Speaker 1: it's just notable. As you pointed, out these things happened
Speaker 1: back to back. It just and involving the same company
Speaker 1: one where or the other. Yeah, this one is a
Speaker 1: little bit I think easier for them to put the
Speaker 1: toothpaste back in the tube a little bit here because
Speaker 1: they can sort of just strip the rights of people
Speaker 1: who were playing the game. Although if they hop off
Speaker 1: line maybe they can keep playing.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's certainly not a good look, you know, overall, Like
Speaker 2: when you are trying to build a bit of excitement
Speaker 2: about a potential next gen Xbox that will be an
Speaker 2: open PC platform, which again, playing a game on the
Speaker 2: Xbox PC native app recently has really like reminded me
Speaker 2: how much Xbox gaming is not an open system on PC.
Speaker 2: Like it's fucking bizarre. They still do not have a
Speaker 2: Steam input equivalent, which means that like, for the most part,
Speaker 2: if you launch a game through the Xbox PC app,
Speaker 2: unless that game has native Jewel Sense support, you just
Speaker 2: can't use a Jewel Sense controller or anything that isn't
Speaker 2: x input, so a Steam controller as well, which is
Speaker 2: like that's a problem. That's a big fucking problem on PC,
Speaker 2: especially if you were trying to allure a bunch of
Speaker 2: people who maybe bought a PS five last generation over
Speaker 2: to the next Xbox console, which will supposedly also be
Speaker 2: running the same Xbox PC app. Like they said, it's
Speaker 2: it's just going to be a Windows machine ultimately, So
Speaker 2: like you should probably have support for the controller that
Speaker 2: those people own, especially if you're presenting it as an
Speaker 2: open platform anyway, Xbox.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there's just a million things that they
Speaker 1: need to improve across the board here. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: does it just like stuff like this just makes it
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, it's all kind of a mess.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe maybe all these things are unrelated. They
Speaker 1: could be right, It's easy to like spot patterns where
Speaker 1: none exist. But when I look at this, it makes
Speaker 1: me feel like the house is not in order, let
Speaker 1: alone them being in a position to make improvements to
Speaker 1: the foundation. So that and they are launching a new
Speaker 1: console that is supposed to work in a new way
Speaker 1: that the previous counsole did not work. Uh, there they
Speaker 1: have the wherewithal to address the problems and the unforeseen
Speaker 1: issues that will pop up because of that. Like it's
Speaker 1: I think the launch of the next Xbox is gonna
Speaker 1: be messy because it already feels that way, and then
Speaker 1: they're changing up the way things work to the point
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, they're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to foresee the headaches that people are gonna have. They're
Speaker 1: gonna have to put it out into the wild and
Speaker 1: then sort of respond slowly. And that's where I just
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of faith in Microsoft's ability to
Speaker 1: follow up on that stuff, at least in a timely manner.
Speaker 2: Did you see that? Apparently the internal like working project
Speaker 2: name for improving Windows like that big like push for
Speaker 2: We're gonna make Windows better is K two, as in
Speaker 2: the mountain.
Speaker 3: That the mountain kills everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kills everybody that tries to climate cool. Sure,
Speaker 2: real fucking dominicandictmond. The way you let yourself get to.
Speaker 1: That, it's like you're just looking up at this thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we'll try. It's gonna kill us, but we'll try.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I love it. All right, Let's let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we come back. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit more Microsoft news to touch on.
Speaker 3: We'll do that.
Speaker 1: If you want to skip out on these messages, you
Speaker 1: can do so gimebomb dot com slush Join, become a
Speaker 1: premium member. We will be right back. All right, we
Speaker 1: are back everybody. It's Game Mess Mornings. Jeff Grubb. That's
Speaker 1: Lexi Luddy. Gears of War E Day may be circling September.
Speaker 1: This is from John Clark at Day one. A new
Speaker 1: wrestling event may have given us a clue as to
Speaker 1: where we can expect when we can expect to be
Speaker 1: playing Gears for E Day. Excuse me as its sponsoring
Speaker 1: WWE's Triple Mania this September. Announced on May ninth, Triple
Speaker 1: Mania is set to take place between September eleventh through
Speaker 1: to September thirteenth. What's more interesting for Gears fans is
Speaker 1: who is sponsoring the event.
Speaker 3: Which is Gear of War E Day.
Speaker 1: While it's not a guarantee that the game will be
Speaker 1: out and playable by that point, previous video game sponsors
Speaker 1: sponsorships certainly have been timed to coincide with the release
Speaker 1: of the product doing the sponsoring. We've only seen like
Speaker 1: like Glover, just going back to Glover, Everything goes back
Speaker 1: to Glover. We've only seen a very pretty, very pretty
Speaker 1: announced trailer for Gears of War E Day. Thus far,
Speaker 1: of course, it's gonna be the big sort of follow
Speaker 1: up showcase to the Xbox.
Speaker 3: Summer Gamefest Showcase.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna get all the details at that point,
Speaker 1: including I think everyone expects a firm release date every
Speaker 1: game still. I mean, we talked about it with every
Speaker 1: release state story, especially anything happening happening in the second
Speaker 1: half of this year. Everything sort of is orbiting Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto six. Uh, this game likely coming out before that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And yeah again, this is happening in September. This Uh,
Speaker 1: this pay per view a premium live event. I guess
Speaker 1: I should say so, Yeah, I think that sounds right
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, between like being sponsored by a company on the
Speaker 2: BDS boycott and also everything going on with WWE the vibes,
Speaker 2: should you seem ipeccable for that event. I'm sure that
Speaker 2: fucking the gingerbread Man will also show up and get
Speaker 2: suplexed by Marcus Phoenix and everyone.
Speaker 1: Losh, oh they have do they have Batista show up
Speaker 1: and like gear or whatever?
Speaker 3: Probably is extremely triple Mania. Just I have no idea
Speaker 3: what this is to me.
Speaker 1: It's smelt okay to Mexico, Yes, okay, hell yeah, so true.
Speaker 1: I was like to me, it raked up being in
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. But all right, okay, that's good. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm mildly I'm not that excited about Gears of War.
Speaker 3: That would be a lie. I just I've never been
Speaker 3: a Gears guy.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, E Day could win me over, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I've never been two into Gears. I do
Speaker 1: recognize it as being one of the bigger franchises for Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those ones that I'm sure they
Speaker 1: want to get I'll say bat on Track, not that
Speaker 1: it's like derailed or something, but I think they want
Speaker 1: to make sure it's established for a strong future.
Speaker 3: I feel like they could pull all of that off.
Speaker 1: But it is definitely one of those games that I
Speaker 1: associate with Xbox, which is they have a handful of
Speaker 1: franchises that have really won over a certain audience that
Speaker 1: was on Xbox, and they've done those over and over again,
Speaker 1: and it's like, if you're not if you haven't bought
Speaker 1: in yet, you probably aren't going to buy into the
Speaker 1: next one. And then at the same time, it feels
Speaker 1: like it's been shedding fans as people move on to
Speaker 1: other franchises that have fresher ideas or whatever. Do you
Speaker 1: think Gears of where E Day stands to reinvigorate the franchise,
Speaker 1: reinvigorate Microsoft.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty six, twenty years going on twenty years
Speaker 2: after the release of the First Years of War and
Speaker 2: was still doing like Emergence Day was still okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, I just hope that Batista doesn't show up at
Speaker 2: this event because he's too good for them exactly.
Speaker 1: Yes, definitely, he's a good boy, a good sweet boy,
Speaker 1: and we want to spare him. Although I'm sure they
Speaker 1: will pay him because you have his history with Gears,
Speaker 1: so who knows if he wants to get paid. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna blame him, but yes, he's too good for
Speaker 1: them for sure. I Yeah, there's definitely just like the
Speaker 1: follow up showcase at Summer Game Festival, Like I'm just
Speaker 1: personally least excited about because it's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: Starfield one.
Speaker 3: I had some hope for what was the one last
Speaker 3: year that they.
Speaker 2: Do You remember what last year was?
Speaker 3: They just they just hit me. It was called duty,
Speaker 3: wasn't that.
Speaker 2: One more thing was call a fucking Jude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I'm not turned out great. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean it lived up to that hype. It earned. It
Speaker 3: is what I would say, just like saving Private Ryan
Speaker 3: earned this.
Speaker 1: That's what call of duty did. Yeah, September, here's the
Speaker 1: word e day. We'll find out more soon. God, we
Speaker 1: are within a month of Summer game Fest really kicking off.
Speaker 3: So yeah, look forward to that.
Speaker 1: Investors still aren't happy even after Nintendo raised the price
Speaker 1: of the switch to and God, pour one out for
Speaker 1: the investors. This is from Chris Sculling at VGC. Nintendo
Speaker 1: is raising the price of the switch to in Japan
Speaker 1: on May twenty fifth, and the rest of the world
Speaker 1: essentially on September first, with the US price moving to
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. For Akala, the president reportedly told investors
Speaker 1: that the hikes do not fully cover Nintendo's cost increases,
Speaker 1: and Reuter's reports Nintendo's share shares of fell about seven
Speaker 1: percent in Tokyo as investors reacted to the price hike
Speaker 1: and softer outlook. As reported by Reuters for Akawa explained
Speaker 1: that Nintendo had come to the conclusion that a number
Speaker 1: of changes in the market environment, including the rising cost
Speaker 1: of memory, the weekend and rising crude oil prices, We're
Speaker 1: going to remain for the medium to long term, and
Speaker 1: that the price increases were made with this in mind.
Speaker 1: For Rakawa also said that while the new console prices
Speaker 1: may increase the barrier to purchase, he's hopeful that a
Speaker 1: solid and growing lineup of Switch two games will and
Speaker 1: will eventually encourage more players to buy a switch to
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, we're just kind of like laying out
Speaker 1: the stuff that we know to be true at this plant, LEXI.
Speaker 1: Raising the price is going to make the outlook softer necessarily,
Speaker 1: but they do feel like they have to raise the
Speaker 1: price because all of those pressures he talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: least of which being the most recent reason, which is
Speaker 1: rising oil prices, which you know that you know that
Speaker 1: that one's like, yeah, obviously it's gonna make it's gonna
Speaker 1: cost more to ship things. Yeah, but those rising oil
Speaker 1: prices also like increase the price of petrochemicals, which is plastics,
Speaker 1: which is in every fucking thing as Billy, Bob Thornton,
Speaker 1: Sen and Landman. So it's going to be like across
Speaker 1: the board, they're going to find ways to raise the
Speaker 1: price and components that all these companies use. So we
Speaker 1: get that, Uh, I think the you know, it's not
Speaker 1: that shocking that investors are seeing that and being like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're spooked, because they're spooked by everything. But do you
Speaker 1: think that this kind of encourages even more nickeling and
Speaker 1: diming and future price increases, Like are we done? Or
Speaker 1: are we going to keep seeing stuff float up in
Speaker 1: terms of price from Nintendo and the rest of the
Speaker 1: companies in the space.
Speaker 2: I think like the infuriating thing about this is like
Speaker 2: investors being like, you didn't raise the price enough because
Speaker 2: you know the price of RAM and the price of
Speaker 2: oil is going up, and looking around and being like,
Speaker 2: whose fucking fault is it that all the money has
Speaker 2: gone into AI? So now RAM costs a shitload of
Speaker 2: like who who could have? Who's to bla? We're all
Speaker 2: looking for the guy who did this?
Speaker 3: Uh huh?
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, like I desperately hope in
Speaker 2: the next like ten months, we start hearing stories of
Speaker 2: these data centers not being built because they like it
Speaker 2: turns out that the reports of them being unrealistic and
Speaker 2: the schedules for them being unrealistic were on point. And
Speaker 2: as soon as we start getting a couple like, hey,
Speaker 2: these data centers aren't coming together in the way that
Speaker 2: we thought they would. You know, maybe maybe the world
Speaker 2: will get better from there, but until that point, like
Speaker 2: things are gonna keep going up. They're just gonna keep
Speaker 2: going up because there's nothing to break the pattern. Like
Speaker 2: their show's shit not gonna suddenly broke a piece and
Speaker 2: the straight off hoo moves will be open for all
Speaker 2: to go through again. So that's not gonna bring down
Speaker 2: prices anytime soon. And the AI bubble isn't gonna pop
Speaker 2: unless it like actively gets popped by something. It will
Speaker 2: just keep on going on inertia, and even some would
Speaker 2: say it should have popped several times before now based
Speaker 2: off of the saying things we've learned and the sheer
Speaker 2: inertia of like, well, it's gotta be the next big thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's there's so much inertia because there's there are
Speaker 1: multiple factors, right, there's it's got to be the next
Speaker 1: big thing. So there's this huge fomo among massive investment
Speaker 1: firms that do make it like that the analyze risk
Speaker 1: and make those big choices about how to spend all
Speaker 1: their trillions of dollars. Yes that they have that fomo.
Speaker 1: And then there's the fomo of the retail investor who
Speaker 1: is actually does move the needle these days because people
Speaker 1: they like felt burned by every time the economy was
Speaker 1: doing something and they got left behind. And it's like
Speaker 1: that that actually continues to prop the stuff up. The
Speaker 1: biggest thing is just like index funds, the retirement funds
Speaker 1: that just put all their money into these things that
Speaker 1: you know, sixty percent of the money in the stock
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the wall on Wall Street
Speaker 1: right now is just people putting money into retirement accounts
Speaker 1: and then that stuff getting put into index funds. So
Speaker 1: the money just keeps flowing in sort of no matter what,
Speaker 1: and that is continuing to prop all this stuff up.
Speaker 1: So everyone could just keep saying, look, it's every one
Speaker 1: still believes in this. So everyone kind of looks at
Speaker 1: each other. It's like, all right, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: miss out on it. And the god damn, you know
Speaker 1: it just hit a new high? Did the Japanese stock
Speaker 1: market just hit a new high? It continues to just
Speaker 1: go and go, and at the same time, pocket is.
Speaker 2: Like hitting new highs, but like everything's more expensive for me.
Speaker 3: That everything everything's more expensive, and it's.
Speaker 2: Like I posted this on Blue Sky the other day.
Speaker 2: When was the last time you felt like you got
Speaker 2: a good deal at retail? Not like someone did you?
Speaker 2: You know, we're friends, and I'll give you this for
Speaker 2: like a bit off, or like you know, going to
Speaker 2: a mom and pop shop and you know the people there,
Speaker 2: but like you went to a big name retailer and
Speaker 2: there was a deal on the shelf and you went,
Speaker 2: that's a steal. Like you there was a sale online
Speaker 2: and you were like, this is this is good value?
Speaker 2: I feel good about this. Like when was the last
Speaker 2: time you felt satisfied coming away from buying something?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I think like fast food restaurants have begun flirting with
Speaker 1: the the value meal again and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: even those feel temporary, like they're like one week they'll
Speaker 1: be there and the next week it'll be gone because
Speaker 1: I like, I think they are afraid to give that
Speaker 1: value back to like make like to reacclimate the consumer
Speaker 1: to the feeling of getting away with something they have
Speaker 1: you know, mistreated us for so long. Now they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the new normal, and no one wants to
Speaker 1: be the first one to sort of break that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you also mentioned it though we might be
Speaker 1: at peak data center at some point here where just
Speaker 1: the cost to build one does not justify the value
Speaker 1: you're going to get out of it, Like it could
Speaker 1: be zero, like it could zero out, zero out. Where
Speaker 1: it's like, by the time this thing's actually built, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit outdated, and by the time it reaches
Speaker 1: its full capacity of like what it's producing, it's one
Speaker 1: outdated and now we should already scrap this for the
Speaker 1: next data center that is obviously unsustainable. And it feels
Speaker 1: like we might already be there at the same time
Speaker 1: at the same time, like it's like it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: AI. Uh.
Speaker 1: Like the thing I always try to remind people about
Speaker 1: is you know, there's that three prong thing of is
Speaker 1: it good or I can do a better, I can
Speaker 1: do it faster, I could do it cheaper, and AI
Speaker 1: does it faster and cheaper, it's worse. Everybody's right to
Speaker 1: say it's worse. But if it's faster and cheaper, most
Speaker 1: most of the companies making these decisions will not care.
Speaker 1: They will find some way to justify the lower quality.
Speaker 1: And that's been true throughout free markets from the beginning
Speaker 1: of time. So it's just not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to do a little bit more digging around.
Speaker 2: Like I actually know people in the engineering space who
Speaker 2: get contracted out to design these things, and I just
Speaker 2: kind of want to check in with them and be like, Hey,
Speaker 2: how are you feeling about fulfilling all these projects? Because
Speaker 2: they're big product they're fucking massive projects, and like, of
Speaker 2: course they're taking them because they're big money deals, but
Speaker 2: like a lot of them, at least the vibe I
Speaker 2: got was like, yeah, like actually getting these done the
Speaker 2: days that by time that they addue to be done,
Speaker 2: that doesn't sound like a doable thing because they're complicated builds.
Speaker 2: They're extremely complicated builds. So yeah, I'm curious, and.
Speaker 1: They got they have to uh pay the premium prices
Speaker 1: for all those things, like for the like for all
Speaker 1: the talk of RAM and storage going up in price,
Speaker 1: the reason that is happening is because the people building
Speaker 1: data centers are outbidding the rest of the market by
Speaker 1: extreme amounts, and so if you want to be in
Speaker 1: that space, you've got to continue outbidding the people who
Speaker 1: are already outbidding everyone else in the space. So they'll
Speaker 1: never get like a discount on building that stuff. If anything,
Speaker 1: it's just going to keep going up in price, making
Speaker 1: it even more unsustainable.
Speaker 2: Genuine question, what do you think the founder's addition for
Speaker 2: the next n video like sixty ninety will be? Because
Speaker 2: I'm betting three and a half grand, and then the
Speaker 2: retail versions, the like licensed ones will be six seven plus.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's that sounds right to me. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: three thy five hundred for the reference version. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: probably what we're talking about. And even then it could
Speaker 1: be three thousand, eight hundred, three thousand, nine hundred, getting
Speaker 1: close to four thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: All right, let's keep going here.
Speaker 1: Shift Up is taking Stellar Blade two away from Sony
Speaker 1: Publishing and away shift off.
Speaker 3: Shift Up says the.
Speaker 1: Next Stellar Blade game will be self published instead of
Speaker 1: published by Sony, with a company saying it wants to
Speaker 1: reach a broad global audience from day one. It also
Speaker 1: says it is actively exploring further platform expansion for the
Speaker 1: original game. They mentioned that Stellar Blades like SQL development
Speaker 1: is going along smoothly and it's they said it's on
Speaker 1: track to meet their targeted quality standards, hooray. And then
Speaker 1: they said this all about, Hey, we're going to publish
Speaker 1: it ourselves, and one of the reasons we're doing that
Speaker 1: is we just want to make sure that game is everywhere. Now,
Speaker 1: they did not say what everywhere entailed which platforms are
Speaker 1: really even a timeline, but I think we could safely
Speaker 1: assume they just want to have it out on PlayStation,
Speaker 1: PC and Xbox and at this point probably switched to
Speaker 1: at launch.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the sort of thing we have
Speaker 1: seen happen before Lexi, where a public developer succeeds and
Speaker 1: then they want to take over publishing because it gives
Speaker 1: them more control, and then they want to like have
Speaker 1: that those skills of publishing a game, because many of
Speaker 1: them want to then go publish other people's games. There's
Speaker 1: money still in the in then their hills, and they
Speaker 1: got to sort of start somewhere, and that would be
Speaker 1: starting with your own game.
Speaker 3: How do you how do you read all this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: This is definitely one of the more reviewed Sony published
Speaker 2: games on Steam, Like it has more reviews than Horizon
Speaker 2: Forbidden West, So as a bid of a demarcation line,
Speaker 2: it probably did pretty well on Steam. And if the
Speaker 2: ongoing thought is that Sony aren't going to bring first
Speaker 2: party stuff to seem anymore, they're probably like, well, we
Speaker 2: would so like to put things up on Steam because
Speaker 2: without having to make.
Speaker 1: Sense deal with you to like to make that like
Speaker 1: to have a carve out or whatever, because that's just
Speaker 1: a headache.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we have like a pretty active community there
Speaker 2: and things like that. Man Lego Horizon Adventure has three
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty two reviews on Steam.
Speaker 3: Oh really, that's rough.
Speaker 2: Who thought bringing that to seem and not the Demon
Speaker 2: Soul's remake was the move? Yeah, what a fascinating decision
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 3: I don't know who it was, but I think his
Speaker 3: name might rhyme with Truman choultste.
Speaker 2: You're right, and so yeah, the other part of the
Speaker 2: story that I don't think is in there is that
Speaker 2: they also said that they will be continuing to publish
Speaker 2: Shinji mccami's game, and that's like all going well and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So yeah, like, ultimately, I'm happy that
Speaker 2: there's another active publisher in the scene, and they certainly
Speaker 2: seem a lot more stable than some of the China
Speaker 2: Ease publishers that were coming in around twenty twenty. Of
Speaker 2: we've seen what's happened with nets like Ganga Dragon might
Speaker 2: never release. I'm almost kind of surprised that Momeo was
Speaker 2: a dead man got out the door. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: know if Celeblade for as much as it wasn't for me,
Speaker 2: Like the combat just seemed way too slow for how
Speaker 2: much it leaned into the stylish vibe and things like that,
Speaker 2: and it story just seemed pretty dull. I those people
Speaker 2: when they talk about the game, they at least talk about, Hey,
Speaker 2: we like making games, and we specifically went from making
Speaker 2: a mobile game too. We wanted to make something that
Speaker 2: released on a console because that felt important to us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we like console games, so like I have more faith
Speaker 2: in them as a publisher than I do a lot
Speaker 2: of other publishing companies, which I whatever's fucking heart. So
Speaker 2: you know, they're at least saying the right thing. And
Speaker 2: we'll see how that game actually goes on taking it
Speaker 2: away from Sony, Like same thing kind of is you
Speaker 2: expect will happen with It's the evenless of what happened
Speaker 2: with Death Striddling, where I went in house for the
Speaker 2: PC publishing for Sony. And I'm curious if now could
Speaker 2: YOUBA Productions is looking at taking that and doing you know,
Speaker 2: if they were to do a death striming three would
Speaker 2: they still be like we want this on PC.
Speaker 3: I'm curious me too.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get through the rest of these stories
Speaker 1: here relatively quickly. PS five is drifting behind PS fourged
Speaker 1: a little bit more clean up. From the most recent
Speaker 1: Sony earnings report, PS five lifetime sales are at ninety
Speaker 1: three point seven million. That's really really good, but it's
Speaker 1: notable that only one point five million PS fives were
Speaker 1: sold in the last fiscal quarter, which ended March thirty. First,
Speaker 1: that puts the PS five slightly behind the PS four
Speaker 1: when you align the launches. Still, that was true coming
Speaker 1: out of the pandemic because the pandemic the supply strained
Speaker 1: almost that entire time, and the expectation was Alexi. I
Speaker 1: remember having this conversation, I think maybe on the show
Speaker 1: maybe with you, is that the PS five would then
Speaker 1: slowly kind of crawl back above the PS four as
Speaker 1: the supply began to meet demand. And so well, that's
Speaker 1: not quite happening, and I think we can chalk that up.
Speaker 2: Is no longer the problem.
Speaker 1: You know, increased prices are the problem, right, Yes, one
Speaker 1: problem replaced the other. And then you know, it's also
Speaker 1: worth pointing that these these sales figures one point five
Speaker 1: million PlayStation fives were before the price increase, Right, We're
Speaker 1: going to see a bump because of the price increase.
Speaker 1: Right when that happened, there was a little gap a
Speaker 1: couple of days, and people rushed out to get PS
Speaker 1: five's and especially PS five pros in that moment. So
Speaker 1: we're going to see a bump. But then as things
Speaker 1: normalize for the new price, it's like the expectation should
Speaker 1: be that the one point five million that sold last
Speaker 1: quarter when the price was lower, like the the you know,
Speaker 1: the the chart though, should just kind of like begin
Speaker 1: to level off a little bit more actually, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: if you take out the bumpet's gonna get, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna see less than one point five million sold in
Speaker 1: the next quarter. That is gotta be worrisome until obviously
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto six comes along and.
Speaker 3: At that point they might not have enough PS fives.
Speaker 2: What do you think so that this really fucked with
Speaker 2: my brain? Don cheetle in shot. So we're in year
Speaker 2: six of the PS five. How much is the PS
Speaker 2: five again right now off the top of the.
Speaker 3: Dome seven dollars, it's just seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the PS four was on sale for two hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: By year six, the bundles that you could guess.
Speaker 3: One of those numbers is much bigger. Yeah, significally bigger.
Speaker 2: Man, that's wild.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's uh, it is. Yeah, it's a rough comparison.
Speaker 1: Every single person who buys games knows that's how it
Speaker 1: used to be. Like, everyone knows people pay attention to
Speaker 1: this sort of thing, and so when they see the
Speaker 1: price at this point and they've been waiting because a
Speaker 1: lot of people like to wait on the sideline come
Speaker 1: in much later, that's like this time around, they are
Speaker 1: just in absolute agony here, trying to sort of be like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I can't believe that I got screwed over
Speaker 1: the most by waiting. And so those people aren't going
Speaker 1: to begin talking themselves out of making these purchases now.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: The hope is, and it's probably correct, the grand Theft
Speaker 1: Auto six resets all that and the people who are
Speaker 1: waiting can't help themselves anymore, and that is probably gonna
Speaker 1: be the way it goes down. But it's like, man,
Speaker 1: if they didn't have that, it would be rough going
Speaker 1: in console land right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, anyway gamers to raid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the gamers are activating everybody. They're gonna raid EA
Speaker 1: headquarters raid quote unquote to protest the fifty five billion
Speaker 1: dollars sale to Saudi Arabia's Public.
Speaker 3: Investment Fund, or PIFF as it's known.
Speaker 1: The Players Alliance, which is sort of what it sounds like,
Speaker 1: is organizing this event, scheduled for May eleventh at one
Speaker 1: pm Eastern, and has provided further details on its purpose.
Speaker 1: Gamers are planning to show up to protest at EAS headquarters.
Speaker 1: This will basically they're going to go there and just
Speaker 1: make their voice heard. I think this is a little
Speaker 1: bit better than just some of our other options because
Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing that can get headlines,
Speaker 1: It can draw political attention. Politicians like to know that
Speaker 1: there is a political capital behind something before they throw
Speaker 1: their weight into it. And you know, as unfortunate as
Speaker 1: it is that we have to sort of rely on
Speaker 1: feckless politicians, this is the situation where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: get them to show up and put pressure on anyone
Speaker 1: that might be able to break up this deal. At
Speaker 1: least gum up the works a little bit, create some
Speaker 1: friction so that it costs these companies more to even
Speaker 1: get this deal across the finish line, so that they
Speaker 1: are a little bit more hesitant in the future even
Speaker 1: if we can't stop this one. Now, it does feel
Speaker 1: unlikely this is going to stop because what's that Jared
Speaker 1: Kushner still involved in the deal, and as the last
Speaker 1: I checked, he's still related to the president. So it
Speaker 1: just feels like there's almost no chance this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: But it's worth showing that there is turmoil and angst
Speaker 1: about this sort of thing, and that it is manifesting
Speaker 1: not in social media posts, not in people saying I'm
Speaker 1: just going to vote with my wallet and walk away,
Speaker 1: because that's so easy for people to ignore at these
Speaker 1: companies because there's always someone with more money, like Saudia
Speaker 1: fucking Arabia, and so when people show up and make
Speaker 1: their voices heard, that still gets attention. So this might
Speaker 1: not do anything, but I think it's the right thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: How do you read it?
Speaker 2: I do really wonder if that fifty five billion dollars
Speaker 2: is looking a lot more valuable to the Saudi government
Speaker 2: now than it was when this deal was first announced,
Speaker 2: and especially with ongoing rumors of like, hey, maybe there's
Speaker 2: there's not as much left in the tanks as the
Speaker 2: Lennon you know, this this being a piff and this
Speaker 2: being like something ostensibly controlled by the Crown Prince, Like
Speaker 2: they do have a shipload of money, But I wonder
Speaker 2: if they look at EA and they go, maybe this
Speaker 2: isn't the moneyball deal that we thought it was at
Speaker 2: one point when you look at the corent stage EA
Speaker 2: and how current EA games tend to hish like I'm
Speaker 2: sure Madam I Fifer still do their ridiculous numbers, but
Speaker 2: the other stuff I'm curious.
Speaker 3: About same all right.
Speaker 1: New European alternative to an Unreal Slash Unity is being
Speaker 1: built by Gorilla Slash Epic veteran Arjen Bruce is a
Speaker 1: Gorilla co founder and former Unreal Engine product leader at EPIC,
Speaker 1: and he's building the Immense Engine, which he is pitching
Speaker 1: as a europe host An engine that is compliant with European.
Speaker 3: Rules and guidelines.
Speaker 1: Sounds like the air Bus of game engines, which I
Speaker 1: think is that for me is someone who likes airplanes
Speaker 1: and like, that's a fun thing to think about. And
Speaker 1: then you keep reading and he's like, and it's just
Speaker 1: gotta be full integration of AI like across the board.
Speaker 2: Also like no fucking idea what he means by it
Speaker 2: being like compliant with EU guidelines with those two other
Speaker 2: engines are fully operational and like the offices in fucking
Speaker 2: Europe both of those companies, Like what what the fuck
Speaker 2: are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: It just means that, like when you spend the money
Speaker 1: on it, it goes to someone in.
Speaker 3: Europe, which you know, people like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, it's the kind of it is the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that like does happen in Boeing versus versus Airbus,
Speaker 1: where it's like air Bus as a European alternative. A
Speaker 1: lot of European airlines are like, we're much happier to
Speaker 1: do that. It doesn't hurt that their planes are just
Speaker 1: better as well, but you know, more competition in this
Speaker 1: space is welcome. I think that would be nice as well.
Speaker 1: At a certain point though, it's like I thought like
Speaker 1: cry Tech was the European unreal and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: but no one really uses cry Tech in that way anymore.
Speaker 1: He just says the AI thing is like I people,
Speaker 1: like all other engines were made for people to click
Speaker 1: in chop Town, boxes with mouse, with mices with mice,
Speaker 1: and we want you to like just go and talk
Speaker 1: to the thing and tell it.
Speaker 3: What you want. So okay, all right, good luck with that.
Speaker 1: Star Wars zero Company gets AGE rating from agencies around
Speaker 1: the world, including the ESRB. This typically happens when a
Speaker 1: game is relatively close to release or especially like to
Speaker 1: get a release date. This game has neither. It has
Speaker 1: not been released, and it doesn't have a release date
Speaker 1: exactly yet other than the broad twenty twenty six release window.
Speaker 1: This makes it feel like we're going to see this
Speaker 1: at Summer Game Fest and it gets released not too
Speaker 1: long after that.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a game I'm quietly looking forward to.
Speaker 2: It looks that that team I really likes. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: really like Marvel Midnight Suns, and this gives me big
Speaker 2: Marvel Midnight Suns vibes. And yeah, I hope it comes
Speaker 2: together and I hope it is as interesting as it looks.
Speaker 2: I will check it out. If it's coming out soon.
Speaker 2: It could be a really good year for sa Wars
Speaker 2: video games.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you're right, it really could be. You know.
Speaker 1: The early reports on this one have been very positive.
Speaker 1: So and as a reminder. It's yeah, it's the single
Speaker 1: player turn based tactics game from bit Reactor in collaboration
Speaker 1: with Respawn and EA, and it's coming to PC, PlayStation five,
Speaker 1: Xbox Series X and S. Maybe they'll announce the switch
Speaker 1: to version as well, and then finally tell me about you like,
Speaker 1: might be selling switch Two systems of players are on
Speaker 1: switch To and Nintendo confirmed it's sold three point eight
Speaker 1: million copies, So that's that's impressive stuff.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because does it even have like a nature
Speaker 2: of switch to? Does it do anything if you play
Speaker 2: it on a switch to like at all? Does it
Speaker 2: still output a ten adp? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, it's I mean, I think it's just a
Speaker 1: typical It might put it might not put it ten adp,
Speaker 1: It might do that, but it's wild okay might like
Speaker 1: it's very very limited in terms of any sort of
Speaker 1: advantages because you have the switch to. It is not
Speaker 1: a switch to version for sure, and uh, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even recognize that a mice might be involved
Speaker 1: or you know whatever, a mouse might be involved.
Speaker 2: That seems like a game that would be the easiest
Speaker 2: switch to conversion in the world. It's literally just let
Speaker 2: it run at four K when docked. That's all you
Speaker 2: gotta change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing where they will let this
Speaker 1: thing sort of run its course as a switch one game,
Speaker 1: and as they are getting ready for content updates, which
Speaker 1: this game surely has coming, they will also prepare a
Speaker 1: switch to version. Yes, I said a mice. My brain
Speaker 1: was still trying to get that word to work in sentences,
Speaker 1: and then I could kept breaking. All right, that does
Speaker 1: it for the headlines, everybody. Let's go ahead and start
Speaker 1: wrapping up the show. No poll question from last Friday,
Speaker 1: because that we did the Bomb twelve instead. That most
Speaker 1: recent Bob twelve is up on giant bomb dot com
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: If you scroll down a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, you could see the games that people were really
Speaker 1: playing last week, and then on the left hand side
Speaker 1: there there's the vote here button. Click that it will
Speaker 1: take you to the Google form where you could submit
Speaker 1: your game for consideration for the Bomb twelve. We will
Speaker 1: wrap up this week with another one of those, but
Speaker 1: that means we do have a new poll question for
Speaker 1: Wednesday's show. We'll get to that here in a second
Speaker 1: before we do, LEXI, why don't you tell people where
Speaker 1: they can find you on the internet, what you have
Speaker 1: going on and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can find me on blue Sky at lexload
Speaker 2: dot xyz. You can check out my review of Directive
Speaker 2: eighty twenty on Game of Guys. You can also check
Speaker 2: out my review of Seros. I'll be reviewing another game
Speaker 2: that's coming up soon. And yeah, go check out stop Menu.
Speaker 2: It's a website for people trying to bug into games
Speaker 2: media and the games industry. Do good stuff there. You
Speaker 2: can support us on Patreon, patreon dot com, slash stomp
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: That is something I wanted to mention real quick everybody,
Speaker 1: if you are already supporting us too, as much as
Speaker 1: you want to go support someone else as well, and
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you have to make a decision,
Speaker 1: don't feel like you have to support us. If you
Speaker 1: have been supporting us and you only have one that
Speaker 1: you could support, I get it. Take turns, spread the
Speaker 1: love around. Let's make sure that I was for the
Speaker 1: money more than glub. We all know this, That's what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say here. So yeah, let's get out
Speaker 1: there and just make sure we're supporting people that we like.
Speaker 1: And thank you everyone who does support us. But yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's spread the love out there to everyone working
Speaker 1: in this space. It's more vibrant and better when there's
Speaker 1: more people, and right now it feels like that's only
Speaker 1: possible if we're all putting our money where our mouth is.
Speaker 1: So my I don't know twenty or so patreons that
Speaker 1: I support.
Speaker 3: I'll grow that a few more. Let's let's keep it going.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, let's see here new poll question? Which of
Speaker 1: the nope, that's the old pole question. Let's go, hey, Lexie,
Speaker 1: let's come up with a new pole question. Should do
Speaker 1: with something about Forts Horizon direct of eighty twenty.
Speaker 3: Let's do this.
Speaker 1: Are you going to get forts Horizon six at the ultimate.
Speaker 3: Price so like to get it early?
Speaker 1: Are you going to do the early unlock for Forts
Speaker 1: Horizon six at and then we'll come up with we'll
Speaker 1: find out whatever.
Speaker 3: That price is, yes or no.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see how much of this audience like
Speaker 1: does that sort of thing, like spends the extra money
Speaker 1: to play early. I bet it's not nobody, but I
Speaker 1: bet it's not as many as as we would expect.
Speaker 1: Turns out it doesn't need to be a lot to
Speaker 1: justify to these companies. All right, we'll get that pull
Speaker 1: question and get the results on Wednesday's episode of Game
Speaker 1: Mess Mornings here on Giant Bombs. Speaking of Giant Bomb,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stuff happening most recently though store
Speaker 1: dot Giant bomb dot com. Everybody, if you go there,
Speaker 1: there are new items up on the store as part
Speaker 1: of our anniversary.
Speaker 3: It looks really cool. It's like a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: We had some great work done to get a couple
Speaker 1: of new logos, some new there's a new racing shirt
Speaker 1: that's got like a bunch of different Giant Bomb logo
Speaker 1: designs on there, as if we were a racing team.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. Go ahead and make some purchases. That
Speaker 1: helps support the website. It also just makes you look
Speaker 1: fucking fly. So make that happen. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: like I said, Mike's gonna begin playing Donkey Kong sixty
Speaker 1: four today.
Speaker 3: It is part of a marathon.
Speaker 1: He's gonna get to one hundred and one percent as
Speaker 1: long as we get the support that we need. Really
Speaker 1: looking forward to seeing that all happen. I'll be hanging
Speaker 1: out with him for for chunks of it for sure.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Tune in for that, and then we'll have regularly scheduled
Speaker 1: stuff happening sort of alongside that. I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 1: plan is for him to play during the BombCast. We'll
Speaker 1: all be having a regular BombCast and he will still
Speaker 1: have to play Donkey Kong sixty four.
Speaker 3: So see what that's all like.
Speaker 2: It's a real root endurance. It is.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: With all that out of the way, Lexi, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for hanging out with me today and talking
Speaker 1: about video games.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it anytime.
Speaker 2: Happy anniversary to you all.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching and listening. You are the
Speaker 1: best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself and goodbye.