Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
Speaker 1: your host from GiantBomb dot com. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to be talking about another
Speaker 1: set of glowing reviews for a new game, and a
Speaker 1: Nintendo direct is happening this week. It's gonna be a
Speaker 1: good one because we have Jeff Bakolour on the show. Jereff,
Speaker 1: how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I am doing swell. Thank you for having me. It's
Speaker 2: good to be back.
Speaker 3: On the GMM.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're making it happen for sure. We were talking
Speaker 1: about pinball before we got started. What was the first
Speaker 1: like great pinball machine. Is there like a one where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this is when they really figured it
Speaker 1: out in like the eighties or whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's, Yes, there's stuff from the eighties.
Speaker 2: Terminator gets a lot of that credit for me personally.
Speaker 2: There was a game I think it's called Top Speed,
Speaker 2: which is like a police cruiser game. But you know
Speaker 2: that was like my first like bowling alley game for me.
Speaker 2: Adams family just sort of owns that. You know, it's
Speaker 2: the best selling pinball game of all time. Uh, that
Speaker 2: one just I think spoke to an entire generation in
Speaker 2: a way that has been you know, lasting, unlike anything
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's it's like, it's weird how Adam's families
Speaker 1: like cultural footprints, spreads out so much wider than the
Speaker 1: than the show or whatever.
Speaker 3: Where it's right that Fester's quest.
Speaker 1: On the ns everyone had that everyone had this Adams
Speaker 1: Family pinball table.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The movies actually were fantastic. I haven't watched the new
Speaker 1: animated ones. I wonder if those are any good.
Speaker 2: I've heard decent stuff about the the the new animated ones.
Speaker 2: I've heard they're okay, which you know, as long as
Speaker 2: it's somewhat new Adams Family content, we're being well served.
Speaker 2: But yeah, those two nineties ones are just they've aged
Speaker 2: so well. Also, like, uh, they're they're immaculate.
Speaker 1: Also, we might have had fishing week a bit too early,
Speaker 1: right are you gonna have Are you gonna have a
Speaker 1: fishing week here in your life?
Speaker 3: Pretty soon you think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting all these photos of my son going
Speaker 2: fishing in Sleepway Camp and he's catching all kinds of
Speaker 2: fish that I cannot place a name too, because.
Speaker 3: I yeah, we can't identify.
Speaker 1: And we were looking at him like I said, a
Speaker 1: perch man, I don't know you, but you said perch.
Speaker 2: I didn't know a fish call it was they perch.
Speaker 2: That's I just know, like trout and like you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know something.
Speaker 3: I taught with a blue Gil that didn't look like
Speaker 3: a blue Gil. That's all I know.
Speaker 2: No, it had read in it. So yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: He's a he's a fisher person. Uh it's it's incredible
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I bet I bet you this grub. I bet you
Speaker 2: he's not taking him off the line though.
Speaker 3: I bet he's a lot of help with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, professional with gloves or something.
Speaker 1: I can get that him. I don't do the little
Speaker 1: work that's for you people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you pay someone for that.
Speaker 3: That's that's what we're paying for.
Speaker 1: Uh. I think I was definitely like at that age
Speaker 1: when I was catching fishing boy scouts, was like, I
Speaker 1: need some help with this, especially putting the worms on
Speaker 1: the hook. I was never good at that. That was
Speaker 1: difficult for me and also a little icky. All right,
Speaker 1: let's explain ourselves. We're giant bomb, We're a bunch of
Speaker 1: internet video game dufaces, and we're gonna keep hanging out
Speaker 1: here with your help. If you go to giant bomb
Speaker 1: dot com slash join become a premium member, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be supporting us, supporting independent games media, ensuring we can
Speaker 1: keep doing things the way we like to do with them.
Speaker 3: And we really appreciate everyone who has supported us. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much.
Speaker 1: If you come through and do exactly that, though, if
Speaker 1: you have not so far, you're gonna get ad free
Speaker 1: versions of our shows. You're going to get premium exclusive content.
Speaker 1: We're recording a new episode of Cat Jurfman here pretty soon,
Speaker 1: so the premium blights will be underway. I think got
Speaker 1: something to be pretty excited about because it really enables
Speaker 1: us to do some even weirder and stranger stuff on
Speaker 1: that show. I'm very excited about it. That has been
Speaker 1: a lot of fun so far. You're looking forward to
Speaker 1: getting back in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking forward to donning the outfit, is what
Speaker 2: I'll say. Uh, I've heard it on the weekends for
Speaker 2: just for just for shits and.
Speaker 3: Giggles, recreational purposes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. No, it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: That's uh.
Speaker 2: That game is real dumb and uh, we're I think
Speaker 2: we're having a good laugh making our way through it,
Speaker 2: and it's fun. There I said it. I'm having fun
Speaker 2: playing the bad game, and I hope you'll join us
Speaker 2: when that show starts posting.
Speaker 1: It is like it has been sort of revelatory for
Speaker 1: the rest of us on Blake Club, where we kind
Speaker 1: of keep looking left and right, like meet me, Dan
Speaker 1: and Mike at each other, being like, wait, this game
Speaker 1: is still bad. It's still Blake Club, but it's not
Speaker 1: the absolute utter, like devastating trash garbage we've been giving
Speaker 1: to each other. We could be playing Catwoman, and yet
Speaker 1: for some reason we keep giving each other space ace
Speaker 1: and virtuo. So yeah, and whatever else now, and yeah,
Speaker 1: don't blame yourself.
Speaker 2: Don't blame yourselves, Blame the paying all audience. That is
Speaker 2: who you should be blaming. They what they were doing,
Speaker 2: They knew what they were doing. They had every opportunity
Speaker 2: to make this bad, and they made it good. So
Speaker 2: blame is This is what I always say. I say
Speaker 2: this internally, little peak behind the curtain. Blame the audience.
Speaker 1: Blame the audience. It's a classic trick here at Giant Bomb.
Speaker 2: Get me next time, everyone, You'll get me next time.
Speaker 1: As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff
Speaker 1: Grub will help piecerr gaming life back together. That includes
Speaker 1: breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
Speaker 1: For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
Speaker 1: bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If
Speaker 1: you were watching live on twitch welcome, You can always
Speaker 1: listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
Speaker 1: for Games Mornings, or find the RSS feed on giant
Speaker 1: bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later
Speaker 1: with chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube, aren't we
Speaker 1: have a lot to get into before we do that?
Speaker 3: Real quick? There's a big walk quick look up every one.
Speaker 3: You go check out. We got that going over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Sean made sure that was ready to go, So go
Speaker 1: check that out on the site, go check it out
Speaker 1: on YouTube.
Speaker 3: It's got multiple perspectives, so you.
Speaker 1: Can really get a good look at what that game's
Speaker 1: all about. We start from the beginning, so there's not
Speaker 1: like if you kind of just want to check in
Speaker 1: and peek in and see what the experience is like,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get a ton of spoilers. Because we
Speaker 1: didn't know what the fuck we were doing. Jeff Beckard
Speaker 1: did know what he was doing. He kept it quiet
Speaker 1: so we could discover it ourselves. So yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get in there and like actually get spoiled or anything.
Speaker 1: So eventually you will, but I know, just check out
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes and see if you want, because
Speaker 1: people are talking good things about this game, and yeah,
Speaker 1: Big Walk reviews are end and the game seems to
Speaker 1: be doing very well. I'm gonna double check Open Critic
Speaker 1: right now and see if they updated with an actual score.
Speaker 1: So far they have it, but it's got like a
Speaker 1: ninety three over on Metacritic. Yeah, very very good. Five
Speaker 1: stars from Chris Shilling at Eurogamer. The untitled Goose Game
Speaker 1: Team returns with a funny, exciting, and deeply rewarding multiplayer
Speaker 1: adventure that combines knock about fun with some risingly big ideas.
Speaker 1: Five stars from Mron Cohn at Restart Run. I think
Speaker 1: what Big Walk does that's so compelling is that it
Speaker 1: grabs the little part of your brain that is begging
Speaker 1: to be enriched by curiosity and interaction and massages it
Speaker 1: ever so gently with your friends as the background. That
Speaker 1: is not something that you can simply drop people into
Speaker 1: and hope happens. It is meticulously, meticulously crafted and planned
Speaker 1: by expert hands, and then an eight out of ten
Speaker 1: from Marcus Kenneth at CG Magazine, Big Walk delivers on
Speaker 1: a promise that's rare in in cooperative games. Nothing here
Speaker 1: is scripted, and the funniest moments are are ones that
Speaker 1: games that the game couldn't have planned even if it
Speaker 1: wanted to.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's kind.
Speaker 1: Of like it's an emergent sort of gameplay or an
Speaker 1: emergent like friend hangout zone thing that is enwrapped by
Speaker 1: a sort of multiplayer missed experience where you have all
Speaker 1: of these puzzles that are just standing there, they're in
Speaker 1: front of you, and then it's up to you to
Speaker 1: sort of like figure out what can you poke and
Speaker 1: product either right there in the puzzle or elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the world to.
Speaker 3: Solve that problem.
Speaker 1: And then it like it sort of develops that idea
Speaker 1: in multiple directions, but the biggest one being like time
Speaker 1: and space, like time space and the way sound works,
Speaker 1: and I guess the way lighting works. So you could
Speaker 1: split up and start going in different directions, and it's
Speaker 1: very hard to hear from a distance, so you have
Speaker 1: to use like visuals like like storytelling to each other
Speaker 1: where you're using your arms, or eventually you get walkie talkies,
Speaker 1: but those are like few and far between, at least
Speaker 1: early on, so you have to kind of use those
Speaker 1: sparingly or like find the right people to have those,
Speaker 1: and then kind of split up into groups and plan
Speaker 1: and organize, and then like you're like if you do
Speaker 1: get split up and say, I'm like looking out in
Speaker 1: the dark and I could see two lights walking through
Speaker 1: the woods, I'm like, oh, there's the guys. Let's see
Speaker 1: if we can, like we should probably just try to
Speaker 1: get their attention, get them over here. All this stuff
Speaker 1: sort of just happens emergently while it is this very
Speaker 1: like designed island. It is not, for example, like other
Speaker 1: friendslop games which I always use affectionately. It's where it
Speaker 1: is procedurally generated and you're getting a different island each time. Like, no,
Speaker 1: this is designed and they kind of knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing with that. I like immediately was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm getting lost in this world and having a great
Speaker 1: time figuring it out with friends. So yeah, you played
Speaker 1: it with us, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think what's so amazing about this is you know,
Speaker 2: this game took a minute to make too, right, Like
Speaker 2: this is definitely a labor of love for a while.
Speaker 2: And I think it's such a testament to like how
Speaker 2: meticulous everything was sort of placed, the sort of tools,
Speaker 2: the suite of sort of tools in this kind of
Speaker 2: sandbox thing is so hard to kind of like, you know,
Speaker 2: put yourself outside of what you probably become so close
Speaker 2: to and so intimate with during the development process. To
Speaker 2: just like have that kind of confidence and and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, willingness to take this kind of risk is
Speaker 2: really impressive to me. I really think that sort of
Speaker 2: careful decision making is something to really be celebrated. And
Speaker 2: this is just like what it's amazing about this is
Speaker 2: like this is just the beginning, right, Like this is
Speaker 2: just like a review time. No one's played this in
Speaker 2: a way that we are going to start to see
Speaker 2: all the amazing clips and all the amazing stuff that
Speaker 2: is birthed by this game.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I do, yes, I remember when we were when
Speaker 2: I first saw this game, I was talking with the developers,
Speaker 2: you know they you said, you have this affectionate friend
Speaker 2: slab genre sort of thing, Like I think they know,
Speaker 2: like that can be an affectionate kind of thing. They
Speaker 2: definitely were like, oh my god, we can't hear that anymore.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's not what you mean, right, No, And
Speaker 1: most people when they're they're like and like I've seen
Speaker 1: people talk like this is not just friends slop, and
Speaker 1: it's like there's a there's a distinction here, is not
Speaker 1: for sure feels very different from a lot of those
Speaker 1: games to become big streaming hits and stuff like.
Speaker 2: Totally and and there's undoubtedly overlap too, like you can't
Speaker 2: like you can't decouple those two things. The amazing thing though,
Speaker 2: is that Big Walk just like carves out its own
Speaker 2: little spot in a way not even little like this
Speaker 2: own substantial spot that is that none of those games
Speaker 2: can touch like they are just light years behind. And
Speaker 2: that's okay because like the the the the way in
Speaker 2: which you are sort of meant to play this game
Speaker 2: like demands that you have this thing. I guess the
Speaker 2: I guess like, if you don't have any friends, this
Speaker 2: is bad, Like get friends, for sure, get like good friends,
Speaker 2: because if you don't have good or get a good
Speaker 2: get a good friend singular because I because if you
Speaker 2: don't this is gonna be.
Speaker 1: Rough for you, I want to say, right, and I
Speaker 1: definitely already feel it's like, man, I want to play
Speaker 1: more of this, and like we have all like we
Speaker 1: have a lot of like excuses to make that happen,
Speaker 1: but we're very busy. It's like, can we like get
Speaker 1: ourselves together to play this again? And it's already like, man,
Speaker 1: I hope we can figure that out. If you're someone
Speaker 1: in life that like stresses about trying to like get
Speaker 1: your friend's time and say, hey, let's commit to this,
Speaker 1: at the very least, I think you're gonna have one
Speaker 1: that most people are gonna come away with being like
Speaker 1: that was worth it. Yeah, I'm glad we play I'm
Speaker 1: glad we played that. So like this is gonna be
Speaker 1: an easy, sort of convincing sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just.
Speaker 2: Gonna take a half hour, right, Like it's like you're
Speaker 2: gonna pop into this. The onboarding is super simple. I
Speaker 2: mean even for the most sort of like casual players.
Speaker 2: I think you're gonna get onboard to real fast. And
Speaker 2: once you realize like, oh what you are kind of
Speaker 2: meant to do and explore, I don't see how you
Speaker 2: could even play for a half hour. I feel like
Speaker 2: that first session is gonna be nine minutes and you're
Speaker 2: just gonna realize like, oh my gosh, like we're doing
Speaker 2: this thing together. It's you know, you love to see
Speaker 2: it like who is not instantly sort of falling in
Speaker 2: love with this thing and the sort of full and
Speaker 2: careful you know, it's just it's funny. That's I think
Speaker 2: that that's like it is. It just gives you all
Speaker 2: the pieces to just be so funny and thoughtful. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't enough good stuff about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to getting in there and
Speaker 1: and spending some more time with it. It's like it
Speaker 1: has it soaks into me where I'm like, man, I
Speaker 1: want to solve. I can think of a couple of
Speaker 1: puzzles that we came across that we couldn't solve. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I got we got to figure that stuff out. I
Speaker 1: have some theories. That is a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: it does like scratch the missed part of my brain
Speaker 1: while also being like this is something completely different and
Speaker 1: and yeah, just goofing off with friends is something that
Speaker 1: games are like not just good at, like it's like
Speaker 1: very good at it. And we have clearly figured that
Speaker 1: out in the last couple of years, a couple of
Speaker 1: years since the pandemic and all this friend slap stuff
Speaker 1: has happened, and and stuff like Peak has just been like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the entire thing we're doing here, and then
Speaker 1: now like to take that concept and especially especially proximity
Speaker 1: chat and be like all right, now, let's build on
Speaker 1: top of that and directions that's what this is doing.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is a whole genre that is
Speaker 1: yet like it's not even close to being taffed. We
Speaker 1: haven't really figured out all the things that this can do,
Speaker 1: and this is showing us. It's like, yeah, there is
Speaker 1: space for that, and it's not like some big barrier
Speaker 1: that we're putting out a game that requires you to
Speaker 1: play with friends. That is a that's actually a benefit
Speaker 1: and it's probably gonna lead to more success for it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of big studios will be afraid
Speaker 1: of that. That's why we don't get a lot of
Speaker 1: games like Joseph Feriss's two player only cooperative games that
Speaker 1: is like, oh, people need two people that are two players.
Speaker 1: That's like a scary thing like that we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to tell a person you're gonna to either get two copies,
Speaker 1: and they have voys to solve for that. But I
Speaker 1: think they realize that it's like, man, people really like
Speaker 1: playing games together. That's almost the whole point for a
Speaker 1: huge subset of our audience. So let's serve more of
Speaker 1: that up and I think this is delivering exactly that.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: There's a new Nintendo Direct dropping tomorrow dedicated to Fire
Speaker 1: Emblem fortunes Weave. This is from Dave Aubrey at VGC.
Speaker 1: A new Nintendo Direct will be premiering in less than
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, entirely dedicated to the upcoming Fire Emblem
Speaker 1: Fortunes Weave. The presentation will debut at seven A Pacific
Speaker 1: time and will be roughly twenty minutes long, detailing new
Speaker 1: features for the Nintendo Switch to exclusive.
Speaker 3: These are the times.
Speaker 1: They basically list all the times here at seven am
Speaker 1: Pacific time. That's ten am Eastern. Let's see four pm Ceest,
Speaker 1: which I know a lot of people probably live in.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of other times here, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you get the idea. The full announcement post from Nintendo
Speaker 1: reads as follows. The heroic games are approaching tune in
Speaker 1: on August fourth at seven am Pacific time for the
Speaker 1: Fire Emblem Fortunes. We've direct roughly twenty minutes of new
Speaker 1: information about the game. They've been doing these like a
Speaker 1: little bit more frequently, the game dedicated Nintendo directs. They
Speaker 1: probably like they have a lot to talk about in
Speaker 1: terms of like their other games, Like we are like
Speaker 1: all kind of waiting for more information.
Speaker 3: About Zelda, about Dusk Bloods.
Speaker 1: Which they're working with frum Soft on, and they did
Speaker 1: show a lot of that during the last Nintendo direct,
Speaker 1: which happened in the Summer Game Fest timeframe, the E
Speaker 1: three time frame, and so like a lot of us
Speaker 1: are like, when are we gonna get more information about that.
Speaker 3: I still think that's probably like a direct or.
Speaker 1: Something in September or maybe these games get their own
Speaker 1: dedicated directs like this, but this game's coming up much
Speaker 1: sooner than that, so they did have to kind of
Speaker 1: come out and really give us more information. And I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm definitely wondering when it comes to Fire Emblem,
Speaker 1: what's going to be different this time, because they that's
Speaker 1: a series that could be a lot of different things
Speaker 1: in the past. You know, it's traditionally just been like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's a tactical RPG, a strategy RPG sort of game,
Speaker 1: But then they always have a layer of like, okay,
Speaker 1: and here's how the characters interact.
Speaker 3: With one another.
Speaker 1: Maybe this time they are they're an army and they
Speaker 1: can have kids together and those kids come from the
Speaker 1: future back to the past and you fight alongside them.
Speaker 1: Or this one you're in a school and here's how
Speaker 1: like the relationships are very different. This one's supposed to
Speaker 1: be more of a follow up to the one that
Speaker 1: had the school rehouses. There's some character crossover just a
Speaker 1: little bit, and so I'm like wondering, how does that
Speaker 1: like present, is there school stuff? Is there something that
Speaker 1: kind of stands in it that's very similar? And so
Speaker 1: people get that information, and then I'm always curious to like,
Speaker 1: just tell me how I'm going to be interacting with
Speaker 1: the strategy element. That is why I show up, and
Speaker 1: how's that going to be different? So yeah, twenty minutes
Speaker 1: on this we'll get that information. And this is when
Speaker 1: in Nintendo's bigger games.
Speaker 3: Of the years. So here we are Backlar. What do
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, is this the first fire
Speaker 2: emblem that's gotten this kind of direct treatment.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't remember. That's a good question because.
Speaker 2: You know, for me, you know, I've I've never really
Speaker 2: gotten into one of these before. And I feel like
Speaker 2: when Nintendo kind of like the dedicates this amount of
Speaker 2: time to a thing, they're sort of like planning their
Speaker 2: flag in the ground and making it like a temple
Speaker 2: kind of thing that they don't do for everything.
Speaker 1: Fire Moment is definitely like a race its profile to
Speaker 1: that point. It is definitely one of Nintendo's more top
Speaker 1: tier franchises.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not Mario and Zelda, but it is.
Speaker 3: It is in that next tier.
Speaker 1: It is like it does sit alongside stuff like Splatoon, although.
Speaker 3: Maybe not sales squads.
Speaker 1: Basically, Fire Moville has kind of raised its profile and
Speaker 1: Nintendo has gotten to a point where they definitely want
Speaker 1: to like make that clear, and I think that they
Speaker 1: want to make it feel special. So I think to
Speaker 1: your point, yes, I think this this direct does speak
Speaker 1: to that. Now, you know, the details will get those
Speaker 1: tomorrow and we'll see exactly how this is different. But
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I expect us to get this and then
Speaker 1: there probably will just be a more general direct in September,
Speaker 1: because we do got to hear about that Zelda, right,
Speaker 1: we got to hear about just what's like what those
Speaker 1: games are coming out this year, and we still kind
Speaker 1: of know nothing.
Speaker 2: You know, I know, Uh, Fortune's Weave is about five
Speaker 2: weeks out, six weeks out, give or take right and
Speaker 2: Dusk Bloods. To me, I mean, you know, I'm speaking
Speaker 2: for my own sort of opinion what I care about, Like,
Speaker 2: that's the thing that I'm that to me, that's the
Speaker 2: bigger sort of black box of like what is just
Speaker 2: happening there. Uh, and the and the Zelda stuff is
Speaker 2: also kind of opaque in a way that we know
Speaker 2: it's a remake, but it's like there there needs to
Speaker 2: be some information filled in between now and when we're
Speaker 2: going to see this thing. Yeah, it's uh interesting the
Speaker 2: cadence for which this stuff comes out. I gotta say though,
Speaker 2: like now that we've seen the behavior of how these
Speaker 2: directs sort of work, like this could be a twelve
Speaker 2: hour notice, you know, for the next time they want
Speaker 2: to spend talking about something. So yeah, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not There's no reason to sound any kind
Speaker 2: of alarm just yet, because these things change overnight.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, that is uh.
Speaker 1: I think that might also be a good point where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, a general direct in September could happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, Dusk Blood is a big partnership with
Speaker 1: from Software. You might want to just like sort of
Speaker 1: establish the credentials of that game on its own with
Speaker 1: that audience. Do something like this for that game, and
Speaker 1: then Zelda will be sort of taking it has taken
Speaker 1: over the mantle taking the torch for the anniversary celebration
Speaker 1: where they were just doing that with Mario, which was
Speaker 1: like that was at the fortieth anniversary, and now it's
Speaker 1: like Zelda's fortieth anniversary, and I think they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we can have a big director that does explain
Speaker 1: the game but then talks about the movie and other
Speaker 1: stuff that we were doing to celebrate. Like there's always
Speaker 1: there's been ongoing rumors of like, oh, there will be
Speaker 1: a Zelda themed a console or a switch to that
Speaker 1: is Zelda themed for the fortieth anniversary maybe and not
Speaker 1: maybe not even just for the game or the movie,
Speaker 1: but just for Zelda generally. And it's like, oh, if
Speaker 1: they have that, they probably have a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff that they want to talk about. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: Zelda very easily could just get its own direct here
Speaker 1: very soon. All right, Wolverine's going to get us butt out.
Speaker 1: This is from John Walker at Kotaku breaking news. We're
Speaker 1: probably going to see Wolverine's ass in Marvel's Wolverine when
Speaker 1: it releases on PlayStation five on September fifteenth, as spotted
Speaker 1: by mp first. According to the ESPO ESRB content description,
Speaker 1: which is signs Wolverine a mature seventeen plus rating, we
Speaker 1: shall all have the pleasure of a character's exposed.
Speaker 3: Buttocks, which is a quote.
Speaker 1: It's been made extremely clear that Insomniac's approach to Wolverine
Speaker 1: is very different from that of the Studio Spider Man series,
Speaker 1: with its first trailer back in June providing extraordinarily proving
Speaker 1: to be extraordinarily violent. Since then, we see the animantium
Speaker 1: infused anti hero kicking ass in a far less gory teezer,
Speaker 1: leading to some backlash about Logan's weird looking face. So
Speaker 1: I didn't see that was their puddle news about that.
Speaker 1: I know, face is weird, light I missed that meeting.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but soon we shall. Yeah, it's got
Speaker 1: a weird looking face. I don't like that.
Speaker 3: That's not Canadian, That's not what Canadians look like.
Speaker 1: But soon we shall be turning our attention to how
Speaker 1: he appears at the other end of the eating process.
Speaker 1: A very good John Walker with the ESRB revealing that
Speaker 1: among the violence, blood cursing, and drug references, we will
Speaker 1: also see a handful of sequences briefly depicting the character's
Speaker 1: exposed buttocks. I think we're all we all probably are
Speaker 1: assuming John John writes here. But we're assuming that is Wolverine, right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna see wolverines.
Speaker 2: But sure no one, no one's had the nerve to
Speaker 2: show his full ass yet in any kind of popular media.
Speaker 2: I'm glad. I'm glad this is it. I'm also glad,
Speaker 2: like this is the M rated content we're talking about
Speaker 2: in the game, and not the fact that my man
Speaker 2: is just like ripping round out of people. You know,
Speaker 2: every way imaginable, But that's cool.
Speaker 1: It's all good chunks, chunks of body parts and bodily
Speaker 1: fluids just flying all over the place. That's you know,
Speaker 1: this was a game that I heard early on was
Speaker 1: going to go for the extreme R rating of like
Speaker 1: when Hollywood says like, we're gonna do that. We're gonna
Speaker 1: make a movie that's a real R rated movie, right,
Speaker 1: And that's like the vibe that they were going for internally.
Speaker 1: That first trailer definitely established that absolutely, And it's like,
Speaker 1: and if you're gonna do that, you might as well
Speaker 1: just make it a full like this is an adult theme,
Speaker 1: adult concepts and and mature themes and to video games,
Speaker 1: that still means we're gonna see ass. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess like Spider Man sold very very well.
Speaker 3: It's a game anyone can play.
Speaker 1: Uh, Wolverine does feel like it should be able to
Speaker 1: like appeal to everybody. But he's also a character that
Speaker 1: has kind of famous for like, oh, he just slices
Speaker 1: dudes up, like like if we were gonna get him,
Speaker 1: we want him to really be slicing dudes up. So
Speaker 1: I think this was necessary. Do you think this is
Speaker 1: still gonna work for this game?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna work, But like, am I crazy
Speaker 2: and assuming it just won't sell as well as Spider Man?
Speaker 1: I don't, right, Right, that's so like it feels like
Speaker 1: like Wolverine is like for Marvel, it is like Spider Man,
Speaker 1: definitely number one most popular character. But yeah, and then
Speaker 1: X Men are right there. But but like and Wolverine
Speaker 1: is the most you know popular X Man, Sure he is,
Speaker 1: but then you had like add in this stuff like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's all right, and Verry Gory. It's just something
Speaker 1: that families pick up. Maybe not as much, but I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe the audience is so robust for people
Speaker 1: over eighteen old older people on PlayStation that this could
Speaker 1: do very well, you know what. I think it's not
Speaker 1: going to sell quite as well as Spider Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to do well. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the pedigree and the character, like all those things just
Speaker 2: by virtue of like the separation between these two sort
Speaker 2: of things like Spider Man Wolverine games probably could not
Speaker 2: be more dissimilar, right, like they are, just aside from
Speaker 2: just being you know, action single player. But like, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's not a bad thing, right right, No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just I think it's just like for me,
Speaker 1: I was definitely thinking about this this morning, beck Laar,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is a team that had
Speaker 1: done a couple of Spider Man and several there's three
Speaker 1: if you can the standalone Miles Morales game, which you should,
Speaker 1: and they have all sold extremely well. This team works fast,
Speaker 1: but now they're trying to like sort of spread out
Speaker 1: and do other stuff. And you know, we've seen the
Speaker 1: internal like the League to the hacked stuff that was
Speaker 1: like and they're going to like eventually turn this into
Speaker 1: an X Men game that they're going to make down
Speaker 1: the line. And so okay, yeah, but what if this
Speaker 1: game sells like noticeably less than Spider Man. Doesn't that
Speaker 1: just say like, oh, you guys should just go keep
Speaker 1: making like keep pumping out the Spider Man games, because
Speaker 1: it's not like those games just sell well. They are
Speaker 1: by far PlayStation's best selling games ever. And and it's
Speaker 1: like a at a certain point, they look at it
Speaker 1: as an opportunity costs and an opportunity lost. If they
Speaker 1: have this team working on something that's not selling as
Speaker 1: well as Spider Man.
Speaker 3: Now, it's not what I want.
Speaker 1: I want them to keep trying different stuff, and they're
Speaker 1: dipping back into Spider Man because I really enjoy those games.
Speaker 1: Those are some of my favorite some of my favorite
Speaker 1: PlayStation games. But you know, I'm very curious to see
Speaker 1: does this work. I bet it works, Like it'll meet
Speaker 1: all of its expectations. I bet I will, I say
Speaker 1: quite as well. Spider Man probably not.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think that's like completely reasonable to to
Speaker 2: sort of forecast about what this game is gonna do
Speaker 2: just because, like I said, because we know the pedigree.
Speaker 2: But both you know, chats bring up great points like
Speaker 2: part you know, Spider Man is a great game on
Speaker 2: its face, but you're also being sold the ability to
Speaker 2: like swing around a one to one Manhattan, you know,
Speaker 2: and like just do that for endless hours. Like there's
Speaker 2: I don't discount how amazing that is, right, Like someone said, Yeah,
Speaker 2: in Wolverine, you're just the dude. You're just the guy
Speaker 2: with like knife hands. Right again, not to water down.
Speaker 1: But like you know, looking at those trailers, it's like
Speaker 1: you get an idea, like pretty quickly. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're making a different game. This is going to be
Speaker 1: a game about smaller set pieces and like using some
Speaker 1: of all of Rein's abilities, like his ability to like
Speaker 1: smell and stiff stuff out to do.
Speaker 2: Sure, he's gonna smell all the colors, all the bodies.
Speaker 3: Right, and I'll use that to do like detective work
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like they're like, Okay, well, then now I can like
Speaker 1: move on to the next thing, and the next thing
Speaker 1: will almost invariably be a very cool action piece, right,
Speaker 1: and I trust Insomniac's ability to deliver that. You know,
Speaker 1: while they while I love you know, I love a
Speaker 1: Spider Man, one of my recent other favorite games on
Speaker 1: the PlayStation is is their ratchet and Clink game, The
Speaker 1: Rift Apart. It's alia, yeah, and that's you know, kind
Speaker 1: of somewhere between these two games maybe and say, oh,
Speaker 1: they could just do anything. So a lot of faith
Speaker 1: in Insomniac. I think this is like my worry here,
Speaker 1: excuse me. It's not that this is not going to
Speaker 1: be a good game. It's going to deliver the goods,
Speaker 1: right right, No, that's not the worry. What is your worry?
Speaker 2: Worries that it's it's just not going to do as well.
Speaker 1: My work, you know, my worries just like like, is
Speaker 1: Spider Man so popular? Right that that when they when
Speaker 1: they put out Wolverine, and it's like and if it
Speaker 1: does like ninety percent of Spider Man, you know, I
Speaker 1: bet that is their expectation.
Speaker 3: Actually, well, it is kind of cool.
Speaker 2: That they've been presumer right, like we're just living in
Speaker 2: the world here, right, Like we're just making like, you know,
Speaker 2: thoughtful analysis, like there's no way that there is an
Speaker 2: expectation from being greenlit for this thing, like oh, it's
Speaker 2: going to do better, right like the campy and I
Speaker 2: think that's you know, there is a bit of sigh
Speaker 2: of relief that that is allowed to be a sort
Speaker 2: of business dynamic that is being allowed to happen, right.
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's let's take a break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: plenty more to get into. If you want to skip
Speaker 1: it on these ad messages, there's a way to do that.
Speaker 1: Just go to GiantBomb dot com slash join. We have
Speaker 1: ad free versions of the shows there.
Speaker 3: We will be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, We're back with more Game Mes Mornings. Jeff Grubb,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bakalar. Let's get into this next story. Xbox console
Speaker 1: price increase in Europe and UK has been fully revealed,
Speaker 1: with a Series X now costing two hundred euro more.
Speaker 1: This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. The extent of
Speaker 1: Xbox Series X and S price hikes in Europe and
Speaker 1: UK markets have now been revealed. Xbox confirmed back in
Speaker 1: June that it would be increasing the price of the
Speaker 1: Xbox Series X and S consoles on August first.
Speaker 3: We're past that now.
Speaker 1: At that time, however, it only opted to share the
Speaker 1: US price increases, including an increase of one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for the five hundred and twelve gigabyte models and one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars for its one terabyte models. Now
Speaker 1: that price increase has actually been implemented, the full leaping
Speaker 1: costs for players in Europe has also finally been revealed.
Speaker 1: As noted on the reset Era forum, the price hike
Speaker 1: in Europe is two hundred euro for the one terabyte
Speaker 1: model and one hundred fifty euro for the five hundred
Speaker 1: and twelve gigabyte models. In the UK, the price increase
Speaker 1: has resulted in a one hundred and seventy pound increase
Speaker 1: for one terabyte models and one hundred and thirty pounds
Speaker 1: for five hundred and twelve gigabyte models.
Speaker 3: Basically, it's kind.
Speaker 1: Of in line with what people were expecting, maybe on
Speaker 1: the higher end, but yes, just across the board, much
Speaker 1: much more expensive. And yes, this is the price increase
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about for a few weeks now.
Speaker 3: There was to last year, one this year so far.
Speaker 2: Think what I'm gonna do now is take my Xbox
Speaker 2: Series X and return it and get right, yes, get
Speaker 2: with eight hundred dollars for it, put it in credit,
Speaker 2: get the credit at the Walmart.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yes, just that's I've decided right here and now that
Speaker 2: is what I'm going to do. I have a PC
Speaker 2: and game Pass, so I don't miss anything. What am
Speaker 2: I doing?
Speaker 3: Yep? I mean listen.
Speaker 1: I I occasionally like, see my Xbox.
Speaker 3: Look there it is. Yeah, that's about as much as
Speaker 3: I do with it these days.
Speaker 1: It's somewhere. I'm sure it's plugged in. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't hate the Xbox. I like, I like using the
Speaker 1: thing occasionally. Like at this point, I'm very used to
Speaker 1: the way it works. But it's like, that's not the
Speaker 1: conversation you're having with anyone when they're talking about its future.
Speaker 1: It's you're talking about its ability to sort of deliver fun,
Speaker 1: exclusive entertainment you can't get anywhere else in a way.
Speaker 1: That's like okay, and like your friends are going to
Speaker 1: be there, It's like, no, your friends are going to
Speaker 1: be on PlayStation and most of the games are going
Speaker 1: to be available available elsewhere. There seems to be a
Speaker 1: couple of exclusives, but you get those on PC. So
Speaker 1: if that's in the conversation for you, suddenly an Xbox
Speaker 1: doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, but they they
Speaker 1: did just say in their financial report to investors, so
Speaker 1: they're not just like blowing smoke. This is something they're
Speaker 1: saying to investors that the core of the Xbox business
Speaker 1: is to like grow consoles. Again, like that is it's
Speaker 1: about consoles the core of our strength, they said. I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of how they phrased it.
Speaker 2: We've seen the forecast for hardware causets. Yeah, we feel
Speaker 2: confident in this assessment, right exactly, Like what.
Speaker 3: Are you talking about?
Speaker 1: There's already been This is again the third big price
Speaker 1: increase over the last year and a half, and I
Speaker 1: don't think we're done. Like everyone, everyone keeps saying prices
Speaker 1: are gonna keep going up. For ram I sus story,
Speaker 1: this story was almost like yo, two terabyte envme drives
Speaker 1: have gone down four percent.
Speaker 2: We're saved.
Speaker 1: And it's like, buddy, that's just like small little market
Speaker 1: corrections here or there, like yeah, Copium, Uh, you know
Speaker 1: there's Chinese like ram modules are showing up in like
Speaker 1: Lexar's Ram sticks now and stuff, and everyone's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. It's like yeah, but the demand will just
Speaker 1: swallow that as well. None of this is saving us.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Microsoft themselves and others have said like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Ram's gone up several hundred percent, we expected to
Speaker 1: double again by this time next year. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a very high price, and that price is going to
Speaker 1: double in the next year. That and this is the
Speaker 1: thing that costs the most in the console right now.
Speaker 1: We're not done with price increases. So how on earth
Speaker 1: are they going to sell more of these things? How
Speaker 1: on earth are they going to launch new console, new
Speaker 1: generation consoles for either of these companies in the next
Speaker 1: year and a half two years. It's it's not going
Speaker 1: to sort itself out by then, of course not.
Speaker 2: We We've been saying this now for a while. They
Speaker 2: helped do this, so fight like better.
Speaker 3: Than anyone that it's not going to stop any time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we got here with no with no shortage
Speaker 2: of help from this business. And you know, like you
Speaker 2: sort of make your bed now you got to lay
Speaker 2: in it right, Like, I don't know. It is also
Speaker 2: crazy to see in real time a company that is
Speaker 2: like sort of like self reflectively delusional, right, where you
Speaker 2: have this and a lot of like they're almost have
Speaker 2: like startup brain right or like VC brain, where it's
Speaker 2: like we're raising all this money, we're not profitable, and
Speaker 2: we're just gonna like stay the course. And there is
Speaker 2: a bit of that rubbing off in this kind of
Speaker 2: like uh, you know shit that they're spearing out where
Speaker 2: it's like we know all of these things are rooting
Speaker 2: against us and are not in our favor, yet we
Speaker 2: path you know, we forged a path forward. It's like
Speaker 2: a I don't know how any reasonable person can can
Speaker 2: take this seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like I think a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I definitely see people in chat saying this occasionally, people
Speaker 1: in comments, and I've had the thought myself like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're just trying to push just toward toward the cloud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's a console ownership.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's also like it doesn't like get
Speaker 1: rid of a lot of the problems. It's not like
Speaker 1: the cloud does not require RAM and storage.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: It requires a lot that's where a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff is going. And you know, Obviously the Xbox Cloud
Speaker 1: works a little bit differently than that, but it uses
Speaker 1: the stuff that it goes into the console, so it's expensive.
Speaker 1: And it's like, if if they're serious about that, you
Speaker 1: would just expect them to have improved or made the
Speaker 1: experience of using Xbox Cloud gaming good period, and it's
Speaker 1: just not. It is such a miserable experience still of
Speaker 1: waiting three minutes for the game to spool up on
Speaker 1: some server somewhere, and this is this is probably like
Speaker 1: a first experience sort of thing, like I will check
Speaker 1: in on this every three months or so and just
Speaker 1: kind of see what it's like. And maybe if you're
Speaker 1: someone who goes in every day and you're playing the
Speaker 1: same game, it like keeps your stuff a little bit
Speaker 1: more ready. It's like pulling my stuff out of cold
Speaker 1: storage or something like that. But that is the experience
Speaker 1: that most of these people who might be shifting from
Speaker 1: console or PC to the cloud would be having, and
Speaker 1: they just don't.
Speaker 3: It's not like they're investing in that side of thing.
Speaker 1: So I guess I think I think the cynical argument
Speaker 1: would be it's like, yeah, they're not investing in it,
Speaker 1: They're just gonna make everything else worse than shittier and
Speaker 1: more expensive, until like you're like, I guess I'll just
Speaker 1: go with this other thing that hasn't gotten better. But
Speaker 1: at least I can access the games here, and I
Speaker 1: can without having to buy hardware.
Speaker 3: Which is actually the worst experience I could have right.
Speaker 2: Now, and correct me if I'm wrong, But like, it
Speaker 2: certainly feels like nobody's talking about it, right.
Speaker 1: Like do you like like you mean, like just like
Speaker 1: conversationally like friends, like, yeah, we're not like.
Speaker 3: Tried the Xbox clous so it's.
Speaker 2: No, no one says that shit, no one, no one
Speaker 2: need and not only that, like the education is not
Speaker 2: there either, right, Like there's no consumer basic awareness of
Speaker 2: that stuff. Maybe you see that.
Speaker 1: I mean they tried it with everything as an Xbox, right,
Speaker 1: that was the idea, and that blew up in their
Speaker 1: faces and everyone hated that. And now every conversation they have,
Speaker 1: every bullet point they have, is the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, the Xbox is the Xbox and that's
Speaker 1: what's important important to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right. I see the badge.
Speaker 2: I see the badge in places, but it's not exactly
Speaker 2: an intuitive sort of like understanding of how I'm meant
Speaker 2: to access it and use it regularly and rely on it.
Speaker 1: No, yep, uh so yeah, big prices like just giving
Speaker 1: some examples, the Xbox Series S five hundred twelve gigabytes
Speaker 1: is five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: It was three hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: So basically there's just like no affordable Xbox anymore. That's
Speaker 1: the price of I think that's more than what a
Speaker 1: switch to cost.
Speaker 2: In Europe certainly feels like the war in Iran. No
Speaker 2: plan yeah right, yeah, it's like plan, there's just no plan.
Speaker 2: They keep saying stuff and it's just like wait, how
Speaker 2: will that work? And they don't know because there there's
Speaker 2: no way for it to work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the UK, the five hundred twelve gigabyte Series S
Speaker 1: is four hundred and thirty pounds, so well, yep, across
Speaker 1: the board, very high prices. I'm gonna see what with this,
Speaker 1: the high price hereies for all these things. The Xbox
Speaker 1: Series X one tearabyte is eight hundred in U in
Speaker 1: the USA, eight hundred euros in Europe, and six hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy pounds in the UK. So just big, big numbers,
Speaker 1: all right, speaking of Xbox, and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: pertains to this conversation.
Speaker 3: Of like where are they headed, what's the strategy. There
Speaker 3: was a lot of.
Speaker 1: Talk over the weekend about Xbox might be considering taking
Speaker 1: its games off of Steam, and so oh okay, they're
Speaker 1: like they might be getting very serious about like locking
Speaker 1: down their ecosystem. If that's the case, and very strange,
Speaker 1: very weird. Probably not going to work. It never works
Speaker 1: for anybody, but maybe it'll work for us leaving Steam.
Speaker 1: Jess Gordon I guess said this said something along these
Speaker 1: lines on a podcast a piece. As people took it
Speaker 1: out of contexts, he clarified his weekend remarks. He said
Speaker 1: Microsoft is not currently exploring leaving Steam. Gears of War
Speaker 1: E Day is still scheduled for Steam alongside the Xbox
Speaker 1: PC Store. The more consequential thing that he talked about, though,
Speaker 1: is that Microsoft and Blizzard have been apparently planning to
Speaker 1: open up battle dot Net to third party developers. The
Speaker 1: idea might be, instead of leaving Steam, make battle dot
Speaker 1: Net more Steam like and welcome in more third party games.
Speaker 1: They've definitely welcomed in games that weren't from Blizzard on
Speaker 1: there recently call of Duty has been on there a
Speaker 1: couple of times, things like that, but now I think
Speaker 1: there was also some pathestic games on there, maybe star
Speaker 1: Field or something like that. But the idea might be a, hey,
Speaker 1: let's battle battle d nut has a lot of users
Speaker 1: that use it every day to play Blizzard games. What
Speaker 1: if we sold other people's games in there and that
Speaker 1: just became our PC store. And it's like I always
Speaker 1: was like they might eventually try to do that. I
Speaker 1: think Blizzard fans will hate it, but they're also not
Speaker 1: gonna stop using World of Warcraft anytime soon or whatever
Speaker 1: game they're playing Overwatch too or whatever. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: could see that being something that they definitely try, although
Speaker 1: Jezz points out he's not sure if this is something
Speaker 1: that has changed under Asha Sharma. This is something that
Speaker 1: started before her, and so maybe this is not something
Speaker 1: they're going to proceed with, but he doesn't know for sure.
Speaker 1: I think that this, to me, beclar just speaks to
Speaker 1: a sort of messiness of all of the language around
Speaker 1: the future of anything Xbox is doing, where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have exclusives back, but those exclusives are still
Speaker 1: on PC, and those PC games are also not exclusive
Speaker 1: to the Xbox Store.
Speaker 3: They're on Steam.
Speaker 1: So what is it really mean to be exclusive in
Speaker 1: the first place? It just means not on PlayStation. Okay,
Speaker 1: what does that really get you? I guess it gets
Speaker 1: some people excited to get a console, but most people
Speaker 1: don't seem that great happy about it.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 1: And then what is your export like if you are
Speaker 1: on PC, what does that look like? How how are
Speaker 1: you capturing the money? What is going to happen to
Speaker 1: the Xbox ecosystem. This thing that like, oh you get
Speaker 1: a thirty percent cut of all of the sales that
Speaker 1: happened in Fortnite or whatever that happens on console, that's
Speaker 1: not really happening on Windows. The thing that you own
Speaker 1: it all, that's all going through other platforms for the
Speaker 1: for the most part, How do you plan to capture
Speaker 1: that going forward? And well, leaving Steam was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess sir, you're going to go force people back
Speaker 1: onto your store having battle dot Net there to maybe
Speaker 1: catch some people. I could see them convincing themselves that
Speaker 1: that could work. But even that, like, no, that is
Speaker 1: for the people already using battlenet, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I got you know, the more we
Speaker 2: dig into just like the sort of like opaque messaging
Speaker 2: that it constantly spews out of this camp. I even
Speaker 2: if you were to, I really like it's so dizzying
Speaker 2: right like uh and seemingly changing week to week, I
Speaker 2: would not even like John Boys could do like a
Speaker 2: secret Base style explanation of like this is how.
Speaker 1: The see the craft moving around, and it's just like
Speaker 1: falls apart like cracks, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like my man can break down anything, any complex idea,
Speaker 2: and like if you were to give him this, I
Speaker 2: actually friendly from a friendly perspective, like challenge that camp
Speaker 2: to like try and explain this to people.
Speaker 1: He's gonna he's gonna be too busy explaining how the
Speaker 1: Detroit Tiger's trading trek. So Google is going to lead
Speaker 1: to a lockout next year, and I'm going forward to that.
Speaker 3: Quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I I kind of don't know, Like
Speaker 2: you know, at the at the end of I think
Speaker 2: what you gotta do is you just got to like
Speaker 2: walk away from all the static and just be like,
Speaker 2: am I is there? I can be thankful that there's
Speaker 2: going to be a way that I can play the
Speaker 2: game I want to play, And then you know, you
Speaker 2: sort of have to make the calculus of like what's
Speaker 2: the safer platform bet right to like make your purchasing
Speaker 2: decisions on right right. And that's that's really what it
Speaker 2: comes such a huge.
Speaker 1: Thing, right like that is that some people don't even
Speaker 1: put like a lot of thought into it. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a primal thing of like I am going to
Speaker 1: pick my spot and this will be my little protected
Speaker 1: garden of the games that I have I own, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to hoard them like a little dragon.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna feel good about that.
Speaker 1: And getting someone to like switch over to Battlenet or
Speaker 1: something like that is monumental. We've seen Epic Games give
Speaker 1: away a game per like every two weeks or at
Speaker 1: least every month for years and years now, and that
Speaker 1: has been their most effective tool.
Speaker 3: And that has not been effective enough to.
Speaker 1: Really turn that into like a true going concern that
Speaker 1: has anything to do with taking any skin off of
Speaker 1: Steam's back. It's not even close. And they give it
Speaker 1: away just games constantly. They also have exclusives that did nothing.
Speaker 1: They stopped that they fund they funded a control and
Speaker 1: they're like, uh, okay, well we're not gonna do that
Speaker 1: again because that that just didn't really turn the dial
Speaker 1: and controls awesome, Yeah, crazy control. Maybe it was al
Speaker 1: alan Wick two. Yeah it was Alan Wack two.
Speaker 3: That's right. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Uh, they funded allen Wick too. It's like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: didn't move the needle. And it's like they they have
Speaker 1: some tools in their toolkit at Xbox, but it's very
Speaker 1: similar to what everyone else has. And this idea that
Speaker 1: you could change player behavior is I think we've seen
Speaker 1: over and over again just not true.
Speaker 3: It's not gonna happen, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's uh. There are a few things that are this
Speaker 2: sort of like unmovable immovable, right, and this feels like
Speaker 2: one of those where you can, even in the constantly
Speaker 2: dynamic and changing landscape that we exist in, this just
Speaker 2: still feels like a real monolithic force.
Speaker 1: I think maybe the one thing we're not taking into
Speaker 1: consideration here because we don't know the details, is Project Helix.
Speaker 3: If if the.
Speaker 1: Launched Project Helix with a like sort of unified platform
Speaker 1: store where it's like this is a PC, but it's
Speaker 1: also an Xbox and we're gonna present to you an
Speaker 1: Xbox store. Further, you can also get Steam an I know,
Speaker 1: and get every one there or whatever.
Speaker 2: I have an asis rog ally X that says otherwise.
Speaker 2: I just like, you know, like that thing.
Speaker 4: It's cool, I use it, but I fight it, Yes,
Speaker 4: and everybody to deliver this unified experience, right that and
Speaker 4: in a way that like makes sense for both the
Speaker 4: user and them.
Speaker 3: I have almost zero faith in their ability to.
Speaker 2: Do that because and you're just basing that because you
Speaker 2: see numbers and understand like what it means to go
Speaker 2: oh for twenty three on something.
Speaker 3: Right, they haven't been able to figure it out on
Speaker 3: the PC.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, the the operating system monopoly that they own,
Speaker 2: not directly right, like like it's it's yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's just that needle cannot be threaded for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Ubisoft's NFT RPG Champions Tactics, which is a thing that
Speaker 1: was still.
Speaker 3: Happening, is shutting down shortly.
Speaker 1: After all right, I oh no, my NFTs my apes.
Speaker 1: Shortly after it's scrapped its blockchain use. Ubisoft has announced
Speaker 1: that its NFT based role playing game, Champions Tactics, is
Speaker 1: shutting down. The company launched its quote web three competitive
Speaker 1: turn based RPG in October twenty twenty four, which sees
Speaker 1: players as simple groups of three characters to battle against
Speaker 1: enemy's in turn based combat. The game's controversy lay and
Speaker 1: its Web three functionality, where each character essentially function functions
Speaker 1: as NFTs and could be purchased with in game currency
Speaker 1: or cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2: Fly out of Here.
Speaker 1: Tvsofts stepped away from the game's Web three technology in May,
Speaker 1: telling players that plan to progressively transition away from blockchain functionality.
Speaker 1: Now it's announced that the game will be shutting down
Speaker 1: entirely in October, two years after its initial launch.
Speaker 3: I mean, man, you be sad. This just feels like
Speaker 3: you could you idea?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I wish someone warned them.
Speaker 4: I wish they had like I wish they could have
Speaker 4: like like, right, man, I feel bad for You'll be soft.
Speaker 3: Someone should have said something to them.
Speaker 2: It's really really said that no one took the time
Speaker 2: to like call them out in a very public way
Speaker 2: and be like, Yo, maybe this is a fucking horrific idea.
Speaker 1: Maybe this thing that you're trying to get into is
Speaker 1: only for buffoons, and even they won't spend money on it.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean, look, there's I mean, look he was up.
Speaker 2: There are dozens of companies who are not receiving that message.
Speaker 1: Yes, so why should you because I'll be any different.
Speaker 1: Let's keep going here. Square Nicks insists that Cursed Kingdom
Speaker 1: Hearts are was not AI generated. This is from Claire
Speaker 1: Lewis at game Spot. Last month, Nintendo's direct was full
Speaker 1: of all types of treats for Kingdom Hearts fans, including
Speaker 1: the announcement that native versions of the entire Kingdom Hearts
Speaker 1: trilogy we'll be coming to switch to via the release
Speaker 1: of Kingdom Hearts Collection. Players did not respond well to
Speaker 1: the trilogy's key art, which Square Innox shared on Twitter
Speaker 1: shortly after the announcement. Players quickly noticed several strange details
Speaker 1: in the image and accused Square Inox of using Generative
Speaker 1: AI to create it. Game Spot reached out for comment
Speaker 1: at the time, and Square Inox has now decided to
Speaker 1: clear things up. According to a statement shared with game Spot,
Speaker 1: the Kingdom Hearts Collection one through three art is not
Speaker 1: the result of AI. We're aware of feedback regarding recent
Speaker 1: Kingdom Heart's visuals, reads the statement, which was shared via
Speaker 1: phone call with a Square Enix pr rep. These assets
Speaker 1: were created by our development team without the use of
Speaker 1: Generative AI, and the issues resulted from human air. Some
Speaker 1: of the issues being referenced here include Donald Duck having
Speaker 1: four fingers on one hand and five on the other,
Speaker 1: the hands on the clock tower appearing warped, the key
Speaker 1: blade's keychain links appearing on even Sora's crown shaped belt
Speaker 1: chain linking links melting into each other, the absence of
Speaker 1: the crown shaped pattern usually seen on the bottom of
Speaker 1: soras shoes, and various clothing zippers they mean to fade
Speaker 1: into nothing, among other issues.
Speaker 3: Look, if it was like three.
Speaker 1: Of those things, I'd be like, all right, human error,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's like flip around in so many things,
Speaker 1: it's like did you hire a child to do this
Speaker 1: that had never seen Kingdom hearts before?
Speaker 2: Look, the one little like you know, morsel of a
Speaker 2: treat we can all kind of have as we spiral
Speaker 2: deeper into an AI driven healthscape is that these things
Speaker 2: are like easy to point out and when and when
Speaker 2: something looks like it, you know what you're looking at,
Speaker 2: and you're just like, I don't fucking trust these people.
Speaker 2: They suck right, Like whether it's like a local ad
Speaker 2: for some sort of like they all have this like
Speaker 2: very weird porcelain kind of like uncanny thing and like spotting,
Speaker 2: it is now fun and you can throw you know,
Speaker 2: tomatoes at them, and it's like this thing, I don't
Speaker 2: know how like and like everyone's triggers, everyone's sensors went
Speaker 2: off on this thing, So what's going going on?
Speaker 1: I mean, And it's like, I mean, this is where
Speaker 1: we're at too, where it's like the argument is.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't know, we just we fucking suck.
Speaker 1: Actually, like no, and that's what you want, right, We're
Speaker 1: humans that suck and that's way better than the AI.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, yeah, but why do you suck? Why
Speaker 1: does this thing look so lazy and bad? It's it's
Speaker 1: it's a weird situation to be in. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I even trust them on this, but
Speaker 1: it like it kind of doesn't matter at a certain point.
Speaker 1: The thing they put out was garbage, and doesn't that
Speaker 1: just make people worry about the overall quality quality in.
Speaker 3: General of like the things they're delivering.
Speaker 1: This is the quality control you have on your art,
Speaker 1: which you know, God, we've worked with various companies before,
Speaker 1: even just from like the PR side of things. They're
Speaker 1: so particular about every detail and how this stuff gets
Speaker 1: talked about and covered and the idea that that does
Speaker 1: not extend to the key artists that are going to
Speaker 1: put this like, there's.
Speaker 2: No way right, So it's dizy.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, right, we know for sure how Disney treats
Speaker 1: this stuff. Horror stories of like trying to get Disney
Speaker 1: to agree to a couple of details like changes on
Speaker 1: characters in like Star Wars games or whatever. The idea
Speaker 1: that this got through, it's like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: And does that signify bigger problems?
Speaker 3: Eh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a lot to worry about and a lot
Speaker 2: of question I don't know, so many other things have
Speaker 2: been called out for so much less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, all right, well we're running out of time,
Speaker 1: so we'll just move on.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Square Nix's whole situation with how it's handling like Kingdom
Speaker 1: Hearts and like upgrading from the cloud versions to the
Speaker 1: non cloud versions on switch to or the lack thereof
Speaker 1: of having an upgrade path.
Speaker 3: It's just frustrating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this company is still kind of lost in
Speaker 1: the woods and doesn't really know what they're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. Saudi Arabia's EA deal is going
Speaker 1: to close tomorrow. It's kind of like final update on that.
Speaker 1: It seems to have passed all European Commission riculatory hurdles.
Speaker 1: We got some details about the ownership split. Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 1: Public Investment Fund will own ninety three point four percent,
Speaker 1: Silver Lake will own five point five percent, and Jared
Speaker 1: Kushner's Affinity Partners will own one point one percent. Good
Speaker 1: for you, Jared, psyched for you, bro psyched for you, dude.
Speaker 1: EA is going to be exiting the public market after
Speaker 1: thirty six years, and this will be the largest leveraged
Speaker 1: buyout in history, which is always We've said it before
Speaker 1: a million times on the show, but we'll keep pointing
Speaker 1: out that that is probably going to lead to worst
Speaker 1: games from EA, like even separate from Saudi ownership, which
Speaker 1: I guess we're not really sure how that will manifest.
Speaker 3: I think we can.
Speaker 1: Assume it will based on how S and K's gone,
Speaker 1: and like some friends of NBS have shown up in
Speaker 1: the game in those games or whatever. But the leverage
Speaker 1: buyout and having to service this twenty billion dollars in
Speaker 1: debt first and foremost before you pay anyone or hire
Speaker 1: anyone or expand, it's just gonna lead to less money
Speaker 1: going into these games, and then the games having to
Speaker 1: squeeze even more money from their audiences, something that EA
Speaker 1: was not shy of doing already. So how can it
Speaker 1: get any fucking worse? It's uh, it's going to be
Speaker 1: interesting to watch, sure, I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when we talk about it being bad
Speaker 2: like this, you know, man it I don't think you
Speaker 2: can really overstate these sort of like long term effects.
Speaker 2: Something like this happened. It comes with right, like, and
Speaker 2: I think that even though it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's just so easy to say, right, you're just like
Speaker 2: saying that, but like, man, there is so much underneath
Speaker 2: all this that will impact pretty much every facet of
Speaker 2: this industry, uh, for for the foreseeable future. It is
Speaker 2: very tough to keep your head up when things like
Speaker 2: this go down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was talking to Mike about it.
Speaker 1: Might kind of did a quick google of like what
Speaker 1: what games are coming from EA already like this year,
Speaker 1: like before this deal went through, and it's the sports
Speaker 1: games and then just Star Wars zero company, that's basically it.
Speaker 1: And and so they're already like putting out kind of
Speaker 1: fewer games than they ever have before. They seemed gun shy,
Speaker 1: and the argument could be made it's well, now that
Speaker 1: private ownership, does that give them more freedom? And like,
Speaker 1: I just think we look at the situation here and
Speaker 1: the leverage buyout aspect of it and have to say, no,
Speaker 1: it is going to have to be more conservative. It's
Speaker 1: going to have to be more gun shy, it's going
Speaker 1: to have to be more risk averse in sort of
Speaker 1: every aspect. And then on the other hand, it is
Speaker 1: going to have to be more aggressive about making money
Speaker 1: from things that are already successful. And so all the
Speaker 1: in shitification, the ways that like college football has already
Speaker 1: gone from being this darling to this miserable experience of
Speaker 1: people hating all the micro transactions to the point where
Speaker 1: it's like when that game popped up or this year
Speaker 1: a few weeks back back Lark, it was in several
Speaker 1: mainstream media outlets covering the backlash to that game. I
Speaker 1: think there was a public Pablo Torre his podcast covered
Speaker 1: it and stuff like that. So it's just it's out there.
Speaker 1: People are already feeling bad about it, and it's gonna.
Speaker 3: Get worse, all right. I guess we'll see what that
Speaker 3: looks like, all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, let's let's wrap it up tomorrow Tuesday, August fourth, EA. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, this is gonna wrap up a beast
Speaker 1: of reincarnation. Game Freaks Action RPG launches on PS five
Speaker 1: Xbox Series in PC. Uh, it's day one on game Pass.
Speaker 1: I guess we should expect to see reviews of that
Speaker 1: here at some point. That's coming out tomorrow. Big Walk,
Speaker 1: the cooperative game from House House, launches on PS five,
Speaker 1: Switch to PC and MAC.
Speaker 3: Uh. We played on PC. I've heard Switch Too might
Speaker 3: be a little.
Speaker 1: Rough, So keep that in mind, everybody, maybe go check
Speaker 1: out a few more reviews. The Final Fantasy four Team
Speaker 1: launches on Switch too. I'm very curious to hear from
Speaker 1: Mike about this. He's played a lot of that game.
Speaker 1: I want to see like and I know he said
Speaker 1: he's gonna pick it up on switch to. I want
Speaker 1: to hear what that's like. PlayStation Plus is adding Dying
Speaker 1: LIGHTE to reloaded edition Big walkin Signalis through August thirty. First,
Speaker 1: the previously unreleased Virtual Boy games Zero Racers and de
Speaker 1: Hopper join Nintendo Switch Online Plus Expansion Pack. And then
Speaker 1: Let's see here and then Fire Emblem director is happening tomorrow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, all right, let's see here. That does it
Speaker 3: for the headlines.
Speaker 1: There is no poll question from Friday because we did
Speaker 1: the Bomb twelve. So as a reminder, the new Bomb
Speaker 1: twelve is upon giant bomb dot com. Go there, scroll down,
Speaker 1: check out those games, see what people were playing last week.
Speaker 1: And then on the left hand side there there's a
Speaker 1: vote here button. Click on that you can you'll get
Speaker 1: a Google form add your game that you're playing this week,
Speaker 1: and we will wrap those all up into one nice
Speaker 1: package for y'all on Friday with the New Bomb twelve.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to doing that, looking forward to another good
Speaker 1: week here at Giant Bomb. Let's see, speaking a Giant Bomb,
Speaker 1: what do we have going on? There's all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff happening all the time. But I'm not sure we're
Speaker 1: having anything else live today, but we're doing some recordings.
Speaker 1: We got, Like I said, the big Walll quick look
Speaker 1: went up. There was a another quick look look that
Speaker 1: went up over the weekend. I think that was pathogenic.
Speaker 1: Me and Chuck recorded that. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Uh And then yeah, you expect to I guess, Cyberdillo,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna be playing more Cyberdillo.
Speaker 2: You guess you act like it's there's a chance you
Speaker 2: won't be and I feel like maybe I'll die and
Speaker 2: I won't have to Sure, there's always that, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: could happen and you won't have to play about dream.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to my recording today. Yeah, you know
Speaker 2: that's how I live my life.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will. We will record some more Sewer Shark.
Speaker 1: There will be some more sewer Shark episodes going up
Speaker 1: of this is the run. Lots of cool stuff happening
Speaker 1: on Giant Bombs. Tune in for all of it. Uh
Speaker 1: jurf Yeah, let's tell people one more time about like
Speaker 1: cat jurff Man. I think we're gonna launch the first
Speaker 1: episode this week that I think that's the plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to give anyone false uh no information.
Speaker 3: We'll message out.
Speaker 2: Appropriately when we know for sure. We've got a couple
Speaker 2: in the can. But we want to make some more
Speaker 2: progress on it. I wonder how many it's gonna take.
Speaker 2: We're kind of doing it like one hour out of time.
Speaker 2: But this is just a game that is just begging
Speaker 2: to be made fun of. Yeah, in the best possible way.
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's a B game. It's a bad
Speaker 1: B game, Like there's B games like that. The quality
Speaker 1: sort of as a side it would like make sense
Speaker 1: if it was on MST three. K.
Speaker 2: Like, I'm just gonna say, this is a mystery science
Speaker 2: game for sure. Yes, so yeah, we're having a lot
Speaker 2: of fun with that, and uh, I'm I'm really really
Speaker 2: looking forward to that coming out. And also, like I
Speaker 2: know there's art being made for it, and I haven't
Speaker 2: seen any of that yet, so I'm excited to see
Speaker 2: some of that stuff. Yeah, we're gonna have We're gonna
Speaker 2: have some fun sod and that's coming.
Speaker 3: Once the audience sees it, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 3: more art. We don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well whatever, maybe we won't show me. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're gonna be choice.
Speaker 3: I am looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah fine, so yeah, plenty of cool stuff happening on
Speaker 1: Giant Bomb this week.
Speaker 3: All right, let's see.
Speaker 1: I think with all that out of the way, we
Speaker 1: have a new poll question, are you getting big walk?
Speaker 3: I'm just curious this audience.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, many people would like it, but
Speaker 1: there's always that barrier if like, can you get friends together.
Speaker 1: I understand that it's definitely something I struggle with. So
Speaker 1: curious to see if people are gonna turn up for
Speaker 1: Big Walk, yes or no. We'll get the results. Talk
Speaker 1: about it on Wednesday's episode here on Giant Bomb.
Speaker 3: All right, I think I think that's time for us
Speaker 3: to get out of here. Back R.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for hanging out with me today
Speaker 1: and talking about video games. Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: My pleasure, love being here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you once again, Thank you everybody for watching and listening.
Speaker 1: You are the best audience in gaming. Until next time,
Speaker 1: have a good one, take care of yourself, and everyone
Speaker 1: remembers the nipples.
Speaker 2: Okay,